Why would you ever consider getting a Windows laptop as your daily driver in 2023?

The "software I need only runs on Windows" argument is outdated and doesn't even apply to most applications anymore. Now, x86 software generally just works on Windows 11 on ARM running in a Parallels VM on Apple Silicon! For example:

• • Altium Designer ✅

• • DynAMX Design Lab ✅

• • PTC Mathcad Prime 9 ✅

• • PowerWorld Simulator ✅

• • SOLIDWORKS ✅

Get an Apple Silicon laptop that won't cripple itself in performance the moment you leave a wall outlet and/or give you range anxiety as its battery runs dry before you can finish your work. Get a MacBook that won't ever have driver issues or come with OEM bloatware and buggy trackpads that periodically act up, making it feel like you're dragging your cursor through molasses.

I made the switch after I grew tired of dreaming up ridiculous excuses for my terrible experience on a high-end gaming Windows laptop, and I won't be looking back for the next five years at the very least.

Your institution might offer you a license of Parallels Desktop at no cost to you, but if not, Parallels can often be purchased at a discount. After you install Parallels, it walks you through getting Windows set up. The whole process has been made exceedingly simple and should take less than 10 minutes on a reasonably competent Internet connection. Once you have Windows 11 on ARM running on your Mac, there's a good chance even [ insert your obscure software here ] will install and run just fine.

Apple Silicon laptops are also faster (while draining less power!) than even the fastest Windows laptops. For a quick comparison, let's pit the Geekbench scores for my top-of-the-line Razer Blade 17" from 2022 with an Intel Core i9-12900H CPU and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU (OpenCL)—explicitly set to its highest performance mode, fans blasting like a jet engine, and plugged into a giant 280W power adapter, by the way—against a 16" MacBook Pro from 2021 with an M1 Max CPU and GPU (OpenCL) (Metal).

We could also look at Cinebench 2024 scores of loud, clunky, overheating current-generation Windows laptops against a current-generation 16" M3 Max (16C/40C) MacBook Pro with a much-improved GPU. Here, the 16-core (4E/12P) M3 Max CPU exceeds the Intel Core i9-13980HX (16E/8P) CPU's single core score while matching its multi core score despite having 8 fewer cores and 16 fewer threads. Meanwhile, the 40-core M3 Max GPU bests the highest-scoring RTX 4070 laptop and matches the lowest-scoring RTX 4080 laptop. Test results from Windows 11 show a 15-20% performance hit from running in a Parallels VM. The M3 Max achieves these results consuming 7W during the single core tests, 50W during the multi core tests, and a measly 30W (36W if including the CPU) during the GPU test, all according to Mx Power Gadget.

Most importantly, MacBooks aren't just objectively more performant; they feel faster and never hesitate to keep up with you at your "speed of thought". It's been nothing short of a game-changer for how I work.

When I'm doing coursework or watching lecture recordings (or consuming content), for which even a Chromebook would suffice, the MacBook's efficiency (and its outrageously good speaker system!) is unparalleled.

When I fire DaVinci Resolve up for some video editing, I don't have to worry about discrete GPU initialization errors because I'm not plugged into a wall outlet nor about inexcusably low performance because I don't carry a 280W power supply brick everywhere I go and my USB-C PD charger is only capable of 60W.

Then, when I need to run Windows-only programs like DynAMx Design Lab for research or Altium Designer for a team project, Windows is ready to go right alongside macOS thanks to Parallels Desktop's Coherence mode—including full copy-paste and dragging support—without skipping a single beat.

The Apple Silicon laptop doesn't just handle everything I throw at it without complaint; it excels at everything I do with it. My full-of-compromises at best (and painful at worst) experience with two different beefy Windows gaming laptops from two different manufacturers over the past two years and the (starkly contrasting) the unbelievably unproblematic experience I've had with the MacBook have rendered me incapable of recommending Windows laptops to most people in good conscience.

If you find that an Apple Silicon laptop can't be made to work for your needs, return it within 14 days. In 2023, you have no excuse not to—you owe it to yourself to—at least try using a real laptop before you decide whether or not you really, truly, absolutely must relegate yourself to suffering on a Windows laptop crappy, impaired version of a desktop computer.

Oh, gaming? You can run Cyberpunk 2077 at 60fps+ on a Mac these days.

Benchmark Data

16" MacBook Pro with M3 Max (16-core CPU, 40-core GPU)

macOS Sonoma 14.1

Cinebench R23.2 CPU (Single core): 1841 pts
3.8GHz (P-core) @ 7W

Cinebench R23.2 CPU (Multi core): 22430 pts (22414 pts re-run while having Windows 11 Parallels adaptive hypervisor VM booted)
3.5GHz (P-cores), 2.5GHz (E-cores) @ 56W

Cinebench 2024.1.0 CPU (Single core): 137 pts
3.8GHz (P-core) @ 7W

Cinebench 2024.1.0 CPU (Multi core): 1543 pts
3.6GHz (P-cores), 2.5GHz (E-cores) @ 50W

Cinebench 2024.1.0 GPU (with GPU-accelerated Metal RT hardware ray tracing): 12833 pts
1.36GHz @ 30W (36W if including CPU)

Windows 11 on ARM (Parallels 19 VM using all P-cores and 2/4 E-cores, 32GB RAM)

Cinebench R23.2 CPU (Single core): 730 pts
3.8GHz (P-core) @ 7W

Cinebench R23.2 CPU (Multi core): 8370 pts
3.5GHz (P-cores), 2.5GHz (E-cores) @ 54W

Cinebench 2024.0.1 CPU (Single core): 116 pts
3.8GHz (P-core) @ 7W

Cinebench 2024.0.1 CPU (Multi core): 1249 pts
3.6GHz (P-cores), 2.5GHz (E-cores) @ 50W

Razer Blade 17 (2022) with Intel Core i9-12900H & NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop

Windows 11 (64-bit) without Razer Synapse 3

Cinebench R23.2 CPU (Single core): 1669 pts
4.3 – 4.9GHz (P-core) @ 36W

Cinebench R23.2 CPU (Multi core): 8784 pts
2.2GHz (P-cores), 1.6GHz (E-cores) @ 36W

Windows 11 (64-bit) With Razer Synapse 3 CPU Performance Setting: “Boost”, GPU Performance Setting: “High”

Cinebench R23.2 CPU (Single core): 1294 pts
4.3GHz (P-core) @ 66W

Cinebench R23.2 CPU (Multi core): 12224 pts
3.0GHz (P-cores), 2.3GHz (E-cores) @ 60W

Cinebench 2024.0.1 CPU (Single core): 76 pts
4.0 – 4.3GHz (P-core) @ 65W

Cinebench 2024.0.1 CPU (Multi core): 752 pts
3.0 – 3.1GHz (P-cores), 2.3GHz (E-cores) @ 60W

Cinebench 2024.0.1 GPU (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop): 12103 pts
1.8GHz @ 150W (210W if including CPU)