This new system sounds like a winner to me. Great performance, display, battery life and overall build quality. I think I am going to get that to replace my aging dell system. What are other people's thoughts on it?
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What is everyone's thoughts on the Asus A16 with elite extreme processor?
- Thread starter Steve Adams
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The argument against Snapdragon CPUs is compatibility. They have had the same issue that Apple Silicon Macs have had but Apple has been forcing vendors to do native ports by announcing the end date of Rosetta 2. In the Windows world, that's not happening so software vendors feel no pressure to port.
The three main programs I use are Active Trader Pro which will not be ported, Think or Swim which will be ported eventually but Schwab took three years to do that and I've seen no reason to believe that they're not going to similarly take their time with Windows on ARM, and Trader + which also does not have a native version nor has one been promised.
So see if the programs that you run have been ported.
I will personally just stick with Intel and AMD for Windows.
The three main programs I use are Active Trader Pro which will not be ported, Think or Swim which will be ported eventually but Schwab took three years to do that and I've seen no reason to believe that they're not going to similarly take their time with Windows on ARM, and Trader + which also does not have a native version nor has one been promised.
So see if the programs that you run have been ported.
I will personally just stick with Intel and AMD for Windows.
throAU
macrumors G4
To be fair, windows can also run x86 binaries on arm via emulation like rosetta. x86 software on arm at least on my MacBook runs pretty well. haven't experienced it on PC ARM based hardware personally though.
But we do have some ARM based surface devices in the field running x86 software on them with no user complaints to speak of.
Yeah, I know. They are weak on support and support timeframe. We have an Asus laptop with a fan always on bug that they won't fix and the BIOS support for my desktop's motherboard has not been great.
The reason for buying a Snapdragon is battery life or performance. If your program has spend a lot of effort in translation, then you lose that benefit as well as performance benefits. The performance hit on Apple Silicon for Active Trader Pro was about 66% in my performance analysis. Battery life drops from about 13 hours to about 5.5 hours. RAM use is 8 GB vs 800 mb on an x86 processor.
Think or Swim runs on Java and the installation kit includes Intel Java for Windows. So you have an interpreted program running on a JVM where the JVM has to be translated on the fly. The performance hit is similar in that it runs like molasses.
Basic75
macrumors 68030
throAU
macrumors G4
I had two monitors that basically fell apart in very short time frame that I repeated by using *better* double sided tape (to replace the crap tape ASUS used from the factory).
The network adapter was particularly egregious : I bought it specifically because it was labelled on the box as being linux compatible/supported.
Turns out that support was for kernel 3.1 only via a third party driver you had to download source for from their website (i.e., not in kernel) that they dropped and then promptly completely abandoned maintenance for, so it would not work with any linux kernel later than 3.1.x. At the time, kernel 4.x or 5.x was out.
So linux support listed on box, card was a brick in any modern linux.
Great. Clowns.
I agree, the three vivotabs I had in the past all developed ghost touch issues within 3 months of purchase, and Asus didn't honor their warranty. I was hoping they have improved, but it don't seem like it. There are very few laptops with the features I want. It sucks.
Basic75
macrumors 68030
You asked about our thoughts. If it doesn't run Linux well it would be worthless to me,
Trusteft
macrumors 6502a
Is this the Snapdragon laptop? If yes then I couldn't care less. If not, I would be worried for any laptop with a lot of "horsepower" that comes in a thin chassis. In my 40+ years of owning and using computers I can remember only one ASUS hardware I bought, a motherboard X99 for my i7 5960X. I wasn't thrilled. Having said that, I do find their TUF laptops having very good bang for the buck. For example even their cheapest models have TB4/5 ports which is not certain at even mid tier laptops from other manufacturers. Also their GPUs tend to not be kneecaped (power) as often as with others'.
Having said that, their non TUF models even though some of them are supposed to be more premium, don't always fill me with confidence. For example the G series which youtubers seem to have fallen in love with the last year or so, overheats, thermal throttles and have GPU which is well bellow the power limit, yet the same youtubers seem to just ignore these issues. Or try to push them as normal.
Not sure what my point is. Good luck.
1BadManVan
macrumors 68040
for me, I’m sitting back and waiting to see how this actually turns out. It seems to have great battery life when basically using it at idle, but when you go to push it, it definitely demands a lot more wattage to power those 18 cores t compete with the M series which definitely hurts its battery life and obviously can generate heat
Plus, the on going issue lately with windows is they release something at a promising price, but only a handful of units, sell out very quickly, stay out of stock for ages and then finally come back in stock at a very inflated price. Laptop can only be so good if it’s actually available to buy and actually available at msrp
Plus, the on going issue lately with windows is they release something at a promising price, but only a handful of units, sell out very quickly, stay out of stock for ages and then finally come back in stock at a very inflated price. Laptop can only be so good if it’s actually available to buy and actually available at msrp
Battery life is not super important to me. If I can sit and fart around on the machine like I do with my current one and then plug in for serious work I am fine. If I can get 4 hours of work done unplugged I am fine. The speed at which it does it's work is what's important to me. Having to not carry any extra stuff than what I really need is more important to me as well.
