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Are there any decent fanless windows laptops?

kitenski

kitenski

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 30, 2008
476
203
Leeds, UK
I've been considering if I can simplify my devices, from carrying a MBA and an iPad down to one 2 in 1 Windows device.

From what I've seen and tried, I don't think so, but wonder if I've missed anything I should look at? At the moment I don't think a Windows on ARM device would work for me based on the VM and occasional video editing usage but happy to be proved wrong!

Key things I'm after are light (1.2kgish max), 13-14" screen, genuine 10 hours+ usage, 16gb memory, no fan, pencil support for note taking in meetings, ability to watch Netflix/Disney/Prime video offline.

So far I've tried

  1. Surface Pro 9 - very average battery life
  2. HP Envy/spectre 360 - daft feature that if the laptop goes to sleep in tablet mode you have to fully unfold it to hit the power button and wake it up
  3. HP Dragonfly G2 - thought this was the one, but fan was on virtually most of the time unless in airplane mode and the best power efficiency setting.
  4. Dell XPS 2 in 1 - average battery life
  5. Surface Go 2 - liked this, but not enough memory (I run 1 or 2 VMs)
cheers,

Greg
 
You're not gonna find a fanless Windows laptop that's actually good since there's hardly any ARM Windows laptops, and the fanless laptops that are out there are slower than Apple Silicon Macs, have worse battery life than Apple Silicon Macs, and are more expensive than Apple Silicon Macs. There are fanless x86 laptops, but going fanless with x86 is a horrible experience with how much it cripples the performance.

If you want a fanless Windows laptop, just buy an M1/M2 Macbook Air, buy Parallels, and install Windows for ARM through a VM. It'll be a better experience than using a ARM Windows laptop and cost less too.
 
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As Spaceboi said, I don't think you will find a fanless Windows laptop. The closest you will find to those are maybe the cheaper ultrabooks or something but they may not have the power you need and running some of the software it sounds like you will run it will kick on any of the fans the Windows laptops have.
 
Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
If you want a fanless Windows laptop, just buy an M1/M2 Macbook Air, buy Parallels, and install Windows for ARM through a VM. It'll be a better experience than using a ARM Windows laptop and cost less too.
Click to expand...
Yup I have the M1 MBA, if only I could take notes with a pencil and it supported netflix offline it would be perfect. As it doesn't I end up carrying it and an iPad!
 
Intel/AMD's design choices are such that they value performance over operating temperature. So much so, there's really no true fanless laptop that offers decent performance.

The ARM based laptops are such that they're so much worse then the MBA, that the OP is better served with an MBA.
 
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Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
You can watch Netflix Offline through Windows. Get Parallels and install Windows then download the Netflix app from the Microsoft Store and boom there you go.
Click to expand...
yeah good point, even better is VMware fusion now works for no $$

Any idea what it does to battery life?
 
kitenski said:
Yup I have the M1 MBA, if only I could take notes with a pencil and it supported netflix offline it would be perfect. As it doesn't I end up carrying it and an iPad!
Click to expand...
Since you already have the MBA what about picking up a iPad mini with Apple 2 pencil support? It will fit in a larger pocket, hardly add any weight to what you carry now and notes you take with the penil can just be airdropped or use an app like notability, good notes, apple notes, etc and have them sync across both devices especially if you got the cellular iPad mini. I know this one includes a wireless plan with it, but the wifi only and airdrop will work just fine or if you pretty much always have wifi or can hotspot your phone just to sync the notes


Edit: wanted to add only mentioning this route since you are willing to get another device
 
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kitenski said:
yeah good point, even better is VMware fusion now works for no $$

Any idea what it does to battery life?
Click to expand...

No idea since I don't use virtualization software on my Macbook Pro, but I do know VMWare Fusion is native to Apple Silicon now so you should have much better optimized performance.
 
The pain i experience daily on my work windows machine will likely equate to me never even considering changing my MBP for a windows machine.

Though I don’t have an iPad so appreciate the OP has different requirements.
 
kitenski said:
I already have an MBA and an iPad so trying to reduce 2 devices down to 1....but thinking it ain't possible!
Click to expand...
What about reducing from a big iPad tablet to a small Wacom drawing surface you can attach to the Mac for a form of Pencil support? Or iPad with Magic Keyboard and VNC or other Remote Desktop solution to manage desktop-only requirements?
 
Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
You're not gonna find a fanless Windows laptop that's actually good since there's hardly any ARM Windows laptops, and the fanless laptops that are out there are slower than Apple Silicon Macs, have worse battery life than Apple Silicon Macs, and are more expensive than Apple Silicon Macs. There are fanless x86 laptops, but going fanless with x86 is a horrible experience with how much it cripples the performance.

If you want a fanless Windows laptop, just buy an M1/M2 Macbook Air, buy Parallels, and install Windows for ARM through a VM. It'll be a better experience than using a ARM Windows laptop and cost less too.
Click to expand...
The only thing this doesn’t address is the tablet form factor but the above is true to my knowledge.

After seeing the kind of battery life my wife gets on her MBA vs my personal Dell laptops & work HP laptop, I’m convinced no 2-in-1 w/ Windows + x86 will make up in versatility, what it concedes to a MacBook + iPad combo in battery life and performance.

Not yet at least. I’ve had my eye on a Surface Pro for years and have purchased regular laptops instead 5 years and 1 year ago. The 2-in-1s IMHO aren’t there yet.
 
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mjs916 said:
The only thing this doesn’t address is the tablet form factor but the above is true to my knowledge.
Click to expand...

If you want a tablet form factor, outside of a Windows Surface for niche cases, an iPad is the only realistic option I see...even if iPadOS is really...really stinky

mjs916 said:
After seeing the kind of battery life my wife gets on her MBA vs my personal Dell laptops & work HP laptop, I’m convinced no 2-in-1 w/ Windows + x86 will make up in versatility, what it concedes to a MacBook + iPad combo in battery life and performance.

Not yet at least. I’ve had my eye on a Surface Pro for years and have purchased regular laptops instead 5 years and 1 year ago. The 2-in-1s IMHO aren’t there yet.
Click to expand...

And they never will be since Windows and macOS are designed for precision mouse pointers, not touch.

 
I have a Surface Laptop. Performance is quite good, except when rendering 4K video. For normal office tasks the performance is more than good enough. As good as my MBA M2. The laptop is a much better product than the Surface Pro line. It is a true laptop, Fanless, touch screen with pencil support.
 
kitenski said:
I already have an MBA and an iPad so trying to reduce 2 devices down to 1....but thinking it ain't possible!
Click to expand...

I've been down this road a lot and have yet to come up with an adequate solution. The Surface is as close as I can get, but I've found too many compromises (for my use cases) to actually make the switch.
 
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kitenski said:
I've been considering if I can simplify my devices, from carrying a MBA and an iPad down to one 2 in 1 Windows device.

From what I've seen and tried, I don't think so, but wonder if I've missed anything I should look at? At the moment I don't think a Windows on ARM device would work for me based on the VM and occasional video editing usage but happy to be proved wrong!

Key things I'm after are light (1.2kgish max), 13-14" screen, genuine 10 hours+ usage, 16gb memory, no fan, pencil support for note taking in meetings, ability to watch Netflix/Disney/Prime video offline.

So far I've tried

  1. Surface Pro 9 - very average battery life
  2. HP Envy/spectre 360 - daft feature that if the laptop goes to sleep in tablet mode you have to fully unfold it to hit the power button and wake it up
  3. HP Dragonfly G2 - thought this was the one, but fan was on virtually most of the time unless in airplane mode and the best power efficiency setting.
  4. Dell XPS 2 in 1 - average battery life
  5. Surface Go 2 - liked this, but not enough memory (I run 1 or 2 VMs)
cheers,

Greg
Click to expand...
I think you will be pushed to meet all your requirements :)

But I think the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 360 although not fanless will come close as possible

Good build, AMOLED screen, great pen, 8 to 10 hour battery on light productivity, 1.16kg, fans should only kick in when pushed hard and can be set to silent for normal usage, compact charger, great ports selection and expandable SD , $1299 16GB/512GB I7 13th Gen should be capable for occasion editing/VM
 
raythompsontn said:
I have a Surface Laptop. Performance is quite good, except when rendering 4K video. For normal office tasks the performance is more than good enough. As good as my MBA M2. The laptop is a much better product than the Surface Pro line. It is a true laptop, Fanless, touch screen with pencil support.
Click to expand...
Which surface laptop version is fanless? I checked reviews of the Surface Laptop 3, 4 & 5 which all say it has a fans?
 
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If Apple was not able to make a good fanless x86 laptop, but make a good ARM Laptop after, then Windows isn't probably good either.

