MacBook Neo vs. Windows Laptops

Key Takeaways

I've been testing a few $600 Windows laptops to see how they stack up to the MacBook Neo. There's the Asus Vivobook 16, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3X, and the Acer Aspire 14 AI. That last one's actually over $1,000 at full price, but it's often on sale for like under $600. These laptops aren't bad, they're not terrible, but we're especially talking about the build quality and how they feel compared to the MacBook Neo. First off, the screens. They're all pretty bad. Uh they look pretty washed out on the Windows laptops. They're not particularly cuz they're 1920 by 1200 and on the Asus that's particularly not great because it's 16 in so you're spreading that lower res even further. It looks kind of soft. The Acer bleeds light at the edges and is just terrible. And the Lenovo is kind of the least bad, but there's ultimately no comparison to the Neo. It's more colorful, it's sharper, and it's brighter by about 200 nits. Build quality. Everything on the Windows laptops creaks and flexes. What is that? Going to be And the hinges require two hands to open. You sometimes have to like pry them open. The winner, none of them. The MacBook Neo is just kind of leagues ahead. Its hinge opens like easily with one finger. So, boop. Okay, trackpads. The Asus sounds really clunky and annoying. The Lenovo is frustratingly stiff to click sometimes. And the Acer just feels cheap. It's not great. It clicks all right at least. Speakers. If you own one of these Windows laptops, I hope you also own headphones because they're all pretty terrible. They sound thin and trebly. The Lenovos literally gave me a headache at one point. The Neo speakers aren't really anything special, but they're solid. As for battery life, the Lenovo actually wins above all of them. It beats the Neo. Its Snapdragon X chip allows it to last all day and well into the night. You can probably even get into the next day if you're light on it. The Acer is kind of tied with the Neo. You can easily get through an 8-hour work day and maybe a little more. I usually got like 9 to 10 on each of them. And the Asus, 6 hours max. Look, the the MacBook Neo just trounces these laptops in build quality all while being lighter, smaller, and more travel-friendly. Windows laptop makers have a lot of catching up to do, and I I hope that they do. And by the way, if you're pissed at me for not talking performance or mentioning RAM, you can check out all the benchmark tests we ran on all four of these laptops in our full comparison review at The Verge.com.