MSI Sword 15 vs Dell G15 vs Apple MacBook Air

1) What is your budget? (INR or USD)
800-900 USD

2) What size & weight consideration (if any) would you prefer?

Thin and Light; 12" - 14" screen
Mainstream; 15" - 16" screen

13.3, 14, 15.6 inch screens

3) What are the primary tasks you will be performing with this notebook?
Surfing, Programming, Gaming

4) Any typical configuration in your mind you're eying for ?
Core i7/Ryzen CPU + Nvidia GPU, M1 Processor

5) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
a. Like: Apple, HP, Dell, Asus, MSI, Sony, Microsoft
b. Dislike: Lenovo, Acer, Samsung, LG, Huawei, Google

6) Anything else you would like to say?

Screen resolution ( 1080p (Full HD) / Retina (QHD) )
Battery back up ( normal (6-8hrs) / extended (10-12hrs) )
Purchase place ( Online (eg - BestBuy) / Abroad (USA) )

I have shortlisted these 3 laptops

1) MSI Sword 15 - $899 / Intel Core i7 11800H / Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti / 8 GB RAM / 512 GB SSD

2) Dell G15 - $879 / AMD Ryzen 7 5800H / Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti / 8 GB RAM / 512 GB SSD

3) Apple MacBook Air - $849 / Apple M1 Chip / 8 GB RAM / 256 GB SSD

I really like these 3 laptops equally and it's hard to pick one please help me choose the best laptop.

My preference to choose

MSI Sword 15 - Looks, design and performance
Dell G15 - Quality, speed and battery
Apple MacBook Air - Portable, display and longevity

If you plan to game, why even have a Mac in consideration?

I feel new Dell G15's thermals are still bad that it should be avoided, even though Jarrod rated it higher (but his tier list is based on particular models he got).

Still, I will pick that Dell G15 over MSI & the specs seem great for the money:
*www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-g15-15-6...om-grey-with-speckles/6461724.p?skuId=6461724
Found a better deal for same here:
*deals.dell.com/en-us/productdetail/bqp1
Might get some coupons to lower it further. It is the 86Wh battery, so good, do check Jarrod's review & use the laptop in a raised position with a small book or laptop cooler. I highly recommend buying the additional warranty, at least that 2 years of premium (also has hassle-free international warranty). It has a bad display, don't expect much.

For better display, but lower CPU (R5 5600H is enough for gaming & most tasks), get this with R5 + 3050Ti, 2x8GB RAM & 144Hz 300nit panel for $969:
*www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/victus-by-hp-16z-e000-laptop-2s2e1av-1

Follow deals here:
*www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/new/?f=flair_name:"Laptop"

I don't plan to game too much but it's nice to have a hardware that can game when needed. I wanted to buy a MacBook ever since M1 chips were released. That deal from Dell website is really good so maybe now I should uncheck MSI Sword from my list even though it looks gorgeous.

Now the choice is between Air and G15 both cost around the same price. I watched that review from Jarrod and other reviews too. It seems due to the plastic cover at the bottom the temperatures are too high. Now you suggest me to get a cooler for that reason. I like the idea of having a larger battery but I don't think I want to use the laptop always on a book or with a raised position. Also I prefer better display so I'm hoping the MacBook Air will offer me that.

Right now I'm shifting more towards the Air should I get the base model (entry level) or the one with 16GB RAM? It's hard to find the model with more RAM for a good price as most models are either entry level or with 512GB SSD and 8-core GPU.

A

Since the air 13 is not upgradable I will suggest to pick the 16gb variant, if your budget allows.
For windows pc 16gb config is recommended because windows itself eats up 8gb ram nowadays.

aby geek said:
windows itself eats up 8gb ram nowadays.

RAM usage on cold boot is ~ 3 GB, with multiple chrome tabs and other background programs it is ~ 7GB. If I open steam and EGS, it reaches ~9GB.

omega44-xt said:
If you plan to game, why even have a Mac in consideration?

