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Microsoft Says Windows Laptops With Snapdragon X Elite Will Be Faster Than M3 MacBook Air

mxrider88 said:
It is full of bugs and glitches. It has been rock solid until mavericks and then a free fall.
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No. I’ve not got any that I am aware. What bugs does it have? I googled it, found some (apparent) alleged crashing bugs like Contacts Freezing when printing. I just tried it and wouldn’t freeze no matter how many contacts I added. 28 pages and it was flawless. So pray tell. What bugs? Maybe it’s your install? Did you drop your mac, because that might cause some issues.

H2SO4 said:
Whether it is here or not is another matter but efficiency isn't always the case. If I need to get X done is Y time, something that sips power but leaves the job unfinished is useless. If efficiency was the metric by which we choose goods we'd all be using the same products.
Context is important.
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I totally agree. How people use their computers and what they need is all about context. I’ve edited 4K Video with multiple streams on my 2020 M1 MacBook Air whilst doing some PS Lightroom work without problems. But it’s all about use case. Maybe the MacBook Air or the Windows equivalence isn’t the right tool for a real power user. They’re designed for portability not Hollywood movies. Saying that MKBHD has no problems rendering 1.5 hour videos with multiple 8K streams on his M2 MacBook Pro.
 
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iAppleOrchard said:
Would love to see competition finally come out.

Also how is battery life on this?
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You should know that companies only talk about things they know that are worth sharing with people.
If they omit very important specifications in their statements, they do this with a reason, and I think you can guess what the reason might be. Apple does this as well. When they don't talk about that one feature in their presentation you know it is subpar.
And yes, I think the battery life is as important as performance on a mobile device.
 
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I may finally get a Windows laptop. Before Apple Silicon, most computers were abysmal, especially laptops. I have no problem switching to something better if it is proven faster. I love my MacBook Pro and Mac Studio, but only because of Apple Silicon, there is no way I would have bought a Mac with an Intel chip. The iPad Pro paved the way.
 
It's telling that they compare it with the MacBook Air and not a Mx Pro series. The Snapdragon X Elite is definitely going to run hotter and the stats on it are not that compelling even compared to an M2.

Plus the issue remains. Sure, you'll be able to run Windows. And probably most of Office (some of it will still contain legacy code). But what else?

End of the day this doesn't affect Apple negatively one iota. It's a shot across the bows for Intel/AMD/NVidia/etc.

(I'm old enough to remember both Windows NT for RISC and Apple's A/UX and their Mac emulator for Solaris. Wish I wasn't...)
 
JPack said:
And it supports three external 4K displays.

Apple put so much focus on M3 ray tracing, they didn’t leave enough silicon for CPU performance.
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Nope. They HAD to up their GPU game as they are so behind Windows machines with dedicated Nvidia cards. With no way to add a graphics card, Apple had no choice but to add Ray Tracing to remain competitive or see themselves go down in flames as it was obvious Windows would get the Nuvia chips or comparable sooner or later.
 
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steve09090 said:
No. I’ve not got any that I am aware. What bugs does it have? I googled it, found some (apparent) alleged crashing bugs like Contacts Freezing when printing. I just tried it and wouldn’t freeze no matter how many contacts I added. 28 pages and it was flawless. So pray tell. What bugs? Maybe it’s your install? Did you drop your mac, because that might cause some issues.


I totally agree. How people use their computers and what they need is all about context. I’ve edited 4K Video with multiple streams on my 2020 M1 MacBook Air whilst doing some PS Lightroom work without problems. But it’s all about use case. Maybe the MacBook Air or the Windows equivalence isn’t the right tool for a real power user. They’re designed for portability not Hollywood movies. Saying that MKBHD has no problems rendering 1.5 hour videos with multiple 8K streams on his M2 MacBook Pro.
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Continuity doesn't find the phone most of the times, it keeps on dropping out, safari video playback issues on certain websites, AirPods automatic switching not working properly, fast user switching often not working when using Touch ID, sharing a link from safari to a message doesn't open messages, unlock with Apple Watch unreliable, receiving phone calls from iPhone to Mac doesn't show you from which line they are coming in (dual sim on iPhone), can't change time and date on a batch of photos in the photos app, only one by one, it works on iOS.

MacBook Air m2, never dropped, never taken out of the house actually, it failed the other day, won't turn on anymore. I just received a replacement unit, fresh install, same issues mentioned above.


If you use it for browsing the web it works fine yes.
 
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If these snapdragon CPU's run hotter and use more wattage per core just to be able to beat Apple's M3 silicon then it is no competition at all.
 
so Qualcomm's 12-core CPU will be compared to Apple's 8 core M3?
yeah, good luck with that
 
Karma*Police said:
Of course they compete with Windows machines! Why do you think Apple almost went out of business in the 90’s? It’s because MS closed the usability gap considerably with Win95 running on superior hardware at 1/2 the price of a comparable Mac.

