Snapdragon QC710 Developer Kit targets Windows 10 on Arm app development

In order to encourage developers to port their apps to Windows 10 on Arm, Qualcomm and Microsoft have announced the Snapdragon Developer Kit based on a Snapdragon Compute platform and aiming to provide a cost-efficient platform that will be less costly than a laptop.

The development kit looks like a mini PC, and while the full specs have not been announced, it could well be powered by the just-announced Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 processor, itself a cheaper version of Snapdragon 7c.

Windows 10 on Arm Mini PC Devkit Qualcomm did not share photos of all the ports from the developer kit, but the photos we’ve got come with “QC710” file name, and reveal a power button on the top, an LED on one corner, two USB ports, a MicroSD card slot, and a SIM card socket.

I’d assume at least one HDMI or DisplayPort at the back, and possibly an Ethernet port, but we just don’t know as developers’ resources specific to this developer kit are limited to say the least.

QC-710 Snapdragon Developer KitWhat the companies announced is that Visual C++ compilers and libraries for ARM64 can befound in Visual Studio 15.9 and greater, and native ARM64 versions of many open-source development tools for recompiling, optimizing and testing applications are already available. This includes LLVM, the Chromium framework, the .NET 5.0 framework, MinGW and GCC, Cygwin, Electron, Qt, GTK, OpenVPN, the FFMPEG library, Boost, GStreamer, and others.

We should have many more details to share this summer once the Snapdragon “QC710” developer kit becomes commercially available on Microsoft Store. Some quotes and a few more details may be found in the press release.

[Update: QC710 is now listed on ECS with more details (thanks Cristoffer!) including the specifications:

  • Platform – SC 7180 (QSIP 7180) with 4GB LPDDR4 PoP
  • Storage – 64GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot
  • Video Output – HDMI
  • Connectivity
    • 10/100M Ethernet
    • 4G LTE with SIM card slot or eSIM
    • Optional 802.11ax (PCIe module)
  • USB – 1 x USB 2.0 Type-C (PD-Charging), 1 x USB 2.0 Type-A,  1 x USB 3.2 Gen1
  • Dimensions – 119 x 116.6 x 35 mm
  • Weight – 230 grams

QC710 mini PC rear panel]

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33 Comments
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crashoverride
crashoverride
2 years ago

From the brief:

More information will be shared during Microsoft’s Build 2021 session, “What’s new for Windows desktop application developers”.

That event (Build 2021) appears to be today:

8 a.m. PT on Tuesday, May 25

crashoverride
crashoverride
2 years ago

With the developer stack of Win10, Visual Studio, and .NET 5.0, I bet they have to dedicate an entire core just to telemetry!

😉

crashoverride
crashoverride
2 years ago

The session appears to take place on Wednesday (not Tuesday):

https://mybuild.microsoft.com/sessions/79b87707-0505-4144-aab9-94cc30f91340?source=sessions

Wednesday, May 26 | 3:00 PM – 3:30 PM Central Daylight Time

crashoverride
crashoverride
2 years ago

I don’t see a power connector anywhere. I guess that USB-C port is for powering the device.

  • Can’t do HDMI 4K
  • 10/100 Ethernet
  • Single USB 3 – 5Gbps port
  • No M2 slot

#WhatAPieceOfJunk

Sander
Sander
2 years ago

If you want to convince devs “ARM is great”, I would not give them low-specced hardware.

Pete
Pete
2 years ago

If they were serious about attracting programmers on cheap ubiquitous hardware, they could officially support the Windows on Raspberry (WoR) project, building on their earlier Windows 10 IoT work.

But they’ve been wedded to Snapdragon since the Lumia days; Qualcomm dev box it is.

tkaiser
tkaiser
2 years ago

And if you think about it the Snapdragon choice becomes obvious: Adreno GPUs support DirectX.

Pete
Pete
2 years ago

MS did try porting Direct3D to RPi 2.

Maybe the newer VC6 wouldn’t run into the same issues VC4 had.

Salva
Salva
2 years ago

Yes, its not dx12 conformant

crashoverride
crashoverride
2 years ago

The session says “Windows desktop applications”. This is the context I view this device in. For comparison, Apple did the same thing previously with ARM based “devkits” that would become the M1 powered Macs (desktops).

