Mac Fanboy Tries ARM Windows Laptops
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- Опубликовано: 26 июл 2024
- I went to the store and bought a new ARM laptop to see if it competes with the MacBook Air.
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Pick up a MacBook Air - amzn.to/4deX4sm
There are finally new ARM computers for Windows. The last time we tried them, they were... terrible. But Qualcomm has got silicon-the Snapdragon X Elite-that they say now competes with Apple silicon. And Microsoft has completely redone Windows 11 ARM compatibility with their new Prism emulation layer-similar to Rosetta for macOS. And not only can it recompile x86 binaries to ARM, it can even do graphics API translation for DirectX games! Can a thin and light laptop game better than a MacBook Air? Perhaps! In this video, we'll discuss every laptop that currently ships with the X Elite, buy one, set it up, and see if it can hang with the best-selling laptop in the world: Apple's MacBook Air.
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Rookie mistake expecting to be able to actually use a new Windows computer on the day of purchase.
rookie mistake to think you can use either Windows or macOS.
@@roccociccone597 Like how 85% of the market uses windows?
@@roccociccone597rookie mistake of you to think
@@Jst4vdeos Are you defending this bs?
@@demoman1596shrookie mistake to think you could win this argument
Your use of a low, indoor voice while reviewing the laptops proves you're one of the good ones man.
Yes, thank you so much. I agree completely. Emphasis is okay, yelling is annoying. Thank you Quinn
the bar is so low
The reason I only have very few subscriptions: too much screaming and overall stupidity
@@tylerm.9408 Could not get through the theatrics this time, I was genuinely interested sadly.
I was thinking the exact same thing. I like he was being respectful to the store and other people shopping. Good stuff.
I got second hand anger from that windows setup process. Why did you put me through that?
People unironically will claim this is better than MacOS
@@lelwani Yeah. If you've ACTUALLY set up a Mac and either transferred your stuff from an old mac or worse, wirelessly from a time capsule, you're gonna be WISHING for the speed of the Windows setup process. Jesus. Not to mention with Windows you just sign in and done. With macOS, you have to look over toggle after toggle and feature upsell AFER you've alreday bought it!. And unlike on Windows, where all the setup toggles are on one or two pages, on MacOS, it's a SEPERATE page for EVERY SINGLE TOGGLE, like location, siri, icloud sync, icloud backup, desktop sync, wallet, app store, appearance, etc, etc....
@@lelwani I use Windows primarily and Windows 11 is intrusive and annoying as fuck. I had to oobe\bypassnro to create a local account and I also had to meticulously uninstall and disable crap on my Surface Go.
@@JamesR624 bro. I've setup a mac before. Stop being dramatic. That said, I also hate macos for other reasons and use linux.
@@JamesR624 good luck using a local account without opening a command prompt just to kill the process of the authentication step. Sounds great :)
I only clicked this because I misread "Mac Fanboy" as "Mac Femboy"
Equally true
Same with me T-T, am disappointed.
same
@@akito_underscoreI have a question
What do you think the video would be if that was actually the title?
I would like to know
@@abdo-3259 As I was moving my eyes over the letters, reading the tittle, an insurmountable urge, rooted deep within me, grew at a tremendous rate. My heart pounded and my usually ever so clouded mind became crisp as a zen master's. At that moment only a singe thought occupied my mind: "Ohhh thank the lords of heaven and hell for bringing salvation on this petty mortal!!". Razing with ecstasy I moved my mouse from where it had been only moments ago and pressed the ever so intriguing thumbnail.. And, the rest you wonder? .... The rest is history..
The first time set up of Windows 11 has quickly become one of the most painful things to have to go through. The more crap MS bolts on the worse it gets
i think it’s actually ok. the ads for microsoft stuff is skipable at least but the only few actually annoying things are
-the weird winui and old explorer hybrid file explorer that can get very slow sometimes.
-the long animations for everything that are too heavy for 8,9,10 and 11th gen intel uhd gpus on lots of laptops
-the slow start menu quick settings panel and notification panel
-there is no need for any animations for opening and closing windows. every other one is tolerable but this isnt you also cant disable this animation only withou disabling every other one
I begged to have Windows 10 on my Framework laptop, but my supplier said it'd be impossible. But what fool would want Win 11?
@@togoxo the ads? windows 11 has ads?
@@gdutfulkbhh7537 people who like better operating systems
Indeed, I used to tollerate the W10 setup, now on W11 I have a custom build with an "autounattend" file that strips down the OS to the bone. It is impressive how much faster the setup and OS is
Missed title opportunity to call this an ARMs race
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Well, I know own an ARMed laptop, not sure if I'll be allowed to fly with it.
You can always edit it
That first boot experience - forced motherboard and windows updates, phone syncing, settings, 365 onboarding, popups from shovelware, incorrect clock - is infuriating.
Why can’t PC manufacturers replicate the unboxing experience of a mac? They’ve had 20+ fucking years.
It’s honestly flabbergasting
@@snazzy Some -- not all, but some -- of this is due to the last minute recall of Recall.
Why did it take Apple 20yrs to let you snap windows properly?
@@Jst4vdeosthat feature bugs me so much. Why does it exist. Let me put my windows where I want them.
@@Jst4vdeosbecause the design language of Macs is to not use snapping windows. The tool bar always at the top of the screen means that you can have multiple instances of windows for the same program open at once without having a bunch of repeating tool bars. It’s less important now, but applications like photoshop used to not take up the entire screen and had floating windows with tool bars off to the side. It was just a different philosophy for an operating system.
