HP Spectre vs Apple MacBook Air vs Dell XPS vs Surface Laptop: Best laptops compared

A laptop is a big investment that requires some careful thinking as you want to make sure that it will meet all your needs while staying within your budget. Most users buy laptops for four main general use cases including gaming, productivity, multimedia editing, or business. In order to make your purchase decision easier, you might want to decide your use case for the laptop.

In addition to the general use cases, there are other considerations based on your usage type as heavy usage for gaming, designing, and editing require powerful hardware including a dedicated GPU. Standard usage for constant web browsing, productivity, and occasional gaming will require a high end processor but dedicated GPU is optional. For light usage including web browsing and email, you can get away with low to mid-range processor as it will save a lot of money. If you are not sure about your usage needs in the future, it is always better go with the most powerful laptop that your budget allows.

Once you have decided on the performance level based on your usage type, there are further considerations for type of hardware including form factor (regular laptop vs convertible vs 2 in 1), display type, storage, battery life, and connectivity ports. In order to help you with your purchase decision, we have narrowed down the list to some of the best overall laptops of 2021, check out the full comparison below.

HP Spectre x360

The HP Spectre x360 is a 2-in-1 windows laptop for most people. It comes with a 13.5 inch either OLED or IPS touchscreen that has slim bezels with 3.2 aspect ration and 400 nits of brightness. Thanks to the taller screen compared to 16:10 ratio on other devices, HP is able to provide a bigger trackpad and space for top-firing speakers. The Audio system includes Bang Olufsen 4 speaker setup with dual array microphones. The Spectre x360 can be configured with up to 11th Gen Intel Core-i7 processor, Intel® Iris Xe Graphics, up to 16 GB DDR4 ram, up to 2TB SSD storage. You can plug in accessories with 2x Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB-A, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort, 1x MicroSD slot, and 3.5mm headphone jack. The Spectre x360 features WiFI 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 with a 66 Whr battery, which gets you up to 17 hours of battery life.

Apple MacBook Air

The MacBook Air has been a popular choice for those who prefer portability over power. However, the latest Apple MacBook Air features the M1 chipset, which gives you incredible power specs while maintaining ultra portable design. This makes the MacBook Air the most value packed laptop in Apple’s lineup. The M1 chip brings the Apple neural engine with improved performance of the CPU, GPU and machine learning tasks at the speed of 11 trillion operations per second. The 8 core processor is 3.5 times faster and GPU is 5 times faster compared to previous generation. You can have up to 16 GB RAM and up to 2TB SSD storage. It also features a 13.3 inch IPS display with 16:9 aspect ratio and 400 nits of brightness. Thanks to the M1 chip, the MacBook Air is also very quite as it uses aluminum heat spreader instead of a cooling fan. You can plug in accessories with 2x Thunderbolt 4 and 3.5mm headphone jack. The Air features WiFI 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 with a 49.9 Whr battery, which gets you up to 18 hours of battery life.

Dell XPS 13

If you want a laptop that offers power, performance, and versatility, then Dell XPS 13 delivers a complete package. It features a 13.4 inch infinityedge touchscreen with 16:10 aspect ratio and 500 nits display with optional 4K Ultra HD+ (3840 x 2400) resolution. The screen bezels are very thin so you only see the screen when working on the Dell XPS 13 laptop. The Audio system has been improved compared to previous generation with 2 stereo speakers featuring Waves MaxxAudio Pro. The Dell XPS 13 can be configured with up to 11th Gen Intel Core-i7 processor, Intel® Iris Xe Graphics, up to 32 GB DDR4 ram, up to 2TB SSD storage. You can plug in accessories with 2x Thunderbolt 4, 1x MicroSD slot, and 3.5mm headphone jack. The XPS 13 features WiFI 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 with a 52 Whr battery, which gets you up to 14 hours of battery life.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4

The Surface Laptop 4 delivers on Microsoft’s vision to provide a slim and premium design that gives Apple MacBook Air a run for its money. It is one of the nicest windows laptop you can buy. The Surface Laptop comes in two sizes including 13.5 and 15 inch models with a tall 3:2 touchscreen and 390 nits of brightness. The screen bezels are regular size so if you were expecting thin bezels then you won’t get them with Surface Laptop 4. The performance of the Surface Laptop 4 has been improved with processor options that include up to 11th Gen Intel Core-i7 or AMD Ryzen 7 with Intel Iris Xe or AMD Radeon graphics. The laptop can be configured with up to 32GB DDR4 RAM, up to 1TB SSD storage. The Audio system is exactly the same as previous generation with Ominisonic speakers that permeate sound through the keyboard, now including support for Dolby Atmos. You can plug in accessories with 1x USB-C, 1x USB-A, 1x Surface Connect, and 3.5mm headphone jack. The Surface Laptop 4 features WiFI 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 with 47.4 Whr battery, which gets you up to 17-19 hours of battery life.

Comparison of HP Spectre x360 vs Apple Macbook Air vs Dell XPS vs Surface Laptop 4

All four laptops offer high end performance with powerful processor options. In terms of memory, the Dell XPS and Surface Laptop offer almost double the memory with up to 32GB RAM. All laptops offer up to 2TB of SSD storage except for Surface Laptop with 1TB of storage. The screen size on all four laptops is very similar with HP and Microsoft offering 3:2 aspect ratio whereas Apple and Dell offering 16:10 aspect ratio. Dell XPS offers the brightest screen with 500 nits compared to 400 nits on all other laptops. In terms of connectivity ports, HP Spectre x360 features the most ports including an HDMI port whereas Apple MacBook Air features the fewest ports and Surface Laptop 4 is the only one without Thunderbolt ports. All four laptops feature 720p HD camera with WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5 connectivity options. HP Spectre x360 offers the biggest battery with 66 Whr but real life performance is quite similar for all of them at around 17hours except for 14hour battery life on Dell XPS. All laptops feature aluminum finish, a backlit keyboard with similar size and weight.

All four laptops compared above are excellent options that are highly recommended for your computing needs. If you are looking for a Mac then MacBook Air is the clear option as it provides great performance at comparable price point. Based on the comparison above, the HP Spectre x360 14 offers the most bang for your buck with high end performance options, thin bezel 2-in-1 360 display, lots of connectivity ports, great speaker setup in a sleek aluminum package. The HP Spectre x360 14 is clearly the best 2-in-1 windows laptop that will surely address your price and personal preferences.

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