The Windows Dev Kit 2023 is now on the Microsoft Store

If you remember, back in May, we told you that Microsoft was gearing up to release a brand-new mini PC designed to improve Windows on Arm called Project Volterra.

And, while everyone was focusing on native Arm support for Visual Studio 2022 and VS Code, the Redmond tech company was creating an Arm-native toolchain.

Support for this includes full Visual Studio 2022 & VS Code, Visual C++, Modern .NET 6 and Java, Classic .NET Framework, Windows Terminal, and WSL and WSA for running Linux and Android apps.

It looks like the time has finally come and Microsoft is launching its own version of the Mac Mini today with a price that many will find a bit spicy.

The new mini Windows PC is great for building ARM apps for Windows 11

The truth is that you will have to dig deep in your pockets and pull out a whopping $599 for this mini PC that’s designed for developers to build native ARM apps for Windows 11.

Previously known as Project Volterra, the Windows Dev Kit 2023 is already available today in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the US.

So, developers will now be able to purchase this highly-coveted device, but really anyone wanting a miniature Windows on Arm machine can buy one as well.

You surely want to know more about this device so let’s take a closer look at it and see what actually makes this new miniature PC tick.

What are the Windows Dev Kit 2023 specs?

Well, if you are interested in buying one, know that the Windows Dev Kit 2023 is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 platform with 32GB of RAM and 512GB of NVMe storage.

Furthermore, there are also two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports at the side and three USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports at the rear, alongside an Ethernet port and Mini DisplayPort.

We’re also looking at a neural processing unit (NPU) on this device, much like the 5G Surface Pro 9, which will enable developers to run hardware-accelerated AI tasks and machine learning workloads.

The tech giant started to leverage NPUs in Windows 11 to power features like Voice Focus, a state-of-the-art background noise removal algorithm that doesn’t hit your CPU or GPU.

Speaking software-wise, this is where the Windows Dev Kit 2023 will absolutely shine. As we’ve said, Microsoft is working to launch a full toolchain of ARM native apps for developers to use.

Thus, Visual Studio 2022 17.4 now runs natively on Arm with far better performance, and .NET 7 will include improved performance for ARM.

Please keep in mind that previews for Arm versions of Visual C++ and the Windows App SDK are also available now.

With this device, we are getting more apps, tools, frameworks, and packages that are being ported to natively target Windows on ARM and will be arriving over the coming months. 

In the meantime, thanks to Windows 11’s powerful emulation technology, developers will be able to run many unmodified x64 and x86 apps and tools on their Windows Dev Kit.

And if that wasn’t already enough, the Windows Dev Kit will also have access to native ARM versions of Microsoft Teams, Office, Edge, and OneDrive sync.

As a result, Microsoft really hopes this device will encourage Windows on Arm app development, so we can finally see more apps run natively on Arm-powered laptops.

Since we are talking about Windows 11 and Qualcomm processors, be sure to check out the list of Windows 11-supported Intel, Qualcomm & AMD CPUs.

Would you be interested in acquiring one of these mini PCs from Microsoft? Let us know in the designated comments section below.