"Let's see if I can install the entirety of Steam faster than the than a single-- It's already done."
🤣
Steam is basically just a Chrome Electron website.
except the installer you download is actually just an installer :) as soon you open it for the first time, it downloads the steam actual, around 300mb if I remember correctly. It also auto-updates every time you open it
not sure in what exact is it THAT much better than Windows
@@Entertainment-to be fair, the Xbox app is also just a fancy web browser
@@Entertainment- I thought it was CEF like Spotify
I have to say, I generally enjoy your content on Mac because it's extremely informative because you are a pro on a mac!
But what did I just see here? 😐. What is your aim here honestly? You set up your laptop once and you forget it. If you really wanted to test how good or bad the new windows laptops are, just test them as your daily drivers!
I mean, they are ultra books and Qualcomm specifically told the world they're not gaming laptops and the first thing you do is to test some games??? I mean come on man! what happened to you??
Also, you said now to test the "business" aspect; then you proceed to do a benchmark, handbrake and opening speed test for browser and file manager?????? I mean seriously??? This is honestly your way of testing how good these laptops are???
Emmm, how about testing them for some actual work?????? I really didn't expect such a noobie's video from you.
Bro, he is apple fanboy, why do you expect him to be fair with windows.
"More recent games"
"Red Dead Redemption 2"
RDR2 is 6 years old mate...
Still very vRAM heavy. For example, the game couldn't even run properly on some budget laptop GPUs (specifically with under 6 GB of vRAM).
RDR2 looks way better than actual recent games
@superqaxclub That's especially true on PCs with higher quality textures, which of course uses a lot of vRAM; you really needed at least 6 GB of vRAM for the maximum presets even back then. Granted, even the 8 GB GPUs were borderline even back then.
still the high water mark of video games as a medium.
Fitting for Windows
Best Buy Microsoft Advisor here! One small correction: At 7:18 you say that the Surface Lineup is not carried at Best Buy stores and is only displayed there. I can verify that this is not the case, however after the launch the Surface lineup quickly sold out and a lot of Models cannot even be ordered, which is likely what you encountered. Small nitpick, and I am sure others have likely mentioned that already, but I figured I'd say something just in case. Love your content!
Glad to hear it! That makes more sense than what I was told haha Good to hear they’re selling well!
Thanks for the clarification, that sounded like utter insanity
I bought one for my wife at Best Buy here in Bellingham WA. Killer system. She jumped between trying out Surface and Lenovo Yoga Slim. Guess which one we bought? Yoga. Better keyboard, OLED and finally a quality laptop that competes with a MacBook Air. Now, if only the apps and drivers get converted from vendors.
Oh, one more thing. MacAfee still like a virus that comes standard with constant nag messages until you figure out HOW to REMOVE IT COMPLETELY!?!?! When MS has Defender, why does this MacAfee nightmare continue?
Can confirm. I tried to order the $999 Surface Laptop and it was out of stock in store and online I had to get it from Amazon 😂
Hi. First - love this video.
I am a finance professional so I use microsoft excel every single day. Every single youtuber will run video rendering benchmarks, but for the love of the god can someone please tell me how the Snapdragon processors hold up when working with hundreds of thousands of rows of data in excel.
For those not in finance, excel is the sole reason why we require windows laptops. This will never change.
This is very good and something I will aim to test more thoroughly in the future. Thanks!
Great point.
Exactly my thought… Love Snazzy - but every single tech influencer does the same shit… Gaming, gaming, gaming… And for productivity - video edits… Realistically - how many people edit videos on their laptops? I don’t know anyone
Yes! While I edit video and game I'm also a sales manager and running excel on an ultrabook when I have to handle docs with 90k rows and lookup tables across multiple tabs is excruciating. I could have cried when IT said I didn't have to use my personal device anymore and was stuck with an 11th gen i5 as my work computer 😂
@@maximusg88For whatever it’s worth, we usually do AI/ML stuff and dev build compiles. We just didn’t on this once since it’s a first-look and not a full review.
Was laughing my ass off throughout the video at your reactions, but one of my favorite parts was when you made the Death Stranding guy jump to his death while calmly saying "yeah, so 30-40 FPS" 🤣
Not to take anything off the Snapdragon Elite but the the reason Edge launches super fast is probably because by default it has Startup Boost enabled so its literally already loaded in memory when you boot Windows
Any subsequent launches looked within margin of error
macOS is similar.
@@snazzyhuh, Safari being preloaded with macOS is actually news to me
When did they start doing it? A quick google search is not helping
@@HaikuOezulinux, mac and windows all use almost all the unused memory to load frequently needed files (including app files) into memory. It’s called cached or buffered RAM.
@@mehregankbi I know that happens on subsequent launches, but what I'm saying is Edge has a feature called startup boost where it literally launches the edge process upon boot and keeps it permanently in memory so that it will always take less time to boot
@@HaikuOezu I didn't know that part. Do you have a source regarding this behavior on windows?
Nice that Lenovo doesn't appear to have any stickers on the laptop like many of the ones you looked at at the store. I can't believe they are still doing that!
Oh no, there’s still two! Haha. An X Elite one and a Yoga one listing specs which is insane cause it’s like YA I ALREADY BOUGHT IT I KNOW
They're obligated to as part of their agreements with the chip manufacturers. The really big players like Apple or Microsoft have special agreements where they're not required to.
