The Windows laptop market is in disarray. There are some good reasons to wait a year before buying a new computer. (Or buy a Mac. They’re pretty magical.)
Your next PC might be one of the latest Windows laptops with Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, which feature vastly improved battery life. They’re marketed as “AI PCs” but you should ignore that because the AI features are meaningless, at least for now. It’s a problem, though, that they might not be as compatible as you wish they were. (The marketing sucks but that’s a given in the Microsoft world. I’ll call them “Snapdragon PCs” but they’re also referred to as “ARM-based” or “Copilot+” PCs.)
Current Intel-based laptops – every Windows PC, the only type you’ve ever known – are deeply flawed. More about that below.
Intel is about to introduce new processors that might improve the situation but as of today that is only a promise, and Intel has failed to keep a lot of promises over the years.
Personally, I’m not going to buy a Windows computer until things settle down.
It’s a great time to buy a Mac. If you can handle the transition – and not everyone can, I get that – Apple laptops are extraordinary.
I’ve been a Microsoft guy since MS-DOS was released in 1981. I spent my career immersed in every version of Windows.
That’s why it’s confusing for me to admit that I love my Macbook Air. I’ve never had a computer like it. Paul Thurrott has been a Windows journalist for his entire career. When he reviewed the Macbook Air recently, he called it – a bit reluctantly – “a near-perfect combination of silent and effortless performance, epic battery life, and elegant design.”
Let’s compare specific experiences.
Opening the laptop lid
Macbook Air The screen is on before the lid is fully raised. Every time. The battery is almost exactly where it was when the laptop was last used, whether that was yesterday or three weeks ago.
Intel-based laptop It’s always a surprise! Maybe the screen will come on in a few seconds. More likely, I’ll see the manufacturer logo and the screen will appear in 20-30 seconds. Occasionally I watch the black screen for a couple of minutes before I decide that nothing is going to happen and I hold the power button for 20 seconds to force it to shut down, then wait through a power on from scratch. The battery will be drained in unpredictable but almost always large amounts. The battery will likely be almost empty if the laptop hasn’t been used for a few days.
Snapdragon laptop Reportedly they come to life quickly when the lid is raised. The battery only drains 1–3% overnight. This should be celebrated. It would improve the daily quality of life for every Windows laptop user.
Battery life
There are a thousand ways to measure battery life. I think these are decent broad generalizations.
Macbook Air The battery just goes and goes.
Macbook Air laptops aren’t noisy because they don’t have a fan. They don’t get hot.
It’s like a magic trick.
Intel-based laptop Battery life was always a problem for Windows laptops and has gotten worse in the last few years. You’ll seldom make it to the end of a day on battery. After a couple of years, battery life will begin to drop precipitously.
My late-model Thinkpad X1 Yoga will drain the battery completely overnight if I don’t turn off Bluetooth before I close the lid, regardless of whether it’s connected to any Bluetooth device. This makes me irrationally angry. I’ve never thrown a computer when this happens but I’ve thought about it.
If you’ve ever opened a backpack and found your laptop is hot to the touch and your battery is drained – it’s “hot bag syndrome.” Happens all the time.
Snapdragon laptop Battery life is vastly improved! It’s not quite as impressive as Macbooks but easily 2-3 times as long as Intel PCs.
I’ve heard the same anecdote from multiple reviewers – new Snapdragon laptop battery life is not very impressive in the first few days but then it dramatically improves. Apparently Windows laptops have to work hard behind the scenes at first to install updates and prepare indexes.
Although much improved, the Snapdragon PCs can’t perform magic tricks quite as well as Macs. They have fans and very occasionally they run noisy and hot. But not as often as Intel laptops, thank goodness.
Compatibility
You’re a normal person. You never want to hear the word “compatibility.” You want to buy devices and plug them in and have them work. You want to install programs and use them.
The incredible variety of hardware and software has always been challenging in the Intel-based world but it’s seldom a problem any more. Everything is designed for Intel processors and Intel-based x86 Windows.
Snapdragon processors are different. Don’t worry about the details. It’s so difficult to make them run Windows that previous attempts to use similar chips failed because too many things were not compatible in unpredictable ways.
A huge amount of work has been done this time to make things run and conceal the difficult parts. Programs have been rewritten. The computer runs special software to “emulate” an Intel processor and does it so efficiently that you mostly won’t notice.
But not everything will run. It’s not a huge issue and the situation will improve if the Snapdragon PCs sell well, but you need to be aware that some things won’t work – and maybe, just maybe, one of them will be important to you.
At the moment, for example, Google Drive will run in a browser but those files won’t show in File Explorer because Google’s program is not compatible. If you have a Scansnap scanner, its program likely won’t work. Or maybe it will? Who knows? Many docks work, some don’t, or you might find some ports on a dock suddenly don’t do certain things.
The new Snapdragon PCs might not be a good choice if you expect everything to just work, if you want to avoid googling for workarounds, if you don’t want IT people to say confusing things about “not compatible because argle bargle reasons,”
But – Wild battery life! No hot bag! Immediate startup! The things that don’t work are mostly niche cases. Maybe you should buy one? Today?
Computer gambling – fun for the whole family!
Intel lost its way years ago. The most recent two generations of Intel processors are the worst yet, plagued with problems that are causing “widespread instability” and even permanent damage for some PCs.
On September 3, Intel will release “Lunar Lake” processors. The company claims the new processors will show off “breakthrough x86 power efficiency, exceptional core performance, massive leaps in graphics performance and the unmatched AI computing power that will drive this and future generations of Intel products.”
And hey, maybe they will. After all, Apple demonstrated that such things are possible when it introduced its own M1 replacements for Intel processors four long years ago.
If you can switch to the Mac world, go nuts, buy a laptop or two, they’re great.
If you’re a Windows person, you might want to wait for a year and see where things stand.
Oh, and the pitch for AI in the new Windows laptops? File that away for a year also, because right now it is 100% meaningless. The AI hype bubble is collapsing fast. There is literally nothing related to AI in the Copilot PCs that matters to anyone.
Happy not shopping!