Laptops with Qualcomm Snapdragon X are selling sluggishly, and are being returned. The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 has been rated «Frequently Returned Product» on Amazon.
The Amazon flag literally means a product with the highest return rates for its category. It encourages customers to carefully research the laptop and read reviews before purchasing. The warning is displayed in yellow on the product page below the product description. This means that Surface Laptop 7 is being returned more often than usual, but does not shed any light on the reason why.
Amazon’s return policy allows you to return a product 30 days after receiving it for almost any reason. It can be dissatisfaction with the device or other reasons, such as choosing a different model or trying to get a refund. One way or another, Laptop 7 is returned more often than other models. Surprisingly, the laptop has a 4.2/5 star rating based on more than 360 reviews. Only 12% of buyers gave it one star, while 71% gave it five stars.
As he writes Windows Central, one possible factor is the laptop’s use of Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors based on the ARM architecture. Although they are provide good energy efficiency and long battery life, there are software compatibility issues with this architecture. Many Windows programs and games are not optimized for these processors. Most of them work satisfactorily through emulation, but some run slowly or don’t even start.
Website TechPowerUp notes that the surge in returns may be caused by update of the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 line models with the new Intel processors — users may want a similar experience, but without the drawbacks of ARM. Despite the 180% sequential growth in the third quarter of 2024, Snapdragon X-based devices account for less than 0.8% of the PC market. New data is not yet available to compare the situation a few months later.