Spec-Down: Apple MacBook Air vs. Microsoft Surface Laptop 2

Long overdue for a refresh, the Apple MacBook Air received a Retina display, Force Touch trackpad, new Intel Core i5 processor, and other enhancements this week that once again make it competitive with the latest and greatest Windows ultraportable laptops.

These Windows competitors—the Dell XPS 13 and Huawei MateBook X Pro immediately come to mind, among several others—also run the latest and greatest hardware, though. What's more, they're frequently updated with new features, sometimes multiple times per year. The result is an ultraportable market so intensely competitive that it's nearly impossible to crown one as an undisputed winner.

It is possible to enter the MacBook Air in a spec-down with one of its archrivals, though, so that's exactly what I'm going to do. For this contest, the recently revamped Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 joins the new MacBook Air in the ring.

Paying the Apple Premium

Let's begin the contest with price, since that will determine which internal configurations of the MacBook Air and Surface Laptop 2 to compare, as well as whether or not you can afford either one, and thus whether or not you care about this fight at all.

The base model of the Surface Laptop 2 includes an Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD for $999. That's about as unsurprising as you can get: Spending around $1,000 for these specs is par for the course for most ultraportable laptops. Indeed, the base level MacBook Air has the same memory and storage capacity as the Surface Laptop 2 does, and it also comes with an Intel Core i5 processor. But it starts at $1,199, putting the MacBook Air at a significant disadvantage right from the start.

Next up: screen quality. The Surface Laptop 2 comes with a rather unique, square-looking 3:2 aspect ratio instead of the more common widescreen 16:9 or 16:10 ratios. This is great if you're editing a document in a word processing app, since it can display more lines of text before you have to scroll down. It's far from ideal if you're watching a movie or TV show, though, nearly all of which are shot in a wide format. The MacBook Air comes with a 16:9 display.

The Surface Laptop 2's 13.5-inch display is almost imperceptibly larger than the MacBook Air's 13.3-inch screen. With 201 pixels per inch (ppi), it also has an imperceptibly lower resolution than the MacBook Air's screen does (227 ppi). Both resolutions are far higher than full HD (1080p), though not exactly 4K (2160p). From PCMag's quick hands-on looks at both screens, even though neither has High Dynamic Range (HDR) support, they both offer incredibly bright colors, wide viewing angles, and crisp text.

One major feature missing from the MacBook Air's display is a touch screen that supports both finger and digital pen input, which the Surface Laptop 2 offers. This is somewhat of a moot comparison, though, since the usefulness of a touch screen is largely dependent on software that supports it. Windows 10 offers native touch support while macOS doesn't, so the Apple's lack of a touch screen isn't surprising. While this might factor into which operating system you prefer, it doesn't have much of a bearing in determining which screen is better, so based on the other specs, let's call screen quality a dead heat between the two competitors.

Since you can't touch the MacBook Air's screen (and there's no option to add Apple's Touch Bar), your main input source will be the Force Touch trackpad, which is one of the most welcome additions to the 2018 iteration of the laptop. Instead of a physical clicking mechanism, this pad simulates clicks with tiny vibrations, known as haptic feedback. This setup lets you receive a uniform clicking sensation no matter where your fingertip is located on the pad, something that's impossible with a physical clicking mechanism. You can also adjust pressure sensitivity and other settings to suit your preference.

All told, the Force Touch trackpad is the best laptop pad I've ever used, and a clear advantage over the Surface Laptop 2's conventional—and much smaller—touchpad.

Deciding which laptop has a better keyboard is far more difficult, though. Apple has added its controversial butterfly-style key switches to the 2018 MacBook Air, which results in extraordinary stability but also extremely short key travel. Some people love the sensation, while others vehemently hate it, but whichever camp you fall into, I've found that you'll quickly grow accustomed to tapping rather than striking the keys.