I don't give them any credit as long as they're preinstalling McAfee
What's wrong with the stickers they look good plus they also tell you important info at a glance like CPU spec's or which CPU it is etc...
if you havent got the physical capacity to peal them off maybe you shouldnt buy a laptop
I really wish that gaming wasnt so restricted to windows because I genuinely hate running it on my machines.
Until Apple opens up the Metal API and supports Vulkan, the best we can hope for is the Steam Deck continuing to be a sales wunderkind.
@@xenotiic8356 apple opening up anything seems to be fever dream to me. Maybe one day when they get forced but probably not anytime soon.
Proton Exists
At this point, the only games that are *restricted* to Windows are ones with specific kernel-level anticheat like Fortnite, Valorant, D2 and League of Legends.
Aside from those, Proton is extremely solid. I haven't run into anything so far I couldn't get working on my Debian desktop. There's a handful of things on ProtonDB that don't work but nothing very high-profile.
@@xenotiic8356 I believe Asahi Linux has Vulkan and OpenGL 3.1 support now.
If you walked into my store, I’d probably poop myself
I’m just a fat dad-looking type man lol
@@snazzyyou forgot to ask him where’s his store! lol
He is not only very handsome, he is among the smartest Tech RUclipsrs in the world.
15:22 As an arch user i can confirm this. At least the install guide gives you relevant useful information in a clear manner.
i had my frustrations with mac too but boy seeing the windows experience again i will never complain again
I am pretty sure that the AV1 encode test was run purely on the CPU on both machines. You will need to go into the video tab to change to any hardware encoder.
Oh frick. You’re right. Let me retest again in the morning and I will provide results.
--also, av1 is on the m3--
@@patrickthecoolest6969 Only decode though, right?
@@snazzy handbrake's AV1 presets use SVT (software encoder) to ensure compatibility even when hardware encoders are present and even the h264/hevc presets tend to use software rather than nvenc or videotoolbox. to switch encoders you don't need to switch presets, just go to the video tab and change the codec/hardware to whatever you want on the same preset. that keeps all other settings identical and you can be sure it's specifically using the hardware encoder.
@@PerihelionSummer oh, you're right
"I'm going in as just a regular user" - I've been using Windows for the last 15 years and I've never heard of Winget
OK, regular nerd user.
SgtComputerIlliterate
I'm not sure you can really call yourself a user, just standard consumer.
Winget is just the Microsoft Store with extra steps.
@@Mario583a tbf im not sure I've ever used the microsoft store either lmao
10:24
"at least this has facial recognition which is more than what can be said about the iPhone."
Quinn was indeed having a stroke.
My brain had been frying for over 35 minutes by that point lol
I was wondering what was going on
"I'm pretty sure you can install Arch more easily than you can use Windows." You know, the Linux experience might honestly be pretty good on those devices, would love to see a video on that
Unfortunately support among Snapdragon X Elite laptops for Linux is pretty spotty so far. None of the laptops mentioned over on the Phoronix news site use ACPI (Advanced Configuration & Power Interface) so every machine enabled so far has needed a DeviceTree file for Linux to utilize all the built in hardware. Some machines also boot the X Elite chip's Adreno GPU in an almost nonfunctional "secure" mode if an OEM signed binary file isn't present to zap it awake.
A recent article mentions the Lenovo Thinkpad T14s Gen 6 getting support in the next Linux kernel, but ridiculously USB-A ports still don't work.
I think we take it for granted how standardized and relatively open the x86 pc platform is. ARM has had good Linux support for years, but rather than standardizing the platform, ARM the company has relied on their licensees and industry groups to actually come up with all the enablement for software on devices people actually buy. Weirdly that has meant things like binary blobs to boot even the most seemingly open ARM computers, like the Raspberry Pi.
Once Linux support is squared away though, I tend to agree with you. Power management on Linux with ARM can be very good (superior to Windows) assuming all the connected devices within a machine are supported. And since Linux has been more portable to CPU archtectures and most software used on Linux is compiled from source, ARM compatibility is less of an issue.
You literally can run it at all on these computers yet, linux is an unsupported hack job held together by strings and broken wishes.
yeah but I think secure boot is forced on so that anything other than windows is not bootable
@@TalynOne lol wut?
Does Linux have an x86 emulator though?
I don't know why but I thought these machines were at like a 300-500 price point not 1000+ 💀💀
Qualcomm CEO said we'll have 700$ machines in 2024. Right now they simply can't provide enough chips to lower the price.
@@Bibbatron aka he lied
As a person who uses Windows everyday, the struggle is real.
Every time I restart my PC after an update, Microsoft gonna ask me “oh do you want to connect your phone? Do you wannn-“
apple does the same, I have macbook pro and ipad and reality is the battery life of apple being outstanding is in the eye of the user, i see it better than windows but not so much better and simple stuff like virus software Is hard to download
Yeah, I'm primarily a Linux person, but I wanted to setup a Windows 11 VM because of reasons... I got really bothered by how Windows was constantly like "what do you think of this? What about that? Hey, login with your MS account, why don't you? Can we get this data from you? No? How about that data? No? But this data? No? Hey, you better set this one up for your own security, so why don't you do that?"
Exaggerating a little, it's just rather off putting when you're not used to it, so my VM plans never materialized because Windows was too annoying 😂.
@@entroheat Why would you download an antivirus in 2024 lol. Especially on Mac
The joke about arch being easier to install made my day.
Microsoft for a massive company really goes out of their way to things hard to do
Microsoft tries to force all kinds of crap down your throat, Arch does not. I don't use Arch, BTW.
Arch is actually really easy to install these days. So he's right.
I feel the frustration setting up new laptop
it's just a one-time setup bruv...
@@Pakistani890 people said Mac is hard to get used to
the problem is i never touched a macbook in 17 years as i never used one
Some how i know how to set it up
If you match windows vs apple laptop setup i guess you see Apple would won that part as is their idea if they want to add an account not their people
@@Stormlywing Well, Mac is not hard to get used to (there is a learning curve, but it is ok). In fact, you can keep using both Mac and windows (like I do) without problems.
@@Pakistani890No it's not. This is just the first of many "f u"s that Microsoft has to offer.
Just a note: The companion app Link to Windows is available on iPhone. So you could use it instead of dismissing it as "I don't have Android". Otherwise great video. I can't wait to buy an ARM laptop in a few years and run Linux on it ;)
True but the setup screen says to click Skip and set up Phone Link later if you have an iPhone
iMessage doesn’t work
of course it has updated, it doesn't update while the PC is shutdown and kept in a box, it's the same for every laptop purchased stop complaining dude!
Yeah, that part is hard to watch. He is clearly nitpicking stuff.
apples software not being compatible is an apple issue not a Microsoft issue.
fun fact: if you just format your drive and install a fresh W11 it won´t ask for so many updates at least on a x86 PC/Laptop, and you remove all the bloatware the laptop may come with
@@andrescarrasco1248 I think he wants to show that he is having grave difficulty because he loves his Apple devices. He even says so in the beginning and throughout the video.
i recently got a new laptop (13th gen Intel) that came with a fresh copy of windows 11, no preinstalled bloat from the manufacturer and it still had to restart like six times to flash BIOS updates, took what felt like 40 minutes doing some feature update then tried to make me log into an MS account just for me to find out i still had multiple pending updates (including *ANOTHER* BIOS update) once i got to the desktop.
besides that most of my laptop manufacturer’s bloatware just installed itself through Windows Update anyway (besides McAFee, of course)
i’m afraid it’s just a Windows problem, no matter what architecture.
@@dawgre you can just fresh install windows for no bloat and also remember that the laptops you buy might be sitting in the warehouse for weeks or months so updates start piling up espically on windows 11 as it's Microsoft's focus righ now.`..
I wouldn't recommend this because it might fuck up built-in devices like the fingerprint reader or Windows Hello camera. Never got the drivers fixed on them. That's what happened to me, anyway.
Nothing like buying a new computer and having to reinstall because its pre-built with "virus" lol
i think the most impressive thing in this whole video is that the alarm never went off when you went to pick up the laptops in the best buy
I’ve honed in this skill over many years.
Finally a tech reviewer that actually talks about the price.
I find it crazy that Best Buy was marketing these ARM-based laptops so prominently on their building. I personally (as a software engineer) think that in their current state they're mostly good for IT professionals who know exactly what are they getting into. Can you imagine the average person buying it and realizing they can't use their printer with it?
Most printers these days work fine with universal drivers. You really think a printer needs 1GB of drivercrap installed?
Your daily reminder that it's not 'early days' for Windows on Arm. It's been around since well before Apple Silicon.
That just makes it even more sad. Their first ARM was like a decade ago and they are still struggling with the absolute basic user experience.
You are comparing a modified phone chip to a dedicated chip made for Windows. The Elite X is technically first gen. Of course, if Microsoft didn't botch and abandoned Windows Phone, maybe they would have learned to code Windows for Arm more effectively instead of relying on QUALCOMM to make a chip that can run Windows efficiently. We won't know because development on Windows 11 on old Snapdragons barely exists except for someone reverse engineering Surface Duos to run Windows in his spare time. He has an uphill battle though but as a proof of concept, not impossible so what's Microsoft's excuse?
dude that sponsor spot at 7ish mins was on point. like insanely well integrated. showing how it could be expertly used in the store, and not mentioning how you filmed it until after.
this was a really high quality video all around.
Thanks so much!!
this is a good video. i’ve used windows my entire life but wow, windows 11 has killed my love for it. the setup process is just a gauntlet of subscriptions. never thought id consider a macbook but here i am.
While I agree it got worse… realistically, how many times will people actually go through those steps in their lives?
I have a macbook pro and a windows desktop and if it weren't for gaming I'd switch to mac completely. It's just less intrusive and annoying with updates and useless notifications, with windows you have to be afraid of some useless change with pretty much every update.
It can take a few months to fully get used to, and appreciate, macOS, but once you do, you will wonder how the hell you put up with using Windows all those years.
@@dadthelad Opposite is true when youve used both for a bit too, window management in MacOS feels archaic
Maybe you can also think about switching to Linux.
As a long time Linux/Windows user, and also now at 10+ years into IT, the main reason I dumped Windows out of my life and bought a mac and still use Linux is exactly the happening around 15:19 everything is just a poor user experience.
Don't get me wrong Windows is a good thing to have for niche gear that corporations support, but even in those industries we are starting to see Linux on those special devices. Tektronix now has Ubuntu as an option for it's hardware. IXIA is fully supporting linux now and has basically abandoned it's windows stuff ( i say this tongue in cheek windows no longer gets feature updates first exclusively anymore).
Windows 11 is a failure of user experience, never have i had an Operating System get in the way of me doing work as much as Windows 11 has. It boils down to a hubris that Microsoft knows best for the user and they are no longer listening to feedback. The biggest feedback i can give them at this point is start fresh build a new version of windows that isn't legacy from essentially Vista now.
Legacy support is why Windows sucks so much lol.
