In a significant PR setback for Qualcomm, the highly anticipated $900 Snapdragon X Elite developer kit, which was revealed earlier this year at Microsoft’s Build 2024 conference, has been abruptly canceled—just days after the first units were shipped to customers.
Qualcomm notified customers via email, stating:
“The Developer Kit product comprehensively has not met our usual standards of excellence, and so we are reaching out to let you know that, unfortunately, we have made the decision to pause this product and the support of it, indefinitely.”
Customers who placed an order will receive a full refund, including those fortunate enough to have received the developer kit already.
Qualcomm has confirmed that those who received the kit do not need to return it to claim their refund. For those with pending orders, the orders will be canceled, meaning anyone who hasn’t received one by now will no longer be able to get it.
The original plan was for Qualcomm to launch the Snapdragon X Elite developer kit in June, coinciding with the availability of Copilot+ PCs.
However, after that date passed without the kit going on sale, it wasn’t until a month later that pre-orders finally became available through Arrow, with an estimated shipping time of just a few weeks.
Customers who pre-ordered soon realized that shipping delays would be much longer than anticipated.
Many who placed orders when pre-sales opened in July were left without a clear delivery timeframe, as both Qualcomm and Arrow failed to provide accurate estimates.
Frustration among developers mounted as they documented their experiences, with some lucky enough to have received the kit already providing reviews.
One such reviewer, Jeff Geerling, described the kit as a missed opportunity due to its hardware limitations.
Throughout the summer, Qualcomm encountered various manufacturing issues with the developer kit. Originally, the hardware was supposed to include an HDMI port, but this was removed at the last minute.
Additionally, it seems Qualcomm had not obtained FCC certification before shipping the units, as some devices reached customers with labels warning that they cannot be resold and lack FCC certification.
In the end, it became evident that building PC hardware is no simple feat, even for a prominent chipmaker like Qualcomm.
Now, it seems the responsibility of creating a replacement developer kit will fall to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), likely through mini PCs equipped with Snapdragon X SoCs.
There is speculation that Microsoft might update its Windows Developer Kit 2023, which initially launched in 2022 featuring the Snapdragon 8cx Gen3.
The cancellation of the Snapdragon X Elite developer kit also marks the end of the availability of the X Elite SoC (the X1E-00-1DE) with its higher 4.3GHz boost frequency, as this was the only hardware that included the chip. As a result, these kits may become highly sought after.
