Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips in Dell XPS 13 Plus laptops will nearly double battery life over Intel, cost half as much

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Arm means better battery life for you, cheaper CPU costs for Dell

The Dell XPS 13 laptop
(Image credit: Dell)

According to leaked internal documents, buyers of upcoming Dell XPS 13 Plus laptops with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor could enjoy twice as much battery life during video playback. Dell has been testing the new Arm-based laptops and comparing them with older XPS 13 systems using the Intel Alder Lake-P chip.

In addition to the improved battery life, Dell’s estimates show the Snapdragon X will cost the company significantly less. The Intel Core i7-1360P found in the predecessor was valued at $293 in March 2023. The Snapdragon X, on the other hand, will cost Dell $145.

According to VideoCardz, citing a Dell executive summary, Dell’s internal testing reveals an estimated 68% to 98% battery life improvement with the Snapdragon X. The exact improvement varies depending on the display type. Qualcomm officially claims an additional 25 hours or more of continuous video playback compared to Intel Core Ultra CPUs. This 43% improvement, it’s important to note, is based on local video playback.

This improvement is due to the Snapdragon processor being much more efficient than Intel Core Ultra CPUs. It's worth noting that Dell doesn’t plan to increase the battery capacity for the new models. All variants of the XPS 13 will include a 55 Wh battery, the same as that found in its predecessors.

(Image credit: VideoCardz)

On laptops equipped with an FHD+ display, the Snapdragon X model provided 29.6 hours of video playback, compared to the Intel models’ 15.45 hours. With a QHD+ display, batteries lasted through 21.9 hours of video playback with the Snapdragon, while Intel could only run through 11.02 hours of video. While the Intel-equipped XPS 13 could play video for 9.95 hours on a single battery charge, newer Snapdragon X-based models kept going for 16.8 hours.

The reduced CPU cost means that there is more money for Dell to spend on other components inside its latest laptops. Dell intends to price the new Snapdragon-equipped XPS 13 starting at $1,199. That price will get you a Dell XPS 13 laptop with 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a full HD display.

Jeff Butts
Freelance News Writer
5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ezst036
    Is this supposed to be while CPU decoding and avoiding video decoder chips? Otherwise, this seems a little perplexing.

    I thought video decoding was handled by on-board video decoder chips. Nvidia has NVENC, AMD has UVD, and Intel has one too.
    Reply
  • Notton
    I checked on US dell website.
    i7-1250U, 16GB, 512GB: $799
    U7 155H, 16GB, 512GB: $1399

    So it is cheaper, but not last-gen cheap.

    The battery life improvement is good to see.
    Reply
  • edzieba
    Yes yes, very nice, same promises as every other time windows-on-ARM has been tried for the last decade.

    Now, can it actually run the programs people actually want to run (i.e. all their existing suite of x86 applicaitons):
    1) At all ( e.g. Win 10 on ARM's 32-bit x86 only restriction)
    2) Not dog-slow

    Unlike on the Apple side of things - where Apple can decide to sunset legacy APIs and tell users to suck it, and said users will indeed suck it - Windows survives of continuity of applications. Lose that, and like every prior attempt nobody will actually buy devices that can't do the job.
    Reply
  • kato128
    This seems suspiciously cherry picked here. Very nebulous saying it uses half the power playing video but no actual performance metrics. Guess we'll see how the go for real when they're in the wild
    Reply
  • sivaseemakurthi
    The price is telling me that the cpu performace is just a hype. Its giving me chrome laptop vibes.
    Reply