@@Dave102693 Not really! A lot of UI design and bloatware has nothing to do with legacy support! It is a conscious choice. Including the annoying ads and broken functionality.
Windows 11 was final straw for me. I went full-time to Linux after it's release.
for me it was MacOS that was a failure in UX. It is designed for a single screen, and can be used in only one way, unless you convert it to a Linux dsktop (which you can also do on Windows).
Inconsistent, random shortcuts, full screen apps being a separate virutal desktop? Cannot alt-tab between two chrome windows? Cannot have a shortcut to Chrome profile?
With multiple screens, you get only one task bar. If you want to interact with an app on another screen, you need to first click to focus it. On Windows I can just move cursor to another screen and scroll, without loosing focus on the first app. Very useful.
Default terminal sucks balls, everything default sucks balls to be honest. "Natural" scroll on a mouse? Sure, you can change the setting, but it also affect the touchpad, so now that's upside down.
Yes, you can install apps to fix that (for most you have to pay BTW), but you cannot tell that out of the box experience is better. It is better ONLY IF you use single screen, and are not a power user.
I spent a month with Macbook 14 with M2 Pro and 32gb of ram, yes it was fast, yes the screen is good, touchpad really good and speakers are better than any other laptop. And when you push it, it gets to hot to keep on your lap, just as any windows laptop.
I still want two screens, proper speakers or headphones, external ergo mouse and keyboard. For the price of that Macbook I can get i9-14900k tower with 128gb of ram, AND a laptop to remote into it on the go. The
No OS is perfect
You choose your own poison!
Whenever I buy hardware as a gift, I open it to update including ipad or phones. it's nice to be able to prep things without signing in and missing out on the "new user experience"
That was not a fair comparison, the X Elite was charging while the MacBook was using battery. Sometimes Windows machines throttle while simultaneously handling the power input.
I have a short attention span and I never watch videos in full. I watched every second of this video.
Great flow, great content.
Keep creating!
I appreciate that!
I'm a grown ass adult that prides myself on not getting easily angry at anything. But the windows 11 experience (especially updates and as you perfectly showed, the unboxing and setup experience) makes me want to develop my own OS to get away from it. It's maddening.
Linux from Scratch got you covered!
@@moomew64Or even any non Ubuntu distro.
Really enjoyed the flow and style of this one. Nice work!
Much appreciated!
Snazzy Labs: Remember when Edge was good
My Memory: 404 file not found
As someone who has to use it at work, it's not nearly as bad as I expected. I'd still much rather be using Firefox, though.
It still is pretty ok, being chromium based and what not, also has some features missing from other browsers like more supported languages for spell checking
For me personally, the pinnacle Windows laptop has got to be the ThinkPad T480. It has all the ports you’d need and more, the screen resolution can be upgraded to a 2K resolution, two DIMM slots for 32GB of RAM, an NVMe slot and then an extra slot for a 2242 SSD, and my favorite thing: Powerbridge, which is one internal battery and another external battery. That way you can swap out your external battery for another one without powering off your device or losing any of your work. It’s a shame that never got adapted as the norm.
when an influencer says the only thing going for it is the price then they are forgetting about their poor audience who make up for most of their audience. price is the most important factor these days for most of the people.
@@karanjoshi2662 No, we all have thousands of dollars laying around so we all can afford both an iPad and a Windows device. We would never just get one Windows tablet and be happy.
If you have a tight budget, you should not buy a new Laptop from this generation. The best value is always the last generations on clearance sales. For example the M1 Macbook Air have been going on really good sales the last few months. If you only need a Web browsing machine a Google Chromebook is much better then entry level Windows machines.
@@2failepic let's tell it all the way. A Chromebook is better than even an iPad for actual work and if you're a poor college student, depending on your major, a Chromebook is definitely better than buying a new laptop or an iPad. I think you can even run full Linux on Chrome OS. You should also be able to run Wine for some Windows stuff if you truly need it.
I second your idea of buying an older computer instead. Though I could buy a brand new laptop, I instead use a Dell tablet from 2017. I just don't upgrade it because of what I use my Windows tablet for. It's running Windows 11 and Ubuntu. I found that I needed more storage so I upgraded the internal storage (the screen is meant to come off easily for servicing) to 1tb for $35. I have been using it for a couple of years and it's great. It is definitely a good idea to shop for an older device.
I would go for a used ThinkPad. My first years as a software developer I worked on a used thinkpad I got for around $400. Obviously not ideal for heavier use such as Solidworks or a complex DAW setup, but solidworks is arguably not ideal for these machines either.
M1 MacBook Airs are like $650 at Walmart now. I’d take that and an external monitor over any of these and still come out ahead.
Most people in the world use Windows laptops. The whole "I MUST have a Macbook" thing feels like such an American thing. Windows laptops have been great since 2020, it's just that the expectations for them have shifted significantly since M1. It's weird seeing so many people complaining about what most people I know perceive to just be regular stuff you do with a computer.
It’s not an “American thing”. Switzerland and Luxembourg have a higher ratio of Mac users than the US does. The UK, Iceland, Canada and Australia have the same ratio as the US.
To be fair, when M1 came out it was a shitshow on day one too, regarding software compatibility.
Comparing a system that is several years developed with a one month old is not fair.
The comparison between first gen SOC vs 2nd gen SOC is a very Apple thing to do. This Mac head would actually compare it to a 3rd gen SOC to give Elite X an obvious disadvantage if he had an M3 on hand.
Great video! Also happy to see that you’re answering comments and connecting with your audience. It’s rare to see that 2024.
