- 2 days ago
well that's three laptops I'm not getting back đź’€
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TechTranscript
00:00Apple's new 2026 MacBooks have completely divided the internet.
00:03There's one army who's insistent that this is RIP for Windows laptops,
00:07but then the other side arguing that actually Windows gets you a better display,
00:11more powerful chip, more RAM, more storage, basically more everything.
00:14So let's settle this. We've got the featherweights,
00:17the $600 MacBook Neo versus the best $600 Windows laptop from HP,
00:22but then also the high-end heavyweights, the $4,500 new MacBook Pro
00:27versus the best $4,500 Windows laptop.
00:30We'll test them all across 12 categories to find out who reigns supreme in 2026,
00:35whatever budget you're willing to spend.
00:37Starting with the unboxing, which frankly doesn't really make a big difference,
00:41apart from one key detail.
00:48So the Apple unboxings at both the basic end and the extreme end
00:52make you feel about as fancy as they always have.
01:05But the Windows ones are plainer.
01:07These laptops come presented in what looks more like a box you might find pizza in,
01:11as opposed to a feat of modern engineering.
01:13But the reason that I actually side with Windows in this category is because
01:16you get a charger included.
01:20Both at the budget end with this HP Omnibook 5.
01:28And at the high end with this Asus ProArt P16.
01:32Whereas Mac in the EU and the UK does not provide it.
01:41And that can actually be a pretty expensive thing to buy separately,
01:44with the MacBook Pro's charger alone costing basically $100.
01:47So as far as what really matters with the unboxing, that's a unanimous win for Windows.
01:53But it's a different story when you get the laptops in your hands.
01:56Because I was not expecting how much better the MacBook Neo's build quality is,
02:01versus its HP Windows equivalent.
02:04Like, look at the hinge.
02:05Can you see how much give this HP has compared to the Mac,
02:08which pretty much only moves when you apply some proper force to it.
02:11HP has some aluminium in the body,
02:14but the vast majority of the parts that you interact with are plastic.
02:18And that makes it feel a lot cheaper.
02:20Like you can push down on the body and actually see it bend.
02:23With a little bit of creaking too, if you lean too hard on it.
02:26That is not the case with this MacBook Neo.
02:29The entire body is machined out of one big block of aluminium,
02:32and you can feel that sturdiness.
02:34I can't get a squeak out of it.
02:36But when you're willing to go high end,
02:38I'd say that Windows reduces that gap.
02:40This Asus is now definitely more rigid,
02:42and apparently has military grade protection,
02:44with the ability to withstand extreme heat and extreme cold.
02:48But it's still not as premium as the MacBook Pro.
02:50It still feels plasticky in places,
02:52especially the underside.
02:54And the hinge still has that little bit more wobble than the MacBook Pro's,
02:57which stays completely planted where you open it.
03:00This is even sturdier than the MacBook Neo's hinge,
03:02making this round a pretty clear KO against Windows.
03:06But the other side of the build quality coin is durability,
03:09which we will also test with an actual real drop test.
03:12But we'll do that at the end,
03:13so I can actually test everything else before I kill my darlings.
03:17Like the elephant in the room, performance.
03:20Because it is absolutely true what people are arguing,
03:22that if you go for a Mac, you get a lower spec for your money.
03:26Like this MacBook Neo has 8GB of RAM, compared to 16GB on the HP.
03:31And even at the top end, the MacBook Pro here has 48GB of RAM,
03:35compared to 64GB on its equivalently priced Windows.
03:38But how much does that actually matter when you're trying to get stuff done?
03:41So round one is a test of how long does it take to get started.
03:45I timed each laptop going from fully shut down to booted up,
03:48logged in and ready to type into a Word document.
03:51And this shows a pretty clear advantage to the top end MacBook Pro.
03:54It won by a landslide.
03:56Maybe this is just the insanely fast SSD speeds inside the thing.
04:02Round two is multitasking.
04:04So I opened up in the background 20 identical internet tabs on each,
04:08and an active zoom call.
04:09And then the test was with all of that going,
04:11How long does it then take each laptop to open up an absolutely enormous spreadsheet on Excel?
