Always On, Always Connected PCs with beyond all-day battery life

Saturday September 30, 2017 , 4 min Read

We recently shared how Qualcomm Technologies is leading the way in Always Connected* PCs, building on our strong history of LTE modems in connected PCs while bringing ultra-fast connectivity for mobile users on the go. We explored how leading OEMs are turning to Qualcomm Technologies to bring mobile innovation to their customers with Always Connected PCs powered by our Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Mobile PC Platform.

These sleek, innovative Windows PCs are designed to offer an always-on, always-connected experience with beyond-all-day battery life and lightning fast (up to Gigabit speed) LTE. With an Always Connected PC, consumers are instantly on and always in the know — just like with a smartphone: open the device, authenticate with facial recognition, and the display instantly turns on with all data synced with the cloud.

With a history of mobile leadership, Qualcomm Technologies is always looking ahead to invent technologies today that deliver breakthrough user experiences tomorrow. The Always Connected PC is a shining example of our innovative vision coming to life.

Beyond all-day battery life

Now we’d like to take this always connected conversation one step further by exploring always on more deeply. First, let’s dive into how Qualcomm Technologies and Microsoft have come together to solve a major consumer pain point with laptops and 2-in-1 PCs today.

Based on our research, battery life is the number one pain point with today’s PCs. In fact, when we asked consumers what features they would include if they could build their own device, over 50 percent would want at least 20 hours of battery life, and close to 80 percent wanted at least 16 hours of battery life. While many competing devices today claim upwards of 10+ hours of battery life, there is clearly a disconnect between what is being promised and reality.

With the Snapdragon mobile PC platform, not only can these new 2-in-1 PCs achieve beyond all-day battery life, but they are also engineered to deliver many other benefits just like your smartphone: always on with email, with all your data synced and ready to go; silent because there are no noisy fans; and thin, sleek designs that are designed for on-the-go productivity, without throttling performance.

From inception, the Snapdragon platform was designed for extreme power efficiency, specifically small, portable devices that need all-day battery life. Given that mission, the Snapdragon 835 platform is designed to optimize the power consumption and performance across our octa-core architecture so consumers benefit from amazing battery life. This is achieved by integrating all the technologies onto a single chip (CPU, GPU, DSP, etc.), using low power architecture for these technologies, and making the size of the chip tiny — its transistors are just 10nm thick.

Always On: Bringing smartphone-like features to the PC

With battery life just like your smartphone, your PC will not have to be powered down. It can be always-on*, syncing your data with the cloud (just like your smartphone). Thanks to a new low-power state called Connected Standby, your PC can be LTE or Wi-Fi connected depending on your location so it can connect with the cloud, provide notifications, listen and respond to your voice, and instantly turn on virtually wherever you go.

These PCs can have great battery life whether you’re actively using them or if you’re in Connected Standby. You can expect up to 50 percent longer battery life in active use and 4-5x longer battery life in Connected Standby than with competing solutions.

Battery life for mobile users on the go

Fantastic battery life is not the only benefit this tiny low-power Snapdragon mobile platform can provide. Since it’s so low-power, it generates very little heat. OEMs can now build PCs without complex and noisy cooling fans which leads to quiet, thin designs.

And the advantages don’t stop there. The less space the processor and other components take up, the more room there is for additional bleeding-edge technologies and innovations, or OEMs can use that free space for an even bigger battery or more innovative form factors.