Admittedly, Apple isn’t as vulnerable today thanks to Steve having built a stronger ecosystem but Apple has been struggling to grow sales for the past couple of years and Qualcomm surpassing Apple’s silicon won’t help.
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The 90s was a very different time. As you said, the eco system was quite different. And Apple did not have the brand and status symbol halo it has now.
Apple is not aiming for the cheap Windows-based market. So they are not competing.
And for the high-price segment, people buying expensive Windows laptops usually know what they are doing. They want or need Windows. Apple is not competing there either because Windows is not viable on AS Macs. In the same right, people looking for MacOS machines would not even consider even a very high end PC.
 
mxrider88 said:
Continuity doesn't find the phone most of the times, it keeps on dropping out, safari video playback issues on certain websites, AirPods automatic switching not working properly, fast user switching often not working when using Touch ID, sharing a link from safari to a message doesn't open messages, unlock with Apple Watch unreliable, receiving phone calls from iPhone to Mac doesn't show you from which line they are coming in (dual sim on iPhone), can't change time and date on a batch of photos in the photos app, only one by one, it works on iOS.

MacBook Air m2, never dropped, never taken out of the house actually, it failed the other day, won't turn on anymore. I just received a replacement unit, fresh install, same issues mentioned above.


If you use it for browsing the web it works fine yes.
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Wow! I really feel for you. I do everything you do, except I don’t use dual sim and I don’t use the photos app on my Mac. I’ve never had a problem. Although I had to restart my Apple TV in the gym today for the first time because it didn’t connect properly to my watch for Fitness+. But it is probably 6,7 years old. I’m getting a replacement soon so I can use the FaceTime feature.

When I made the earlier reply to you I was on the Mac (iPad now) and the only annoyance was that my Mac picked up the iPad straight away as an additional screen. I wasn’t expecting it and my cursor slipped over.

I know some people have endless problems, and maybe I’m just lucky. I rarely see a bug.
 
saberfi said:
If they also match Apple's energy efficiency and thus quiet/cool operation with their product, I will of course change my mind.
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They'd still have to match the other perks of buying a Macbook such as the build quality. And Surfaces are amongst the worst in terms of reliability so Microsoft manufacturing these devices isn't confidence-inspiring. Apple had more than their fair share of issues like the butterfly keyboard disaster in Macbooks multiple models and years but I'd still rather take my chances with Apple hardware.
 
What people so easily forget is that a Mac is still about more things than just the silicon. I just bought the MacBook Air M3 and here we have a great keyboard, fine sound, excellent trackpad and screen. Finally there is the overall design and I'm more impressed with this new laptop than almost anything I've owned before.

Once again, I looked at all the Windows-based offerings and found nothing that could bring all this together. I also noted that prices are far closer than they once were. I still build Windows desktops and I'm happy with the quality of components there and the flexibility self-build can offer well above what Apple allows us to do. When it comes to laptops however I'm still with Apple.
 
50% of Windows users may want better battery life; performance for browsing and emails will be fine.
40% of Windows users won't know or care.
10% will buy a performance rig because they think they need it.

Batttery for me please
 
That’s really good news, even if it’s a huge energy hog, it means Microsoft is looking to push Apple and the gap is closing.

Hopefully that means that the M4 will come with 12/16 GB base RAM.
 
The ARM architecture performs intrinsically better that the Intel Core and AMD’s variants. That means less silicon area to perform the same overall computation, which leads to better power efficiency.

The other aspect is the node size and smaller is usually better. As Apple has booked TSMC for the best process, it has a head start. As the volumes are huge, probably they have a reasonable cost.

Qualcomm will need to find a spot delivering an ARM variant that can take most x86 applications, better performance per what than Intel, and maybe something else (other than running win/x86 workload) that Apples does not do. It could be user’s ability to upgrade laptop RAM, change the SSD, run Linux natively…

Personally I prefer MacOS but eventually Windows and Linux are instrumental.
 
These comparisons are completely pointless. Most people buy a Mac because all their other devices are Apple. People buy a Windows laptop for one of two reasons. Either they want a cheap laptop or they want something that runs their windows based software. I have never heard of someone walking into a store and buying a computer based what's faster on paper.

I really hope Microsoft isn't still trying to sell their products with the 1990s/ early 2000s style specs and speed focus. They have so much more to offer.
 
Confused-User said:
You can't just take any design, turn up the voltage, and run it at higher clocks. For any given design, they simply will not run past a certain speed no matter how good the cooling is. There are very major changes in both CPU (and GPU) cores in M3, without which the CPUs probably wouldn't run well, or quite possibly at all, at the higher clocks they're using.

They've also made major strides in multicore efficiency, though they could stand to do more there. There's been a LOT of progress. Saying that Apple has "rested on its laurels" is just massively ignorant.
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Yet the speedup from M1 to M3 is almost entirely because of clock increase from 3.2 GHz to 4.05 GHz. Almost no IPC improvement for M series while AMD, Intel and Qualcomm have all increased both frequency and IPC. Would you agree?
 
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In my view, Apple will never bring Bootcamp back. They had a reason for it in the past; there is no reason for them to do it now.
 
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