04:17The answer to which is a very similar result to the boot test,
04:21with the MacBook Pro outperforming every other laptop by a mile.
04:24And all the other three being clustered pretty close together.
04:30But what it also shows is that for an average user,
04:32who's not realistically going to be doing any more than that,
04:35it doesn't look like the 8GB of RAM on the MacBook Neo is going to cause any issues.
04:40It's not faster than the Windows at this stuff,
04:42but the important thing is it's not slower.
04:44And finally, round three is the Geekbench 6 CPU test,
04:48which actually is designed to simulate real world applications.
04:51Things like blurring your background in a video call and organizing your photo library.
04:55And the higher the score, the better.
04:57And well, to put it simply, the MacBooks here eviscerate the Windows machines.
05:03At the top end, the MacBook Pro is scoring about 53% higher in single core performance versus Windows.
05:09At the entry level, the gap is even larger, with a 70% higher score.
05:13Now, there is another side to performance, which we'll get to,
05:15but it seems pretty clear that as far as the day-to-day experience goes,
05:20MacBooks are on top.
05:21But then I was curious, if the MacBook's day-to-day performance is so much higher,
05:25do you see that come at the cost of battery?
05:28And to answer that question, I charged each one of these laptops to full and just let them drain,
05:33while doing a controlled combination of YouTube watching, light gaming, and video editing.
05:37And this is just as much a test of chipset efficiency as it is a test of battery size.
05:42Because here in the world of laptops, let me tell you,
05:45there are enormous differences in chip power consumption.
05:48Something that becomes very apparent when looking at the high-end Windows laptop,
05:52which dies at just 4 hours 16.
05:54Likely thanks to its RTX 5090 graphics card guzzling power,
05:58even when it's not being pushed to its limit.
06:00And even with this fairly poor battery life, this test also reinforces our performance test,
06:05where you can see the MacBook Pro is rendering this video an order of magnitude faster than
06:10the Windows is able to.
06:11And so it kind of makes sense then that the MacBook Pro was the next one to clock out,
06:15with a substantially longer runtime of 5 hours 20.
06:18So when you're comparing flagship laptops, it's Apple's win pretty consistently,
06:22because top-end Windows graphics cards are not power-friendly.
06:24But then what I found fascinating is what happened between our featherweights.
06:28So the MacBook Neo gave us pretty much bang on the same runtime as the Pro,
06:32lasting only 6 minutes longer.
06:34Which is kind of surprising given it's absolutely miniature size and tiny battery,
06:38but it's also kind of not given that the thing's powered by a chip that's
06:41very literally designed to run on a smartphone.
06:44But it's the budget Windows laptop that absolutely wrecked everything else here,
06:48holding on for 8 hours and 8 minutes.
06:51So this shows that if you can get a Windows with a decently large-sized battery,
06:55like this one, combined with an ultra-efficient new Snapdragon X chip,
06:59which is based on mobile architecture, then Windows has absolutely caught up on the battery front.
07:05And just like the RAM situation that we talked about earlier,
07:07you're also practically guaranteed to get more storage when you go Windows.
07:11In both cases here, Budget and Pro are same-priced Windows machines,
07:16have literally doubled the storage of their Mac counterparts.
07:19So instead of the MacBook Neo's 256 gigs, this HP has 512.
07:23And instead of the 2TB that I managed to get on the MacBook Pro for my money,
07:28this Asus has 4, which is just a massive and very clear win for Windows.
07:32Storage is one of those areas where Apple makes its biggest margins,
07:35so they will try to preserve that at all costs.
07:38As long as those costs fall to you.
07:41Call quality is a pretty simple combination of how good does the webcam look,
07:46and how good does the microphone sound.
07:48Let me show you.
07:49So this is a recording from the Budget Windows laptop.
07:52And first of all, the audio sounds absolutely terrible.
07:55I'm getting extreme friendly fire from what's supposed to be the noise cancelling in the background.
08:00But also the image processing sucks.
08:03I can see how much it's struggling with the exposure in this image,
08:06especially with this light that we've added to simulate a window.
08:09That's a pretty normal thing for someone to have, right?
