WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.640 How much do you think this laptop costs? 00:00:03.640 --> 00:00:06.800 This MacBook. Which one is this? The M1? 00:00:06.800 --> 00:00:10.880 It's an M1. That's like $800. Seven fifty USD. 00:00:10.880 --> 00:00:14.080 Four thousand dollars. Really? 00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:18.440 Twenty seven hundred. I told you I don't say numbers. I was gonna say fifteen hundred. 00:00:18.440 --> 00:00:24.240 Fifteen hundred dollars US. Eight ninety nine or something. How much do you think this HP? 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:28.240 Horizon five. Five hundred. Eight hundred nine hundred. 00:00:28.240 --> 00:00:32.560 Five ninety nine. Eight fifty. Nine hundred and fifty. 00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:35.560 Twelve hundred. Twelve? 00:00:35.560 --> 00:00:39.400 The MacBook is six hundred and fifty dollars. Six hundred what? 00:00:39.400 --> 00:00:42.520 Six fifty. What? What? 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:45.520 And this PC is six hundred and sixty. 00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:48.680 They're brand new. They're brand new. 00:00:48.680 --> 00:00:53.920 I don't even, you don't even use Macs. My eight gig is a little rough. 00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:58.920 We'll find out. When Apple released the M3 MacBook Air earlier this year, 00:00:58.920 --> 00:01:02.920 they discontinued the venerable M1 MacBook Air from 2020. 00:01:02.920 --> 00:01:09.920 Except they didn't. Because Walmart stepped in and started selling the M1 brand new for seven hundred dollars 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:13.920 before further discounting it this summer to six fifty. 00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:17.920 It's actually mind-boggling because Apple never sells a laptop for this price. 00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:20.920 It's cheaper than what they charge in the refurbished store. 00:01:20.920 --> 00:01:23.920 And it kind of shakes up an assumption many of us have when buying a laptop, 00:01:23.920 --> 00:01:28.920 which is that one can get a faster, more featured Windows laptop for cheaper than any Mac. 00:01:28.920 --> 00:01:31.920 When I was in college I did confront this when buying my first laptop 00:01:31.920 --> 00:01:37.920 and because the equivalent Macs were around three to four hundred dollars more than the HP I was looking at, 00:01:37.920 --> 00:01:42.920 I bought the HP. It had a fingerprint reader that they supported for one year. 00:01:42.920 --> 00:01:47.920 But how does that change with a MacBook that's only six hundred and fifty dollars? 00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:52.920 To find out, I went hunting for a PC best suited to fight against this MacBook 00:01:52.920 --> 00:01:54.920 and came up with this. 00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:00.920 It's the HP Pavilion Aero 13. 00:02:00.920 --> 00:02:04.920 At the time of writing, it was on sale for only six hundred dollars. 00:02:04.920 --> 00:02:08.920 The one I have, however, has the sixty dollar high resolution display upgrade. 00:02:08.920 --> 00:02:12.920 So it's a bit more. This is not a bad looking laptop, 00:02:12.920 --> 00:02:16.920 really channeling the classic lines and proportion of the MacBook Air. 00:02:16.920 --> 00:02:19.920 It's like two weighing in at a spelt one kilogram. 00:02:21.920 --> 00:02:29.920 Power wise, it's no slouch. It has a Ryzen 5, 8640U, 16 gigabytes of RAM, and 512 gigabytes of storage. 00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:32.920 Both of those are double that found in the MacBook. 00:02:32.920 --> 00:02:37.920 And the M1 is getting to be an old chip hitting its fourth birthday come November. 00:02:38.920 --> 00:02:41.920 In my tests, the M1 did the same thing. 