Since the release of the computer equipped with the M1 chip, the MacBook has become a beacon in the eyes of fans, and a large number of review videos on how the M1 notebook "crushed" the Windows notebook in the video field can be found on major video platforms. "Why do Kols take video processing to prove that apple M1 is powerful?
The answer is simple: M1 will focus more on what it does best, rather than covering all the use cases of the mass consumer as much as possible.
In order to explore the possibility of the 11th generation Intel Core and Windows 11 systems, or the "Double Eleven" laptop, and also to let me ,comfortable Mac users "open their eyes", I found the Huawei MateBook X Pro equipped with the 11th generation Core mobile processor and Windows 11 system and the MacBook Air with M1 chip to see how much progress the Windows camp has made over the years.
The MacBook Air is no longer the benchmark for hardware?
From a Mac user's perspective, what impressed me most about the MateBook X Pro wasn't its 3:2 high-resolution touchscreen, but its trackpad. I don't know what others think, but with so many years of Mac, the touch screen has always been one of the features I'm most looking forward to.
It's true that Apple's trackpad is good, but even the best touch version is at some point far less intuitive and convenient than the touchscreen, especially after the Windows 11 system optimized for the touchscreen. In the performance comparison test, some non-precise clicks or swipes I prefer to use the touch screen to complete. Apple's Touch Edition is convenient, but where is it so convenient to directly use the hand to remember the button itself?
For the MateBook X Pro, it is not too simple to change the hard disk expansion. Backup, shutdown, remove the back cover, as long as you screw another M2 screw can directly replace the computer hard disk. Know that Apple has removed the data diagnosis interface on the motherboard many years ago, and once the computer fails and you have no backup, your data is doomed to sink into the sea.
This is also where I think computers with 11th generation Cores are more convenient, practical and versatile than MacBooks: Windows computers are not a one-shot deal like the M1 Mac, and under the "Wintel" framework, we can often find specific products that are more suitable for us.
11th Generation Core Performance never concedes defeat
Let's take a look at the hardware performance section. Before the comparison begins, let's talk about the core configuration of the two computers: the Huawei MateBook X Pro I have is equipped with an 11th-generation Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor, a reference frequency of 2.8GHz, with 16GB 3733MHz memory and 512GB Samsung PM981A SSD. The MacBook Air is a 2020 model with an M1 chip (8 GPU core version), 16GB of general-purpose memory, and 256GB of SSD. In addition, since there are not many benchmark software that can run on both Windows and macOS platforms at the same time, the tests performed here may be slightly different from previous tests.
Due to the advantages of the ARM architecture M1 chip in the core frequency and the common bus between the cores, the M1 MacBook Air has a more obvious advantage over the MateBook X Pro in the multi-threaded test of Cinebench, with scores of 6399 and 4290 points respectively. But in the single-threaded test, M1 failed to open the gap with the i7-1165G7, and the scores of the two were 1494 and 1439, respectively, a difference of only 3%.
In Blender we ran the more common BMW and classroom demos, and in BMW, the MateBook X Pro was slightly behind the Mac's 6 minutes and 22 seconds with a score of 8 minutes and 06 seconds. But in a more complex classroom, the MateBook X Pro is a significant 37 minutes ahead of the Mac in 16 minutes and 56 seconds. The reason for this result, in addition to the performance advantages of 1165G7 and Irix Xe, the heat dissipation structure of MateBook X Pro is believed to play a certain role.
Just now has been based on processor performance, here we use LuxMark test to see the gap between the two GPU performance. Using the GPU mode for LuxMark's microphone to render the scene, the M1 chip only got a score of 3167 points, but the 1165G7 in the MateBook X Pro scored 5743 points with the Irix Xe, successfully opening the gap with the M1 chip. From the analysis of the test results, in addition to the advantages of hardware capabilities brought by Irix Xe, OpenCL's support on computers is also an important factor affecting the performance. In addition to OpenCL, the "Double Eleven" computer has extensive support for next-generation graphics APIs such as Vulkan and DX12, which plays a pivotal role in the performance of the computer in gaming and rendering.
What the? "Just doing graphics testing is the same as cutting video-only M1 reviews?" Of course not, here we have also prepared tests that are more relevant to everyone's daily work. I believe that many people need to deal with Excel in their work, and they should also have a deep understanding of operations such as pivot tables, data analysis and function operations. Here I also used Excel on two computers to perform the same 10,000 rows of data operations, here M1 Mac took 68 seconds, and MateBook X Pro took 85 seconds, there is still a certain gap between the two.
Seeing this, some people may start to conclude that M1 is better. No, no, no, it's not that simple. In fact, Office's support on macOS is far less extensive than that of the Windows platform, not to mention the macOS standard formwork software Numbers. This Excel test, which doesn't contain external dependencies, is also one of the very few simple macro tests that can run on a Mac, and coupled with the fact that industry software in the accounting industry relies heavily on the environment of old Windows, I don't think the MacBook Air can be called a victory here.
A new look at Windows notebooks
First of all, as Apple's publicity focus, M1 does allow macs to run some of the phone software directly. But the problem is that mobile phone software is based on touch interaction design, especially modern mobile phone software usually uses sliding as the interaction center. But as I said earlier, the Mac does not support touch screens, and such a fragmented interaction method greatly affects the comprehensive experience of the two.
But on the MateBook X Pro, multi-screen collaboration has a new way of presenting itself. You can project the contents of your phone screen directly onto your pc screen and perform operations on your phone on your PC. In the case that some software does not provide a computer, such multi-screen collaboration is obviously more in line with user habits. Through in-depth joint research and development and collaboration, Huawei Pc and Intel have used IBT technology to introduce Android mobile APP into desktop computers, building a unified cross-end application market for users and realizing ecological unity between mobile phones and computers, mobile terminals and desktops.
In addition, multi-screen collaborative operations such as the MateBook X Pro also solve the problem of multi-screen collaborative Chinese version control. In the Apple ecosystem, version synchronization of files relies on iCloud. But in MateBook X Pro, you can call up your phone's local files directly on your computer, or even work efficiently and play mobile games directly on a single screen, providing users with a richer selection of software. Currently, only Intel's version of Huawei PCs can implement this feature.
Strong and powerful to create a new era notebook
Like I said at the beginning, probably because of the bias against Windows computers of the past, as a Mac user I tend to be biased when choosing computers. In terms of storage, expansion and maintenance, they will even subconsciously "adapt themselves to the computer", rather than finding the right computer according to their own needs. Those USB-C docking stations, card readers, and portable hard drives for expansion are prime examples.
But as consumers, we understand that "computers are for the user." Although choosing a computer is a reflection of the trade-off between different needs of ourselves, many times, we are not only in front of the M1 choice. Consumers' user needs are ever-changing, and even Apple can't impress all consumers with one product. Instead of actively changing their user habits for the sake of computers, it is better to find products that are truly suitable for themselves in more diverse Windows × Intel models according to their actual needs. Or to put it more simply — Mac users, times have changed.