This.

powerstarprince said:
I don't plan to game too much but it's nice to have a hardware that can game when needed. I wanted to buy a MacBook ever since M1 chips were released. That deal from Dell website is really good so maybe now I should uncheck MSI Sword from my list even though it looks gorgeous.

Now the choice is between Air and G15 both cost around the same price. I watched that review from Jarrod and other reviews too. It seems due to the plastic cover at the bottom the temperatures are too high. Now you suggest me to get a cooler for that reason. I like the idea of having a larger battery but I don't think I want to use the laptop always on a book or with a raised position. Also I prefer better display so I'm hoping the MacBook Air will offer me that.

Right now I'm shifting more towards the Air should I get the base model (entry level) or the one with 16GB RAM? It's hard to find the model with more RAM for a good price as most models are either entry level or with 512GB SSD and 8-core GPU.

Again, forget gaming if you choose Mac. I have Macbook air early 2020 model with i5. The display is great, only con of it is glossy finish.

Make up your mind if you need an ultrabook or gaming laptop. Both have entirely different use case. If you want to play light games, consider a Windows ultrabook with Ryzen 5000 as its iGPU is decent to play games at 720p 30fps even for some new ones. In this case you definitely need 16GB RAM.

For light tasks, I find the 8GB RAM of my Mac air sufficient, that's with multiple chrome tabs open. Usually, my RAM usage is under 6GB.

Currently, I don't game any of the latest demanding games. A Gaming laptop would be nice to have just in case anything interesting pops up but altogether a MacBook Air will be fine.

Closing onto the MacBook Air now some people do recommend me to get the 16GB RAM variant for making it future-proof. I have the budget for that it's priced at $1099 is it worth it? Which of these variants would you recommend the base model or 16GB RAM upgrade or 512GB SSD and 8-core GPU without the RAM upgrade.

Base model is around $800 while the other two models are priced at $1099. Is it better to get the RAM upgrade or the SSD upgrade since programs use the available space on SSD if the RAM fills up. Having more RAM would be useful or more SSD free space although less RAM could wear out the SSD? Is 8GB comparable to 16GB RAM on a Windows machine or Intel/AMD CPU and 16GB comparable to 32GB RAM? I'm a little confused here I might not need the additional performance from extra RAM but I can also not predict my usage workloads.

I saw a Dell XPS 13 laptop on sale for $679 with similar configuration but 8GB RAM and a comparable Intel i5 1135G7 CPU the deal is no longer available though but the closest alternative to MacBook Air I would prefer is the Dell XPS.

Any colour choice recommendations for the MacBook Air? Space Gray or Silver? I have a preference for the Space Gray variant. Or is this totally a personal choice. Just because people chose Silver since the paint won't wear off over time.

A

Are you based abroad yourself or are you asking someone to buy for you?

powerstarprince said:
Is 8GB comparable to 16GB RAM on a Windows machine or Intel/AMD CPU and 16GB comparable to 32GB RAM

8GB is 8GB
16GB is 16GB.

aby geek said:
Are you based abroad yourself or are you asking someone to buy for you?

Asking someone to buy for me

SaiyanGoku said:
8GB is 8GB
16GB is 16GB.

Yes sir

SaiyanGoku said:
8GB is 8GB
16GB is 16GB.

+1, lol

powerstarprince said:
Currently, I don't game any of the latest demanding games. A Gaming laptop would be nice to have just in case anything interesting pops up but altogether a MacBook Air will be fine.

Closing onto the MacBook Air now some people do recommend me to get the 16GB RAM variant for making it future-proof. I have the budget for that it's priced at $1099 is it worth it? Which of these variants would you recommend the base model or 16GB RAM upgrade or 512GB SSD and 8-core GPU without the RAM upgrade.

