Battery Life/Runtime 1,026 minutesWeight 2.8 poundsDisplay size/type 13-inch, 2560 x 1600 IPS LCDProcessor tested Apple M1 8‑coreGraphics tested Apple M1 7-core
The MacBook Air with Apple’s M1 processor may be 3 years old, but it’s still a valuable member of the MacBook family. It’s the most affordable MacBook, and it’s even more affordable right now with its $100 discount. We’ve seen it dip to as low as $750 in the past, and a return to that all-time low isn’t out of the question when the Prime Day sale begins next week. The M1 processor has been surpassed by Apple’s M2 chip but still has more than enough oomph for the majority of what you’ll use the laptop for, whether it’s for school or work or home use. The M1 MacBook lacks the Touch Bar (which could be viewed as a positive), and has a 13.3-inch Retina display that’s only a smidgen smaller than the 13.6-inch panel you get with the newer M2 model.
Read our M1 MacBook Air review.
Dell’s latest 2-in-1 convertible is based on a 14-inch touch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio that gives you more vertical space than a widescreen 16:9 panel, for less scrolling through webpages and documents. Inside, you get an AMD Ryzen 7 7730U CPU to go with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. While it provides twice the solid-state storage capacity as the above Yoga 7i, its display has a lower, 1,920×1,200 resolution and is rated for only 250 nits.
With its current discount at Walmart, this MSI Sword model is the rare example of a gaming laptop that costs less than $1,000 and features a graphics processor from Nvidia’s current GeForce RTX 40 series. It pairs an RTX 4050 GPU with a previous-gen Core i7-12650H CPU to go along with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. The 15.6-inch display has full HD resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate.
The Acer Swift X 14 has a gorgeous 14.5-inch OLED display and the latest Intel and Nvidia silicon in the form of a 13th-gen Core i7 H-series CPU and an RTX 4050 GPU. We usually find such a duo in a larger machine; content creation laptops typically feature 16- or 17-inch displays to give creators more room to work. The Swift X 14, however, provides the needed muscle for demanding graphics work (and some gaming) but in a more portable package. The overall design is a bit boring, but the OLED panel with its 2,880×1,800-pixel resolution is fantastic.
Read our Acer Swift X 14 review.
