Qualcomm has announced that it will be discontinuing the Snapdragon X Elite Developer Kit for Windows. The company said that the product has not met its usual standards of excellence.
The developer kit for Snapdragon X Elite was initially available to pre-order in May and was supposed to start shipping in June. It was made to help developers build applications for Windows on Arm. The kit had a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, a powerful ARM-based chipset intended for laptops, and a range of ports and connections.
However, the development kit had many delays, and now it has apparently been cancelled altogether. Arrow, the distributor of the Snapdragon X Elite Developer Kit, has told customers that they will receive a full refund for their purchase. The refund process is expected to take up to 10 business days. Customers who have already received the device are not required to "return any material."
According to an email from Arrow shared by Jeff Geerling, Qualcomm said, "the Developer Kit product comprehensively has not met our usual standards of excellence and so we are reaching out to let you know that unfortunately we have made the decision to pause this product and the support of it, indefinitely."
The Snapdragon X Elite Developer Kit was supposed to give a powerful platform for developers to experiment with Windows on Arm. Even though many laptops powered by the same Snapdragon X Elite chipsets are now available in stores, like the new Surface Pro and Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, there still aren't any compact desktops with the latest Snapdragon hardware. Microsoft's Windows Dev Kit is an alternative with an older Snapdragon chip, but it's out of stock on Microsoft's website and may not return.
Here's hoping we eventually get a Mac Mini-like desktop with the new Snapdragon chip, and not just a developer-only box.
Source: Jeff Geerling