Base model is around $800 while the other two models are priced at $1099. Is it better to get the RAM upgrade or the SSD upgrade since programs use the available space on SSD if the RAM fills up. Having more RAM would be useful or more SSD free space although less RAM could wear out the SSD? Is 8GB comparable to 16GB RAM on a Windows machine or Intel/AMD CPU and 16GB comparable to 32GB RAM? I'm a little confused here I might not need the additional performance from extra RAM but I can also not predict my usage workloads.

I saw a Dell XPS 13 laptop on sale for $679 with similar configuration but 8GB RAM and a comparable Intel i5 1135G7 CPU the deal is no longer available though but the closest alternative to MacBook Air I would prefer is the Dell XPS.

Any colour choice recommendations for the MacBook Air? Space Gray or Silver? I have a preference for the Space Gray variant. Or is this totally a personal choice. Just because people chose Silver since the paint won't wear off over time.

Mac OS 8GB != Win10 16GB
Lets say you open 2 browsers with lots of tabs, Win10 with 16GB can afford to keep all of them in memory but Mac will have to cache it to storage (Windows does that as well when it's running out of memory). As I said earlier, my Mac air with 8GB RAM is more than enough for my office tasks which includes using a lot of powerpoint, sheet & multiple tabs on browser (easily 10-15 on many days).

If you want 16GB RAM or more storage, get it. Colour is purely a personal preference, someone might like a bright blue colour but someone else might hate it.

My father has an XPS 13, pretty good actually. IF I'm buying something with my own money, I will never buy Mac because of OS. After using Mac OS for a few months now, I easily miss a few small features of Win10 on daily basis. It's just that Mac does stuff differently & I prefer how Windows does it, for example pressing "x" to close an app quits it in Windows but Mac doesn't quit that app. Many other small kinds of stuff that annoy me.

A

Lenovo Legion 5 15 Gaming Laptop, 15.6" FHD (1920 x 1080) Display, AMD Ryzen 7 5800H Processor, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 512GB NVMe SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050Ti, Windows 10H, 82JW0012US, Phantom Blue *www.amazon.com/dp/B08YKG5K7F/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_navT_g_7HP1N1KGHRMFF7R34WYR

This looks like a steal if you can raise your budget a little. Keep exploring the black friday deals, you will get something.

Why is Lenovo Legion better than Dell or HP entry level gaming laptops? Most likely would be getting the MacBook Air base model at this time without the additional upgrades.

If all you want to do is surfing, get 499$ M1 ipad. It is okay for mobile games on ipad OS.

The M1 iPad Pro doesn't cost $499 it's more than that. I don't think any of the other iPad models are equipped with an M1 processor. Anyways I think it's a good time to replace my 9 year old HP laptop even though I'm able to use it now. I also have an 8.5 year old iPad 4th generation. MacBook Air M1 seems to be the most viable option.

powerstarprince said:
The M1 iPad Pro doesn't cost $499 it's more than that. I don't think any of the other iPad models are equipped with an M1 processor.

I thought they put M1 on every ipad and macbook lineup because of cost cutting. My bad.

powerstarprince said:
MacBook Air M1 seems to be the most viable option.

Still overpriced for a glorified ipad without touchscreen IMO.

Get Macbook Air if you want productivity only.
Get space gray with 16 GB ram

Will touchscreens come to the MacBook soon? That would slow down the iPad lineup but next year there might be a very expensive MacBook refresh coming with a touchscreen.

It's mostly productivity so getting the MacBook Air never personally owned a Mac before. Would 8GB RAM suffice I'm not sure if I will need the whole 16GB RAM even though I can have it as future-proof. MacBooks generally last 8-9 years I believe with the software updates. Is worth paying the extra roughly $250 for the RAM worth it?

powerstarprince said:
Will touchscreens come to the MacBook soon?

"TOUCHSCREENS ARE NOTHING BUT EXTRA MAINTENANCE"

powerstarprince said:
Would 8GB RAM suffice I'm not sure if I will need the whole 16GB RAM even though I can have it as future-proof.

