JULY 2020 • TECH ADVISOR 95Galaxy Book S are restricted to 32-bit apps encoded for
the X86 architectureusedbyIntelCoreandAMDRyzen
processors,viaemulation.Atthispoint,64-bitX86apps
can’trunonaSnapdragonPCatall.
In the realworld,thisplaysoutin oddand
exasperatingways.Icouldn’tusethe32-bitbinary
versionofourcompanyVPN,asit neverinstalled
correctly.ItriedMicrosoft’s‘new’Edge,whichsupports
ARM64,includingitscuratedsuiteofextensionsas
well astheChromeWebStore.Pairedwithanad
blocker,webpagesbecameasresponsiveasI would
expectwithanX86machine.
Some advocate using Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)
asa hedgeagainsttherelativelackofnativeapps
forSnapdragonprocessors.They’reessentiallyweb
pages that you can dock to your Start menu as regular
apps,andit’sreallyuptoyoutogothisrouteor just
bookmarkSpotify’swebplayer,say,inatab.
AlsousingEdge,Iwasabletoplaybackatest
4K/60fpsYouTubevideoonanexternaldisplay.When
Itriedtoloada4KvideoviatheNetflixsite,however,
thepreviewsrenderednormallybutthevideowouldn’t
play.TheNetflixappviatheMicrosoftStoreplayedthe
1080pversionofmymoviejustfine.
In general,SnapdragonPCsarebestforweb
browsing,Officework,video,andsomeveryminimal
gameplaying.MicrosoftOfficewasatadslow,aswe
showinourbenchmarksbelow,butotherwisenormal.
It’s refreshing to see playable games show up
withintheMicrosoftStoreapp,undertheGamePass
heading.Unfortunately,theonlygamesavailable
currently were 2D sprite-based games (Blazing Chrome