08:12The MacBook Neo is a lot better on that front.
08:15I mean, you can first of all tell how it's able to keep the image a lot more stable,
08:19and the brightness on my face is preserved no matter what's happening around me.
08:23That's pretty useful for a video call.
08:24And also just the fact that my voice sounds like a hundred times more natural.
08:28And then the MacBook Pro is similar in video quality, potentially slightly clearer,
08:32but the key change is the audio with this supposed studio-grade microphone setup.
08:38It does add a lot of warmth to my voice.
08:41It's good to see that the Asus 2 does sound fantastic.
08:44Big fan of the microphone setup on this bad boy.
08:47But the image is bad.
08:49Things got enough graphics performance to power a small village,
08:52but it still can't seem to get rid of basic video noise.
08:55So as far as calling goes, it's a Mac dub across the board.
08:59But what Windows loses in call quality, it makes up for in number of ports.
09:04You can tell that Apple as a company is much more calculated.
09:07They give you the bare minimum for each tier of laptop,
09:10to make sure that the more expensive MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro remain as tempting as possible.
09:16Other companies don't really care.
09:17So while the budget Windows gives you a headphone jack, a full-size USB-A port, and two USB-C's,
09:23with every one of these ports fast enough to qualify for the USB 3.2 standard,
09:27the Mac is just headphone jack and two USB-C's, one of which is actually a slower USB 2 port.
09:33So you'd only really want to use that for charging, as opposed to hard drives or external displays.
09:38But then when you humor Apple and you cough up for the most expensive MacBook Pro,
09:43then the situation is reversed. You do actually get the best of the best.
09:47Every USB-C port you get on this is a blazing fast Thunderbolt 5 port.
09:52These are so rapid that just one of them can power two 8K displays at once,
09:57as well as uber fast data transfer and charging.
10:00The top-end Windows is also good, but it's kind of a cocktail of different ports of various speed standards,
10:06and also most charging ports that you get on Windows laptops kind of suck compared to Apple's MagSafe.
10:11MagSafe could very well be the difference between a working, pristine laptop,
10:15and $4,500 worth of e-waste in a crumpled pile on the floor.
10:19Not to mention that almost every single high-power Windows laptop requires a
10:23blooming construction brick as part of your power supply,
10:26which only adds to the risk of accidentally tugging your laptop off the table.
10:30So while the port selection is extremely stingy on the most affordable Mac,
10:34at the top-end I would much rather have the MacBook setup than the Windows one.
10:38Which means, so far, Windows is winning the battle at the bottom and Apple is winning at the top.
10:43But while ports are something that will very clearly show up when you're flicking through a spec sheet,
10:48something that won't, but that is still absolutely critical for how your laptop feels to use,
10:53is the input experience. The keyboard and the trackpad.
10:56Because if they're bad, then that could be years of wrist strain and irritating accidental presses.
11:01Now, as you've probably heard, the MacBook Neo is missing one critical feature in this regard.
11:07Backlighting. Every other Mac has it. Basically, every other Windows has it.
11:11But the keys on this machine do not light up, even in the dark.
11:14And so if you are someone who hits peak productivity under moonlight,
11:18then this one emission alone might make the thing a write-off.
11:21Here's the thing, though.
11:22I would still personally rather have this than have this.
11:27The Mac's keyboard just feels higher quality than the Windows,
11:31where each key has this mushy signature to it.
11:35And the Mac's trackpad is a million miles better than the Windows one.
11:39It's got a smoother texture and you really feel like you have more precise control over your cursor
11:43when you're using it. Plus, even though it's now mechanical, so it's physically pressing down
11:47as opposed to the force touch that you get on higher-end laptops that kind of simulates it,
11:51it's still so satisfying to click.
11:54And I love the fact that you can click down anywhere on it,
11:56as opposed to the Windows where you have to click down at the bottom of the pad only.
12:00So what I'm saying is, do I like the idea of backlighting?
12:03Hell yeah.
12:03But would I personally give up backlighting to have a better keyboard and trackpad?
12:08Also yes.
12:09And since the MacBook Pro fixes the missing backlighting of the Neo,
12:13I think it earns a win in the luxury category too.