8GB hasnow become the baseline if you want to use it for 7-8 years by then 16gb wud have easily become baseline so get 16gb

powerstarprince said:
Will touchscreens come to the MacBook soon? That would slow down the iPad lineup but next year there might be a very expensive MacBook refresh coming with a touchscreen.

It's mostly productivity so getting the MacBook Air never personally owned a Mac before. Would 8GB RAM suffice I'm not sure if I will need the whole 16GB RAM even though I can have it as future-proof. MacBooks generally last 8-9 years I believe with the software updates. Is worth paying the extra roughly $250 for the RAM worth it?

I dont think touch screen would ever come to mac as apple already has ipad for that they would not put bullet in the hole to their existing products.

As for your requirement if you want to do heavy video editing or switching between 2-3 heavy softwares at once like if you have adobe photoshop chrome tabs and adoble premiere pro open and you're doing your wokrk and rapidly switching between those then get 16 GB model.
Else if you are doing only 1 task at once then 8 GB would be suffice

Thank you for your suggestion I just went for 16GB RAM and everything same as the base model. So now my configuration looks like Apple M1 chip / 8-core CPU / 7-core GPU / 16GB RAM / 256GB SSD / Space Gray all for $1069.00

Just a question would the performance of Steam games like The Witcher 3 or FIFA 22 be the same as Windows or less optimized for the Mac?

powerstarprince said:
Thank you for your suggestion I just went for 16GB RAM and everything same as the base model. So now my configuration looks like Apple M1 chip / 8-core CPU / 7-core GPU / 16GB RAM / 256GB SSD / Space Gray all for $1069.00

Just a question would the performance of Steam games like The Witcher 3 or FIFA 22 be the same as Windows or less optimized for the Mac?

Yes thats true they are less optimised.
I would not suggest gaming on macs at all although if you want to play then do it once I tried to play dota 2 once on my mac though steam and it was lagging and fans went all full and never tried gaming since then.
Not familiar with gaming performance on latest m1 macs You can check youtube for their gaming performace.

powerstarprince said:
Thank you for your suggestion I just went for 16GB RAM and everything same as the base model. So now my configuration looks like Apple M1 chip / 8-core CPU / 7-core GPU / 16GB RAM / 256GB SSD / Space Gray all for $1069.00

Just a question would the performance of Steam games like The Witcher 3 or FIFA 22 be the same as Windows or less optimized for the Mac?

As I said earlier, forget gaming on Mac. There should be some benchmarks available online for you to see, still, my comment stands as Mac is definitely optimized for productivity. Lack of optimization from Apple mainly makes Macs almost useless for gaming.

powerstarprince said:
Just a question would the performance of Steam games like The Witcher 3 or FIFA 22 be the same as Windows or less optimized for the Mac?

You can play candy crush on 60 fps probably.

That's true I'm using a Linux Mint OS on my current laptop and I only tried a couple of games through Lutris and I also like to play Nintendo ROMs on Citra emulator. The performance is alright but the CPU throttles a lot and the fans are too loud. Definitely Windows is best for gaming.

Got an Xbox One to play games so that's fine I guess. Never tried gaming on Mac before and yeah how do you play Candy Crush without a touchscreen. Okay so play all iOS games that currently support M1 with mouse? It wouldn't be so much fun to be honest.

I definitely miss the experience from a gaming laptop I had an Asus N55sf and used it for an year before giving it away. A lot of games played smooth at the time. My heart still wants a gaming laptop again but since I never owned a MacBook before and I like Apple devices recently I prefer to choose the Mac.

Would you know of any gaming laptop that can also produce great battery life, is light-weight and has excellent screen and performance? Which can be comparable to a MacBook but can also play games just like a gaming laptop without much throttling issues. Something which is a hybrid between a gaming laptop and an ultrabook but does not cost above the MacBook. I liked a few options from above such as Dell G15 and Lenovo Legion with Ryzen 7 processors. MSI Sword sure the design looks good and MSI GF65 with RTX 3060 but an older gen CPU.

powerstarprince said:
That's true I'm using a Linux Mint OS on my current laptop and I only tried a couple of games through Lutris and I also like to play Nintendo ROMs on Citra emulator. The performance is alright but the CPU throttles a lot and the fans are too loud. Definitely Windows is best for gaming.

