ARM64EC should not make ARM64 obsolete, they should coexist.
x64 has not made x86 obsolete either, at least not yet. They coexist.
I would immediately buy a Windows ARM device (for development purpose), but a suitable offer which would meet my usage requirements does not exist (fanless and minimum 15 inch display).
Dev kit? Not for me! I only buy USABLE computers.
We are not in the infancy era of computing.
If you want to establish a new computing platform, then please provide decent devices matching existing devices in usability. Otherwise I'm not interested.
I did buy the Apple MacBook Air 15 a year ago for the same purpose, regardless of price, so that I can now support the JPEG Library on macOS. I see that it has currently the lowest price to date here (1249 Euros), so now would be a good chance for purchase.
The first batch of Windows ARM devices with Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor launched this year was a big disappointment, announcing a "MacBook Air killer", but utterly failing.
The Microsoft Surface Laptop 15 would be a good match to the MacBook Air, but it didn't happen.
Now Qualcomm is releasing a new processor model with fewer (8 instead of 12 or 10) cores, apparently for cheaper builds.
Yesterday Samsung has announced a new Galaxy Book4 Edge 15 model with such processor, but no mention of fanless.
Samsung is interesting because they are the reference in storage devices. They tried, but were not able to build computers to date.
The previously introduced Galaxy Book4 Edge 14 and Galaxy Book4 Edge 16 models were matches to the corresponding Apple MacBook Pro models.
So one could hope that the new 15 inch model would match the corresponding MacBook Air, but this does not seem to be the case. The aim seems simply to provide a cheaper model in the lineup.
I have found an analysis why the new Qualcomm processor will probably not allow fanless builds either:
They simply cut off the efficiency cores from the larger models, so what remains are 8 performance cores.
The current M2/M3 processors in the MacBook Air have also 8 cores, but among them are 4 efficiency cores, beside 4 performance cores. This is one reason for the lack of efficiency of the Qualcomm equipped machines.
Thus, we probably will have to wait longer for a decent Windows ARM device...
I'm not sorry, because I'm happy with the available options on the mature platforms.
My interest for Windows ARM is only for development purpose, and ARM64EC and ARM64 platforms are supported by the latest JPEG Library release as far as is possible under the given circumstances.
Regards
Guido
JPEG developer