MacBook Air (M3, 2024) vs HP Spectre x360 14 (2024): Should you go clamshell or hybrid?

• Apple MacBook Air (M3, 2024)

  The most powerful Air yet

  The latest MacBook Air has a spec bump and finally supports two external monitors for the base MacBook model. Apart from a boost to CPU and GPU performance, you still get that same great design, bright display, excellent keyboard and trackpad, and praise-worthy battery life. 

  Pros

  • Hardware-level ray tracing support
  • Premium design
  • Excellent battery life

  Cons

  • Not a big jump over M2 SoC

• 

  HP Spectre x360 14 (2024)

  One of the finest Windows 2-in-1s

  The HP Spectre x360 14 was one of the first laptops to launch this year with Intel’s Core Ultra CPUs. It has everything from the premium build and design to the fantastic OLED display. It’s also a convertible, so you can use it as a tablet. 

  Pros

  • Good quality webcam
  • Superb OLED display
  • Great CPU and GPU performance

  Cons

  • Battery life is not great

Apple unveiled its latest generation of M3 SoCs last October, but this new chip could only be found in the MacBook Pro (2023) and iMac. Apple has finally refreshed its most popular MacBook model, the Air, with the M3 SoC. The new chip offers an iterative performance jump over M2, but those still on M1 or an Intel Mac should notice significant performance gains. Another highly popular and one of the best laptops with the latest internals is the HP Spectre x360 14 (2024). This powerful Windows laptop has a higher starting price than the Air, but the real question is, should you pay that extra money for it? Let’s break it down and try and answer that.

Price, specs & availability

The top-end Spectre x360 14 is great value after discounts

The new M3 MacBook Air starts at $1,099 for the 13-inch model and $1,299 for the 15-inch model. Both sizes come in four colors – Midnight, Starlight, Space gray, and Silver. The M1 Air has finally been discontinued, and the 13-inch M2 Air takes its place at the start of the line-up at $999. What’s astounding is that Apple has discontinued the 15-inch M2 Air after less than a year of launching it. This means the only 15-inch Air option is the one with M3. The base 13-inch Air model has an M3 processor with an eight-core CPU and GPU, 8GB of unified memory (RAM), and 256GB of storage. Two more pre-configured options exist for $1,299 and $1,499 with higher RAM and storage. You can max out the RAM at 24GB and storage at 2TB, costing $2,299. The 15-inch model costs $200 more and has similar configurations.

The HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) starts at roughly $1,500, but you can usually find it for a bit less on HP’s website. It comes in Sahara silver and Nightfall black. It features the latest Intel Core Ultra processors, ranging from the Core Ultra 5 125H to the Core Ultra 7 155H. One of the reasons for the price premium over the MacBook Air is the high-resolution OLED display. The HP can also be configured with up to 2TB of storage and up to 32GB of RAM. Surprisingly, this variant is a lot cheaper, after discounts on HP’s site, than a similarly specced M3 Air, making it a much better value.

• 	Apple MacBook Air (M3, 2024)	HP Spectre x360 14 (2024)
  Operating System	macOS Sonoma	Windows 11 Home or Pro
  CPU	8-core CPU (Apple M3)	Up to Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (16 cores, 24MB cache, up to 4.8GHz)
  GPU	8-core or 10-core GPU (Apple M3)	Intel Arc graphics (integrated)
  RAM	8GB, 16GB, or 24GB	Up to 32GB LPDDRX5
  Storage	256GB, 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB	Up to 2TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe TLC M.2 SSD
  Battery	Up to 18 hours	68 Whr
  Camera	1080p FaceTime HD camera	9MP camera with IR
  Speakers	Six-speaker sound system with force-cancelling woofers	Poly Studio, Quad Speakers
  Colors	Silver, Starlight, Space Gray, and Midnight	Nightfall black, Slate blue, Sahara silver
  Ports	MagSafe 3 charging port, 3.5 mm headphone jack, 2x Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports	2x Thunderbolt 4 with USB Type-C (USB Power Delivery, DisplayPort 2.1, HP Sleep and Charge), 1x USB Type-A 10Gbps (HP Sleep and Charge), 1x headphone/microphone combo
  Weight	2.7 pounds (13-inch), 3.3 pounds (15-inch)	3.19 pounds (1.44kg)

Related

HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) review: The new best laptop

The HP Spectre x360 never fails to win

Related

Apple announces new MacBook Air with M3 chip, Wi-Fi 6E, and more

The laptops still start at $1,100, and the outgoing M2 MacBook Air will stick around at the $1,000 price point.

Design

The Spectre x360 14 can be used as a tablet

The HP has the winning design in my book simply because it can be used in various ways, including on a tablet. It’s quite slim at 0.67 inches and light at 3.19 pounds. The laptop’s shape is pretty unique, too, with sawed-off edges on one side. It’s also incredibly well-built and premium, thanks to the metal in the frame, base, hinge, and so on. HP has also used recycled metals and plastics. The Spectre has two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, a USB-A port, and a headphone combo socket. There are four speakers with DTS:X Ultra and HP Audio Boost enhancements. There’s a spacious and comfortable keyboard, along with a wide trackpad. The laptop also gets a 9MP camera with IR for Windows Hello support.

