Qualcomm details Snapdragon C specs for $300 laptops for the first time — claims 67% faster performance on battery than Intel N250, AC performance remains a mystery (updated)

Qualcomm is getting into some of the nitty-gritty details of the Snapdragon C system-on-a-chip, the ARM-based platform it announced in June for laptops priced around $300.

The Snapdragon C is an 8-core Qualcomm Kryo CPU, with a single-core max frequency of 3 GHz and a multi-core max of 2 GHz. A Qualcomm spokesperson clarified that "Snapdragon C's 8 cores operate at different max frequencies to optimize for power [and] performance with 1 core at up to 3GHz, 3 at up to 2.6GHz, and the remaining 4 at up to 2GHz. The maximum sustained frequency across all cores is 2 GHz.."

It also has an integrated Adreno GPU with a max frequency of 900 MHz, and a Qualcomm Hexagon NPU, though Qualcomm hasn't listed how many TOPS it supports.

Intel's Core 3 304, the weakest of its "Wildcat Lake" processors for budget systems, has a max performance core turbo frequency of 4.3 GHz and max low-power efficient core frequency of 3.3 GHz..

In updated slides, Qualcomm pits the Snapdragon C (in a reference design with 8GB of memory) against an Acer TravelMate with Intel's N250 and 8GB of RAM. The company claims you get 67% better battery performance than the Intel N250 and up to 2.1 times better battery efficiency, though that's measured with multi-threaded Cinebench. The company did not publish any benchmarks when the systems are plugged in.

Qualcomm claims that, on battery, the Snapdragon C is up to 44% faster in single-threaded Geekbench and 24% higher in multi-core. But its top victories were in Cinebench, running 50% faster single-threaded and 67% faster multi-threaded. But Geekbench and Speedometer 3.1 (+39%) are the real numbers to look at here, as they better showcase the type of work someone might typically do with a cheap notebook.

While Qualcomm is promising "all-day" battery life, it's leaving the number of hours up to its OEM partners. That's likely to vary depending on the display panels and other factors, but in Qualcomm's test reference device, it used a 16-inch screen. Qualcomm notes in its footnotes that the TravelMate has an 11.6-inch display, with "total power configured to match 16" screen."

Qualcomm instead is claiming battery power efficiency over the Intel N250 across all of its tests, from Netflix running in Microsoft Edge (106% better), web browsing (68% better), and a Teams video call (74% better).

Qualcomm is promising designs from HP, Acer, Asus, and Lenovo. At Computex, Acer showed a first look at the Aspire Go 15, its first notebook with Snapdragon C. We know that system has 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and plenty of ports, but the company still has not unveiled a release date or pricing information.

It is possible that the timing of this launch will enable Qualcomm's OEM partners to unveil new systems at the IFA technology trade show in Berlin, unless they decide to wait until CES.

It's also unclear if the $300 guidance will hold, given the increase in cost of components — especially memory. But it's possible Snapdragon C laptops will significantly undercut the MacBook Neo and Windows laptops with Intel's Wildcat Lake. We'll have to test Snapdragon C to see how it performs.

You can see Qualcomm's full slide deck below: