Finally, With the Help of Nvidia, Microsoft Builds a MacBook Rival

The last few years have been rather awkward as a Windows user. I do not like macOS, and I don’t want to shift to it — and yet Apple Silicon has been so much more powerful and efficient than any other chip architecture released in the past five years that I have almost universally recommended to people that they buy Apple’s laptops.If f you’re interested in buying an entry-level notebook, the best option on the market by far is the MacBook Neo. If you are interested in a slightly larger laptop with more power and a bigger screen, then the recommendation is the MacBook Air. And if you need a powerful computer for photo or video editing, or AI workflows, then you can’t beat a Mac Studio or the MacBook Pro series.Except for gaming, where Windows is still the premier platform, choosing not to buy a Mac has generally been the wrong move over the past few years. And, given RAM prices, the best gaming computer is the one you have. Nobody should buy one any time soon.When I bought my Asus Zenbook S 16 in 2024, I was paying a premium for a worse computer because it ran my preferred Windows operating system. I’m paying for it with terrible thermal performance only two years later. I keep almost buying a MacBook Pro to replace it — but thankfully, Microsoft has finally made a move by backing a new chip platform.Namely, Nvidia is building a consumer chip system for laptops and all-in-one PCs. Like Apple Silicon, it’s based on the Arm architecture and is a unified platform that combines a CPU — the first Nvidia has ever made — with up to 128GB of RAM and a Blackwell-series graphics chip. The combination promises to deliver the highest performance ever on a chip of this kind, particularly for local AI, while also being efficient with both heat and power for daily tasks.This “Spark” architecture will come in a series of tiers and specs, but the flagship version will debut in Microsoft’s own new MacBook Pro competitor, the Surface Laptop Ultra. Microsoft’s attention to the Surface line has come and gone — heavy investment some years, near-neglect in others — but the Surface Laptop Ultra is a meaningful attack on Apple’s top-end professional laptop.Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra. Courtesy of MicrosoftMuch like a MacBook Pro, it’s a thin, 15-inch laptop with a large touchpad and keyboard, is available in either silver or dark gray, and has a pretty solid set of ports, with HDMI, USB-C, USB-A, and an SD card reader. Inside, the Nvidia RTX Spark system includes a 20-core Arm CPU, a GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores, up to 128GB of unified LPDDR5X memory, and a user-replaceable SSD. Beyond the internals, the most impressive part is the screen: a mini-LED touchscreen with 2,000-nit peak brightness, an acceptable 2880×1920 resolution, and Surface’s signature superb 3:2 aspect ratio. This is the best aspect ratio for laptop work, and it’s bizarre that Microsoft is the only company to figure that out.Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra. Courtesy of MicrosoftMicrosoft Surface Laptop Ultra. Courtesy of MicrosoftIn short, the Surface Laptop Ultra looks fantastic, and the RTX Spark platform is exciting. The only concern is pricing, which was conspicuously absent from the announcements amid a RAM price spike. If it starts at less than $3,000 when it goes on sale later this year, I’ll be surprised, and top versions will certainly exceed $5,000. That’s on par with MacBook Pros, and who knows if it will actually be competitive in terms of performance. But it will at least provide a competitor to Apple, and in time, the architecture will be available in less expensive computers, reaching a wider range of customers.Until then, I’ll keep recommending the Air and Neo.

Finally, With the Help of Nvidia, Microsoft Builds a MacBook Rival

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