12:16Don't get me wrong, the Asus trackpad's actually pretty good.
12:19It's massive, it's even got this little subsection
12:21that's like its own quick dial for settings.
12:24But genuinely, there isn't a better trackpad right now on the market
12:27than you get on the MacBook Pros.
12:29Whether it's the responsiveness, the precision, the palm rejection,
12:32or the fact that you can click down anywhere on it,
12:35which even at this price tier, the Windows laptop still doesn't have.
12:38How about a speaker test?
12:40Starting with the budget MacBook.
12:41We are about to build our dream high-tech garden.
12:47So there's two side-firing speakers here and they sound fine, but not super direct.
12:53It's kind of like whoever you're watching on screen is sitting really far away from you.
12:56It's like a 5 out of 10.
12:57Budget Windows.
12:59We are about to build our dream high-tech garden.
13:02We're going to add as much magic as we possibly can to turn...
13:05So this has two downward-firing speakers.
13:07So they shoot into the table and then bounce off into your ears.
13:10But that extra layer seems to make it sound harsher and faker,
13:15like there's more processing in it.
13:16It doesn't sound like how we recorded that.
13:18Probably a 4.
13:19MacBook Pro.
13:21We are about to build our dream high-tech garden.
13:23We're going to add as much magic as we possibly can to...
13:26Oh my god, so much better.
13:28It's a very full sound, which kind of makes sense,
13:31since there are six speakers in here compared to two.
13:34So 9 out of 10.
13:36Pro Windows laptop.
13:37We are about to build our dream high-tech garden.
13:40We're going to add as much magic as we possibly can to turn...
13:43This one is close.
13:44It is every bit as full sounding as the Mac,
13:47but just not quite as crisp.
13:49Probably an 8.
13:49Meaning that at both price points,
13:51I would say the Mac is slightly ahead, but not significantly.
13:55And this is a good point to talk displays,
13:58because the thing that I'm seeing getting thrown around a lot online
14:00is that this HP has a better display than the MacBook Neo.
14:04And you can see why people are saying that,
14:06because this is an OLED panel compared to the MacBook's LCD.
14:08So it's way punchier with colors.
14:11But I would disagree with the sentiment.
14:13Because first of all, while not as vibrant,
14:15this is a shockingly color accurate display for a $599 laptop.
14:20It may not pop as much, but looking at one of our videos on this screen,
14:24this is how I meant to look, not this.
14:26The Mac is also higher resolution, with literally 50% more pixels.
14:30And its brightness is 500 nits compared to the HP's 300.
14:33Which, especially when you're talking these fairly low brightness numbers,
14:37is a crucial difference.
14:39And you will struggle to see the HP outdoors.
14:41But for our flagships, it's impossible to argue with the screen that you get
14:45on this Asus ProArt.
14:47It is a 4K resolution screen, higher than the MacBook Pro.
14:51OLED, so it's really punchy.
14:52While also being bright and designed for accurate color.
14:56Oh yeah, and also, it's a touch screen.
14:59Incredible.
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15:47And for our display category then,
15:49Apple wins at the budget end and Windows at the highest end.
15:52So, so far then, the Macs have won more than they've lost,
15:55which just leaves the big one, the software experience itself.
15:59And the drop test.
16:00And the drop test, yes.
16:02So there's obviously quite a lot within this software category,
16:05but I think we can break it down to a few key differences.
16:07The first is gaming, because separate from day-to-day performance,
16:11Windows is a mile better of a platform to be gaming on.
16:14Partially because of the sheer number of games optimized for Windows,
16:18but also partly because the dedicated GPUs, like the RTX 5090 in our high-end Windows laptops,
16:23are made for this.
16:25There's AI features, but I can't think of one thing that I've ever asked Apple
16:29Intelligence to do on a Mac that has actually saved me time.
16:32The same is true for Microsoft Copilot, but it's a little better, I guess.
16:36It can do things like automatically summarizing and recapping video calls once they're finished.
16:41And recall, which creates this searchable history of everything you've done,
16:45just in case you forget something important.
