Qualcomm Unexpectedly Cancels Snapdragon Dev Kit; Offers Refunds

In a major blow to developers and the ARM ecosystem for Windows PCs, Qualcomm has canceled the Snapdragon Dev Kit, all of a sudden. Those who had ordered the Snapdragon Dev Kit received an email from Qualcomm saying that the product has been paused indefinitely. The operative part of the email reads:

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.

Qualcomm is also issuing refunds for all Snapdragon Dev Kit orders. Interestingly, the chipmaker is refunding even those customers who have already received the Dev Kit and they don’t have to return the device, either.

The Snapdragon Dev Kit was announced with much pomp at the Microsoft Build 2024 event in May. The device featured the top-of-the-line X1E-00-1DE SKU, packing 12 Oryon CPU cores, and could clock two cores up to 4.3GHz.

However, it didn’t ship on time and kept delaying. Jeff Geerling who had ordered the Snapdragon Dev Kit, shared the Dev Kit saga on X (Twitter) starting in July and finally received the device in September. He unsealed the Dev Kit and found that the HDMI port was removed at the last moment. Many speculated that the HDMI was causing issues and it may be one of the major reasons for the production delay.

In addition, it comes with Windows 11 Home edition, making it harder for developers to access crucial system tools that are available in the Pro edition. Clearly, there are some issues on the software side too. It must be noted that Microsoft has not yet provided Windows 11 ARM64 images for Snapdragon X series laptops and devices, although the company says it’s coming pretty soon.

With Snapdragon Dev Kit’s unexpected cancelation, Qualcomm is currently in a tight spot. Copilot+ PCs, powered by Snapdragon X series processors, have underperformed in the market, likely due to software compatibility issues. Meanwhile, Intel and AMD have partnered to expand the x86 ecosystem.

Now, with Dev Kit’s discontinuation, it will be a hard time for Qualcomm to encourage developers to build apps and ensure compatibility on the ARM platform. For now, Qualcomm says developers can visit the Qualcomm Device Cloud (QDC) starting today.