Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
The Surface Laptop was always mean to be a proper MacBook Air competition . It had the sleek design and branding to pull it off , but was always miss in functioning and battery lifespan to vie .
With the move to Qualcomm ’s Snapdragon X chipping and Copilot+ , though , there was a renew hope that theSurface Laptop 7th Editioncould not only compete with theMacBook Air M3 — but actually defeat it . To my own surprisal , after spending some time with the equipment , I ’m convince it may be the best Surface equipment ever made .
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
Specs and configurations
Both laptop have 13 - column inch and 15 - inch class interpretation . The Surface Laptop 13.8 - inch model starts at $ 999 for a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chipset , 16 GB of RAM , and a 256 GB SSD . The M3 MacBook Air has a starting price of $ 1,099 , though it amount with just 8 GB of RAM . An equivalent MacBook Air configure with 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of entrepot comes in at $ 1,299 . It should be mentioned , though , that sum up the supererogatory memory include an upgrade with two additional GPU cores .
Both companies charge an extra $ 200 to double the storage to 512 gigabyte or $ 400 to get to 1 TB . That have in mind in general , the Surface Laptop is $ 200 tawdry than the MacBook Air . The one caution is that Microsoft charges $ 200 to go from the Snapdragon X Plus to the Snapdragon X Elite — still come in $ 100 cheaper than the MacBook Air .
Design
These laptop have a lot in common . They ’re both thin and calorie-free gimmick , add up in two different sizes that line up pretty well in terms of dimensions . Both are attractive laptop , and both are among the well - built laptop usable today .
This time around , the Surface Laptop has thin bezels , though not as quite as slim as the MacBook Air . Then again , it does n’t have that notch either . Both laptops also have screens with rounded recession , though with the MacBook Air , it ’s just the top corners .
While the Surface Laptop 13.8 - column inch model is sanely sparse and light at 0.69 inches and 2.96 Sudanese pound , the MacBook Air 13 is madly thin at 0.44 column inch and it ’s more or less lighter at 2.7 pounds . Then theMacBook Air 15is just 0.45 in thick and weigh 3.3 pounds , compared to the Surface Laptop that ’s 0.72 inches dense and weight 3.67 Pound . The MacBook Air is considerably thin , and there ’s no acquiring around that .
The other major difference between these two laptops is in color options . Both devices offer four colour choice — the MacBook Air with Silver , Starlight , Space Gray , and Midnight — and the Surface Laptop 7th Edition with Sapphire , Platinum , Black , and Dune . Microsoft ’s options are more bluff , while the MacBook Air ’s are a bit more subtle .
Keyboards and touchpads
The MacBook Air 13 has Apple ’s Magic Keyboard , with corpse one of the best keyboard around . It has declamatory keycaps with muckle of key spacing , and the switches are idle and snappy . The Surface Laptop 7th Edition ’s keyboard has been updated , and it ’s a virtuous joy to type on . I like the larger keycaps of the MacBook Air , including in the role row .
Both laptops now have tactile touchpads . The MacBook Air 13 ’s Force Touch touchpad is as dear as always , with uttermost preciseness and reactivity and the Force Click feature that adds another dimension ( no punning intended ) to accessing additional functionality . The Surface Laptop has a novel haptic touchpad in a wider formatting . The 13.8 - inch role model ’s take care dainty and big , though the 15 - inch example use the same size of touchpad , leaving lot of jobless distance around the palm rests . The 15 - in MacBook Air has a larger touchpad that well fills out the space .
The Surface Laptop ’s display is touch- and playpen - enabled , however , something that the MacBook Air 13 ’s display ca n’t boast .
Connectivity, webcams, and security
The Surface Laptop has two USB - C / USB4 port , a USB - A 3.1 embrasure , a 3.5 mm audio jack , and the Surface Connect port for charge . The 15 - inch model throws in a microSD card slot for respectable measure .
The MacBook Air M3 has two USB - C / USB4 port with Thunderbolt 3 living , a 3.5 mm sound jack , and a MagSafe 3 connective for charging . That gain the MacBook Air a slightly more modern gadget but without the bequest support . observe that the Surface Laptop can connect to three 4 K outside display , while the MacBook Air M3 can connect to just one with the intragroup display dynamic and two with the lid closed .
Wireless connectivity is more forward-looking on the Surface Laptop , with funding for Wi - Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 . The MacBook Air M3 is limited to Wi - Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 .
The Surface Laptop unquestionably need the overall win in full term of connectivity .
Each laptop has a 1080p webcam , and the Surface Laptop has neural processing unit ( NPU ) reenforcement for various AI features such as Microsoft ’s Studio Effects for background blurring , automatic framing , creative filter , and more . Both laptop computer have access code to AI potentiality that can be swear out locally , though the Surface Laptop has a more powerful NPU — at least until the MacBook Air gets updated to theM4 .
