MacBook Air 13 (M4) vs. Surface Laptop 7: Apple’s perfect little laptop wins out

The best 13-inch laptops are fast and incredibly portable. But the two best laptops currently in that category actually have displays that are closer to 14-inch laptops. Those are the Apple MacBook Air 13 (M4) and the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 13.8-inch model.

Regardless of which class you put them in, these are two very well-built laptops with solid performance and great battery life. They’re both excellent laptops, but which one is right for you?

Specs and configurations

The MacBook Air starts at $999 with the 10-core CPU/8-core GPU M4 chipset, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. That’s a departure from previous generations, where the entry-level machine featured the previous-gen chipset and just 8GB of RAM. Obviously, that’s a serious improvement. From there, you can upgrade ram to 24GB for $200 or 32GB for $400, and various storage upgrades ranging from 512GB ($200) to 2TB ($800). The faster M4 with a 10-core GPU is an extra $100, with the most expensive configuration coming in at $2,199.

The Surface Laptop 7 also starts around $1,000, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chipset, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. A 512GB SSD ups the price to $1,200 and 1TB to $1,400, while RAM can be upgraded to 32GB or 64GB. The most expensive configuration is $2,500.

However, while Apple rarely puts its current laptops on sale, Microsoft currently has the Surface Laptop 7 on sale for considerably less than list. It’s around the same price at the low end, and a little less expensive at the high end.

Design

The MacBook Air 13 is, in my opinion, the perfectly designed thin-and-light laptop. It’s incredibly thin, just the right weight to avoid feeling flimsy, and it features several attractive colors and a minimalist look that shares the same elegance with the rest of the MacBook lineup. The Surface Laptop 7 13.8-inch model is also attractive with several nice color ways, it’s a little sleeker, and it shares simple Surface aesthetic that’s also quite elegant. Both are great looking laptops, but the MacBook wins by being quite a bit thinner without sacrificing performance or battery life.

Both are also very well-made, of all-aluminum construction with tight tolerances. They’re very solid, with no flexing, bending, or twisting in their lids, keyboard decks, or chassis bottoms. You won’t find a laptop that feels better in hand than these two.

The MacBook Air 13 has the same Magic Keyboard that you’ll find on every MacBook, and it’s excellent. It has great key spacing, large keycaps, and (in my opinion) the best, snappiest, and most precise switches around. The Surface Laptop 7’s keyboard is also very good, with a comfortable layout and slightly firmer and deeper switches.

Apple’s Force Touch touchpad is also the best around. It’s larger, for one thing, and incredibly responsive. And its Force Click feature, where you can click “harder” and kick off additional functionality, is unique. The Surface Laptop 7 also has a haptic touchpad that’s highly customizable, but it’s a bit smaller.

Connectivity slightly favors the Surface Laptop 7, which has a legacy USB-A port to go with its two USB4 ports. The MacBook has just two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4. Both laptops have proprietary chargers that keep the other ports available while plugged in. The Surface Laptop 7 has more up-to-date wireless connectivity.

Finally, the MacBook Air 13 has a new 12MP webcam that provides excellent low-light performance and a clear image. It features Apple’s Center Stage feature that does a great job of keeping the user centered while moving around, and the Desk View feature allows sharing a desktop with a picture-in-picture video. The Surface Laptop 7’s 1080p webcam isn’t as high-res but it provides a good image as well. Both laptops have fast chips for AI processing with the M4 Neural Engine and the Qualcomm Neural Processing Unit. Apple Intelligence is a bit of a mess, though, while Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC AI initiative offers more functionality today.

Performance

The Surface Laptop 7 13 offers a choice of the 12-core Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chipset or the 10-core Snapdragon X Plus, both focused on matching solid performance with great efficiency. The Qualcomm Adreno integrated GPU powers the graphics. Similarly, the MacBook Air 13 offers a choice of the 10-core CPU, 8-core GPU M4 or the slightly faster version with a 10-core GPU. As with all Apple Silicon chipsets, it’s also aimed at fast performance and great battery life.

We didn’t review the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7, so we used the 15-inch model as a proxy using the faster chipset option. In our benchmarks, the M4 is significantly faster. It’s almost 60% faster when running in single-core tasks like simple productivity. In multi-core, not as dominant but still faster. Generally, the MacBook Air 15 will feel quicker, and it will be faster in video encoding and other creative tasks given various CPU optimizations. Of course, choosing the slower Qualcomm chipset will just give the MacBook Air 13 more of an advantage.

In terms of graphical performance, the MacBook Air 13’s GPU cores are faster. But, you won’t buy either of these laptops for gaming. Windows has more games, but those that run on macOS will be faster on the MacBook.

Display and audio

Both laptops have IPS displays. The MacBook Air 13 has a 13.6-inch 2560 x 1664 (225 PPI) LED IPS display that runs at 60Hz. The Surface Laptop 7 has a 13.8-inch 3:2 2304 x 1536 (204 PPI) IPS panel  running at up to 120Hz. That makes the MacBook’s display slightly sharper and the Surface Laptop 7’s display able to provide a smoother user interface.

According to a colorimeter, the Surface Laptop 7 display is brighter and has better contrast. The two displays are close in terms of color width and accuracy. Ultimately, both are very good displays for almost every purpose and better than the average IPS display.

The MacBook Air 13 has much better audio, with a four-speaker setup featuring force-cancelling woofers. It produces more volume and bass, while the Surface Laptop 7’s stereo speakers hidden behind the keyboard has equally clear mids and highs. You’re more likely to grab a pair of headphones with the Surface.

Portability

Both are very portable laptops. Toss them in your backpack and forget they’re there, until you need them. That’s pretty incredible given how capable these laptops are.

As in the performance discussion, I’m using the 15-inch model with the faster Qualcomm chipset as a proxy. Often, the smaller model in such lineups will get slightly less battery life, as with the MacBook Air 13 versus the 15-inch model. But it should be similar. And if you choose the slower Qualcomm chipset (as with the MacBook Air 13 that we reviewed), it should be a bit closer.

The bottom line is that while these two laptops both get very good battery life, the MacBook Air 13 lasts longer, especially as you work the laptop harder.

It’s hard to compete with perfection

The Surface Laptop 7 is one of the best 13-inch (or 14-inch) Windows laptops today. It’s fast, has great battery life, and is built incredibly well.

However, the MacBook Air 13 is the best in both classes, period. It’s faster, has better battery life, and is considerably thinner. Unless you just have to have Windows, the MacBook Air 13 is better.