"Not met our usual standard:" Qualcomm refunds all Snapdragon Dev Kit orders

A while ago, Qualcomm launched the $899.99 Snapdragon Dev Kit, its miniature Windows on Arm PC. The kit features a Snapdragon X Elite SoC and matches the capabilities of the Copilot+ PCs, with a 3.8 GHz 12-core Oryon CPU, a dual-core boost up to 4.4 GHz, 32 GB LPDDR5x memory, and 512 GB of M2 storage.

That sounded like a dream concept that could assist devs in testing apps on Windows on Arm devices by reducing costs, as the push for the latest tech continues.

Unfortunately, now, Qualcomm has apparently announced its cancellation, saying that it “has not met our usual standards of excellence.” The tech giant has sent emails to users who ordered and issued refunds as well, including those already shipped. There were plans to release it in June, but that also didn’t materialize.

“Based upon the above, we are working to provide a full refund for any charges to your account for your purchase. You should receive this credit/refund within 10 business days. It is not necessary to return any material, if received. Unfortunately, any outstanding orders will be canceled,” the email reads further.

A teardown by developer Jeff Geerling revealed that, while the device performed comparably to Apple’s M3 Pro, it faced limitations such as the absence of Linux support and restrictions on resale. Speculation suggests that issues related to the HDMI port, which might have failed FCC compliance testing, contributed to the delays.

The tech world has been pushing for Windows on Arm for quite some time now. Blender, the popular open-source 3D-making platform, now offers native Windows ARM64 builds through Buildbot. Popular gamers-friendly browser Opera also launched its native Arm build that runs twice as fast.