The Surface Laptop has an infrared camera for Windows 11 Hello facial acknowledgement , while the MacBook Air M3 has only a Touch ID fingermark reader .
Performance
The most significant upgrade to the new Surface Laptop is the transition from Intel to Qualcomm ’s Snapdragon X chipsets . The new chipsets offer performance that rivals the MacBook Air ’s Apple Silicon M3 chipsets , which like Qualcomm ’s are based on the Arm architecture . The Snapdragon X has two variant : the 10 - core Snapdragon X Plus and the 12 - core Snapdragon X Elite . The M3 chipset has eight C.P.U. kernel . According to leak out benchmark , the Snapdragon X Elite is fast in Geekbench 6 while the Snapdragon X Plus might be around the same speed .
Thefirst examination surely seems promising , but we ’ll have to wait for courtly bench mark testing of Qualcomm ’s chipset to say which is faster . It ’s likely that both laptops will be very fast for productivity exploiter , with performance in creative covering an loose head . The Snapdragon X chipset use the Qualcomm Adreno GPU , which might be somewhat slower than the M3 ’s eight - meat or 10 - core GPU , but again , that remain to be seen . We ’ll note that the Surface Laptop has fans , while the MacBook Air is fanless . That makes the MacBook running game quieter , but it might cap sustained carrying out more than we ’ll see with the Surface Laptop .
Both laptops have neural processing units ( NPUs ) , which Apple call the Neural Engine . Qualcomm take 45 trillion operations per 2d ( TOPS ) , while Apple says the M3 reach 18 TOPS . If these numbers are comparable , the Surface Laptop will have faster on - gimmick AI performance until Apple releases a MacBook Air with the M4 chipset , which Apple claims hits 38 peak .
Display and audio
The Surface Laptop has two display size — 13.8 inches and 15 column inch — both in the 3:2 aspect ratio . The 13.8 - inch display runs at 2304 by 1536 and the 15 - inch at 2496 by 1664 , which is just somewhat less keen than the MacBook Air ’s 13.6 - column inch 2560 by 1664 and 15.3 - column inch 2880 by 1864 . All displays are IPS , and the Surface Laptop display have the reward of running at 120Hz compare to the MacBook Air ’s exhibit that are limited to 60Hz .
The Surface Laptop and MacBook Air have very similar quality — most identical coloring material accuracy , contrast , and colouring intensity . The one area where the Surface Laptop has an upper sharpness , however , is its brightness . It maxes out at 561 nit , while the MacBook Air get up to 497 nits . So , the MacBook Air is sharper , but the Surface Laptop is quicker and brighter .
In terms of audio , however , the MacBook Air has a arrant advantage . The MacBook Air M3 13 - in has an excellent four - speaker audio frequency organisation that ’s better than most rival , while the 15 - inch variant has the same six - utterer audio with force - canceling woofers that equalize the more expensive MacBook Pros . That ’s the best audio uncommitted on laptops today . The Surface Laptop has a pair of Omnisonic speakers that propose through the keyboard . The system provide decent audio , but it ’s not on the level of the MacBook Air .
Portability
Both laptops are highly portable , in both their 13 - in and 15 - column inch variant . However , the MacBook Air M3 is the most portable laptop of all , being thinner than any other laptop currently available and well tripping than the Surface Laptop .
Microsoft is claiming that the 13.8 - inch Surface Laptop will accomplish up to 20 60 minutes of local video playback and up to 13 hours of active web usage , and the 15 - in version up to 22 hours and 15 time of day , respectively . In our testing , the MacBook Air M3 13 - inch achieved 19.5 hours of web browse , which would make it significantly longer - last than the Surface Laptop .
Given the fact that the master reasonableness for Windows on ARM is longer assault and battery liveliness , we ’ll be interested to see what our testing shows . It ’s possible that the MacBook Air M3 will retain its leading in efficiency and provide importantly longer battery life than the Surface Laptop .
It’s as even as it’s ever been
The Surface Laptop is the best MacBook Air rival there ’s ever been . For many years , it had the potential drop but never could live up to it . With the 7th Edition , the Surface Laptop improves performance , assault and battery biography , exhibit , and trackpad . On top of that , it ’s somewhat cheaper than the MacBook Air and is more upgradeable , as you could swap out the SSD if you take to .
That ’s not to say that it ’s an outright winnings . The MacBook Air still gets respectable battery living and is considerably thin . In that sense , it ’s better at being an exceedingly portable small automobile — specially on the 13 - inch model .
For my money , I prefer the extra screen literal demesne of the 3:2 scene ratio of the Surface Laptop , though you ca n’t go wrong with the MacBook Air either .
