The Windows Laptop Problem

Summary

Marques Brownlee uses two recent Mac launches — the $600 MacBook Neo and the new $6,000 16-inch M5 Max MacBook Pro — as bookends to argue that the Windows laptop industry has a structural problem. The Pro is at the top of every benchmark chart for any Mac ever made, with a GPU more powerful than the M2 Ultra in his $10,000 Mac Pro and SSD speeds approaching 20,000 MB/s. The Neo, meanwhile, is “one of the best deals in tech in a long time” — a premium-feeling Mac at a price point Windows laptop makers have always owned. He cites a real Asus executive’s quote calling the Neo “a shock to the industry” as the springboard.

His thesis: Windows vs. Mac is now structurally similar to Android vs. iPhone. Variety and choice are the upside, but they’re also the disadvantage, because every premium Windows laptop relies on Dell (or HP, Asus, Lenovo, Razer) AND Intel AND Microsoft all executing at once. He demos a $2,200 Dell XPS 14 with a Core Ultra 300, 2.8K tandem OLED, and gorgeous metal build — ruined on first boot by 45 minutes of forced updates and sign-in flows, plus a McAfee pop-up ad. The Copilot key, Recall, and “AI in Microsoft Paint, for crying out loud” round out the indictment of Microsoft as the weak link.

At the low end, where laptops like the Acer Aspire 16 ($550) used to thrive on trade-offs, the Neo brings vertical integration to the price point too. And, crucially, Apple isn’t trying to make hardware margin on the Neo — it’s a Trojan horse to acquire first-time Mac buyers who become subscribers to TV+, AppleCare, iCloud and other services. Tim Cook tweeted that Mac just had its best launch ever for first-time customers. If Windows OEMs can’t respond, the Neo is going to “keep eating their lunch.”

Highlights

”The MacBook Neo is a shock to the industry”

“There was a quote recently from an Asus executive that described the new MacBook Neo as a shock to the industry. And yes, but it also got me thinking, what is actually happening with the rest of the industry?” — Marques Brownlee, 0:59

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”Windows vs. Mac is iPhone vs. Android”

“It’s become pretty clear, the more I think about it, that Windows versus Mac laptops is basically the same as iPhone versus Android. Because just like Android, the advantage of the Windows side is the variety and the choice. But that’s also now both an advantage and a disadvantage that’s getting kind of scary now.” — Marques Brownlee, 1:22

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”I got a McAfee pop-up ad on this $2,000 brand new laptop”

“Like this XPS, the first time I booted this up to set it up, it took me like 45 minutes because of all the forced updates and then all these mandatory sign-ins… I got a pop-up ad for McAfee security on this $2,000 brand new laptop.” — Marques Brownlee, 4:49

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”Generative AI in Microsoft Paint, for crying out loud”

“Then that’s not even mentioning all the other AI stuff that Microsoft is pushing, the Copilot stuff, the infamous Recall feature that everyone hates. There’s generative AI in Microsoft Paint now, for crying out loud.” — Marques Brownlee, 5:13

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”The Neo is a Trojan horse for Apple Services”

“Not only does Apple basically print A18 Pros for cheap, but also Apple’s not even necessarily concerned with making a huge hardware profit on selling Neos, because this is more of a Trojan horse to create a bunch of new first-time Mac buyers who then become Apple Services subscribers.” — Marques Brownlee, 9:00

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Key Points

• MacBook Neo @ $600 (0:00) - “One of the best deals in tech in a long time” — $500 with student discount
• M5 Max MacBook Pro 16” (0:21) - $6,000 spec; multi-core CPU at the top of every Mac chart
• GPU > M2 Ultra Mac Pro (0:21) - More powerful than the GPU in his own $10,000 Mac Pro
• ~20,000 MB/s SSD (0:21) - New SSD read/write approaching 20 GB/s
• The Asus executive quote (0:59) - Called the Neo “a shock to the industry”
• Windows = Android analogy (1:22) - Variety as both upside and structural weakness
• Dell killed XPS, then revived it (1:42) - Briefly merged into Dell/Dell Pro/Dell Pro Max before reverting
• XPS 14 specs (1:42) - 14” 2.8K tandem OLED, 120Hz, Intel Panther Lake Core Ultra 300, 32GB DDR5, 1TB SSD
• Three Thunderbolt 4 ports + headphone jack (2:44) - But TB4 not TB5; no SD card slot
• No lid lip (2:44) - “Awkward pry to like get the laptop open”
• Three companies must execute at once (3:15) - Dell + Intel + Microsoft all need to nail their part for the laptop to feel premium
• 45-minute first-boot setup (4:29) - Forced updates, mandatory sign-ins, Microsoft 365/OneDrive prompts
• Recall + Copilot key requirement (5:13) - Every Windows 11 “AI PC” requires a dedicated Copilot button on the keyboard
• $1,000 starting MacBook → $600 (7:25) - Apple just dropped the MacBook entry price by 40%
• Acer Aspire 16 @ $550 (6:30) - Snapdragon-powered budget laptop with full-size ports and a 16” screen
• Apple “prints A18 Pros for cheap” (9:00) - The Neo runs the same chip Apple makes by the millions for iPhones
• Mac’s best launch ever for first-timers (9:42) - Per a Tim Cook tweet
• Color Picker Sticker Pack ad (10:14) - In-video promo for new MKBHD merch

