Microsoft has released two new systems based on Qualcomm's Arm processors lately. The first, a 5G version of the Surface Pro 9, has mostly been panned by reviewers, with software compatibility being a major pain point even after two generations of the Arm-powered Surface Pro X. The second is the $600 Windows Dev Kit 2023, formerly known by the much cooler name "Project Volterra," and it's supposed to help solve that software problem.

Microsoft has tried doing Arm Windows developer boxes before—namely, the $219 ECS LIVA QC710 it began selling about a year ago (it's no longer for sale, at least not through Microsoft's store). But with its 4GB of memory, 64GB of pokey storage, and underpowered Snapdragon 7c processor, using it was like revisiting the bad netbook days. Maybe you could get some basic browsing done on it. But genuine work, even for someone like me who primarily works with text and medium-resolution photos all day? Nope.

The Dev Kit 2023 is nearly three times as expensive, but the hardware is powerful enough that it mostly just feels like a typical midrange mini-desktop in day-to-day use. Freed from the limitations of cruddy hardware, the machine makes it much easier to evaluate Windows-on-Arm's remaining software limitations. For this review, we won't be using it as a developer box, but it does provide us a good chance to evaluate where the Windows-on-Arm project is right now, both in hardware and software—especially relative to the Mac, the other hardware and software ecosystem that is making a much cleaner, wider-ranging, and more graceful transition from x86 software to Arm.

A Surface in all but name

Microsoft isn't selling the Dev Kit as a Surface device, because it's not meant to be a machine for everyday PC users. There's plenty of Surface in its DNA, however.

That starts with its design. It's a substantial-feeling hunk of black plastic over a metal frame with a Microsoft logo imprinted on the top; it's smaller than a Mac mini (which, if you're not familiar, has had the same physical dimensions for 12 years), but if Microsoft had set out to make a Surface-branded Mac mini clone, it probably wouldn't look much different.

One reason the device is smaller is that it uses a 90 W external power brick, whereas the Mac mini's power supply is inside the enclosure. That flows from the way Microsoft seems to have put together the Dev Kit—the Mac mini's internals were designed specifically for their enclosure, while the Dev Kit appears to be quite literally a Surface Pro 9 with 5G motherboard with a case built around it. In that way, it's less like the Mac mini and more like the Apple Silicon "Developer Transition Kit," which adapted iPad Pro-ish innards for a Mac mini-shaped case.

The most obvious giveaway is a bunch of unused connectors that are visible at the top-right of the board when you remove the bottom of the Dev Kit—these would be used to drive a display and other internal peripherals in a Surface device but go unused in the Dev Kit. The two USB-C ports (again, a Surface holdover, with identical positioning and space between them) are the only ones built into the board, while the Ethernet port, USB-A ports, mini DisplayPort, and power jack on the back are all built into a separate board. (That it's a Surface Pro clone also means that the Dev Kit has no headphone jack.) Firmware and driver updates pulled down from Windows Update are also Surface-branded.

The Dev Kit can connect to up to three monitors at once using its mini DisplayPort and USB-C ports, and up to two of those can be 60 Hz 4K displays (refresh rates faster than 60 Hz are available at lower resolutions, but 60 Hz does appear to be the hard cap at 4K). Microsoft says that the DisplayPort is the one you should use for the primary display, and it's the only one that will display a signal when you're adjusting the box's UEFI firmware settings, likely also a holdover from its Surface roots—the internal display in a Surface would likely be connected with an internal embedded DisplayPort connector (eDP) that worked the same way.

The only upgradeable component in the Dev Kit is the 512GB SSD, which is a short M.2 2230 drive just like the ones Microsoft uses in other Surfaces. A typical M.2 2280 SSD would definitely fit, though you'd have to figure out how to hold it in place yourself since there's no built-in standoff for it. The rationale for using a short little SSD in the first place is probably the same as for reusing a Surface motherboard—cheaper to reuse a thing than to design and pay for a whole different thing, especially in what is likely to be a low-volume product.

Windows-on-Arm: Usable with frustrations

Enlarge / The Task Manager is one of the few ways you can tell Arm Windows from x86 Windows, at least on the surface.

