Qualcomm is refusing to release the Snapdragon Dev Kit, a mini-PC based on Windows on Arm, which was planned to be released in June this year. In an email to customers, Qualcomm said that the mini-PC "does not meet the company's quality standards." This was reported by The Verge.
Interestingly, the company has already shipped mini-PCs to the first customers before canceling them. Qualcomm promises to refund all customers. The company does not provide more detailed explanations of the reasons for the project's abandonment.
Developer Jeff Greeling, who had already received the Snapdragon Dev Kit, disassembled and analyzed it. The conclusion of the review was that although this mini-PC had similar performance to the Apple M3 Pro, the device has significant drawbacks in the form of lack of Linux support and restrictions on resale.
The mystery surrounding why Qualcomm canceled this device may yet have something to do with the HDMI port. Gerling found that all the chips for the internal DisplayPort to HDMI conversion were in place, but the port was missing.
Richard Campbell, founder of DEVIntersection conferences, suggested on a recent episode of TWiT that the HDMI port could have caused production delays if it had not passed FCC compliance testing.
A month before the Snapdragon Dev Kit was canceled, Qualcomm sent a letter to customers that the device would ship with USB-C to HDMI.
The Snapdragon Dev Kit was supposed to help developers port their apps to Windows from ARM. Both Microsoft and Qualcomm insist that developers port their apps for Snapdragon X Elite laptops.