Qualcomm cuts Copilot Plus PC prices to $600 with new Snapdragon X

If you wanted to get your hands on Microsoft's Copilot Plus PC features last year, you basically had to swallow a $1,000-plus price tag.

Qualcomm is about to change that math completely.

On Monday at CES 2025, Qualcomm unveiled an entry-level addition to its laptop processor lineup, simply named the Snapdragon X. The chip joins the existing Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite tiers, with the explicit goal of bringing Copilot Plus laptops down to the $600 sweet spot.

Expect hardware from familiar giants like Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo to hit shelves in the coming months.

Budget silicon with full-fat AI

To hit that mainstream $600 target, Qualcomm had to make a few expected cuts under the hood.

The base Snapdragon X features an eight-core Oryon CPU maxing out at 3GHz, built on the same 4nm process as its more powerful siblings. Raw horsepower will obviously trail the Elite and Plus models, but Qualcomm claims it still beats Intel's Core 5 120U in performance per watt and overall battery life.

Crucially, Qualcomm didn't skimp on the AI engine. The chip packs the exact same 45 TOPS NPU required to unlock Windows Copilot Plus features.

Qualcomm is also looking beyond traditional clamshells. The company teased that tomorrow it will unveil the world's first mini desktop PC powered by Snapdragon X, hinting that compact desktop setups are on the way.

According to Qualcomm, hardware makers already have over 60 Snapdragon X laptop designs in active production or development, with that figure projected to surpass 100 by 2026.

Why it matters

Keeping the 45 TOPS NPU intact is the smartest move Qualcomm could have made here. Trimming CPU cores lowers costs, but cutting AI performance would have disqualified these machines from the Copilot Plus label and crippled their marketing appeal.

For everyday consumers and students, this fundamentally changes the buying equation. Getting all-day battery life, silent operation, and snappy day-to-day performance in a $600 Windows laptop makes Arm-based hardware an easy recommendation over similarly priced, power-hungry alternatives.

For the broader industry, this pushes Windows on Arm directly into Intel and AMD's volume strongholds. High-end showcases create hype, but the $500 to $700 bracket is where the PC market actually moves units.

The catch, however, will be expectations. Budget buyers are far less likely to understand or tolerate software emulation hiccups than early adopters. If legacy apps or niche peripheral drivers stumble on these entry-level machines, Qualcomm and Microsoft could face user frustration right at the finish line.