One of the roadblocks preventing adoption of Windows on Arm PCs has been lingering concerns over whether users would be able to run a specific app. Google said Monday that it is formally releasing Google Drive for Arm PCs, removing one of those obstacles.
The release of PCs powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite Arm processors was generally met with approval, though early tests identified several applications that would run slowly or not at all. Google Drive was among them, and was especially called out during early reviews.
Google announced a beta of Google Drive for Arm last year, and today it’s making it generally available. Existing beta users will be upgraded to the stable version, which requires the Microsoft WebView2 runtime that ships with Windows 11. It will be available to all users with personal Google accounts, as well as all Workspace customers.
I personally believe that Windows on Arm laptops have graduated beyond the skepticism stage, having depended on one exclusively throughout several work trips. (I took along the Surface Laptop 7th Edition, though I reviewed the very similar Surface Pro 11th Edition last year.)
Both of those reviews examined the issue of software compatibility, and three areas still stand out: apps like Drive, which are being addressed; VPN software; and games. Qualcomm has directly addressed the first two categories, and many productivity apps are either coded natively for Arm or can run via the Prism interpreter inside Windows. A few (though not all) VPN apps are coded for Arm as well, including NordVPN. Games, however, remain a weak point. Though Arm recently announced a GPU upscaler which should make Arm games run more efficiently, many games simply don’t run natively on Arm, or run poorly.
Recently, journalists noted that the Surface Laptop came with a warning on Amazon that consumer returns exceeded the average rate. (I didn’t see that warning today when I checked.) Whether or not that warning was justified, it does indicate that Qualcomm, Arm, Microsoft, and developers have more work to do.
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld
Mark has written for PCWorld for the last decade, with 30 years of experience covering technology. He has authored over 3,500 articles for PCWorld alone, covering PC microprocessors, peripherals, and Microsoft Windows, among other topics. Mark has written for publications including PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Popular Science and Electronic Buyers' News, where he shared a Jesse H. Neal Award for breaking news. He recently handed over a collection of several dozen Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs because his office simply has no more room.