Mentions

Companies

• Apple (0:00) - Maker of the MacBook Neo, MacBook Pro M5 Max, Apple Silicon, and Apple Services
• Microsoft (0:46) - The Windows OS, Copilot, Recall, M365, OneDrive
• Dell (0:46) - Maker of the XPS 14
• HP (0:46) - Mentioned as Windows OEM
• Asus (0:46) - Mentioned as Windows OEM; source of the “shock to the industry” quote
• Lenovo (0:46) - Mentioned as Windows OEM
• Razer (0:46) - Razer Blade with 5070 GPU as a high-end gaming Windows option
• Acer (6:30) - Maker of the budget Aspire 16
• Intel (2:18) - Panther Lake / Core Ultra 300 with new integrated GPUs
• Qualcomm (6:30) - Snapdragon chip in the Acer Aspire 16
• NVIDIA (6:00) - Mentioned via Razer Blade’s 5070 GPU
• McAfee (4:49) - Pop-up bloatware on a brand new $2,000 Dell

Products & Technologies

• MacBook Neo (0:00) - $600 entry-level Mac with A18 Pro vertical integration
• MacBook Pro M5 Max 16” (0:21) - $6,000 maxed-out reference machine
• Mac Pro (M2 Ultra) (0:21) - Brownlee’s $10,000 Mac Pro the M5 Max GPU now beats
• Dell XPS 14 (1:42) - $2,200 Windows premium laptop in this video
• Acer Aspire 16 (6:30) - $550 budget Windows laptop reference
• Razer Blade (5070) (6:00) - Reference high-end gaming Windows laptop
• Intel Panther Lake / Core Ultra 300 (2:18) - New CPU generation with revamped integrated graphics
• Tandem OLED display (2:18) - 2.8K @ 120Hz on the XPS 14
• Thunderbolt 4 / Thunderbolt 5 (2:44) - XPS 14 ships with TB4 not TB5
• Microsoft Copilot (5:13) - Microsoft’s AI assistant; mandatory keyboard button
• Microsoft Recall (5:13) - “The infamous Recall feature that everyone hates”
• Microsoft 365 / OneDrive (4:29) - Mandatory sign-in prompts during setup
• A18 Pro (9:00) - The iPhone-class chip in the MacBook Neo
• Apple TV+ / AppleCare / iCloud (9:23) - Services revenue Apple is chasing with cheap Macs
• MKBHD Color Picker Sticker Pack (10:14) - In-video merch promo

People

• Tim Cook (9:42) - Tweeted about Mac’s best launch ever for first-time customers

Surprising Quotes

“I’ve been benchmarking a $6,000 16-inch M5 Max MacBook Pro, and the results are just getting ridiculous. It has multi-core CPU performance at the top of the charts for every Mac ever, and the GPU is now more powerful than the M2 Ultra in my $10,000 Mac Pro.” — Marques Brownlee, 0:21

“Microsoft actually requires a dedicated Copilot button on the keyboard of every new Windows 11 laptop now to be classified as an AI PC, whatever that means.” — Marques Brownlee, 5:13

“Apple can make this computer even cheaper than they ordinarily would to effectively acquire new Mac users who will then go subscribe to TV Plus or AppleCare or iCloud or whatever other services. And that’s worth more than the hardware margin would be.” — Marques Brownlee, 9:23

“If they aren’t able to do anything about it, then Neos just going to keep eating their lunch and they could have a bit of a market share crisis on their hands.” — Marques Brownlee, 9:51

Transcript

Marques Brownlee: 0:00 So, two really crazy Mac laptops which came out in the past month. The MacBook Neo, which is one of the best deals in tech in a long time, 600 bucks and more efficient and more capable and better built than almost every other laptop in that price range. And the new MacBook Pros at the opposite end of the spectrum. I’ve been benchmarking a $6,000 16-inch M5 Max MacBook Pro, and the results are just getting ridiculous. It has multi-core CPU performance at the top of the charts for every Mac ever, and the GPU is now more powerful than the M2 Ultra in my $10,000 Mac Pro. And the new SSD’s read-write speeds are upgraded, approaching 20,000 megabytes per second. It’s just absurd. It’s awesome. It’s a creative professional’s dream.

