Windows Laptop Makers 'Worried' About New MacBook Air Impacting Sales

[inkswamp]

They should all be worried about Apple. Hopefully the MacBook Air with M2 chip will not have same SSD reduced speed "feature" which Max Tech discovered the base model 13" MacBook Pro M2 has. Apple needs good press for all M2 Mac models, and Apple should not provide a reason for the tech press to bad mouth them, by using a downgraded, slower SSD chip design in their base M2 models.

Are you new to the Mac? A significant portion of the "tech press" will badmouth Apple no matter what they do. Apple could literally release a new Watch tomorrow that detects early presence of cancer and all we'd hear from the tech press is "True to form, you can't customize the Cancer Detection widget because reasons."

I think Apple should just continue doing what they do and not give the opinions of others too much weight.

 

[chrono1081]

And they all should blame Intel for lack of innovation and optimization. If Intel acted earlier, this worrying wouldn't be necessary.

Intel is the perfect example of why you should listen to engineers over the beancounter/project management types but many businesses will never learn.

 

[chrono1081]

I don't see why they'd be concerned. Sure they may lose some sales but most people unless they're fresh out of high school or don't do a ton on their computers are locked into one ecosystem or another.

 

[inkswamp]

I don't see people who were not interested in a Mac before, suddenly being interested now. Sure, some will be but a significant shift? Doubt it, especially when budgets are tight for the majority of consumers and that is only getting worse, people are not suddenly prioritising expensive Apple products.

I think you underestimate people's curiosity. I bought a Macbook Air M1 last year, and just the simple act of using it in front of people has generated a surprising amount of interest and questions from my Windows-using friends and acquaintances. I don't think we'll see a sudden stampede from Windows to the Mac, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the steady trickle we've seen over the years increases as Apple's chips mature.

 

[adamw]

Are you new to the Mac? A significant portion of the "tech press" will badmouth Apple no matter what they do. Apple could literally release a new Watch tomorrow that detects early presence of cancer and all we'd hear from the tech press is "True to form, you can't customize the Cancer Detection widget because reasons."

I think Apple should just continue doing what they do and not give the opinions of others too much weight.

I am not new to Mac. But Apple should be mindful to not give a wide open door to tech reviewers to bash their new products. Many people watch YouTube tech reviews before they buy products. Marques Brownlee and Linus Tech Tips often get millions of views for each review video that they release. Apple would get positive, free advertising from YouTube influencers, if they are careful to put out good quality gear without reducing the base model SSD speeds like they did with the 13" M2 MacBook Pro. In my opinion, there is nothing "Pro" in a 50% reduction in base model SSD speed on a "Pro" Mac machine, just to save a few bucks in chip prices. By the way, Max Tech on YouTube is very Apple friendly in their reviews, but honest in their speed tests. That is why people trust them before making Apple purchasing decisions.

 

[EdT]

Huge swathes of high end laptops (>=£1500) are bought by gamers.
It will be a decade or more before Macs are taken seriously as gaming machines, if ever.
The Wintel brigade have no fear IMO.

I don’t think Apple really cares about being a serious “gaming machine”. They do pretty well in the low to mid range graphic games and the high end game developers have quit trying to use Apple’s Metal graphic standard and Apple doesn’t want to help a competing non Apple driver. And the market for gaming PC’s is a lot smaller than 5 years ago and unless Apple has a quantum leap in graphics software and hardware AND game developers willing to use them the market isn’t worth the price.

 

[NLLV]

The upcoming launch of Apple's redesigned MacBook Air with the M2 chip has some Windows laptop manufacturers "worried" that sales of Intel-based laptops will be negatively affected, according to industry sources cited by DigiTimes.

"A Wintel brand vendor pointed out that at a price point of US$1,000-$1,500, the MacBook Air will crowd out other high-end notebooks," the report claims, with "Wintel" referring to Windows laptops powered by Intel processors. The report added that "upgrades to the M2 processor, camera lens, and casing put the slight price increase of the new MacBook Air within an acceptable range for consumers."

Windows laptop makers are also concerned about weakening consumer sentiment driven by inflation and economic downturn, the report claims.

Pricing for the new MacBook Air starts at $1,199 in the United States, with the M2 chip offering up to 18% faster CPU performance and up to 35% faster graphics performance compared to the already impressive M1 chip in the previous model. Apple says the new MacBook Air will be available in July, with an order date expected to be announced soon.