16:47And Windows also has wider compatibility,
16:49whether that's specialist software for professionals, or the ability to work with
16:54any peripherals, or the ability to make your laptop completely your own with customization.
16:58It would be very hard to argue that Windows is not the more versatile tool.
17:02But there's also a few things in Apple's court,
17:05because assuming that the Mac can do everything that you need from your computer,
17:09then you will likely have a smoother experience doing so in Apple's closed ecosystem.
17:15Like, nothing to this day on Windows beats the ease of airdropping from an iPhone to a Mac,
17:20or just being able to hit copy on some text on your iPhone,
17:22and then, without any kind of setup, just paste it on your Mac.
17:26And also, if you're like me and you focus a lot on small imperfections,
17:29you're much more likely to prefer the way the Mac looks and feels.
17:33I mean, just as an example, I can't find a single animation on this $600 MacBook Neo
17:39that isn't running at a smooth 60 frames per second, whereas on the $4,500 Windows,
17:44the thing will still just randomly feel laggy when doing simple things.
17:48And all these trending news and games for you widgets on Windows are really cheap and annoying,
17:52in my opinion. Seriously, who is buying an RTX 5090 powered laptop,
17:57but then playing Steel Brain Rot Online on it?
18:00And I would also say that the Mac is less likely for most people to have issues.
18:05While Windows 11 is an improvement, Windows machines still work in a messier, more complicated way.
18:11Like, you've got the software layer, made by Microsoft.
18:13You've got the manufacturer, let's say Asus.
18:15And then you've got all these individual parts, like the AMD processor and the Nvidia graphics card,
18:19that are present in different configurations in each different machine,
18:23and each need their own drivers to tell them how to speak to each other.
18:26All of this creates a lot more room for error than MacBooks,
18:30where Apple just takes charge of the entire end-to-end experience.
18:33I mean, literally, during the filming of this video, the Asus just conked out
18:37and stopped registering my left clicks.
18:39And now finally, it's time to find out which of these lovely laptops can survive a drop.
18:44I feel like I should clarify that we don't get sent these laptops.
18:47Every single penny I might be about to burn is my own.
18:51I genuinely think this is the most expensive science experiment we have ever done.
18:55Three, two, one.
18:59Frickin' whacked my foot afterwards.
19:00Frickin' whacked my foot afterwards.
19:03Three, two, one.
19:07That was much worse.
19:09Dear God.
19:11MacBook Pro.
19:13Please subscribe so I can buy more.
19:15Three, two, one.
19:19It's so heavy, that noise.
19:23Pro Windows.
19:24Let's see about this military durability.
19:26Three, two, one.
19:30Oh, kind of bounced a little bit.
19:32Like, give me more.
19:34Yikes.
19:35Let's see the damage.
19:36Okay, so the MacBook Neo, you can see it's actually pushed the entire hinge.
19:40So it's actually off kilter.
19:41So the lid doesn't completely cover the base.
19:44And then inside.
19:48Oh.
19:49No way.
19:51Everything is completely intact.
19:53It just looks like you had a slightly bad haircut on the right.
19:56But apart from that.
19:57That's incredible.
19:58Genuinely.
19:58Scared to open the budget windows.
20:02Oh dear God.
20:05I mean, that is a dead laptop.
20:08There is no work being done on this anymore.
20:10MacBook Pro isn't closing completely flat anymore.
20:14And inside.
20:15Oh, it's shattered.
20:17I guess the insane weight of this thing all directed at one corner.
20:21It was too much for it.
20:22I'm hearing a slight crunching sound coming from the inside of this.
20:25Oh God.
20:26This one's done too.
20:28No.
20:30The glass is shattered.
20:32Display's not turning on at all.
20:34But the backlighting still works.
20:35Which means the MacBook Neo is the only laptop getting a point in this category.
20:40Leaving us with the final scores in the budget category of 10 to Mac and 7 to Windows.
20:45And then in the Pro category, 10 to Mac and 6 to Windows.
20:49So for me, Mac is the winner.
20:51But every category is worth different amounts.
20:53And especially different amounts to different people.
20:55So go through the list.
20:57See what's important to you.
20:58And make your decision according to that.
21:00Catch you in the next one.
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