Apple fan tries PC laptops

The Contenders

1. M4 MacBook Air ($750 on sale): 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD.
2. Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 2-in-1 ($699 on sale): AMD Ryzen AI 7 350, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD.
3. ASUS Zenbook 14 ($899 on sale): Intel Core Ultra 9 285H, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD.
4. ASUS Zenbook S 14 ($999): Snapdragon X Plus (ARM), 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD.

Unboxing & Build Quality

• Packaging: Luke criticized the Windows laptops for inconsistent and “cheap” packaging (plastic wrappers, loose chargers) compared to Apple’s premium experience.
• Build Materials:
  • MacBook Air: Full aluminum unibody, very rigid display, premium feel.
  • Dell: Metal lid/bottom but plastic palm rest. Significant deck flex and screen wobble.
  • ASUS Zenbook S 14: Made of “Ceraluminum” (ceramic/aluminum alloy). Luke found it felt plasticky, creaky, and had significant flex despite the fancy name.
  • ASUS Zenbook 14: Standard aluminum but had vents and screws visible, feeling less refined.
• Winner: MacBook Air for the sturdiest and most premium build.

Setup Experience

• Windows Laptops: Plagued by long update times (25+ minutes to an hour), unskippable updates, bloatware (McAfee, etc.), and confusing driver issues (Intel graphics driver was missing on the ASUS).
• Winner: implied to be the MacBook for ease of use.

Display Quality

• MacBook Air: LCD, 2560×1664 resolution. Brightest panel, best color accuracy, and sharpness despite not being OLED.
• Dell: 1920×1200 LCD. “Terrible,” dim, and low resolution for the price.
• ASUS Laptops: OLED panels (1920×1200). Great contrast/blacks but visibly dimmer than the MacBook Air.
• Winner: MacBook Air (Luke argues high-res LCD beats dimmer 1080p OLEDs for this use case).

Performance Benchmarks

• Cinebench 2024: The M4 chip “blew the others out of the water,” beating even the high-end Intel Core Ultra 9.
• Blender Render:
  • MacBook Air: ~7 minutes (CPU).
  • ASUS (Intel): Competitive but slightly slower (~8-9 mins).
  • ASUS (Snapdragon): “Fell off a cliff” taking 17 minutes.
  • Dell (AMD): Far behind.
• Battery Test: After running benchmarks for 30 mins:
  • MacBook Air: 85% remaining.
  • ASUS (Snapdragon): 78%.
  • Dell & ASUS (Intel): 74%.

Fan Noise & Speakers

• Fan Noise: MacBook Air is fanless (silent). All Windows laptops had audible fan noise, with the Dell being the loudest and most annoying.
• Speakers:
  • Dell: “Terrible,” described as a ripoff.
  • ASUS (Intel): Decent, comparable to MacBook Air but slightly worse.
  • Winner: MacBook Air.

Conclusion

Luke declares the M4 MacBook Air the “GOAT” (Greatest of All Time) and the undisputed winner.

• It won in every category: Design, Build Quality, Display, Performance, Battery Life, Fan Noise (Silent), and Speakers.
• He argues that even with less storage (256GB vs 1TB), the MacBook Air is a far better machine for the target audience (students/general work) because the user experience is superior in every way that matters.
• Verdict: “No reason to buy any of these other things.”

Well, the one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb is that only one Windows laptop comes with (upgradeable, I guess) 512GB, the other two with 1TB SSDs, while the Macbook only comes with 256GB. While I agree on almost everything else, loved my own Macbook Air (Intel) to bits etc., the 256GB SSD and the upgrade prices are still hilariously sad. And yes, as a Mac user I don’t like “notch”. I’m gonna get one when Apple finally offers 512GB in the base model, if I survive that long.

I’ve used windows and Linux pc desktop and laptops for the last 25 years. Out of curiosity and because if good things I’ve read about them, I bought an Air M4 base config, the most basic and cheap… I’m blown away. I can work with it BETTER in every aspect, battery life is amazing, no fan noise, performance is stellar, my stack is same as when I was on Linux etc… I cannot recommend any other computer to anyone except they have a very specific need like having an Nvidia GPU or something like that. Amazed.

Being an ultra book, the MacBook Air was always super popular because people use ultra books in a way that doesn’t need performance like you said, but with Apple Silicon, apple is able to basically keep the amazing features of the intel MacBook Air while also +50% to the battery life and like quintuple the performance so it’s no wonder it’s trouncing everything else in the competition

every new windows, watching the mac guys sit through a laptop unboxing and windows setup process just get’s more and more entertaining. So yea, even though ive always been a windows user, the last 5 years has SOLIDLY pushed me, against my will no less, into macbooks. Although now that i’m here, i can’t for the life of me figure out why the hell i didn’t jump ship sooner. I don’t play video games. Everything i do was in a music DAW or web browser.

I bought a 2015 13″ retina pro to carry around so im not bothered if it gets damaged or stolen, it’s great. Even for mixing multi layered audio tracks, it’s great. I bought an m4 mac mini for the desk. Was a bit more trouble to get everything im used to going on that thing being arm based, but once i got it levelled out, i genuinely feel stupid for not doing so sooner. And i could have, on many occasions it would have made sense, but adamantly refused.

So he compared 1 convertible (360 flip) laptop with a touch screen, with 4 clamshells with no touchscreen but never mentioned that as a difference? Also, this guys is a HUGE Apple homer, of course he’s going to shit on everything else. Also, he too entry level PCs to compare. Both ASUS and Dell have higher end product lines.

You are underestimating how important storage is on a mac with the 256 comment. This is one of those things you know once you genuinely daily drive it. Mine when running out of storage especially with the latest MacOS, it won’t have space for swap, so it just force stops apps constantly or force restart the whole Mac. Happens at keast once a week after MacOS 26.