Imagine spending a $1000 on a laptop and not getting OLED at bare minimum in this day and age when you could spend half that for a OLED tablet.
Love how all the comments are from people who haven't even watched the entire video yet...
Including yours 😜
they're bots man
One thing I noticed during the gaming comparison of the X Elite and the M2, was that the X Elite was plugged in throughout. Curious to see if there'd be any performance drop if it were running on battery.
That's interesting because some X Elite laptops do increase performance when plugged.
I know the HP Omnibook throttles nearly 50% on battery, but HP said that was a firmware issue and should be fixed...or so they say. Others suggest a loss of 5-10% on battery power.
In some synthetic tests it was like 10460 vs 10452 points plugged vs unplugged (made up numbers .. just for example)
14:25 Using the Windows Store is a big mistake. Nobody uses it ever. Just download programs the normal way.
You do know we can actually go through that same "process" trying to install actual Pro apps (code, design, editing, 3D, etc) on an iPad Pro. This experience isn't great, but the one for creatives on Apple juggling between two devices to draw, code, test for example, is horrible. On a PC you suffer for the initial setup, but then you're flying. On Apple's devices, it's always "nice", but always limited.
Gotta love the RUclips AI jump ahead that pops up on sponsored spot and allows me to skip it automatically saving me a few double taps.
One of the first mistakes: Using the windows store. I don't think many people do; they just download each individual program installer caveman style.
Linux gets more appealing all the time... mostly because windows has gotten worse.
I can't get over how windows made installing things worse, while Linux is actively being worked on to make installing things easier. I'd say installing things on Linux is actually better than Windows now. With appimages and flatpak integration, it literally takes all of 2 clicks to get what you need
@@zUltra3D I agree and disagree.
When it comes to proprietary apps and even many non proprietary apps, you often have third parties packaging the applications for specific distros which I think hurts the maintainability and security of it.
It means that often updates are late, or that the app developer might not know what changes have been done and will therefore have poor feedback mechanisms.
why are you spending 80% of the video on gaming when these are clearly not meant for gaming. It took Apple 3 years to put out game porting toolkit to make mac gaming even possible.
You could've tried video editing (timeline performance) , photo editing (layers) or something else you would do on a normal macbook.
your pain at the windows experience is hilarious. Once upon a time Mircosoft cared about it's users, not anymore.
I'm glad you went through this troubleshooting nightmare, so I didn't have to! ARM on Windows isn't there yet, so I won't be buying one of these anytime soon.
M1 was introduced in 2020. If you are expecting a complex and fragmented ecosystem of Windows applications to support a new processor at launch. That's your fault. Also when Windows is still coming out with new x86 systems unlike Macs, which switched to ARM in one go.
You can criticize Windows for their stupid update system as much as you want. But this test is not practical. Windows on ARM platform is not for general users as most will still go for a x86 CPU. ARM platform on Windows will progress a lot slowly. And currently no users is gonna buy them. And if they did, they'll regret their decision.
11:18 One of the most annoying things with the clock is if it gets more than 24 hours off, the sync wont work because of SSL issues.
SSL time sync issues usually start much faster than 24h difference. It’s usually 5 minutes or so of difference.
Haha
gotta love how GrapheneOS instead of using ntp or similar they just get the output of date from FSF
That's not true. First, it's not SSL (or even TLS) it's kerberos. Second, it's technically true that you can get this to happen if you're an enterprise using Active Directory DS to secure NTP with preshared keys backed by kerberos. Except you can't get a kerberos session key to do the request encryption with in the first place if your time is that far off, and it will fail back to unsecured NTP (which will obviously work fine). So the way to manually break it is to have the correct time, authenticate and get a session key, and then change the clock to be outside the window.
Also, SSL doesn't care about time sync at all (you're thinking of Kerberos), it only cares that the certificates are within the notbefore and notafter window. Which is usually months if not years. For instance the current youtube cert I got is from June to September of 2024. Rather more than 24hrs
You're doing the Handbrake encoding wrong. All the tests you did were using the CPU. You have to specifially change the encoder to use hardware encoding.
Also as for gaming, graphics APIs are the same on x86 and ARM, as they are just GPU APIs and not related to the CPU.
Did all apps work on Mac when it was released? Why do you compare a native game for MAC and an un-optimised game? it's the same when I compare MAFIA 2 on Windows and on MAC - OHH it's not working on MAC, MAC is a bad PC...
I think because we’ve all been told that PC is better for games, and that “all games work on PC but not Mac” has been hammered into everyone. Kinda debunking the PC is for gamers myth.
@@phoxrenvatio Just one game not working doesn't mean a debunked myth. Actually, PC is far better for many many many games than MAc. Even a dead clock is right twice a day....
Thank you for being honest, so far yours is the only one that is actually comparing xElite laptops to Macbook covering every aspect. I was especially interested in trackpad, speakers & fan noise. Looks like I'm gonna be holding on to my M1 MBA for much much longer.
I have run into Quinn twice in that exact Best Buy. Why he hasn’t hired me yet is a mystery 🤔 haha
😜
It’s 2024 and Microsoft still couldn’t figure out a good new user experience
The worst part about these laptops is the OS that they are advertising as a feature
MacOS is by far the objective worst OS on the market, that’s well known. The sad thing is that they killed bootcamp to install an actual usable OS on a MacBook.
You can use Parallels to run WOA and it works great seeing that it is a VM. Best of both worlds!
I had the exact experience when I setup a windows laptop for my friend. It's just so frustrating and pain staking. The fact that my friend needed me to help setup tells a lot about the experience.
