Apple and Microsoft are two of the biggest names in the entire tech space, and when it comes to $1000 laptops, they each have really compelling offerings with the MacBook Air and Surface Laptop 4. The MacBook Air has been around since 2008, with the late-2020 model being the most current version available. The newest MacBook Air is also the first one to be powered by Apple's M1 chip, making it the fastest and most efficient MacBook Air to date.

By comparison, Microsoft's Surface Laptop 4 was unveiled in April 2021 as a relatively modest upgrade over the 3rd-generation model. There are numerous configurations of the Surface Laptop 4 to choose from, including a $999.99 variant priced exactly the same as the baseline M1 MacBook Air. Each laptop has its own sets of pros and cons, with the ultimate decision coming down to each person's individual use case.

Related: Adobe Photoshop Gains M1 Mac Support: Here’s What You Need To Know

To kick things off, let's talk about what the Surface Laptop 4 does better than the MacBook. Apple's promise of 15-hour battery life from the MacBook Air is among the best currently available, but with the Surface Laptop 4, Microsoft was able to go a step further with 19-hour endurance. Even more noteworthy is that the Surface Laptop 4 has a touchscreen — something Apple still refuses to add to the MacBook. This allows users to interact with the Surface Laptop 4 in a way that just isn't possible on the MacBook Air, and depending on the user, that could be enough to settle this comparison. Finally, the Surface Laptop 4 has a removable SSD should users want to manually upgrade it at some point down the road.

Why The M1 MacBook Air Defeats Surface Laptop 4

Apple M1 MacBook Air MacBook Pro bokeh background

In other regards, the MacBook Air stands out as the better device — with its biggest advantage being the M1 processor. This is the first Apple-made chipset to be available for the Mac, and simply put, it's a performance beast. The M1 chip is built on a 5-nanometer process, has 16 billion transistors, and has unified memory to drastically improve performance and efficiency. As for the CPU itself, it's an 8-core design with up to 3.5x faster performance compared to the Intel-powered Macs. The AMD Ryzen 5 4680U in the Surface Laptop 4 is a custom chip exclusively for Microsoft that hasn't seen real-world use yet, but all signs are pointing to it being weaker in just about every way. More powerful Ryzen chips in the 4000-series have already benchmarked considerably lower than the M1, likely indicating that the 4680U will be a much less capable chip compared to Apple's.

Another win for the MacBook Air is its port setup — featuring two USB-C ports (with Thunderbolt 3) and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The Surface Laptop 4, by comparison, has one USB-C, one USB-A, a headphone jack, and the Surface Connect port for quickly charging the laptop. While that's a fine setup, two USB-C ports in 2021 make more sense than USB-C and USB-A. Not to mention, the lack of Thunderbolt on the Surface Laptop 4 could be a deal-breaker for some potential customers. Elsewhere, the two laptops are fairly similar. The $1000 configurations for each come with 8GB RAM, 256GB of storage, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.0.

At the end of the day, whether someone should buy the MacBook Air or Surface Laptop 4 comes down to what they want to get out of their next laptop. For someone that really values having a touchscreen, needs the longest possible battery life, and wants to have the option of upgrading the SSD down the road, the Surface Laptop 4 makes the most sense. By comparison, shoppers that want breakneck performance and more capable ports will be better-suited with the MacBook Air — not to mention the benefits of using a MacBook with other gadgets in the Apple ecosystem. Both the MacBook Air and Surface Laptop 4 have their unique advantages, and considering everyone has different wants/needs for their computer, that's a good thing.

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Source: Apple, Microsoft