Also, as a user of Windows of ARM, it is terrible. Somehow, Apple was able to make a good ARM Laptop, and I highly recommend the M1 MacBook Air. If you look on Amazon, it is $799.99 currently.

Since you want to have a stylus for taking notes, don't use a laptop for that, it is finicky. May I recommend to you the iPad Air 5 and Apple Pencil 2. I feel like that is the best for you. If you want to get a keyboard, get this:
www.amazon.com

HOU Slim Keyboard Case for iPad Pro 11 Inch (4th/3rd/2nd/1st) Gen 2022,iPad Air 5th&4th Generation Case with Keyboard,Magic-Stand, Multi-Touch Trackpad,Magnetic

HOU Slim Keyboard Case for iPad Pro 11 Inch (4th/3rd/2nd/1st) Gen 2022,iPad Air 5th&4th Generation Case with Keyboard,Magic-Stand, Multi-Touch Trackpad,Magnetic
www.amazon.com
 
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As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
kitenski said:
Which surface laptop version is fanless? I checked reviews of the Surface Laptop 3, 4 & 5 which all say it has a fans?
Click to expand...
Well, buggers, I was incorrect. I currently have the Surface 3. I just checked and my Surface does have a fan according to iFixit. I have never heard the fan, or felt the air from the fan, even when pegging the CPU at 100% for several minutes. I just guessed there was no fan as other laptops, including Macs, that have fans, it is really obvious.
 
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kitenski said:
I've been considering if I can simplify my devices, from carrying a MBA and an iPad down to one 2 in 1 Windows device.

From what I've seen and tried, I don't think so, but wonder if I've missed anything I should look at? At the moment I don't think a Windows on ARM device would work for me based on the VM and occasional video editing usage but happy to be proved wrong!

Key things I'm after are light (1.2kgish max), 13-14" screen, genuine 10 hours+ usage, 16gb memory, no fan, pencil support for note taking in meetings, ability to watch Netflix/Disney/Prime video offline.

So far I've tried

  1. Surface Pro 9 - very average battery life
  2. HP Envy/spectre 360 - daft feature that if the laptop goes to sleep in tablet mode you have to fully unfold it to hit the power button and wake it up
  3. HP Dragonfly G2 - thought this was the one, but fan was on virtually most of the time unless in airplane mode and the best power efficiency setting.
  4. Dell XPS 2 in 1 - average battery life
  5. Surface Go 2 - liked this, but not enough memory (I run 1 or 2 VMs)
cheers,

Greg
Click to expand...
Trying to make a Windows machine into an M1 MacBook Air + iPad combo is a fool's errand. Also, I'm not entirely sure why not having a fan is so important, especially considering we all got along just fine with fans up until a few years ago. Figure that if your fans were ever loud enough to be annoying, you probably weren't on the right kind of machine for what you wanted to do (and yes, that applies to later era Intel MacBooks too).

Get an M1 or M2 MacBook Air; that'll satisfy pretty much all of your needs in and of itself. For the needs it doesn't satisfy, get an iPad mini. A full sized iPad (let alone a 12.9-inch iPad Pro) sort of has a little bit of redundancy with a MacBook Air; though that entirely depends on what you want to use each device for.

Alternatively, with Da Vinci Resolve now on iPad, maybe just get a 12.9-inch iPad Pro and leave it at that.
 
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Considering that you (the OP) already own and use an MBA M1 model and an iPad (which may have Apple Pencil 2 support, if it's a newer model), you might reason that you're already pretty much using the best tools for your use case, assuming you installed Windows ARM using Parallels or VMWare Fusion. The only thing you are lacking is the extra memory for running more than one VM, which you said you might be doing. The newer MBA 2022 model supports up to 24 GB and is fanless, so that might be an option if you don't mind sticking with a non-touch screen laptop in the Apple realm.

The only machine I can think of that might check all your boxes is the Surface Pro X, which has pen support and is indeed fanless. However, this is Windows ARM, and there have been a lot of complaints about the software compatibility between x86 and ARM on this machine. you may not even be able to run certain titles, despite the fact that this is "Windows".

I think the bottom line is that you're asking for the perfect combination of good battery life and the ability to run Windows software and VMs, but as you know, VMs typically require significant processing power and take a hit on battery power. You want a fanless design, but you're watching videos and running VMs, both things that take a hit on processor performance. To get better processor performance, you'd need a machine with a decent cooling solution... meaning fans. Now you might see where this is going...
 
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