Who has had/has a new Surface with ARM and a MacBook M1+ series

[mattpj]

I’ve got a MacBook Pro m3 pro. Which is speedy and has great battery life.

I’m no big fan of macOS and prefer windows 11 for compatibility - and the fact so much of what I do is windows based.

Every other laptop I’ve tried has one of the following issues:

It gets red hot
Its noisy
The battery life is poor

Admittedly, I don’t have an exhaustive experience of the very latest major laptops, however surely there is something like the MacBook Pro on the windows side?

I’ve seen the new ARM based windows laptops and surface.

I wanted to know how they compared with the power and efficiency of Apple Silicon?

Ultimately, I’d prefer a windows laptop but don’t want the power or battery trade off.

 

[Snapshot]

You'll have to wait until they actually ship to get get realistic reports.

 

[Mesai]

The new ones aren’t out yet but we should be getting reviews soon.

Expect better battery life but not as good as Apple. Performance likely won’t be that far off, but heat and noise should be way down.

Basically, for normal use it should be way better than the equivalent x86 system. Comparability with apps is a different question though.

 

[[HB]Rugrat]

I'm seeing *wildly* differing early reports - I suspect some sources are just repeating any old rumour to get clicks. I'm definitely in on this, I loved my M1 macbook air but really want a windows-based PC that can do the same.

 

[Bluecube]

This is pure speculation but Apple’s M chips will always be better than any other for power consumption and staying cool. The M chips are produced using bleeding edge chip lithography (6 to 4nm if I remember right) by TSMC and Apple have been booking up so much capacity that no one else has been able to get a look in.

 

[Mesai]

This is pure speculation but Apple’s M chips will always be better than any other for power consumption and staying cool. The M chips are produced using bleeding edge chip lithography (6 to 4nm if I remember right) by TSMC and Apple have been booking up so much capacity that no one else has been able to get a look in.

I think the showcase benchmarks had the Snapdragon running at much higher power levels. No doubt it’ll be an improvement over the Intel fire starters, and I’d expect to get a day of battery life with normal use.

 

[MacRS4]

I have an unbinned 16" M3 max, and a binned 14" M3 Max (one is a client's, I didn't buy both). I also have the Surface Pro Elite coming this week - I'll do a run through of my experiences of it if I get a chance. Hoping to replace my 12.9" iPad - love the HW, frustrated by the OS.

 

[silvagti]

I’m no big fan of macOS and prefer windows 11 for compatibility - and the fact so much of what I do is windows based.

Likewise. I’d prefer a windows laptop but IMO the current Apple M series chips are so far ahead of anything Intel/AMD offer that I wouldn’t buy a laptop with anything else in it at the moment.

I’m skeptical wherever the performance and compatibility on the new Snapdragon chips on windows can match their claims though.

Guess we’ll find out soon though.

 

[Mesai]

Likewise. I’d prefer a windows laptop but IMO the current Apple M series chips are so far ahead of anything Intel/AMD offer that I wouldn’t buy a laptop with anything else in it at the moment.

I’m skeptical wherever the performance and compatibility on the new Snapdragon chips on windows can match their claims though.

Guess we’ll find out soon though.

The availability of apps hopefully won’t be a problem with Windows for ARM given than anything currently maintained likely has an ARM build for macOS and therefore isn’t a stretch to do a Windows release.

 

[MacRS4]

It's an age since I've seen any compatibility issues running Windows 11 via Parallels on my Mac Mx stuff.

 

[mattpj]

Well, I thought they were already out and it's interesting to see that a few of us are having the same issues actually.

Love the Mac for power and battery life.

Not necessarily a lover of macOS.

I've started to get over not using Windows 11 atm but it is frustrating that I can't do a lot of the gaming I would like to on the Mac.

It could replace my windows pc for virtually everything... except most gaming I think. Most other software I have solutions for or a great alternative app.

 

[Bluecube]

Will games be compatible with ARM architecture?

