Hey, it’s Friday! If you have plans to, I dunno, maybe hang out at the bar (or pub, for the UKers) or something like that with a bunch of PC-loving friends, well, y’all will have something to talk about tonight. Microsoft fired a salvo at Apple in the form of a video short that claims that “top Copilot+ PCs” are faster than the beloved MacBook Air. You can waste 12 seconds of your life watching it below.
(I’ll give you a moment to wipe the spit take from your screen. Sorry about that, I should’ve warned you.) Cheesy production aside (“Was this comically low budget ad made with Windows Movie Maker 2 and a 5 MP camera from 2003?” commented @ItsRichieT), the major sticking point about this ad is that it makes comparisons to the M3 MacBook Air–you know, the laptop that was released in 2024 and replaced earlier this year by the M4 MacBook Air.
So the M3 Air isn’t in Apple’s active product lineup. Granted, you can buy the M3 MacBook Air from third-party retailers and at Apple’s Certified Refurbished store. But it doesn’t look good when a company compares “top” products to competitors that aren’t being made anymore and have been replaced by something better.
The thing is, Microsoft also claims the “top Copilot+ PCs” are faster than the M4 MacBook Air–it’s right on their website. But the results are nothing like the “up to 58 percent” touted in the ad. Microsoft says it recorded a Cinebench 2024 Multi-Core score of 866 for the M4 Air, and that eight Copilot+ PCs “all scored higher.” So, let me take the opportunity to do what Microsoft didn’t want to show you: how much faster those eight Copilot+ PCs are than the M4 MacBook Air (the Cinebench 2024 Multi-Core score is in parentheses).
- ASUS Vivobook S 14 with AMD Ryzen AI 9 365: 5.3 percent (912)
- Dell XPS 13 9345 with Snapdragon X Elite: 8.9 percent (943.3)
- HP OmniBook Ultra 14 with AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375: 11.4 percent (965)
- Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x 14″ with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite: 18.9 percent (1029.6)
- Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x 14″ with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite 19.4 percent (1033.6)
- Lenovo Yoga Pro 7 with AMD Ryzen AI 9 365: 17.9 percent (1021.3)
- Microsoft Surface Laptop 15″ with Snapdragon X Elite: 9.7 percent (950)
- Microsoft Surface Laptop 13.8″ with Snapdragon X Elite: 2.7 percent (889.6)
The Lenovo devices are the fastest of the bunch (I don’t know why the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x 14″ is tested twice; drop me a line if you can fill me in), but those improvements aren’t big enough to make an impression. Imagine that video, but instead it says, “Top Copilot+ PCs are up to 19.4 percent faster than a MacBook Air with M4.” That will just get you stupid looks from the Microsoft marketing department. Heck, we here at Macworld see 15 to 25 percent improvement from one M-series chip to another, and our reaction to that is lukewarm. You can imagine what we think about a Copilot+ PCs offering a less than 20 percent boost over the M4 MacBook Air: Pfft. As for all the other PCs? You won’t notice the difference at all.
We ran the same Cinebench 2024 test and got a score of 797 for the M4 MacBook Air, so clearly, results may vary.
To sum up, for your PC-lovin’ buddies who want to bring up this ad over a few pints:
- Your “top Copilot+ PCs” are “up to 58 percent” faster than a discontinued MacBook Air? Cool!
- The “top Copilot+ PCs” faster than the M4 MacBook Air? That may be true, but no one can notice the difference in real-world usage. But hey, nice of you to catch up!
- The 12-second ad? Just another example of a corporation trying to relate to the young folks.
And if they still won’t listen, just remember that they have to use Windows.