Andrew Cunningham

To talk about the problem the Dev Kit seeks to fix, it's instructive to take a look at the Windows-on-Arm experience. "So close and yet so far" sums up the vibe.

We'll start with "so close." Windows-on-Arm looks and acts exactly the same way that Windows does on a regular x86 PC. The interface is the same, apps are the same, downloading and installing apps and running apps are all the same. We've come a long, long way from Windows RT, which looked and acted kind of like Windows but couldn't run most of the third-party software.

Microsoft deserves credit for steadily improving Windows-on-Arm and improving the x86-to-Arm translation layer that makes it possible to run most Windows apps on Arm devices. Windows 11 added the ability to translate 64-bit x86 code as well as 32-bit code, greatly expanding the universe of apps that will run. I can get most of my basic apps up and running on Arm Windows, and the Dev Kit's performance is fast and responsive when running Arm-native apps. I plugged the Dev Kit right into my dual-monitor setup and it did just fine, driving both 4K displays fluidly and working properly with most of my connected accessories.

Surface Pro 9 comes in both Intel and Arm flavors, absorbing the Surface Pro X

Unfortunately, that leads us to the "but so far" stuff. That starts with the x86-to-Arm app translation. It's... fine. It works. But x86 apps running on the Dev Kit regularly stutter or hesitate when rendering, waiting on the translation to happen before responding to input.

The Slack and Discord apps were both good examples—you sometimes need to wait a second or so between clicking to a different server or channel or conversation and actually seeing the result of that click show up on-screen. It's even more of a problem in the Audacity audio editor, where scrubbing back and forth through multiple audio tracks requires fluid UI rendering that the Dev Kit can't quite manage even with a relatively quick processor, fast storage, and lots of memory.

Enlarge / Many x86 apps can run on the Arm version of Windows, but the performance penalty is noticeable. Even apps with Arm versions sometimes get and install their x86 versions instead.

Andrew Cunningham

Apple's Rosetta technology has some of these problems, too; scrolling in a Rosetta app, for instance, is noticeably jerkier than scrolling in an Apple Silicon-native app. But that's mitigated somewhat by (1) the M1 and M2 chips' superior performance and (2) the fact that Intel-only apps on the Mac are currently the exception rather than the norm. The reverse is true in Windows, where Arm-native apps are only sometimes available.

The Windows ecosystem's core assumption that you're running the OS on an x86-compatible PC even causes problems when the Arm versions of software are available. Some apps we installed (Firefox from Mozilla's website, Zoom from the Microsoft Store) did get and install their Arm64 versions automatically, with no user intervention needed. 7-Zip doesn't have an automated installer, but it lists an Arm64 version on its homepage right next to the 64-bit and 32-bit x86 versions (an approach some Mac apps take to advertise Apple Silicon support). But downloading Handbrake from its website and VLC from the Microsoft Store got us x86 versions of the apps, even though Arm64 versions are available from other sources.

Still, other software refuses to run on the Arm version of Windows at all, even with code translation. Dropbox was the most notable of my typical app suite that simply refused to install, kicking me to an inferior "S Mode" version of the product from the Microsoft Store. And you may be out of luck for any hardware that requires specialized drivers, like my Scarlett Solo mic preamp; Arm Windows drivers are even rarer than Arm Windows apps, and unlike apps, they can't be emulated or translated—no driver, no support.

Microsoft's own apps (including Office, Teams, a preview of Visual Studio and many of its extensions, and even things like PowerToys) are available in both x86 and Arm versions. Adobe supports most of the features of Photoshop and Lightroom in the Arm-native versions of those apps. Things are getting better. But game compatibility is virtually nil, Google doesn't offer an Arm version of Chrome, and third-party app support is a crapshoot, but it's x86-only more often than not.

In a Surface review, these would all be complaints about the consumer viability of an Arm Windows device, but given that this is a device specifically aimed at the developers who could solve all these problems, it should be viewed as more of a to-do list. If a Dev Kit 2024 or 2025 rolls around and all these problems remain, it's a sign that the project isn't really moving the needle. But the hope is surely that a cheap-ish, relatively powerful dev box will fix a few of these outstanding problems before Qualcomm (theoretically) delivers the M1-class chips it's still working on.

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