PC World - USA (2021-02)

64 PCWorld FEBRUARY 2021

REVIEWS TESTED: WINDOWS ON ARM

supports Apple’s silicon, with no specific

optimizations for the SQ1 or Qualcomm’s

Snapdragon chips. Nevertheless, Windows

on ARM running on the Surface Pro X isn’t

even in the same league as the Apple

MacBook M1.

HandBrake is an open-source video

transcoding tool, and a popular benchmark.

Its latest version, version 1.4, is written

specifically for macOS, to accommodate the

new M1 processors. We used the last public

version, 1.33, for our Windows test. But the

version is not the real difference here. The

Once again, the Surface Pro X finishes roughly

four times slower than our 2020 budget laptop,

the HP Pavilion x360 Convertible 14.

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

HP Pavilion x360 Convertible14 dw0097nr Core i5-1035G1

Dell XPS 13 2-in-1Core i7-7Y75

Microsoft Surface 3Atom X7-Z8700

Chuwi Hi13Celeron N3450

Microsoft Surface Pro 3Core i5-4300

Microsoft Surface Pro XMicrosoft SQ1

Asus Transformer Mini T102HAAtom x5-Z8350

9,760

4,524

11,3 4 8

10,906

12,398

11,815

15,981

HandBrake 0.99.0

Seconds

SQ1 chugged along at about a frame per

second, taking about two hours to transcode

a 12-minute 4K video, Tears of Steel, into a

1080p H.265 format. Apple’s MacBook M 1

simply blows away the Surface Pro X.

We’d like to say that we were able to run

Rise of the Tomb Raider, part of our test suite

for gaming PCs, but the Surface Pro X simply

wouldn’t. Instead, we ran the HP Pavilion on

the benchmark at 1280x800 resolution

(Medium settings) to compare against the

MacBook M1.

MICROSOFT’S SQ1 VERSUS

OTHER WINDOWS LAPTOPS

We took the opportunity once again to see

how the Surface Pro X and its SQ1 chip, with

the beta X86 emulator, compares against a

suite of Windows laptops. Here, too, we ran

Although we’re using different versions of

HandBrake in our comparison, the tool is not the

difference here. The MacBook Air M1 is more than

six times faster than the Surface Pro X in video

transcoding.

SHORTER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

Apple MacBook Air M1Apple M1 H.265 videotoolbox

Apple MacBook Air M1Apple M1 H.265

HP Pavilion x360 Convertible14 dw0097nr Core i5-1035G1

Microsoft Surface Pro XMicrosoft SQ1 9,571

4,067

HandBrake 1.4

Seconds

1,415

326

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

HP Pavilion x360 Convertible14 dw0097nr Core i5-1035G1

Apple MacBook Air M1Apple M1 60.6

Rise of the Tomb Raider

1,280x800/Medium; Frames per second

12.1