An M2 MacBook Air makes a surprisingly good Windows PC.
Screenshot: Max Tech
Real-world experiments with the new MacBook Air show Apple’s latest can use Parallels 18 to run Windows 11 faster than a Dell XPS Plus.
It’s a tribute to the performance of the Apple M2 processor in the latest Air.
MacBook Air can be a high-performance PC
Windows has the lion’s share of the desktop/laptop market. That means that situations arise where dedicated macOS users need to be able to run Windows. That’s where Parallels comes in. This virtualization software can put Windows on a Mac.
The YouTube channel Max Tech loaded the recently released Parallels 18 onto the 2022 MacBook Air and tested it with Geekbench 5. It scored 1681 on the single-core test and 7260 on the multi-core one.
For comparison, the Dell XPS Plus scored 1182 single-core and 5476 multi-core on the same test while unplugged, losing to the Mac on both test segments. That said, take the Windows PC off its battery and its scores rise to 1548 single-core and 8103 multi-core, so one of its benchmark scores beats the MacBook.
But there’s a drawback for someone planning to use their notebook on the go. When talking about the Dell, Max Tech host Vadim Yuryev said, “The battery life on those machines is not good and those chips take a lot of power.”
This is not an example of an expensive Mac being more powerful than a cheap PC. The MacBook Air configuration in the test costs $1599, while the XPS Plus is $1849.
Watch the full video for more details:
It’s all about the Apple M2
The 2022 iPad Air in the head-to-head test is one of the first with the Apple M2 processor. Apple says the chip is 18% faster than its predecessor. Real-world tests show that it’s at least that fast.
The new processor has already proven its chops by solidly outscoring other Macs in the Speedometer 2.0 benchmarking app.