MacBook Pro vs. Surface Pro; Apple dominates Microsoft

Updated November 30 with Cyber ​​Monday Friday offers; Article originally published on November 29.

The next few years of personal computing are going to be redefined by ARM processors. Windows 10 on Microsoft’s ARM will take Apple’s macOS with Apple Silicon. With the launch of the new Macs by Tim Cook and his team, we have the first “real world” comparisons.

Apple dominates Microsoft.

Update, November 30: Apple’s MacBook Pro and Microsoft’s Surface Pro X both have their perks. If you are looking to buy one of the machines, there are a few last minute Cyber ​​Monday deals you should consider:

• Apple MacBook Pro (M1 Chip, 8GB RAM 256GB SSD) – B&H – $ 100 off to $ 1199. Link.
• Microsoft Surface Pro X (SQ1 chip, 8GB RAM 256GB storage) – Walmart – up to $ 337 off to $ 1,232. Link.

Comparing synthetic bookmarks is seldom a level playing field – the numbers can be impressive but aren’t necessarily a direct representation of user experience. That said, when Apple’s M1 chip credentials were discovered ahead of launch, it wasn’t about being a bit ahead of the competition Intel, it was way ahead of the competition.

The question of how well the M1 performs in practice has been answered, and there has been an amazing comparison of how powerful Apple’s ARM hardware is… thanks to Windows 10.

Apple removed Boot Camp from macOS 11, which many used to boot their Mac hardware into Windows 10. The promise was that virtualization could be used to emulate any machine as needed. Which is what developer Alexander Grad made, but with a twist. The version of Windows running on the new M1 Macs is the ARM version of Microsoft Windows 10. Hartley Charlton reports:

“Using the open source QEMU virtualizer, Graf was able to virtualize the Arm version of Windows on Apple’s ‌M1‌ chip, without emulation. As the ‌M1‌ chip is a custom SoC Arm, it is no longer possible to install the x86 version of Windows or Windows x86 applications using Boot Camp, as was the case with previous Intel Macs. However, he said in a Tweet that when virtualized on a Mac ‌M1‌, “Windows ARM64 can run x86 applications very well. It’s not as fast as Rosetta 2, but close. “

In terms of Windows 10 on ARM, Microsoft is currently selling the Surface Pro X with a custom ARM chip from Qualcomm based on this latest 8xc platform. It’s possible now, thanks to virtual Windows 10 on ARM running on Apple’s ARM-based silicon. The benchmark result on similar hardware shows that the Mac M1 runs Windows 10 on ARM faster than the Qualcomm / Microsoft-powered Surface Pro X. Mayank Parmar reports:

“Geekbench results show that Apple’s M1 chip has a single-core score of over 1390 and a multi-core score of over 4769 when tested with Windows 10 ARM in virtualization. In contrast, Surface Pro X cannot recover than 802 single-core score and 3104 multi-core score.

“Surface Pro X is the only truly powerful Windows ARM PC on the market and Microsoft has used a custom version of the Snapdragon processor called SQ1 for its Surface Pro X. The results don’t look good for Microsoft and Qualcomm, given that Windows 10 s ‘runs through virtualization on Apple hardware. “

If you needed an example of the leap Apple has made by designing its own silicon specifically around macOS and a single hardware platform, here it is. And on the flip side, it’s an example of how well the Windows 10 platform in general, and Qualcomm’s ARM chips in particular, have to go to match the M1 chip.

Back in the real world, the twist is emulation. MacOS and Windows 10 both need to involve developers to release native ARM apps. Until then, both platforms rely on emulation to run older apps. Windows 10 on ARM only supports 32-bit apps, with 64-bit support (covering the majority of apps) expected in beta soon and usually in early 2021. As with any emulation, performance is below those of native apps and will negatively impact battery life.

Apple’s Rosetta 2 has the advantage of much higher processing power than the M1. Apple’s flashy presentation aside, it’s not a slam dunk when it comes to compatibility, with some apps reporting issues and others with poor performance and huge impact on battery life. Patrick Moorhead from Forbes:

“For me, the Edge browser was very, very slow and revealed complex code. Outlook was better but I encountered lags. OneNote was extremely slow. I didn’t see any problem with Word or PowerPoint. I have encountered lags in Chrome, Skype for Business, Webex, Zoom, and Teams.

“Slack was very slow and slow. Slack is based on the Electron IDE, where one of its software engineers said here that Rosetta 2 will build apps (like Slack)” performance will be significantly degraded. “

We are in the early stages of ARM on the desktop. When it comes to hardware and software, there are some issues that need to be considered by anyone buying either platform at this early stage – although Apple’s two-year plan aiming to move the entire Mac family to ARM within two years limits those in the macOs ecosystem.

The next step for both platforms will be operating system updates to improve emulation support. Apple will seek to keep the impression of transparent media, while Microsoft will open up 64-bit apps and a larger library of legacy apps.

Learn more about Apple’s plans for new Mac hardware in 2021 …