 

[Trig]

Microsoft trying ARM again, remind me how much traction the original Surface RT and the Surface X or whatever it was called worked for them...

Don't get me wrong, I've loved the Surface devices I've had over the years but they seem to be aiming at Apple with their pricing but missing the mark..

 

[mid_gen]

Microsoft trying ARM again, remind me how much traction the original Surface RT and the Surface X or whatever it was called worked for them...

Don't get me wrong, I've loved the Surface devices I've had over the years but they seem to be aiming at Apple with their pricing but missing the mark..

The original RT devices were crap and threw out compatability with every single win32 app, destined to fail. These new ones that give you the performance but maintain compatability are a different kettle of fish.

My Surface Laptop 1 is stull going strong, doesn't quite need replacing yet, but will probably end up with an Arm Surface when it does.

 

[MacRS4]

The RT I had was a pile of garbage tbh - I used it as an email machine for a bit then....forgot about it. The translation layer (PRISM?) in the current Win ARM build is a completely different beast. Like I say, I've rarely lately come across any compatibility issues at all with my standard office/work builds. Even some unusual Outlook plugins work just fine, which was a bit of a surprise.

 

[Scramz]

I’ve got a MacBook Pro m3 pro. Which is speedy and has great battery life.

I’m no big fan of macOS and prefer windows 11 for compatibility - and the fact so much of what I do is windows based.

Every other laptop I’ve tried has one of the following issues:

It gets red hot
Its noisy
The battery life is poor

Admittedly, I don’t have an exhaustive experience of the very latest major laptops, however surely there is something like the MacBook Pro on the windows side?

I’ve seen the new ARM based windows laptops and surface.

I wanted to know how they compared with the power and efficiency of Apple Silicon?

Ultimately, I’d prefer a windows laptop but don’t want the power or battery trade off.

You might be in lucky, reviews are looking good.

 

[r22snapper]

I have the new S

I’ve got a MacBook Pro m3 pro. Which is speedy and has great battery life.

I’m no big fan of macOS and prefer windows 11 for compatibility - and the fact so much of what I do is windows based.

Every other laptop I’ve tried has one of the following issues:

It gets red hot
Its noisy
The battery life is poor

Admittedly, I don’t have an exhaustive experience of the very latest major laptops, however surely there is something like the MacBook Pro on the windows side?

I’ve seen the new ARM based windows laptops and surface.

I wanted to know how they compared with the power and efficiency of Apple Silicon?

Ultimately, I’d prefer a windows laptop but don’t want the power or battery trade off.

I have the new Surface Pro. Performance wise it feels faster in use than my i7 SP9 and happily compared to the SP9 I've not heard the fan after the initial setup. The device occasionally gets warm but no more than that, youtube and Web browsing leaves it cold to the touch whereas it would kick the fans in before. I have installed Civ 5 and GTA5 both of which work perfectly (not a massive gamer on tablet tbf). I can't comment too much on battery life as I only got it at lunchtime but I can't imagine you'll get less than about 10 hours in general usage. At this early stage I'm very impressed.

 

[MacRS4]

I'm writing this on a Surface Pro 12 core Snapdragon Elite. Only turned on a couple of hours ago, but it's finished installing my main stuff - so far, the signs are good. No incompatibilities found installing all my work stuff, and it certainly feels fast.

No real opinion on battery life as yet, obviously.

As above though, I have noticed it does get a little warm in the hands.

 

[Stu999]

I'm writing this on a Surface Pro 12 core Snapdragon Elite. Only turned on a couple of hours ago, but it's finished installing my main stuff - so far, the signs are good. No incompatibilities found installing all my work stuff, and it certainly feels fast.

No real opinion on battery life as yet, obviously.

As above though, I have noticed it does get a little warm in the hands.

Keep us updated with how you get on.

 

[Trig]

Was there not a thing about how an Apple Silicon Macbook could run emulate Windows faster than the original ARM Surface Pro's, hows that looking now?