The Surface Laptop 2's keyboard is far more conventional, with greater travel while still affording good key stability. It's certainly in the upper echelon of laptop keyboards, so I'm going to give it a slight upper hand over the MacBook Air's keyboard.

Anemic Port Selection

The port selection on both the Surface Laptop 2 and the MacBook Air is a bit anemic, but that's expected for thin and light laptops. The MacBook Air offers two USB-C ports that both support the lightning-quick, cutting-edge Thunderbolt 3 data transfer interface. If you own external hard drives, monitors, or other peripherals that can take advantage of this interface, the MacBook Air is a clear winner over the Surface Laptop 2, which lacks both USB-C and Thunderbolt 3.

Unfortunately, the two USB-C ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack are all you get on the MacBook Air, which means any peripherals that use USB Type A ports will need adapters. The Surface Laptop 2, by contrast, includes a USB 3.0 Type A port while lacking both USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 connectivity. Display output is via a mini DisplayPort connector, which will require an adapter or special cable to use.

The bottom line is that neither laptop offers a well-rounded port selection, but the MacBook Air is slightly more versatile because you can always buy an adapter to transform a Thunderbolt 3 port into a USB Type A port, but there's no way to transform a USB Type A port into a Thunderbolt 3 port.

The MacBook Air weighs 2.75 pounds, a noticeable decrease from the 2.96 pounds of the 2017 model that it replaces. The 2.76 pounds of the Surface Laptop 2 means that the two competitors are almost identical, giving neither the advantage. It's worth noting that the Air, which pioneered the ultraportable laptop category, is no longer the lightest portable Mac. That honor belongs to the MacBook, which is just 2.03 pounds, though it also has a smaller 12-inch display.

Nearly Identical Internal Configurations

At first glance, it's easy to compare the main internal components of the MacBook Air and the Surface Laptop 2, since the base configurations are identical, as mentioned above. The problem is that since we haven't tested either one in PC Labs yet, we don't actually know how they will perform in real-world and benchmark computing tests. We also don't know the exact details of which Core i5 model powers the MacBook Air, since it doesn't match any model that Intel currently sells and Apple customarily declined to provide detailed processor specifications.

So for now, I'll simply compare the options available to MacBook Air and Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 shoppers who want more processing muscle, memory, or additional storage. For the MacBook Air, storage configurations include 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, or 1.5TB PCI Express SSDs. The Surface Laptop 2 offers nearly identical SSD options, though its most spacious drive is 1TB, not 1.5TB.

Neither laptop offers a dedicated GPU, instead performing graphics calculations using memory and processes shared with the CPU. Memory configurations on both laptops are either 8GB or 16GB, but the Surface Laptop 2 lets you upgrade to an Intel Core i7 while the MacBook Air only offers the Core i5 in the base model.

Ultimately, the configurations are similar enough and so little is known about the machines' real-world performance that I'll call the internal component offerings a tie between the two laptops.

And the Winner Is…

Most differences between the Surface Laptop 2 and the 2018 MacBook Air are so idiosyncratic that they really only matter if you know exactly what you're searching for in a laptop. Will you spend more time editing documents than watching movies? If so, the Surface Laptop 2's screen is a better choice. Do you have lots of multimedia content stored on a new Thunderbolt 3 external hard drive? In that case, the MacBook Air is the obvious choice.

Do you love navigating a PC using a touch screen? Buy the Surface Laptop 2. Do you have an iPhone, love the blue bubbles of Apple Messages, and want to respond to them on your laptop? You'll need macOS. You're probably starting to see a pattern here.

Ultimately, the only clear differentiator that applies to everyone eyeing either laptop (other than computing performance, which is yet to be determined) is price. Here, the Surface Laptop is the clear winner, at $999 to the MacBook Air's $1199. If all you need is a capable ultraportable to get you through a long flight, a day at the office, or a night of essay writing, all evidence points to buying the Surface Laptop 2. Don't forget to use part of the $200 you'll save on some dongles to rectify the anemic port situation.