IT Blog

Last year, when Microsoft launched the original Surface Pro X, the idea of a premium Arm-based PC was a fanciful one. There had been a handful of lower-cost models from HP, Asus and others, but they generally failed to impress. The Surface Pro X was a bold move to ditch the usual Intel (or AMD) chips and power a high-gloss, high-price two-in-one with a more smartphone-like processor. In that case it was the Microsoft SQ1, a collaboration between Microsoft and Qualcomm, based on the latter’s Snapdragon chips. 

Now it’s a whole new landscape, thanks in large part to Apple’s plans to replace Intel chips in its Mac line with custom “Apple silicon” CPUs,…