Today’s Arm PCs can’t compete with $599 MacBooks. We deserve better

Arm PCs vs. Arm MacBooks: Let’s compare

I love Windows and I love PCs. But when it comes to Arm laptops, you lose a lot of the PC’s advantages—like upgradeable hardware, near-perfect backwards compatibility, a huge library of PC games, etc. Arm laptops fail to deliver on those fronts, and if those are your highest priorities, then you’re better off with an Intel or AMD laptop.

Moreover, Arm-based Windows laptops with Qualcomm Snapdragon chips are failing to deliver the price points I’d hoped for at launch. (More on that in a moment.) Meanwhile, Arm-based MacBooks are becoming shockingly more affordable.

IDG

Right now, in mid-August 2025 as we head into back-to-school season, you can get an M1 MacBook Air for $599 from Walmart, down from $650 retail. Sure, it only has 8GB of RAM, and sure, it was originally released in 2020. But it’s still a high-quality machine—not cheap, not plasticky, and not a lower-end screen just to reach that price point. It was top-of-the-line when it released in 2020. Similarly, you can grab a current-gen M4 MacBook Air for $799 from Best Buy, down from $999 retail.

IDG / Matthew Smith

For comparison, how much is a high-end Snapdragon X Elite laptop? The Asus Vivobook S 15 retails for $1,299 and still costs about a grand on sale. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x retails for $1,199 and sometimes discounts down to $900. The base model of Microsoft’s 13-inch Surface Laptop 7 retailed for $999 and went as low as $750 on sale.

Personally, I would rather have a Windows laptop on the go. But I’d also have a hard time convincing anyone who’s neutral into buying a Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered laptop over a MacBook, especially once we started comparing prices.

The Surface Laptop shows what’s wrong

Snapdragon X laptops are meant for people who prefer Windows over macOS while on the go, and I’m one of those people. I’m actually typing up this article on a Windows Arm laptop right now! But you can’t buy my favorite machine anymore. It’s been discontinued.

When Microsoft released its initial line of Copilot+ PCs running Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips in 2024, I knew I had to buy one—I’m a professional PC reviewer, after all. At release, Microsoft offered a 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $999, meeting the M4 MacBook Air’s retail price. In the months following release, I saw Surface Laptop 7s on sale for around $800, with further drops later on. So far, so good.

Mark Hachman / IDG

But now, more than a year later, Microsoft has discontinued the $999 Surface Laptop. That particular line now starts at $1,199—that’s $200 more expensive than the M4 MacBook Air at its retail price.

To compensate, Microsoft released a cheaper line of 13-inch Surface Laptops… but these are lower-end PCs with worse screens, lower-resolution webcams, no facial recognition hardware, and other corner-cutting decisions. And they still start at $899.

That’s the problem: while Apple’s strategy involves shipping older premium products, Microsoft’s strategy involves releasing worse products with corners cut. Why would someone who doesn’t love Windows choose to buy a lower-end Surface Laptop or spend up on a higher-end Surface Laptop when the MacBook Air exists? And at $599 or $799, it’s a flat-out better value if you don’t depend on Windows.

Mattias Inghe / Foundry

It pains me to say that because I love my Surface Laptop 7. It’s a great machine for productivity and browsing with long battery life. But you can’t buy the one I have anymore—you’ll be buying something worse, or paying hundreds more to get something similar. Microsoft gave up on competing in the critical $999 laptop market.

New Arm laptops struggle to compete

At CES 2025, Qualcomm said its new Snapdragon X chips would pave the way for $600 laptops. But those lower-end Snapdragon chips perform surprisingly close to Apple’s 2020-era M1 hardware—the one that powers those $599 MacBooks—in many benchmarks.

And when Lenovo released the comparatively inexpensive Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x with that chip, launching at a $749 price point with a dim display and tinny speakers, I was disappointed.

IDG / Chris Hoffman

Let me reiterate: a “budget MacBook” is an older premium model that now has a lower price, while a “budget Windows Arm laptop” is a new machine with corners cut. It’s a huge difference in philosophy, and it makes PC laptops feel lower end. When MacBooks are beating you on price and performance, you know something has gone wrong.

Of course, these Arm laptops running Windows do go on sale from time to time. As I write this, you can get that Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x for $449 at Best Buy, which is a serious value. But, at release, comparing the $749 PC to the $649 MacBook, the winner for people who aren’t committed to Windows is clear: it’s the MacBook.

Windows Arm laptops are in a weird spot

There are so many good reasons to buy a PC instead of a Mac! But most of those reasons will push you towards Intel or AMD laptops, not these Snapdragon-powered Arm laptops.

If I were buying a laptop today and prioritizing battery life, I’d probably go for an Intel Lunar Lake-powered machine. You get full compatibility with Windows apps—including games, many of which run pretty well on the integrated GPU with no compatibility hiccups—along with excellent battery life. And if I wanted a gaming laptop or more CPU performance in general, I’d have so many other good options.

Chris Hoffman / IDG

Windows Arm laptops, on the other hand, just aren’t compelling right now. You’d have to find one at a rock-bottom sale price to make it worthwhile. (And with those sales becoming more common, it’s a sign that they aren’t selling as well as PC makers hoped they would.)

All of this could change in the coming years. Windows PCs with Arm processors may have a long and bright future ahead of them, especially when other manufacturers—like Nvidia, perhaps—start making Arm chips for them. But in a world where Apple keeps getting the MacBook’s price lower without compromising on specs or experience, PC manufacturers will have to do better to stand out.

One thing’s for sure: Microsoft’s push to brand these as “Copilot+ PCs” and sell the platform based on a handful of nebulous AI features has failed. Instead of AI, Microsoft should have championed battery life—especially now that you don’t even need Arm for AI features.

Are tariffs to blame?

I’ve been making a lot of price comparisons, which might seem unfair given the elephant in the room: US tariffs. Manufacturers generally avoid commenting (at least on the record) on how tariffs are affecting their pricing strategies, so I generally don’t ask.

But when Microsoft axes its $999 laptop and replaces it with a worse version with lower-end hardware, it’s easy to suspect that something is going on behind the scenes. And when we hear about $600 Windows Arm laptops in January but they never materialize after tariffs come into play, I have to assume tariffs are a factor.

And yet, Apple’s MacBook can be had for $599 to $649 at Walmart, complete with a premium build quality and good display. When I review a new Arm PC laptop that delivers similar performance with a worse build quality at a higher price point, I really don’t know what to say.