Qualcomm cancels its Snapdragon dev kit mini PC, offers refunds

Qualcomm has been making waves in the PC world with its new crop of super-efficient Snapdragon laptops. But if you’re a software developer, odds are that: one, you already have a laptop, and two, you’d like an inexpensive way to check out these new Arm-powered PCs.

That’s what Qualcomm’s official dev kit mini PC was meant to be. Unfortunately, if you ordered one and you’ve been patiently waiting for yours to ship, here’s some bad news: It’s canceled.

Originally announced at Microsoft Build in May of this year, the Snapdragon Dev Kit crammed a Snapdragon X Elite CPU, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage into a sleek little all-black box. It was originally scheduled to ship in June, but four months later that obviously didn’t happen. Qualcomm emailed those who had pre-ordered the $900 device last week (according to The Verge) to tell them that it had been canceled and that their money was being refunded.

Why was it canceled? That wasn’t shared. Tech reviewer Jeff Geerling actually received one, among a small handful of other pre-orders. He called the dev kit a “missed opportunity,” praising its impressive performance akin to a highly-specced Mac Mini and easy upgrades. But poor documentation kind of defeats the purpose of a dev kit, and it was strangely missing an HDMI port (possibly due to certification issues).

The end result of the dev kit cancellation is pretty mild for developers. Plenty of Snapdragon-powered laptops are available these days, a few of which are even going for below $900 now. While they’re not as powerful as this purpose-built dev kit mini PC, they’re arguably a much better deal since they’re, you know, laptops. Odds are pretty good that other Snapdragon mini PCs will be available before too long, too.

Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld

Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he’s the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop “battlestation” in his off hours. Michael’s previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he’s covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he’s always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.

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