I can swap out the 1tb drive for an 8tb drive and just carry the system and a charger powerful enough to charge it and my iPad and phone. It saves alot of space and weight if I am on a flight somewhere or packed in our car. I can even toss it in my camera bag and take another thing out of the equation if we are travelling very light.
Like I said, there is nothing in the windows world that is as good for my work as my current system because of port selection. Yes my system is slower, but at 14 inches, having a tb4 port, USB A, HDMI, full sized card reader and replaceable battery, SSD, ram etc, Anything I go to now is full of functionality compromises. The A16, while bigger, is most of that while being lighter than my current system.
I can swap out the 1tb drive for an 8tb drive and just carry the system and a charger powerful enough to charge it and my iPad and phone. It saves alot of space and weight if I am on a flight somewhere or packed in our car. I can even toss it in my camera bag and take another thing out of the equation if we are travelling very light.
Like I said, there is nothing in the windows world that is as good for my work as my current system because of port selection. Yes my system is slower, but at 14 inches, having a tb4 port, USB A, HDMI, full sized card reader and replaceable battery, SSD, ram etc, Anything I go to now is full of functionality compromises. The A16, while bigger, is most of that while being lighter than my current system.
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
I agree, especially if you consider Intel's latest processors. I think Panther Lake is a great option both for computational power, but also GPU power. The arc integrated gpu being used surprising a lot of people (including me) over how well it does in laptops
Even in the battery category Panther Lake holds it own against the MBP, so personally, I'd go with an X86 processor over a more limited less compatible snapdragon processor.
When someone makes a panther lake, with the ports, weight and price of the A16 sure. All the software I use is Arm compatible, as are the drivers for my printers, photo printer and film scanner. in reality, only obscure stuff is not compatible at this point.
here is the complete list of software to see if you can get with the windows on Arm platform.
Windows on ARM | Software Compatibility List
A community-driven list of software (apps and games) that work, are emulated or don't work on Windows on ARM
I went through and the software I use is all native now. So it's not issue for me. The only one not native right now is logitech software, but you only run that to change something with your keyboard and then it's closed again.
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When someone makes a panther lake, with the ports, weight and price of the A16 sure. All the software I use is Arm compatible, as are the drivers for my printers, photo printer and film scanner. in reality, only obscure stuff is not compatible at this point.
here is the complete list of software to see if you can get with the windows on Arm platform.
Windows on ARM | Software Compatibility List
A community-driven list of software (apps and games) that work, are emulated or don't work on Windows on ARMwindowsonarm.org
I went through and the software I use is all native now. So it's not issue for me. The only one not native right now is logitech software, but you only run that to change something with your keyboard and then it's closed again.
I had a ChatGPT session this morning about the best chips for trading software and ChatGPT said Intel for my three main programs. I knew that for one of them but it provided me with reasons why the other two run better on Windows and talked about users experiencing slowdowns with Apple Silicon Macs. Windows ARM wasn't even in the discussion.
So ARM in general is at a fairly big disadvantage for the software I use. I always say to test your software as you can lose a lot of performance and battery life with multiple translation and emulation layers.
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
Generally that's the issue, not just the software you use, but in general. Microsoft's emulation layer isn't on the same level as Apple's.
Here is brownlee video on Windows vs Mac laptops and Window's disavantage:
Again, that's not an issue for me as my software catalog is 99 percent arm native now. The issue I have is that the prices of pcs have skyrocketed with the en********ation of AI everywhere, and if I bought a previous year A14 which would be a great device for me, has lower GPU power than my current 5 year old intel system. The x2 systems have erased that advantage, but they are way over priced now.
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
I watched the video, and first lets get the elephant out of the room, he's very much pro apple, so we have to understand there's a bias.
On the dell xps, I felt in many respects he was nit picking, he needed to find the negatives, to help justify his point. With that said, his criticisms against Windows is absolutely correct. His point that many ddifferent companies needing to come to together and each fully succeeding is a whiff. I don't think he really proved his point, simply because the XPS is an excellent laptop - hampered only because it was running windows.
As for the low end, I do agree, the neo is disrupting that segment. but I would also go out on a limb and say the people who watch Margues are generally not the targeted audience for the Neo.
In short, I can see Mac users making claims that there's windows laptop issues, but for folks who use PCs, I don't believe that's largely the case. The Neo is perhaps the exception, at least for students and people who only want to spend 600 dollars and don't do much with their laptops.
This is the best deal that I've seen in terms of specs for the money. It was $450 last year. It's nice that it includes a case too.
So there is still competition on the low-end without going to Chromebooks.
One startling thing that I heard from Luke Miani on touchscreens is that one-third of laptops ship with them. He said that kids in school get used to touch and maybe pen access using Chromebooks in school and expect the feature in laptops when they get out of school. This might be a motivation for Touch coming to MacBooks.
Touchscreen is a requirement for any display for me now. I use it on my desktop and notebook daily. I have 2 24s on my desk now, one is touchscreen, and they are going to get replaced with 2 27 in or 2 32 inch Alogic or Kuycon displays when we get in our new house and got our office setup.
I don't get all the moaning about fingerprints either. I have a cloth to wipe down the display. The same people also have ipads, phones tablets etc and touch them constantly without complaints.