Qualcomm's PC chips were developed with the company's phone DNA. Two generations in, we're seeing payoffs.

On the stage for the second day of keynotes at Snapdragon Summit 2026, Microsoft Corporate VP of Surface Devices Brett Ostrum revealed new versions of the company’s 12-inch Surface Pro and 13-inch Surface laptops, both of which now run Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Elite X2 chips for improved performance and battery life. These chips had come to larger Surface devices earlier in the year, and arrived in the smaller sizes of Microsoft’s portable PC lineup.

Along with the chip upgrade, both of the updated Surface devices have increased RAM options of 16GB and 24GB (up from 8GB and 16GB in their predecessors).

But some hidden advantages of running Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Elite X2, which was introduced at last year’s Snapdragon Summit, are downstream of the years the company spent developing smartphone silicon.

The first Snapdragon X Elite chips were revealed in 2023 as Qualcomm’s big return to PC silicon, attempting to outdo Apple laptops in battery life and performance. A big part of the company’s pitch was using what it learned making phone chips to see benefits in the laptop space. Now, we’re seeing evidence of that DNA paying off.

For instance, Ostrum told me after the keynote that the new Surface devices have superior cameras to their rivals thanks to the image signal processing on the Elite X2 chips, inherited from phone camera hardware, that will make you look amazing on Zoom calls.

Before, Apple had taken the crown of image quality in its laptop webcams, Ostrum said.

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