Windows Comparable Laptop to an M1? Suggestions.

[JimmyConrad]

Hello all,

 

Have not shopped for a Laptop for a long time. I have no clue anymore what chips are good and what brands are top in qualify. 

 

Last I remember the XPS13 was top notch. 

 

But anyway. I need a laptop. I was thinking of just getting a MacBook Air M1 at Costco for $799.99. (Since that's what I recommend my family when they ask lol)

 

But don't feel like learning excel and productivity shortcuts again. 

 

Could I ask this forum for recommendations at a sub $1,000 that will compare to the Air M1? 

 

Looking for a snappy pc, mostly doing data analysis. Excel.  Not looking to game on it. 

 

Also want the keyboard to be great. Same for track pad. 

 

Hopefully build quality is good too. 

 

Lots to ask. Maybe not possible on a the windows platform. 

 

 

Edit: what would be something comparable not necessarily at the $800 could be more. 

Thanks. 

[jaslion]

I mean any ryzen 7735 laptop will do just make sure it has 16gb of ram at least.

[DrMacintosh]

16 minutes ago, JimmyConrad said:

But don't feel like learning excel and productivity shortcuts again. 

Is there really anything to relearn though? Excel runs on the Mac. It should simply replace "alt" with "command" ? 

[Crunchy Dragon]

Honestly, I doubt it.

 

You can get close depending on the laptop, but I don't believe there's a better laptop experience than a MacBook currently. Especially sub-$1000, you'd be pretty hard-pressed to find a Windows laptop with a comparable trackpad and keyboard.

 

In terms of the overall experience of using the laptop, MacBooks don't have much real competition.

[JimmyConrad]

3 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Is there really anything to relearn though? Excel runs on the Mac. It should simply replace "alt" with "command" ? 

Well there's quite a few that use option, fn, ctrl in combo vs just alt. 

 

But I mean more because at work we use PC and at home I have a PC I just need something mobile right now.

[Alvin853]

11 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Honestly, I doubt it.

 

You can get close depending on the laptop, but I don't believe there's a better laptop experience than a MacBook currently. Especially sub-$1000, you'd be pretty hard-pressed to find a Windows laptop with a comparable trackpad and keyboard.

 

In terms of the overall experience of using the laptop, MacBooks don't have much real competition.

Is the $800 M1 Air a 8GB or 16GB RAM model? Apple has the strategy of having borderline usable base configs so the prices can be low, but once you try to spec anything actually useful, you pay huge premiums. Windows laptops usually come with much better hardware for the same price and even possibilities for upgrades. Also Apple artificially limited the Air models to 1 external display, so they're not useful for productivity tasks. 

[Crunchy Dragon]

57 minutes ago, Alvin853 said:

Is the $800 M1 Air a 8GB or 16GB RAM model?

I don't know what Costco has specifically(sometimes they have weird prices on things, also Black Friday sales are happening right now). On the used market, you can get a 16GB RAM/512GB SSD 13" M1 MacBook Air for between $750-950. If multiple monitors are a necessity, a 13" MacBook Pro with the same specs goes for around the same price. Again, that's on the used market though.

 

Depending on what the productivity tasks are, it may or may not matter for OP. macOS is pretty efficient at using RAM; from what I've heard, 8GB on M1 can go farther than most of us would expect, with the main limitation being when you really need VRAM.

[Darkseth]

2 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

If multiple monitors are a necessity, a 13" MacBook Pro with the same specs goes for around the same price.

If it's the same base M1/M2 Chip, it also features only 1 external Monitor (2 total, one beeing the internal).

It has to be a 14" M* Pro Chip to support 2 additional external Displays.

 

Or Displaylink, that works with M1 too.

 

Let's to back to the first post. Data Analysis with Excel on a Mac?

If it's Power Pivot you need, you're out of luck. Doesn't happen here. You will need a Win 11 arm VM, install Windows-Excel and use Power Pivot there.

Which destroys the efficiency a little bit (not much, it still lats forever with a windows VM).

 

 

But i do know of a Windows Laptop, that comes close to M1 Air: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Z13-laptop-review-AMD-s-premium-ThinkPad-with-long-battery-life.639685.0.html#toc-7

Thinkpad Z13 series. But the Base model with 6650u 6-Core CPU (NOT 8-Core) and 1200p Panel (NOT 3,5k OLED). Also, it has a sensory-based Trackpad like Macbooks do.

Notebookcheck maesures 14+h on wifi web-browsing, which is alot for Windows. Imagine a few hours less and there's still alot puffer.

 

They did test the Ryzen 7 + 3,5k OLED version, it managed 7,5 hours~ or so in Wifi test, compared to over 14 hours with the Base model.

And that batterylife of 14 hours is with a solid Multicore-Benchmark Performance.

 

Compared to Dell XPS 13 series:
- XPS 13 Plus 9320 has similar performance, but half the batterzlife.

- XPS 13 9315 (-U series) has similar batterylife, but half the performance. Similar perforance as a M1 in Low Power Mode, which caps at 4 Watt.

[JimmyConrad]

3 hours ago, Darkseth said:

If it's the same base M1/M2 Chip, it also features only 1 external Monitor (2 total, one beeing the internal).

It has to be a 14" M* Pro Chip to support 2 additional external Displays.

 

Or Displaylink, that works with M1 too.

 

Let's to back to the first post. Data Analysis with Excel on a Mac?

If it's Power Pivot you need, you're out of luck. Doesn't happen here. You will need a Win 11 arm VM, install Windows-Excel and use Power Pivot there.

Which destroys the efficiency a little bit (not much, it still lats forever with a windows VM).

 

 

But i do know of a Windows Laptop, that comes close to M1 Air: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Z13-laptop-review-AMD-s-premium-ThinkPad-with-long-battery-life.639685.0.html#toc-7

Thinkpad Z13 series. But the Base model with 6650u 6-Core CPU (NOT 8-Core) and 1200p Panel (NOT 3,5k OLED). Also, it has a sensory-based Trackpad like Macbooks do.

Notebookcheck maesures 14+h on wifi web-browsing, which is alot for Windows. Imagine a few hours less and there's still alot puffer.

 

They did test the Ryzen 7 + 3,5k OLED version, it managed 7,5 hours~ or so in Wifi test, compared to over 14 hours with the Base model.

And that batterylife of 14 hours is with a solid Multicore-Benchmark Performance.

 

Compared to Dell XPS 13 series:
- XPS 13 Plus 9320 has similar performance, but half the batterzlife.

- XPS 13 9315 (-U series) has similar batterylife, but half the performance. Similar perforance as a M1 in Low Power Mode, which caps at 4 Watt.

Thanks. Lots to look at. Yeah definitely know I won't be getting something comparable to the M1 price. I'm ok going more. Just don't need too much computer you know? Literally could use my phone but I like a nice keyboard and trackpad when working.