3 Reasons The Snapdragon Dev Kit Is The Mac Mini Killer We

Out of all the Snapdragon X computers we’ve seen so far — 14 of which are laptops — it’s the Snapdragon Dev Kit that catches my eye.

Image credit: Qualcomm

After months of anticipation, Qualcomm and Microsoft finally showed us what the future holds for Windows on Arm. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X platform is powering a total of 14 new laptops, and Microsoft’s Copilot+ unlocks a slew of new AI features on those devices. With Microsoft Build in the mix too, there were a ton of high-profile announcements going on in the world of Windows last week. Through all the noise, the announcement that caught my eye the most was the one that wasn’t even supposed to matter to the average consumer.

For developers who want to optimize their apps for Windows on Arm, Qualcomm is selling the Snapdragon Dev Kit. It isn’t the first development kit for Windows on Arm, but it sure is the most exciting one. The Snapdragon Dev Kit is essentially a mini PC with a Snapdragon X Elite system-on-a-chip as the centerpiece. It retails for $900, making it the cheapest way to get a Snapdragon X Elite processor. With the Snapdragon Dev Kit’s price, performance, and size, it is a natural competitor to the Mac Mini. In many ways, it’s a better mini PC than the Mac Mini, and these are three reasons why.

3 It’s actually compact

The Mac Mini is, well, not very “mini”

Apple clearly got complacent with the Mac Mini, because the computer’s design hasn’t changed in a meaningful way in over a decade. While the latest M2 Mac Mini is still way taller than a tower, it’s gargantuan compared to cutting-edge mini PCs and NUCs. If you don’t believe that the Mac Mini could be smaller, just scroll through the gallery of photos above. I tore down my M2 Mac Mini to show just how much empty space is left inside the Mac Mini’s chassis. There’s a lot, and it shows the Mac Mini isn’t as “mini” as it could be.

Looking at the dimensions, the Mac Mini and the Snapdragon Dev Kit actually have similar footprints. The Mac Mini measures 7.75 x 7.75 x 1.41 inches, while the Snapdragon Dev Kit measures 8 x 7 x 1.3 inches. It might not immediately pop out at you from the spec sheet, but the Snapdragon Dev Kit’s smaller width and shorter height will go a long way in making it feel more compact on your desk. There doesn’t seem to be any sacrifices made to achieve this form factor, either. The Snapdragon Dev Kit has three USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, an Ethernet jack, an HDMI port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

2 The exclusive Snapdragon X Elite chip

You won’t find this 80W TDP SoC in any Snapdragon X laptop

Of course, the size of the Snapdragon Dev Kit doesn’t matter if it can’t compete with a Mac Mini in terms of performance. I do want to note that we still haven’t seen how the Snapdragon X platform performs in the wild, but all indications are that Snapdragon X Elite can handle the M2 chipset found in the Mac Mini. Beyond that, the big advantage that comes with the Snapdragon Dev Kit is that it’s using a Snapdragon X variant you can’t get in a laptop. The desktop has a more powerful SoC with a higher TDP, rated at 80W. That means the Snapdragon Dev Kit should perform the best of any Snapdragon X device you can buy today.

This exclusive Snapdragon X Elite chip has a 12-core Oryon CPU clocked at 3.8GHz and an Adreno GPU. Two of those CPU cores can be boosted to 4.4GHz using this specific Snapdragon X Elite configuration. The Snapdragon X Elite SoCs that appear in consumer laptops can only be boosted to 4.2GHz or 4.0GHz, depending on the configuration. That’s one tangible way that this Snapdragon X Elite chip benefits from a more powerful configuration and a higher TDP, but there will likely be more that come out over time. If you want the best Snapdragon X Elite chip on the market today, you’ll need to buy the Snapdragon Dev Kit.

1 It’s price competitive

An M2 with 8GB of RAM? Actually, I’ll take Snapdragon X Elite with 32GB instead

At face value, it might be easy to suggest that the Mac Mini is a better value than the Snapdragon Dev Kit. The former costs $600, while the latter costs $900. But it’s important to remember that the base-model Mac Mini comes with an M2 chip, 8GB of unified memory, and 256GB of storage. A better comparison to the Snapdragon Dev Kit’s performance and configuration would probably be the Mac Mini with an M2 Pro SoC, but that model starts at $1,300 — significantly higher than the Snapdragon Dev Kit. Despite the higher cost, the Mac Mini with M2 Pro actually has less memory than the Snapdragon Dev Kit, with the two computers having 16GB and 32GB of RAM respectively.

Benchmarks will confirm next month that the Snapdragon Dev Kit is faster and offers more memory than the Mac Mini at a lower price. Sure, it’s possible that an M3 or M4 Mac Mini could shift things in Apple’s favor, but there are no reports that a new Mac Mini is nearing release. The Snapdragon Dev Kit is more expensive than the Mac Mini, although it’s the better value.

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Anyone can buy this thing, and maybe you should

This is a development kit, and it’s clearly positioned for developer use. It doesn’t have a flashy design or a consumer-friendly appearance. However, Qualcomm isn’t limiting who can buy the Snapdragon Dev Kit for $900. Anyone can sign up to pre-order the mini PC now, and general availability will come next month. The Mac Mini has been one of the best compact desktop computers for a long time, and gained new life when Apple added an M-series processor and lowered the price a few years back. But it hasn’t faced much competition. Now that the Snapdragon Dev Kit exists, there’s a real case to be made for buying it over a Mac Mini.