Microsoft recently released ARM-powered Windows 10 PCs, though the “all-day battery life” may not be validated as of now, it has been getting a lot of heat because limitations have been briefly revealed.
Here are some of the details as enumerated by the copy on the major differences between Windows 10 for ARM processors and Windows 10 for x86 chips:
- x86 drivers are not supported. This shouldn’t be too big of a problem for most hardwares, but since only ARM64 drivers are supported, existing 32-bit drivers won’t be able to work.
- x64 apps are not supported. Microsoft will plan to support this at some time in the future, but as of now, Windows 10 on ARM does not support emulation of x64 apps even when it can be compiled as 64-bit ARM software.
- 3D software and certain games are not supported. This functional gap which is the OpenGL must not be later than 1.1 and must not require hardware-accelerated OpenGL, or it won’t work on Windows 10 on ARM.
- The Windows Hypervisor Platform will not be included on ARM. There is no indication that states that Microsoft will allow Hyper-V software to work with ARM processors.
Although it is not clear if these deficiencies are to be long term, it is still worthy to test whether an ARM-powered Windows 10 laptop will have a long battery lifespan and a good performance for desktop apps.