All depends on what you want to spend and what software you use.

On the Mac side I wouldn’t recommend more than an M2 Air at $1149. My go to is the M1 air which can be found for less than $800 new. The downside here is they only have 8GB of RAM, honestly not worth the $200+ extra to bump them to 16GB. But if your uses don’t go beyond the office suite and web 8GB is fine.

On the windows side you have much more choice but a lot of junk to fish through. Generally it’ll be ok if it has i5/Ryzen 5, 8 or 16GB RAM and in a 13-14" metal chassis. Avoid the plastic 15.6" junk. Great options here include Lenovo Thinkpad/yoga lines, surface laptop, Asus zenbook, HP envy etc.

Major thing to note is one is not better than the other but will fit different needs. If you have an iPhone and use apple software the Mac may be a better experience for you. Alternatively if you want onedrive sync between a desktop and laptop windows may be better.

Wow, thanks for clarifying this. I’ve never seen one in the wild either. Must have been a short run before the M1 air was released.

2020 should receive OS upgrades for another 3 years.

Also apple has never made an i3 air. There was an m3 MacBook which was older, I believe support for these has now ended.

For college/university absolutely 100%. 8gb is also enough providing you don’t plan on extensive machine learning or multiple VMs.

For professional developer use I’d opt for a pro 16gb.

Don’t buy older than 2017, it’s no longer supported and really old/dated hardware.

General advice in the Mac space is don’t buy an Intel Mac.

You can pick up M1 airs for as little as $749 new or $500 used. This will be supported until at least 2027 and be perfect for the needs you described.

That hp omen appears to be stronger than the MSI one.

The Asus is a completely different class of machine. It’s not a gaming machine and will not run games well, but it will be more portable, thinner/lighter and better battery.

Simply no. It’s a five year old laptop, they’re littered with issues/faults and Apple is killing support as soon as they can.

General rule on this sub “Do not buy an Intel Mac”

If you need a laptop get the M2 Air now. M1 air would be fine to be honest and save you a tonne of money.

M3 doesn’t exist and may not come out for 4-6 months, long time to wait if you need a laptop.

If you’re not gaming or don’t require dedicated graphics I would avoid a gaming machine. Some very nice Lenovo, Asus laptops going recently with Ryzen 7 cpus for good prices.

Depends what you want to do.

For a cheap web machine to look at YouTube, online shopping etc and maybe a bit of word it’s fantastic for the price.

Eant a machine to do more on, (netflix/game/edit) etc and use for 2+hrs every day for 5-6yrs then I would avoid and spend more on something better.

Does your current laptop hinder your performance (slow, bad battery etc). If the answer is no then it’s not worth upgrading.

If yes and your workload is struggling then absolutely it’s worth the upgrade.

Generally 14" laptops are better built in my experience. 15.6 are usually cheaply made.

In the two you have specified the second is very clearly better

The fact you are asking reddit and you haven’t specified requirements I would say no.

The Mac for you sounds like an m1 air. You can frequently get these for $700-750 new and they are fanless/thin like the og 12".

Apple won’t do a 12" again. While I loved it personally the majority did not, with the air 13" they don’t need to and it just fragments the lineup further.

As for a $700 new Mac, apple also won’t do this. Apple operates like a fashion brand, Apple won’t lower the value of the brand Mac to this low beyond what they ever have. If you went to an apple store looking a Mac at $700 they would have the perfect product for you, an iPad air with a keyboard.

For your use case the extra RAM won’t really have much benefit.

Go with the size you want and feels personally better to you. If it were me I’d go 13" and save a bit of money by lowering to 16gb ram. But some people really like the big screen.

Also wait a few days. You may be able to get an m3 for the same price or a significantly reduced m2 model.