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runjake

An equivalent-specced Surface laptop would be the following specs:

- 13" or 15" screen

- Snapdragon X Elite (which still doesn't match M3 performance)

- 16 GB memory

- 512 GB SSD

Surface laptop price is $1399 (13") or $1499 (15"), which is $100 cheaper for the 13" vs the equivalent MBA, and $200 cheaper for the equivalent MBA 15". The Snapdragon X Plus, which is what it looks like you priced out, is quite inferior to the Elite and even the older Apple M1/M2 series chips.

This is all to say that neither is a bad buy, depending on your needs.

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Also worth noting that the Macbook Air is still not upgraded to a MicroLED display (uses IPS instead), whereas the Surface Laptop now comes standard with OLED.

Only the tablet has oled option. And that is an 500$ extra.

no it doesn't, at least not according to the specs https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-lapt...

The Surface Pro has an OLED config now, which costs more, but the laptop and standard pro are still LCD.

I just bought an M3, my first MacBook in a while. I was appalled by the screen brightness and contrast. It’s really lacking.

Are we talking about AI/ML?

X Plus and X Elite NPU hit 45 TOPS. M4 is 38 TOPS...

Also, as far I know, Elite does match M3. Actually, Qualcomm promise that even X Plus is able to match it, as they say Elite is better than M3.

We'll have to wait to see more benchmarks.

PS: There's 3 Elite series.

  > Are we talking about AI/ML?

No, I was speaking to the usual single-core and multi-core benchmarks. Though you should buy based on what performance metrics you value most.

While I have a basic understanding of TOPS metrics I don’t have a good enough understanding to speak much about it — especially when I’m not sure of what exact AI/ML workloads will be used on such platforms. I mean, how many tokens/sec and what wattage does that equate to?

  > Also, as far I know, Elite does match M3.

I would disagree from what I’ve seen.

  > Actually, Qualcomm promise that even X Plus is able to match it, as they say Elite is better than M3.

The real world benchmarks will tell. I am super curious about the performance-per-watt which is something that really matters to me (heat, battery life, etc).

Can the Elite outperform Apple’s chips? Can it do it at comparable wattage, or is it going to burn your lap doing so? Can’t wait to see.

In single core performance...

In multi-core from what I've seen X Plus is faster than base M3.

I couldn't find the Geekbench results for an MBA M3, but here's for an MBP 14" M3:

Single: 3088 Multi: 11595

Non-production Elite X From Anandtech[1]:

Single: 2800 Multi: 14400

Non-production Plus X From Anandtech[1]:

Single: 2425 Multi: 13100

Slower single perf for both Snapdragons. Decent 10% jump in multi over the M3. I am eager to see how the production units will pan out on benchmarks and sustained performance.

Qualcomm's been shady in the past with their so-called "Apple killer" chip benchmarks. I don't think these are "Apple killers", but I hope it pans out, for competition's sake.

1. https://www.anandtech.com/show/21364/qualcomm-intros-snapdra...

M3 was last year though, M4 has just been released, though iPad only for now

And here's some real world benchmarks:

M4 iPad Pro: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/6036233 S: ~3747 M: ~14740

Snapdragon X Elite: https://browser.geekbench.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=snapdr... S: ~2400 M: ~14000

Note this is an M4 iPad Pro. I would imagine an M4 Mac would spec a little better, due to less heat/power constraints.

tl;dr: M4 stomps on the Elite in single-core with about 36% more performance. The baseline M4 and X Elite are about even on multi-core. X Elite has marginally better NPU TOPS performance if that's something that matters to you.

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