Since I became the owner of the new Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, friends and colleagues have been asking me about all the details regarding the Snapdragon processor and the ARM technology inside this device. Recently, a friend asked me how Google Chrome performs on Windows on ARM. The question caught me off guard, but I answered as precisely as I could.
In short, Google Chrome has been supported on Windows on ARM for quite some time. The only major Google service that wasn’t supported and didn’t work on these devices was Google Drive. Fortunately, just a few days ago, an ARM version of Google Drive was finally released. I haven’t tested it yet, but I definitely will.
Now, back to Google Chrome. As I expected, the Google Chrome browser runs without any issues on the Surface Laptop 7. I haven’t noticed any differences compared to the x64 version I use at work or the one I had on my previous Surface Laptop 2. However, I now have a much faster device, which is noticeable while browsing the web.
In the photo I posted, you can see Google Chrome running with 5–6 open tabs, along with Paint.NET and Notepad. I know this isn’t a heavy workload, but these are applications I frequently use. Everything runs smoothly, multitasking is excellent, and I don’t see any resource congestion on the hardware.
RAM usage hovers around 50%, with a significant portion logically being allocated to Google Chrome tabs.
All in all, browsing the web with the Google Chrome application optimized for Windows on ARM feels identical to using the standard application on a traditional Windows x64 system.