In 2020, Apple announced that the Mac lineup would be transitioning from Intel processors to its own custom-designed silicon chips, with Apple promising industry-leading performance per watt. The transition is now nearly complete, with the only remaining Intel-based Macs sold being a higher-end Mac mini configuration and the Mac Pro tower, both of which are expected to be updated with Apple silicon chips later this year.

Apple silicon has been game changing for the Mac lineup. In 2020, benchmarks revealed that the $999 MacBook Air with an M1 chip outperformed a $2,999 maxed-out Intel-based 16-inch MacBook Pro. Likewise, the M2 chip is faster than the 8‑core Intel Xeon W processor in the base model Mac Pro tower, which starts at $5,999.

Last year, Intel ran ads promoting Windows PCs over Macs, and it even recruited former "I'm a Mac" actor Justin Long for the campaign. Meanwhile, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said his company would "fight hard" to "win back" Apple's business.

Article Link: Windows Laptop Makers 'Worried' About New MacBook Air Impacting Sales

So in other words, Windows based hardware manufacturers are worried that the new M2 Mac is too good, and they will lose market share.

I understand younger kids led astray by politicians not understanding free market capitalism, but now big business hardware vendors not "getting it?"

Make better products people.

If anything, put the blame on Microsoft for not pushing a movement to ARM, and Intel/AMD for not working closer with ARM to get better SoC's out to market that can run Windows and Windows based software.

 

[Reason077]

PC makers would be right to be worried if Apple had hit the $999 price point.

But as it stands $1199 is not so worrying for them: there’s plenty of room for them to compete on price!

 

[jz0309]

demand for PCs is down as everyone got new PCs during COVID, last year's M1, people were cautious, now, the gates are open for Apple - this has been the writing on the wall for the past year

 

[djcerla]

A 5 years technology gap. No wonder they are “worried”.

 

[danr_97070]

I don't get it. Apple's had laptops at this price point for more than a decade. This is nothing new. Where Apple could (but won't) make a dent in Wintel laptops is at the $500-$800 price point. I am guessing 80% of Windows laptops sell in this price range (at least at the consumer level). Also, I have to wonder how many tech industry laptop users are going to switching from Apple back to Wintel when they upgrade their current Apple/Intel laptops because they need the Intel processors to do some of their work.

Unfortunately I need an Intel processor to run a Windows VM for work. If Apple no longer provides a way to do this with a new machine, I'll have no choice to build my own machine running Linux.

 

[2021]

“Wintel” is an interesting term, sounds more like an attempt to make prospective buyers forget there’s another competitive pc cpu vendor.

 

[mhornback2]

The upcoming launch of Apple's redesigned MacBook Air with the M2 chip has some Windows laptop manufacturers "worried" that sales of Intel-based laptops will be negatively affected, according to industry sources cited by DigiTimes.

"A Wintel brand vendor pointed out that at a price point of US$1,000-$1,500, the MacBook Air will crowd out other high-end notebooks," the report claims, with "Wintel" referring to Windows laptops powered by Intel processors. The report added that "upgrades to the M2 processor, camera lens, and casing put the slight price increase of the new MacBook Air within an acceptable range for consumers."

Windows laptop makers are also concerned about weakening consumer sentiment driven by inflation and economic downturn, the report claims.

Pricing for the new MacBook Air starts at $1,199 in the United States, with the M2 chip offering up to 18% faster CPU performance and up to 35% faster graphics performance compared to the already impressive M1 chip in the previous model. Apple says the new MacBook Air will be available in July, with an order date expected to be announced soon.

In 2020, Apple announced that the Mac lineup would be transitioning from Intel processors to its own custom-designed silicon chips, with Apple promising industry-leading performance per watt. The transition is now nearly complete, with the only remaining Intel-based Macs sold being a higher-end Mac mini configuration and the Mac Pro tower, both of which are expected to be updated with Apple silicon chips later this year.

Apple silicon has been game changing for the Mac lineup. In 2020, benchmarks revealed that the $999 MacBook Air with an M1 chip outperformed a $2,999 maxed-out Intel-based 16-inch MacBook Pro. Likewise, the M2 chip is faster than the 8‑core Intel Xeon W processor in the base model Mac Pro tower, which starts at $5,999.

Last year, Intel ran ads promoting Windows PCs over Macs, and it even recruited former "I'm a Mac" actor Justin Long for the campaign. Meanwhile, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said his company would "fight hard" to "win back" Apple's business.

