Apple’s new M1 processor took the laptop world by storm, with many claiming it ended the PC’s entire career.
Hyperbole and irrational fanboy aside, Apple’s M1 is a powerful chip indeed. But to get a feel for its contemporaries, we sat down and re-tested a stack of current Windows 10 laptops to get a sense of where the M1 MacBook Air 13 ends up in the laptop pecking order.
While we don’t have direct access to a MacBook Pro M1, our sister publication, Macworld does, so we scribbled from the glowing review of the 13-inch MacBook Pro M1. Macworld also graciously ran a few additional tests for our analysis. For two other results, we relied on published results from Puget Systems, a custom system builder that produces workstations and rolls out its own productivity-focused benchmarks.
The laptops we tested
Apple’s MacBook Pro M1 features its spiffy new M1 Arm-based SoC / CPU, a 512 GB custom SSD, 16 GB LPDDR4X / 4267 memory, a 13.3-inch 2560×1600 display, and a 3.1 lbs lap weight.
For our PC comparisons, we decided to choose from laptops that are similar in size and weight:
- MSI’s Prestige 14 Evo features a four-core 11th Gen Core i7-1185G7 with Iris Xe graphics, 16 GB LPDDR4X / 4267 memory, a 512 GB PCIe Gen 4 SSD, and a 14-inch FHD display. It weighs 2.7 lbs.
- MSI’s older Prestige 14 features a 6-core, 10th Gen Core i7-10710U, GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q graphics, 16 GB LPDDR3 / 2133 memory, a 1 TB PCIe 3.0 SSD and a 14-inch 4K display . It weighs 2.8 lbs.
- Lenovo’s Yoga Slim 7 has an eight-core Ryzen 4800U with Radeon graphics, 16 GB LPDDR4X / 4267 memory, a 512 GB PCIe 3.0 SSD, a 14-inch FHD and a lap weight of 3.1 lbs.
- The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 includes an eight-core Ryzen 9 4800HS, GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q graphics, 16GB DDR4 / 3200 memory, a 1TB PCIe 3.0 SSD, a 14-inch FHD display and a weight of 3.6 lbs .
Before you object to having the Zephyrus G14 laptop here, pay close attention to the weight and size of the laptop. At 3.6 lbs., It’s actually very close to the weight of the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 and Apple MacBook Pro 13, which are 3.1 lbs each. We think there are indeed those who consider the Zephyrus G14 to get the extra power that its GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q offers. Yes, the 180 watt power brick adds even more weight to the G14, but it might be worth it for those folks.
We think discrete graphics is also one of the overlooked features of the older MSI Prestige 14: a laptop that weighs less than the Lenovo Slim 7 and MacBook Pro M1, but with a GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q GPU inside. Indeed, there are several trade-offs in the older Prestige 14 to get that GPU, which we detailed in our original review, but the weight tends to be the great equalizer.
That’s why the last laptop we included is really there for a rough performance comparison, because no one would consider it from a distance in the class of the above laptops:
- The Acer Predator Triton 500 with a six-core 10th Gen Core i7-10750H CPU, GeForce RTX 2080 Super graphics, 32 GB DDR4 / 3200 memory, a 1 TB PCIe 3.0 SSD, and a 15.6-inch 300Hz FHD display. It weighs 4.6 pounds.
We especially liked this laptop for its Core i7-10750H CPU, which is very similar to Intel’s 8th generation and 9th generation “H” class CPUs found in larger laptops such as Apple’s MacBook Pro 16. Most of the laptops here have lower-powered CPUs, so we wanted to see how good the M1 and other chips are in smaller laptops compared to a chip that consumes a lot more watts.
Of all the chips here, Apple’s M1 uses TSMC’s most advanced 5nm process, while the two Ryzen laptops use TSMCs 7nm. Intel’s 11th generation “Tiger Lake” Core i7-1185G7 is on Intel’s latest 10nm process, while the Core i7-10710U is like the Core i7-10750H and built on Intel – how can we say this politely? –wise 14nm process.
Next page: performance benchmarks