Marques Brownlee: 0:46 Both of these computers are putting Windows laptops on notice. And by extension, Microsoft, and Dell, and HP, and Asus, and Lenovo, and Razer, etc., all on notice.

Marques Brownlee: 0:59 There was a quote recently from an Asus executive that described the new MacBook Neo as a shock to the industry. And yes, but it also got me thinking, what is actually happening with the rest of the industry? What is happening on the Windows side of the fence? So, I just started digging in. I started getting my hands on a bunch of these Windows laptops and researching and benchmarking, and it’s become pretty clear, the more I think about it, that Windows versus Mac laptops is basically the same as iPhone versus Android. Because just like Android, the advantage of the Windows side is the variety and the choice. But that’s also now both an advantage and a disadvantage that’s getting kind of scary now.

Marques Brownlee: 1:42 Take this. This is the new Dell XPS 14. I used to really like XPS computers back in the day. Some of my oldest computers were XPSes. Then Dell did this thing where they killed off the XPS, the Latitude and the Inspiron names and rebranded them into Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max for some reason. Then they came back to their senses and brought back XPS and I bought this one, and this thing is really nice. 14-inch 2.8K tandem OLED display, thin bezels all the way around with a webcam and no notch, 120 hertz variable refresh rate, and then it’s this thin all-metal jacket with soft-touch finish around the palm rests, which hide a massive force touch trackpad. There’s three Thunderbolt ports, there’s a headphone jack, and then inside is an Intel Panther Lake processor, this one a Core Ultra 300 series with their new integrated GPUs, plus 32 gigs of DDR5 RAM and a terabyte SSD. I liked a lot of the previous XPSes, like I said, but this one is in a lot of ways better than those.

Marques Brownlee: 2:44 Uh, but it also does have a couple quirks. Like the ports are all Thunderbolt 4 instead of Thunderbolt 5, and there’s no SD card slot or any other full-size ports, which on a premium laptop like this is a choice. There’s also no lip to open the lid for some reason. So it’s always this little awkward pry to like get the laptop open every single time. And then the keyboard is probably its weakest…

Marques Brownlee: 3:00 At this point, it’s a bit shallow. The layout is slightly wonky with these top menu buttons, which get slightly more misaligned the further from the outside you get. But otherwise, I mean, yeah, this is really nice. So this, this is a $2,200 laptop as spec’d.

Marques Brownlee: 3:15 So obviously a pretty premium option. But this is, you know, just one of many premium options you could pick. Now why do I bring up this laptop? Well, in Windows land, this laptop being really good actually relies on a bunch of different companies all executing really well at the exact same time, right?

Marques Brownlee: 3:34 So it relies on Dell putting a lot of effort into actually bringing back the XPS line and not cheaping out and doing the metal build quality and a nice display and the whole premium design. It also relies on Intel and this exact generation of Panther Lake chips being good and actually having good integrated graphics because they don’t actually offer this laptop with a discrete GPU.

Marques Brownlee: 3:54 And it relies on Microsoft to actually do a good job with Windows so that the software experience is worthy of your premium price tag and not riddled with ads or unnecessary AI features. And if it all happens, then together this laptop feels like it’s worth the premium price.

Marques Brownlee: 4:08 But you can probably see where I’m going with this. That doesn’t always happen. And lately, Windows has felt like a weak link and every single Windows laptop will have to suffer for it. Now, it’s not that the whole OS is like fundamentally bad. It’s not super buggy or anything crazy. It’s still functional, but it’s just lacking the super premium feel that wins everybody over.

Marques Brownlee: 4:29 Like this XPS, the first time I booted this up to set it up, it took me like 45 minutes because of all the forced updates and then all these mandatory sign-ins and it was asking me to use Microsoft 365 and then OneDrive and then all these other services, etc., etc. And then even once I got in, I got ads.

Marques Brownlee: 4:49 Like, I got a pop-up ad for McAfee security on this $2,000 brand new laptop, which, to be fair, is probably a Dell problem. But then that’s not even mentioning all the other AI stuff that Microsoft is pushing, the Copilot stuff, the infamous Recall feature that everyone hates. There’s generative AI in Microsoft Paint now, for crying out loud.

Marques Brownlee: 5:13 Microsoft actually requires a dedicated Copilot button on the keyboard of every new Windows 11 laptop now to be classified as an AI PC, whatever that means. Uh, so just between that and the ads, it’s just not really feeling like a totally premium experience.