In an apples-to-Apple’s comparison (pun intended), this QC710 device pales in comparison to a M1 Mac mini. Instead, it appears to almost reach the level of RPi4 competitor. Lets wait and see where the price point indicates that MS/Qualcomm believes it targets (IOT/Desktop).

tkaiser
tkaiser
2 years ago

An indication of the price point might be the ECS SF20QT3 (same thing just as ‘notebook’ with a crappy 11″ display + keyboard + trackpad + battery)

Sander
Sander
2 years ago

With these specs, it looks like an old, cheap 25USD SBC that was put into a nice box.
So … I must assume the 10/100 Ethernet and no M.2 are typo’s.

tkaiser
tkaiser
2 years ago

> the 10/100 Ethernet and no M.2 are typo’s

Why exactly? This is a SoC for Chromebooks maybe lacking Ethernet at all in a box sitting somewhere in a cabinet being accessed remotely via RDP/RemoteFX/ICA for which Fast Ethernet is perfectly fine. Does an M.2 slot help debugging Windows applications?

As I understood it the point is providing something less expensive than those ‘always connected’ ARM Windows laptops for app developers.

crashoverride
crashoverride
2 years ago

Since we will be celebrating the end of Summer (Labor Day) this weekend, it appears this thing is entirely “vaporware”. There are no announcements or product listings anywhere to be found.

Sander
Sander
2 years ago

Does the Snapdragon “QC-710” Developer Kit also target Linux”?

TLS
TLS
2 years ago

10/100Mbps Ethernet? What’s this? 1989?

TLS
TLS
2 years ago

I guess that should’ve been 1995…

F M
F M
2 years ago

Dev kit with 4Gb? Are you kidding me?

tkaiser
tkaiser
2 years ago

Devkit with 4Gb’

‘Developers’needing more than 4GB (your ‘4Gb’ is already pathetic) might be a sign of idiocracy?

rooted
rooted
2 years ago

?

TLS
TLS
2 years ago

Windows needs more than 4GB…
This isn’t a Linux system.

tkaiser
tkaiser
2 years ago

Just checked: none of the many Windows systems we monitor uses more than 4GB except two machines (Hyper-V hosts). In fact RAM usage got better few years ago with Microsoft implementing transparent memory compression in Win10.

Besides this running crappy software stacks or user behavior (+100 open tabs in a browser) is a different thing. But this inexpensive box here is meant to port/debug own applications. That’s neither a desktop nor a workstation.

Nero
Nero
2 years ago

It’s not a machine to develop on, but a target to deploy to. In that case, 4GB should be what every developer target because it’s what’s in most low-cost devices. If any app exceeds 4GB RAM, it either should be optimized, or it should obviously be tested on a different class of machines.

crashoverride
crashoverride
2 years ago

In the Build 2021 session (see previous link @ 22m:00s), they briefly show a glimpse of the device. No additional information, pricing, or details were provided. It was not even shown in operation.

Effectively, Qualcomm announced there would be announcement at Build where it was announced that a future announcement would be made.

tkaiser
tkaiser
2 years ago

Two words were used: ‘low cost’. And the announcement suggests you get a proper Windows license with the box as well.

The most important information Jean-Luc put here; this thing allows for one external display restricted to 2560×1440 pixel. I don’t know a single developer who would sit in front of something that limited display-wise (and that was already the case a decade ago).

crashoverride
crashoverride
2 years ago

Two words were used: ‘low cost’. And the announcement suggests you get a proper Windows license with the box as well. Do you really think this is going to be a $35 product? Otherwise, the term “low cost” is subjective (aka meaningless). this thing allows for one external display restricted to 2560×1440 pixel. I don’t know a single developer who would sit in front of something that limited display-wise (and that was already the case a decade ago). How much resolution do you need to view a 80×24 console terminal? For developers (those that write source code), the only thing… Read more »

tkaiser
tkaiser
2 years ago

> Do you really think this is going to be a $35 product?

Nope (hint: ECS SF20QT3). But not being a Windows app developer I honestly don’t care anyway. 🙂

Wrt devs and displays… I wasn’t talking about HiDPI but display sizes. The devs I know used two 27″ screens (2560×1440 each) already 10 years ago or 30″ + their notebook display. And now they’re sitting in front of ultra-wide curved displays. All they demand is maximum display size to fit as much open windows as possible.

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