The MacBook Air (M3) looks pretty much identical to the M2 Air, as the only thing that has changed is the processor. It’s slightly slimmer than the Spectre x360 at 0.44 inches and lighter, too, weighing just 2.7 pounds. The laptop looks and feels premium, thanks to the all-aluminum build. You get a 1080p FaceTime webcam, four speakers, and one of the best keyboards and trackpads you’ll ever find on a laptop. Connectivity is limited to two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports and a headphone jack. With M3, the MacBook Air can finally output to two external monitors. However, this only works if the laptop lid is shut.

Display

The Spectre x360 14 has a sharper and more vivid display

Source: Apple

The HP Spectre x360 14 wins this category, too, thanks to its gorgeous 2.8K resolution OLED display. The 14-inch screen has a resolution of 2880×1800, and it supports multitouch. There’s edge-to-edge glass to protect it, a 16:10 aspect ratio, and a maximum brightness of 500 nits. As a bonus, it also has a dynamic refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Our testing found that it supports 100% sRGB and DCI-P3, 92% NTSC, and 95% Adobe RGB color spaces. The black level also stayed at 0.01 despite the increase in brightness, which is very good. In a nutshell, this is a vibrant display with great color reproduction, viewing angles, and brightness.

The M3 MacBook Air uses the same Liquid Retina display from the previous model. The 13.6-inch IPS panel has a resolution of 2560×1664 pixels and supports a max brightness of 500 nits. This display also covers the full DCI-P3 color space, and it has Apple’s True Tone technology, which adjusts the display’s white balance based on the ambient lighting. This, too, is an excellent display, with vivid colors and very good brightness for casual workloads.

Software

The HP Spectre x360 14 has Microsoft’s AI companion Copilot

The MacBook Air runs on Apple’s macOS operating system, while the Spectre x360 14 runs Windows 11. Your laptop choice will largely depend on which platform supports all the apps you will use daily. Windows 11 is constantly evolving, and Microsoft is giving it a big AI push this year with the introduction of Copilot, its AI assistant. Thanks to platforms like Steam, Windows also offers a wider library of popular games. Not that the Spectre x360 is designed for gaming, but it’s still quite capable as far as onboard graphics go and should be able to at least run most 2D games and many lighter 3D titles like Rocket League.

The M3 Air runs macOS Sonoma, the latest iteration of Apple’s desktop OS. Apple might not be shouting from the rooftops about AI, but don’t let that fool you into thinking otherwise. All Macs running Apple Silicon are some of the best AI PCs thanks to dedicated hardware for AI and wide support for third-party apps. Depending on the kind of work you’ll be doing, having a laptop running macOS could be better suited than Windows.

Performance

Both laptops have dedicated AI processors in-built

Source: Apple

The MacBook Air (M3) and the Spectre x360 14 have powerful, power-efficient, and have dedicated AI co-processors built in. The HP is powered by the latest Intel Core Ultra CPUs, proven powerful and efficient. It also has much better onboard graphics than the previous generation, which makes it better suited for gaming.

We’ve already seen the M3 in action in the 2023 iMac refresh, so you should expect similar performance in the new Air, too. In benchmarks, we found the M3 to be faster than the M2 (which was expected), but it’s also on par and quicker in some tests against an M1 Max from early 2022. Apart from CPU improvements, the GPU in the M3 now supports hardware-level ray tracing, which developers can take advantage of.

Battery life

The MacBook Air with M3 should easily offer better battery life

HP Spectre x360 14 (2024)

MacBooks have long been the gold standard when it comes to battery life, and that still rings true today. The 13-inch M3 Air has a 52.6WHr battery, which Apple claims can deliver up to 18 hours of video playback (while using Apple TV) and up to 15 hours of web browsing. These are impressive claims, and going by past experiences, they should even be achievable. A 30W power adapter ships by default, but you can opt for a 35W or even 70W power brick before you buy it.

The Spectre x360 14 (2024) has a larger 68WHr battery, but from our experience, it doesn’t quite deliver a stellar run time. We usually managed anywhere between six and seven hours of battery life with regular workloads and working through a browser.

MacBook Air (M3, 2024) vs HP Spectre x360 14 (2024): Which is right for you?

If you’re looking at it purely from a value-for-money standpoint, the HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) would be my recommendation. The slightly worse battery life aside, it offers a better display, an extra USB port, very good performance, and a sleek design. Most importantly, though, you can get a fully-kitted-out variant for a lot less than an equivalent M3 Air.

HP Spectre x360 14 (2024)

Editor’s choice

$1150 $1450 Save $300

The HP Spectre x360 14 is one of the finest 2-in-1 Windows laptops in 2024. It’s powerful, has a beautiful display, and a classy design.

The base or mid-models of the M3 MacBook Air will probably be the most popular, as they more than fulfill the power requirements for casual workloads. However, customizing it beyond the pre-configured models can get pricey very quickly, at which point it would make sense to consider the Pro models instead.

Apple MacBook Air (M3, 2024)

For ultimate battery life

The M3 MacBook Air is best suited for those getting their first MacBook or for users who are still on the M1 Air or Intel Air models. The performance boost is a welcome addition; you can finally use two external monitors with the Air.