Marques Brownlee: 5:31 And at that high end, when you’re spending a lot, users will start to get deservedly really picky. You’re spending a lot of money, you deserve to. And that’s where Apple has pretty much exclusively been playing for like the last decade. The cheapest new MacBook was always $1,000 and then it went way up from there.

Marques Brownlee: 5:49 And they are so vertically integrated with their Apple silicon and so the hardware is designed for the software and the software is designed for the hardware and it’s always felt so efficient and clean and performant and people just love their expensive MacBooks.

Marques Brownlee: 6:00 Now there’s obviously still reasons why people buy high-end Windows laptops. It’s still a lot of the choice and the variety, and there are certain things you still can’t get in Mac land, like if you want a high-end gaming laptop, you know, that’s one of those common things. You can go get a Razer Blade with a 5070 and a 240 Hz display. That’s an option. So there are still those things, but every one of those relies on all of the parts from all those different companies again being good at the same time, and that is a tough challenge.

Marques Brownlee: 6:30 So now flip it to the low end. And this is where it gets really interesting because it turns out, as we’re learning, a lot of these efficiencies that Apple’s been using to dominate the high end are also very effective in the low end. Because to be clear, people are absolutely willing to accept some more shortcomings in lower-priced laptops. Like that’s the trade-off that’s a part of the game. You know, if you shop around, hey, maybe you’ll be able to find a laptop with just the right set of trade-offs that you don’t mind while still being decent at the stuff you care about. Like this is the Acer Aspire 16. Super popular laptop in this segment. It’s actually discounted recently, so I got it for 550 from Amazon.

Marques Brownlee: 7:00 And there’s a few more stickers on it, yes, and there’s a little more plastic and the keyboard deck flex is just a little bit lacking in build quality, yes. And the Snapdragon chip that powers it, you know, it’s not going to have the highest-end performance, but it’s efficient, so it has good battery. And then there’s a nice big 16-inch screen and a bunch of full-size ports here. So if I’m just going to be writing or web browsing or watching videos on this thing, feels like a pretty good value. So look, laptops like this have been just fine. They’ve been thriving at these price points, but here’s a problem. Here’s the brand new Gatorade-colored MacBook Neo-shaped problem.

Marques Brownlee: 7:25 The starting price for a MacBook has been $1,000 for a new machine for the past couple years. Now it just dropped to 600 and actually 500 if you have a student discount. And if you’ve seen the reviews, you already know it turns out that they did a great job with the Neo to making it feel just like the more premium Macs. Same clean software, same metal build, same keyboard, and more importantly, the same tight vertical integration where the hardware and the software are designed for each other and work super efficiently with each other.

Marques Brownlee: 7:51 So it’s like unless you have a Windows-specific need, like a certain app you need to use software-wise or a certain game you want to play, most people crave the premium experience that’s been associated with the Macs that are more expensive for all these years. And so the Neo coming along for 600 bucks represented that premium, well-integrated, efficient experience that is going to be incredibly hard to compete with. In Windows land, you’re not only relying on all these different companies making the parts to all make them well at the same time, you’re also paying them all who need their own profits to survive. And so that makes it really hard to make good, cheap laptops and actually profit.

Marques Brownlee: 9:00 From that. So then the cherry on top is not only does Apple basically print A18 Pros for cheap, but also Apple’s not even necessarily concerned with making a huge hardware profit on selling Neos, because this is more of a Trojan horse to create a bunch of new first-time Mac buyers who then become Apple Services subscribers.

Marques Brownlee: 9:23 So Apple can make this computer even cheaper than they ordinarily would to effectively acquire new Mac users who will then go subscribe to TV Plus or AppleCare or iCloud or whatever other services. And that’s worth more than the hardware margin would be.

Marques Brownlee: 9:42 And it already seems to be working. There was just a Tim Cook tweet this week about how Mac just had its best launch ever for first-time Mac customers.

Marques Brownlee: 9:51 So yeah, guilty of talking about Apple a lot in this video, but it turns out the shock to the industry is very real, and it’s going to be so fascinating to see what sort of responses we actually get from Windows laptop makers in the next couple months and years and what sort of strings they try to pull because if they aren’t able to do anything about it, then Neos just going to keep eating their lunch and they could have a bit of a market share crisis on their hands.

Marques Brownlee: 10:14 Also, one more quick thing, uh we just came out with these stickers that we’re adding to our merch store. I love the way these turned out. The team cooked on these. This one is a color picker sticker, which is so fun. So it’s kind of an if you know you know design, but you can put them on anything colorful for fun, at least that’s what I’ve been doing. You get a bunch of stickers in a pack, so go get some for yourself and send me pictures of what you stick them on. Tag me on Twitter and Threads and stuff.

Marques Brownlee: 10:43 All right. Thanks for watching. Catch you guys in the next one. Peace.