00:02:41.920 --> 00:02:46.920 In my tests, the M1 did start to show that age compared to the x86 Windows chip. 00:02:46.920 --> 00:02:50.920 The Mac still has impressive single core performance in Cinebench and Geekbench, 00:02:50.920 --> 00:02:57.920 but the Ryzen's extra two cores and multi-threading push it slightly ahead when all the cores are lit up, though not by much. 00:02:57.920 --> 00:03:03.920 However, Blender's benchmark exposes the MacBook's greatest weakness, memory, or lack thereof. 00:03:03.920 --> 00:03:08.920 The Monster and Classroom benchmarks show the two chips performing quite close to each other, 00:03:08.920 --> 00:03:11.920 but Junk Shop outputted a conspicuously low number. 00:03:11.920 --> 00:03:17.920 And when running Blender's GPU benchmark, the Junk Shop stage filled the memory and did not finish. 00:03:17.920 --> 00:03:27.920 I got no results. If you are interested, I did run these tests on a 16 Gigabyte M1 MacBook Air with the extra GPU core they offered back in the day. 00:03:27.920 --> 00:03:34.920 And having both of these upgrades does push the GPU performance results far ahead of the HP, but neither are available anymore. 00:03:34.920 --> 00:03:40.920 So yes, 8GB is quite stingy, especially considering that we get on an iPhone these days. 00:03:40.920 --> 00:03:49.920 In an $1100 M3-powered MacBook Air, it's unacceptable, but because the M1 is an older, slower, and less expensive chip, it's less of a bottleneck. 00:03:49.920 --> 00:03:54.920 And to be fair to Apple, I saw lots of 8GB Windows laptops in this price range too. 00:03:54.920 --> 00:04:02.920 In the real world, when browsing on the HP in edge with a bunch of tabs open, it gave me a couple of memory full warnings. 00:04:02.920 --> 00:04:07.920 Of course, this is thanks to me clicking between tabs and surfing sites full of advertising cookies. 00:04:07.920 --> 00:04:11.920 And so I opened up the same tabs and apps on the MacBook to see how it fared. 00:04:11.920 --> 00:04:16.920 Yes, the memory filled up. Yes, memory pressure pressed into the yellow. 00:04:16.920 --> 00:04:20.920 Yes, SWAT memory was utilized. But it didn't feel slow. 00:04:20.920 --> 00:04:25.920 The caveat here is that macOS is using SWAT memory, which is using the storage SSD. 00:04:25.920 --> 00:04:31.920 And if you fill that up too much, which you will because there's less space, your computer will slow down. 00:04:31.920 --> 00:04:36.920 And perhaps even more surprising, the Sims runs slightly better on the MacBook. 00:04:36.920 --> 00:04:40.920 In War Thunder's benchmark, it appears that the Ryzen performs much better. 00:04:40.920 --> 00:04:44.920 But more so, macOS has a microscopic list of supported games. 00:04:44.920 --> 00:04:48.920 So if you want to go beyond these two, you'll want to get the HP. 00:04:48.920 --> 00:04:54.920 Though I should note that with its integrated graphics, this is categorically not a gaming laptop. 00:04:54.920 --> 00:04:57.920 I'm actually quite impressed with how cool the Ryzen runs. 00:04:57.920 --> 00:05:05.920 Yes, it has a fan and can get a bit audible, but it gets nowhere near as hot as Intel chips I've used in older MacBooks. 00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:10.920 And I should note that playing the Sims, the MacBook gets as hot as I've ever felt it. 00:05:10.920 --> 00:05:15.920 Oh, and look at the ports. This is a selection I could only dream about. 00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:24.920 HDMI 2.1, USB-A, and the Ryzen chip can output up to three external monitors alongside the built-in display. 00:05:24.920 --> 00:05:29.920 A major improvement over the M1's single external display limitation. 00:05:29.920 --> 00:05:34.920 You can also upgrade the storage if you think the generous half a terabyte isn't enough, 00:05:34.920 --> 00:05:38.920 as the HP is easily serviceable and the storage isn't soldered on. 00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:41.920 You can't upgrade the MacBook Air even at checkout. 00:05:41.920 --> 00:05:49.920 The basic skew it is. Oh, and despite being modular, the HP's SSD is notably faster too. 00:05:49.920 --> 00:05:53.920 So, for out-now performance, the HP is the way to go. 00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:56.920 It is simply faster and more capable. 