Article Link: Windows Laptop Makers 'Worried' About New MacBook Air Impacting Sales

I love Macs! But honestly, they really need to get over their stubborn refusal to have touch screens. Most Windows laptops have them now. C’mon!

 

[visualseed]

With Chromebooks on one end and MacBooks on the other, it's hard to justify a PC laptop unless you absolutely need Windows or really want a touch/pen interface on a computer that is not an iPad. Other than some of the performance focused laptops, like from Razor and others, I don't see many of the mainstream options that are that compelling from a hardware perspective. I'm sure low price is a consideration for buyers and its hard to beat sub-$500 notebooks if you don't have a lot of cash to spare, but I would think PC makers are more worried about losing their high-margin sales which are probably most competitive with the MacBook Air.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I don’t care that much about how much better one Apple product is to another, I want to know if there is a competing non Apple computer that equals or betters the performance and what are it’s costs and drawbacks. I’ve already invested in my particular favorite computer/technology brand. What should I know about competitors that may make me switch (or not) based upon comparing that brands most similar products?

For the vast majority of folks that have a Mac and may be interested in how much better this new Mac performs, this is the perfect information for them. For folks that have a Mac and are interested in how well iMovie benchmarks on a non-Mac… they’ll have to find that information for themselves. And seriously, anyone looking for information on how a competitors product might be better wouldn’t trust whatever information Apple would provide anyway, right?

 

[velocityg4]

I guess it's time for the EU to regulate the market and force Apple to give their processors and license macOS to every other PC brand so that they can keep up. /sarcasm

Don't give them any ideas.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

PC makers would be right to be worried if Apple had hit the $999 price point.

But as it stands $1199 is not so worrying for them: there’s plenty of room for them to compete on price!

I think that’s the concern, though. They know they can compete on price, but, on price, they’re also competing against all the other vendors and margins are razor thin. They still count on taking a good chunk of the $999 and above market in order to make the profits that keep them functioning in the market. While Apple will never outsell all the vendors, they MAY take enough of a chunk of those valuable higher end sales that make those companies have to rethink their mobile computing strategy.

 

[jonnyb098]

Shouldn’t they be worried about literally everything Apple does impacting their sales? Lmao

 

[RickDEGH]

They should all be worried about Apple. Hopefully the MacBook Air with M2 chip will not have same SSD reduced speed "feature" which Max Tech discovered the base model 13" MacBook Pro M2 has. Apple needs good press for all M2 Mac models, and Apple should not provide a reason for the tech press to bad mouth them, by using a downgraded, slower SSD chip design in their base M2 models.

Indeed they should! I see most phone buyers going for iPhones. Once you get an iPhone, you next want AirPods, iPad, then MacBook. Apple is killing the competition in all fields they’re involved in.

 

[timber]

I don't know too many people shopping for Windows notebooks at the $1000-1500 pricepoint who are not also gamers, these days. That Windows market has been largely ceded more toward the business world, where corporations have made their platform decisions and are buying Dell Latitudes by the pallet.

Now yes, there's a tiny amount of people who buy non-gaming, expensive Windows laptops -- but visit a typical Starbucks and you won't see these. Whenever I see a PC laptop in a coffee shop around here, it's either a $2400 gaming laptop, $499 BestBuy piece of trash, or clearly a corporate endpoint with asset tags.

I would guess that currently the biggest enemy of those gaming laptops is the renewed availability and affordability of desktop GPUs.

 

[EdT]

For the vast majority of folks that have a Mac and may be interested in how much better this new Mac performs, this is the perfect information for them. For folks that have a Mac and are interested in how well iMovie benchmarks on a non-Mac… they’ll have to find that information for themselves. And seriously, anyone looking for information on how a competitors product might be better wouldn’t trust whatever information Apple would provide anyway, right?

I realize that I am in a minority but I tend to research anything I am looking at buying even if the cost from one brand to another isn’t very significant. With Apple computers I look at older reviews and see how valid those were and treat new reviews accordingly. I will generally still watch a negative review but I will search specifically on points that the review raised and see if there is a consensus on whether that claim is true or not. If I don’t find correlating reviews then I will tend to somewhat discount both that review and future reviews from that source, although I will still watch/read new information put out by them. Sometimes a source that always hates a particular brand is still right, at least occasionally.