Windows has become trash, can't stand it anymore. I'm holding out buying new arm hardware until it runs well on Linux. And no Mac os isn't an option, is garbage in it's own ways.
For what it's worth, the Snapdragon ARM chips _under load_ do not have much better efficiency than recent X86 chips; ie. if you played demanding games on the X1E your battery would tank just like it does on X86. The main benefits are low-load processes (word processors, video players, light web browsing, etc.) and super idle time.
Is x86 still full speed on battery without blaring the fans and heating your lap like a furnace?
Right...the low hanging fruit of efficiencies.
Yes, no wonder Qualcomm were reluctant to post efficiency tables! My X Elite SP11 gets around 8-9 hours SOT at 50% brightness, which, for me, comes from an M2 MB Air 15 that gets double that, which isn't exactly earth-shattering. Do any intensive apps or multitasking, and battery life falls off a cliff? It has awful efficiency, which is not a shocker. Bearing in mind, they dump 12 performance cores in to boost multi-core benchmarks for bragging rights- and didn't they brag about that?
Useless review, wasted 80% of time complaining about the new device setup on Windows and that a 1st gen product, specifically labeled as not good for gaming, is - shockingly - not good for gaming 🤦♂ then only did a browser benchmark test and some video editing. Great value 👌 Oh and about that Apple Music test, you can just open it in the Browser and use it from there.
Ignoring the hardware all operating systems are pure pain.
Either you go for Windows and have bugs while having 0 control over your operating system (atleast u get games that have anticheat?)
or you go for MacOS and have to go through 20 settings to even just install programs outside of the AppStore
or you go for Linux... You have all the freedom, privacy and customizability... But it takes a LOT of time to learn
edit: 15:22 arch is pretty easy to install nowadays. You can probably install gentoo easier than Windows on ARM.
It's 2 maybe 3 clicks pipe down.
As a Linux daily driver user for around 10 months I can safely say that at this point I would rather take a bullet to the foot than have to daily drive Windows on ARM. Before I used Kubuntu I use Windows 10. I still occasionally run it in a VM for Fusion 360. That bullet to the foot was not hyperbole. I selected the location with thought.
Review an Acorn machine next
Ah yes, we love Arm.
RISC-V Framework!
I got the Yoga Slim 7x, tried it out for a few days, and ending up returning it. . .because I liked it so much that I ordered the 32 GB/1TB version from Lenovo directly, and the upgraded version was only around $80 more.
Yeah right dude
It's not a gaming device I don't know why creators can't get that through their minds. It's a Windows ARM Workstation. NOT a GAMING device.
it’s useless right now, for both usecases. period.
One thing I noticed is that the Lenovo was plugged in, while the mac is on battery. The results would be quite different if the Windows laptop had to compete with battery power only.
That laptop setup was hilarious! Great upload
You act like a kid when you want to and a pro when you want to. It's very annoying because you know that is not made for gaming
According to research, 60% of Windows laptop users play games. So it is essential to not release a Windows laptop that doesn't do this well. Qualcomm has managed to lock itself out of 60% of the market, which is not a great business plan. Let's stop making excuses, this is 2024 and there is no plausible excuse that the X Elite sucks so much at gaming.
I didn’t say it was made for gaming.
Well done ! You have thrashed almost all the Co-Pilot notebooks !! 😂🤣😂
sir, did you just say that minecraft is not a real game?
I have a whole middle school, including competitive Minecrafters (school stuff), who will compose fine argumentative essays that Minecraft is indeed a real game.
this guy seems like he would be the happiest with a chromebook. chromebooks update in the background. absolutely ZERO interference. Once it's done downloading, you click the install button, the screen flashes for a second and you're updated. Not even apple can do such a thing. An entire OS update from both mac and windows takes several minutes. An entire update from chrome OS literally takes 5 seconds of your time.
Hope Coca Cola paid for the ad in the background at 30:59
This is exactly why I switched to a MacBook years ago and never looked back
i tried, but end up selling my M1 macbook air and back to windows.
@@fazloondon I change the background to windows 11 and set the menu bar always to hide and hide dock and you see windows 11 wants to be macbook so bad
How can windows 11 look like mac without a menu bar on top
( Remove the top for the taskbar as it would get them lawsue as their system would mirror theirs
Windows is like climbing up a mountain: you can climb any mountain you want but it’s always a challenge. MacOS is like taking a chair lift to the top: not every mountain has a chair lift, but it’s effortless to get to the top of the ones that do
There's a weird pretentious vibe any time mac daily drivers talk about windows, and this is coming from someone who uses both in relatively the same fashion you describe. It's like Linus trying to make a video about using a non windows OS - there's an immediate obvious bias. I don't know if this is a tech person thing or something content creators do for content, or what, but it's arguably more annoying than the actual issues you're running into. Yes, I guess the first start process for a windows machine can be kind of annoying (though I personally don't really find it to be, you only have to do it once normally), but the frustration you display feels fake and pretentious. You're not thinking about the process as a normal user who is expecting to have to set up their new computer, you're thinking about the process from the perspective of someone who doesn't like that stuff, and you're not doing a good job of being objective. It's like 5 clicks of either saying no, or choosing to set up the things offered. Most regular (read: non-tech-literate) consumers don't care about this sort of thing and just click the button pertaining to what they want to do.
