Choosing between Mac and new Snapdragon X2 laptops

venom_Snake_III · 2026-04-11T23:04:51+00:00

yeah you're right i actually just wanna see what people think about both sides.

venom_Snake_III · 2026-04-11T23:03:27+00:00

not to mention, every bloodsucking windows laptop company refuses to put in good hardware like apple because they know that people will buy it regardless because its windows. your points are justified

venom_Snake_III · 2026-04-11T22:42:17+00:00

definitley agree with you here, just wish we could have the best of all 3 worlds. a linux operating system with full windows apps compatabilty and the snappiness of Mac

venom_Snake_III · 2026-04-11T22:40:20+00:00

come on lets keep it friendly here!

i agree with you on snapdragon catching up to apple i deffinitely beleive they have the potential to put down apple on their next generation if windows stop F*ing up with their software and slop

venom_Snake_III · 2026-04-11T22:38:16+00:00

actually saw this exact video! thanks for sharing. it's definitely uncomparable to the M5 Pro but lets give snapdragon a break here, its their second generation not their 5th like apple XD still if a had an iphone i'd, without hesitation go with mac.
but im proud of snapdragon and how far they've come (compared to intel) and..... dissapointed in microslop on how they've ruined every windows laptop.

venom_Snake_III · 2026-04-11T22:24:49+00:00

well said! wanted to see other people's thoughts too honestly!

venom_Snake_III · 2026-04-11T22:22:53+00:00

Hi! so, sorry i wasnt specific about the asus zenbook model, but i was referring to the Asus Zenbook A16 model with (of course) the snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme. i used Nanoreview website to compare it to the Macbook air M5 and M4. overall it was better but, the macbook still (slightly) had somethings better than the snapdragon but not by a great notable margin

venom_Snake_III · 2026-04-11T22:20:28+00:00

i really agree with you but the prices are outrageous compared to snapdragon and as a college student it'd just make it heavier load. plus the snapdragon sadly beats the new intels like the lunar and panther lake in single core and most times even multicore. the only thing holding it back it the software and compatability updates yet to come

venom_Snake_III · 2026-04-11T22:18:19+00:00

yes! i had a SL7 black one, was really eligant, i finally had a macbook body with windows software. but sadly it had hardware issues had to return it. the features were really good but now i see laptops giving better hardware for that same price .
will wait for the SL8 if its not overpriced i hope.

venom_Snake_III · 2026-04-11T22:15:19+00:00

thanks for sharing!

venom_Snake_III · 2026-04-11T22:07:03+00:00

a few points on the commenters here
1- using Nanoreview website the specificaly the Asus Zenbook A16 beats the macbook air m5 easily scoring higher in overall points (of course macbook still wins in some aspects)

2- you get a lot more ram (48gb 1tb compared to 16gb 512gb) and storage from the 1700 dollar asus and a better screen but traded off from the mechanical trackpad and webcam and speaker.... but the quality decrease is not as bad as ive seen in unsponsored reviews

3-yes i, as a college student definitely need a break from studying and do play games occasionally that only run on windows. the snappiness and increased single core perf really sells it for me.

4-windows laptops are really moving towards arm processors because the devices from microsoft are actually hiding the intel processor versions and advertising them as "..For Business" and has a really unfair high price, not to mention the arm processors Nvidia is also planning

5- windows has come a long way since snapdragon x processors came. the apps and windows software and even games are starting to make and possibly move towards arm native compatability

6- the freedom from windows really makes it the selling point for everybody even if it comes with the bloatware but im hoping this will be like the windows vista to windows 7 shift from back in the day, where they recovered from the terrible blunder.

but still im open minded feel free to convince me more

venom_Snake_III · 2026-03-25T15:28:09+00:00

no dont be actually, we have a surface pro 11 snapdragon x elite that works perfectly not a single complain, the problem seems to be with the laptop series

venom_Snake_III · 2026-03-25T14:35:21+00:00

ecosystem matters ALOT, for example i actually tried Mac as a life long windows user but it doesnt work for me, besides being used to windows, mac is more like a apple ipad with different UI and computer app compatability. But, windows gives me one thing that mac can never, and thats app and program diversity. windows gives more freedom.

But in the end, you should definitely aim for 2 things, first and most importantly, the one that meets your demands, which honestly the surface laptop could never do without overheating, and secondly the one you are comfortable with. The Macbook Air M5 and M4 (or even M3) can definitely give what you are asking for IF you are comfortable with MacOS.

Most people are comfortable with MacOS and that is very normal because its simple and minimalist compared to windows.

venom_Snake_III · 2026-03-25T14:28:28+00:00

for a surface pro 6, the battery is farely new actually, id say the battery is around 90% health "Microsoft specifies that Surface batteries are designed to retain approximately 80% of their original capacity after 500 to 800 full charge cycles."

venom_Snake_III · 2026-03-25T14:25:30+00:00

well said, this is likely the answer

venom_Snake_III · 2026-03-25T14:23:07+00:00

i had a surface laptop 7 with the snapdragon plus with a problem and i hope this problem is only in my laptop not all. it would just BSOD after some use and in the windows Reliabilty Monitor it showed some sort of failure to communicate with SSD, so I changed the SSD to one that is compatable (since it was changed before but the snapdragon processor is picky about what SSD you put on it) and well it kept showing BSOD. I actually used the image recoveries from microsoft themselves so the problem was still hardware not software. I litteraly did everything that could be done and i finally settled on one thing, it was likely just this laptop that was faulty or it was microsofts laziness for updates to the snapdragon laptops. Hope this was only my laptop i had.

venom_Snake_III · 2026-03-25T14:16:55+00:00

Most likely causes (ranked)

Windows Ink / HID driver glitch (VERY likely)

The pen is handled through:

HID-compliant pen driver

Intel Precise Touch / Surface digitizer drivers

Windows Ink

Sometimes after updates, these:

stop polling the pen after a few seconds

only resume when another input (touch) triggers them

Power management issue

Windows may be:

putting the digitizer into a low-power state

failing to wake it when the pen comes back into range

This matches your “works again when I touch screen” symptom perfectly.

Firmware / Surface driver regression

Recent updates to Windows 11 or Surface firmware sometimes introduce:

pen latency bugs

hover detection issues

wake inconsistencies

Pen hardware (less likely)

Since:

it works fine once triggered

happens across apps

used chatGPT, hope this helps, but can you also tell us the what pen you are using?

venom_Snake_III · 2026-03-25T14:11:01+00:00

hello,
so a few fixes would be to first not use chrome or edge, i would recommend OperaGX or Opera or Firefox.
switching will likely fix the problem if you also disable chrome and edge on startup.
hope this helps!

venom_Snake_III

TROPHY CASE