We went hands-on with Qualcomm's new '$300 and up' ARM laptop platform with mystery eight-core CPU — active-cooled Snapdragon C laptop surfaces in Acer Aspire Go 15

We've learned a few new details of the Snapdragon C platform at Computex 2026 by opening up a few Windows utilities on a demo unit. Qualcomm's new Snapdragon C Platform is designed to bring more compute performance to a lower price point, but the company has been tight-lipped about the finer details of the chip behind the new $300 and up platform. We managed to see the Snapdragon C chip in the flesh for the first time in the 15" Acer Aspire Go 15 (AG15-Q31P), which was dutifully locked in a glass case to keep the prying eyes of the press at bay. However, we managed to tinker with a unit that was briefly allowed outside of the case by a Qualcomm rep, thus getting access to the Windows Task Manager and System Information utilities.

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Qualcomm hasn't shared the specific model of the CPU yet, but we are told that it uses a customized version of the mobile-focused Kryo chips. The Task Manager shows one new tidbit: the CPU comes with an eight-core CPU that was running at 1.67 GHz, but this was at idle - the chip has a listed 3.01 GHz base speed. The Task Manager names this as the Snapdragon 8c Gen 3, a chip that does not exist, but certainly aligns with the basic naming nomenclature of the 8cx Gen 3.

A Qualcomm representative was quite perplexed by this, saying that this is not the official name of the chip and that it is probably a placeholder identity string used by Acer's engineers for the Engineering Sample system (EDIT: Qualcomm has now confirmed this is not the correct name for the processor).

We can also see that the chip sports 512 KB of L1 cache, 1.5 MB of L2, and 2.0 MB of L3, all of which are significantly less than seen with the 8cx variant. It is unclear if those values are also merely placeholders.

Likewise, the integrated GPU is listed as the Adreno 8c Gen 3, featuring 1 MB of dedicated GPU memory and 3.9 GB of shared memory. We can also see that it supports DirectX 12. The System Information utility notes that the system runs Windows 11 Pro and, as expected, is an ARM64-based PC.

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The laptop has a 16.5" FHD display with a 16:9 aspect ratio, up to 8 GB of system memory, a 53 Wh battery, and up to 512GB of storage, with the latter two being slim but expected given the price point and current SSD and memory shortages. Additionally, it comes with a FHD webcam.

We also spot two USB-C ports on the side of the unit, but the speeds of these ports are unknown. There's also an HDMI port, a USB-A port, and a headphone jack. It also has support for Wi-Fi 6.

The grey clamshell design is attractive, with a sparkly paint that our Managing Editor Matt Safford likened to the sparkly paint jobs found on a 1980's BMX. The plastic case is rigid, so it doesn't feel like a flimsy low-end system when I snapped the screen open and closed.

As we noted in our original coverage of the Acer Aspire Go 15, the keyboard sports a Copilot+ key even though representatives have confirmed this device does not meet that standard due to its 8 GB of memory (16 GB is required). The Go 15 has a full-sized keyboard replete with a slim numpad, which I consider a big plus.

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Neither Acer nor Qualcomm have shared performance projections yet for the new system, but we see that it has active cooling with a single fan nestled under the exhaust vents on the bottom of the machine, with some of the copper in the cooling subsystem also peeking through. We also see three exhaust ports on the base of the machine facing toward the screen.

Acer hasn't shared pricing yet, but we certainly expect this system to land in the "and up" part of the expected Snapdragon C Platform's "$300 and up" target market.