All of that aside though, it's not like there's not a setup process involved with buying a new mac. Even in express setup, you have to click through useless things like screen time, analytics consent and siri setup and additionally siri data collection consent. You don't like the things offered in a windows setup, I don't like the things offered in a macos setup. The difference is that I don't think those things offered are bad because apple offered them to me and they're apple products.
Having the out-of-box-experience run with every single OS update is objectively insane. And Microsoft upsells you at every corner with ads, sponsored content, and paid services. Say what you will about macOS, it does not do that.
@@snazzyum, have you seen the app store!?
I love reviewers who like the yoga when every repair shop in the country sees more yoga hinges fail then any other laptop on the planet.
Seeing a mandatory BIOS update in Windows setup is wild
Can the X Elite support multiple monitors without any silliness like the MacBook Air?
That’s the one of only a few things I still can’t stand about Macs. I use both Win 11 and MacOS all day every day. No real preference.
Yes. I just tested the HP EliteBook Ultra with two 4K monitors + laptop display. Works flawlessly, and Windows 11 display management is excellent. I have multiple other Snapdragon X Elite systems in and they should all be able to do three monitors, that's just the one I was testing today.
@@Greengart what he means is that if they dont need any display link BS docking station to be able to use one cable for plugging multi-monitor setups
They do but I am not sure why you would use an ultrabook for this type of desktop setup. I would get a Windows with a dGPU and you can get them a lot cheaper than these X Elite laptops.
@@andyH_England Purely for productivity and simplicity reasons here. Small space and work from home.
I use both Win11 and a Macbook for work, along with my personal Macbook. Quickly swapping between them is annoying at my desk.
Even the most basic Windows laptops since 2015 could use my Usb-C/Thunderbolt 3 basic-ass Dell docking station with two 1080p monitors just fine...my Macbooks require some finagling
2:25 Good camera work - didn't lose lock on the primary target.
Windows set up is "annoying as you have to log into a Microsoft account". As far a I recall, you have to have an Apple ID (Apple Account) to log into any Apple device? Same situation.
Although Apple prominently encourages you to sign in with an Apple ID, you can easily skip that during initial setup, at least on a Mac. It's also possible on Windows 11, just not straightforward. You can open a command prompt with Shift + F10 (or is it F11?) and then run oobe.exe with a specific switch (I had to do that when installing Windows 11 on a VM on my M2 Mac). I also remember some trick where you enter an invalid email address for the Microsoft account or perhaps just a regular username and Windows lets you continue with a local account.
@@PerihelionSummerthere was literally a "skip for now" when they were talking about signing into a Microsoft account that they just breezed right by. 🤷
and that, folks, is why linux is better, the only accounts you need are root and a local user account lol
I've had Macbook for the past 15 years and never signed in with Apple ID. I've only made one a few years back to buy an Apple Software.
I used to love visiting Best Buy as a kid. Thanks for letting me feel like a kid again. Great video!
A little unfair about the first-time Windows setup process, MacOS is similar. But the state of updates is inexcusable, AND thank you for highlighting the problem with the Windows Store and Xbox app. It is INSANE how awful they are.
half of this video is showing exactly why I switched to linux - because its just less headaches
I feel your frustration. I've always complained that the Windows setup is crap next to a Mac setup.
Man has never updated a bios before 💀💀
lol , but me too !
I own a Dell G5 15 SE gaming laptop for personal use and use a Dell Latitude 7420 for working at home (typing on that computer now). The quality difference with the business-oriented Latitude is incredible. Sure, it doesn't have a built-in GPU, but it does have a far superior build, keyboard, and trackpad. The G5 15 SE has its place. It was well under $1,000 and is wicked fast, but you can tell they cut a lot of corners with the build. The power brick for my gaming laptop is an absolute boat anchor as well. I have taken it on a couple of trips, including on airplanes, and it was unwieldy to say the least.
Windows laptops can be amazing. This Latitude also has Iris Xe graphics, and that's probably all I would really need for my personal use anyway to do light RAW photo and 4K video editing. I've been thinking about picking up an older Latitude for personal use just for the portability and power efficiency, but I don't really need another computer around the house. I'd love to get a Macbook, mainly for Final Cut Pro, but I can't really justify the cost. What I'd really like is an iPad with FCP that can also handle editing and offloading my RAW photos when I travel. Many Android tablets are perfectly capable from a hardware perspective but lack creator apps. I'd love to see a powerful RAW photo editor on a Galaxy Tab or a Kindle Fire. I know there's Snapseed, but it doesn't work with my Olympus RAW files. Even the Olympus / OM System app doesn't work with my Olympus RAW files, which is insane.
The first thing people have to do when they get their new product is update everything. It's very true. People forget that the product is only shipped out with the update from the factory, but when you get it, the actual update is already released in the Wild.
Do any of these Windows laptops allow for RAM expansion? That would be a nice differentiator to the Mac.
They do not.
do you know what SoC means?
These chips are essentially the same as the SOCs we see on phones and tablets, so they have soldered RAM, which is unlikely to ever change. Even AMD and Intel will/have moved to soldered RAM in their ultrabook lineups. When prices fall, gaming and Pro machines will likely continue with modular RAM, maybe CAMM2.
@@andyH_England Agreed most will likely solder it. However I'm not seeing the RAM as part of the chip package, which itself makes it different than Apple's implementation.
Maybe if they eventually get to a desktop implementation we will see a return to expandability, which would be a welcome differentiator.
@@xeon2k8 Of course, but I'm not finding anything that says the RAM is part of the on-chip package in these designs. The RAM seems to be implemented external to the rest of the chip. (Even if the memory controller remains part of the SoC)