00:05:56.920 --> 00:06:01.920 But as a package, the MacBook is still better. 00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:05.920 For one, it has doubled the battery life. 00:06:05.920 --> 00:06:11.920 Even this two-plus-year-old unit will last me an entire day with about eight hours of screen-on usage. 00:06:11.920 --> 00:06:14.920 I'm lucky to get half that with the HP. 00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:18.920 Then there's the trackpad. Apple's glass-clad Force Touch trackpad is perfect. 00:06:18.920 --> 00:06:21.920 While the HP's surface feels good and is responsive enough, 00:06:21.920 --> 00:06:24.920 the physical click requires a lot more force. 00:06:24.920 --> 00:06:28.920 And so it feels more exhausting to click my way around Windows. 00:06:28.920 --> 00:06:32.920 It's not so bad if you just tap through, but I can't get used to that. 00:06:32.920 --> 00:06:39.920 It's the same story with the keyboard. It's solid, if a bit slappy sounding, but the key actuation requires more force. 00:06:39.920 --> 00:06:45.920 That said, the HP has longer key travel, and others who try to here have an easy time typing accurately and quickly with it. 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:49.920 Too bad there's so much flex under the board, though. 00:06:49.920 --> 00:06:54.920 If you're used to Apple keyboards like I am, you really have to calibrate for that. 00:06:54.920 --> 00:06:59.920 On the other hand, I think the M1 MacBook Air has the best keyboard they fitted to any laptop, 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:02.920 even compared to the newer models. 00:07:02.920 --> 00:07:05.920 These inputs really do reflect the differences in build quality. 00:07:05.920 --> 00:07:14.920 The HP is lighter in your bag, but the recycled metals and ocean-bound plastics do feel cheaper than the solid chunk of aluminium the MacBook is hewn from. 00:07:14.920 --> 00:07:18.920 I mean, look, you can't open it with one finger. 00:07:18.920 --> 00:07:24.920 Back in 2020, Apple upgraded the display on the Air to produce nearly every colour in the DCI-P3 gamut. 00:07:24.920 --> 00:07:29.920 HP's upgraded panel, while matching in pixel count, can't show as many colours, 00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:34.920 only offering full coverage of sRGB, though it is a bit brighter. 00:07:34.920 --> 00:07:38.920 Oh, and the speakers. The MacBook Airs are the weakest Apple make, 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:42.920 but as long as you don't run them at full blast, they are still better than the HPs, 00:07:42.920 --> 00:07:45.920 which sound exactly like laptop speakers. 00:07:45.920 --> 00:07:51.920 I'm relieved to see that software bloat on Windows laptops has gone down since the days when I bought mine. 00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:56.920 Meanwhile, Apple keeps turning on iCloud photos with every update when I don't want it. 00:07:56.920 --> 00:08:03.920 And while that brings them closer together, Windows is still very busy. 00:08:03.920 --> 00:08:09.920 If I was looking for a laptop for school right now, I'd pick the MacBook. 00:08:09.920 --> 00:08:15.920 Yes, the HP is more capacious and powerful, but only slightly. 00:08:15.920 --> 00:08:19.920 The MacBook, however, is a much better package. 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:27.920 We've never really been in a place like this where a MacBook is so inexpensive it touches on value PC territory. 00:08:27.920 --> 00:08:32.920 It's a great place to be. Thanks for discounting this Mac Address. 00:08:32.920 --> 00:08:38.920 I'm curious in the comments below who among you would be able to live with this M1 MacBook Air 00:08:38.920 --> 00:08:41.920 because you'd get a great deal if you can. 00:08:41.920 --> 00:08:48.920 And if you want to watch another video, you can check out the one where I bought the worst Mac that Apple was selling at the time. 00:08:48.920 --> 00:08:51.920 That was not a good deal. Not even close.