 

[bernoulli]

Not even $1000-1500 anymore. You can get a M1 Macbook Air right now for $850 or less at certain retailers and the Apple Refurbished Store and it'll crush the majority of other notebooks. Unless you're a PC gamer who plays on laptops there's little reason to get a PC notebook anymore, and even then a lot of PC gamers have been getting M1 Macbook Airs as a secondary machines. The Apple Silicon Macs got me to switch a year ago after all, and my 14 inch Pro has been the best laptop I've ever had (so far)

Switching to ARM was the best decision Apple ever made with the Mac and has caused it to explode in market share harder than it ever had during the Mac vs PC days. Fast performance, absurdly long battery life, great build quality, affordable Macs, and better performance then the majority of PC notebooks has made the Apple Silicon Macs the obvious choice for most. I can't even recommend any laptop nowadays over an M1 Macbook Air with how good they are. The only reason people have left not to get one is they don't wanna use macOS (even though they've never used it) or they want games.

How about people who need certain software which only runs on certain operating system that is not MacOS? You are generalising massively and making yourself sound like a fanboy.

I have both ThinkPad T14 AMD variant and MacBook Pro 14inch both as personal machines. Best of both worlds.

 

[robertsMax]

It's not the case that hardware doesn't matter, it's just that for most Mac users the decision of what to buy & use starts with will it run an authorized install of macOS… hard for me to understand these Wintel PC makers worrying about a new Mac laptop model siphoning away their marketshare except where it concerns new or first-time computer users. Once most people get comfortable & fluent on an OS and purchase apps that run on it, they're reluctant to switch unless they are very unhappy.

 

[falkon-engine]

Competition is good and increased competition from Apple will certainly put pressure on the other manufacturers. The question is will the upcoming Intel Meteor Lake and future Lakes be enough to compete with Apple in terms of price to performance and performance per watt? Will an ARM CPU vendor enter the ring and provide similar levels of performance per dollar and performance per watt as Apple Silicon, but for Windows machines instead? If so, if Microsoft finally fixes Windows on ARM, Intel and AMD could begin to be crowded out.

Intel and AMD both have to seriously focus on performance per watt. AMD has been doing good things with its 6000 series in terms of power efficiency, but Intel still wins in the high end...above 45W. But I really would like to see an ARM vendor enter the ring, with design wins in laptops from Dell XPS, Lenovo, HP, Razer, XMG, Alienware, ROG, and others. That would certainly put pressure on Intel and AMD to release competitive products at a good price if they want to maintain their dominance.

 

[tylerp]

The upcoming launch of Apple's redesigned MacBook Air with the M2 chip has some Windows laptop manufacturers "worried" that sales of Intel-based laptops will be negatively affected, according to industry sources cited by DigiTimes.

"A Wintel brand vendor pointed out that at a price point of US$1,000-$1,500, the MacBook Air will crowd out other high-end notebooks," the report claims, with "Wintel" referring to Windows laptops powered by Intel processors. The report added that "upgrades to the M2 processor, camera lens, and casing put the slight price increase of the new MacBook Air within an acceptable range for consumers."

Windows laptop makers are also concerned about weakening consumer sentiment driven by inflation and economic downturn, the report claims.

Pricing for the new MacBook Air starts at $1,199 in the United States, with the M2 chip offering up to 18% faster CPU performance and up to 35% faster graphics performance compared to the already impressive M1 chip in the previous model. Apple says the new MacBook Air will be available in July, with an order date expected to be announced soon.

In 2020, Apple announced that the Mac lineup would be transitioning from Intel processors to its own custom-designed silicon chips, with Apple promising industry-leading performance per watt. The transition is now nearly complete, with the only remaining Intel-based Macs sold being a higher-end Mac mini configuration and the Mac Pro tower, both of which are expected to be updated with Apple silicon chips later this year.

Apple silicon has been game changing for the Mac lineup. In 2020, benchmarks revealed that the $999 MacBook Air with an M1 chip outperformed a $2,999 maxed-out Intel-based 16-inch MacBook Pro. Likewise, the M2 chip is faster than the 8‑core Intel Xeon W processor in the base model Mac Pro tower, which starts at $5,999.

Last year, Intel ran ads promoting Windows PCs over Macs, and it even recruited former "I'm a Mac" actor Justin Long for the campaign. Meanwhile, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said his company would "fight hard" to "win back" Apple's business.

Article Link: Windows Laptop Makers 'Worried' About New MacBook Air Impacting Sales

m1 has set a high standard for the industry