Got an Xbox One to play games so that's fine I guess. Never tried gaming on Mac before and yeah how do you play Candy Crush without a touchscreen. Okay so play all iOS games that currently support M1 with mouse? It wouldn't be so much fun to be honest.

I definitely miss the experience from a gaming laptop I had an Asus N55sf and used it for an year before giving it away. A lot of games played smooth at the time. My heart still wants a gaming laptop again but since I never owned a MacBook before and I like Apple devices recently I prefer to choose the Mac.

Would you know of any gaming laptop that can also produce great battery life, is light-weight and has excellent screen and performance? Which can be comparable to a MacBook but can also play games just like a gaming laptop without much throttling issues. Something which is a hybrid between a gaming laptop and an ultrabook but does not cost above the MacBook. I liked a few options from above such as Dell G15 and Lenovo Legion with Ryzen 7 processors. MSI Sword sure the design looks good and MSI GF65 with RTX 3060 but an older gen CPU.

The Dell G15 I linked from Dell's website has a 86Wh battery, so has a great battery life because of huge battery + Ryzen 5000's efficiency. Just check its review by Jarrod Tech. The display will be bad (good enough for the price) & temps are high (Nitro 5 should be better IMO).

What do you think of this laptop? Always thought that Alienware laptops are too expensive but this one's cheap for a limited period of time Alienware m15 R5 Ryzen® Gaming Laptop | Dell USA

powerstarprince said:
What do you think of this laptop? Always thought that Alienware laptops are too expensive but this one's cheap for a limited period of time Alienware m15 R5 Ryzen® Gaming Laptop | Dell USA

All alienware stuff is overpriced and not worth it, even compared to other dell products. Best option for your requirements would be to get the Dell G15 or go through Jarrod's Tech videos as suggested before.

*www.youtube.com/c/JarrodsTech/videos

powerstarprince said:
What do you think of this laptop? Always thought that Alienware laptops are too expensive but this one's cheap for a limited period of time Alienware m15 R5 Ryzen® Gaming Laptop | Dell USA

I kind of regret buying Alienware & personally won't recommend buying any Dell's high-performance laptops because of poor thermals.

For $50 more, you get a much better laptop with 2x8GB RAM, double the SSD storage & mainly better thermals. It apparently has 165Hz 100% sRGB panel, so good:
*www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Display-Processor-GeForce-82JW0012US/dp/B08YKG5K7F/

Again check Jarrod Tech's review of Legion 5.

Check Lenovo's website as well, you can get coupons like this as well:

"I found some CRAZY Legion 5 deals! 6600M for $980 *lenovo.vzew.net/KeygXz & 3060 for $1140 *lenovo.vzew.net/7m1dOO just add coupon 'HOLIDAYSURPRISE' to either for the additional discount."

Credit to Jarrod Tech

@powerstarprince have you bought apple macbook or still looking for laptop?

@omega44-xt Oh cool that Legion 5 deal for $980 for the RX 6600M seems sweet. The kind of laptop that suits me. But it shows the first solid state drive as none. What does it mean? Also did I see somewhere that it takes 4+ months to ship?

@pkkumarcool Yeah the MacBook Air 16GB RAM model has been ordered.

powerstarprince said:
@omega44-xt Oh cool that Legion 5 deal for $980 for the RX 6600M seems sweet. The kind of laptop that suits me. But it shows the first solid state drive as none. What does it mean? Also did I see somewhere that it takes 4+ months to ship?

@pkkumarcool Yeah the MacBook Air 16GB RAM model has been ordered.

Second SSD slot has 512GB drive, so its fine. Select 16GB RAM & 165Hz panel as well (as this one will be 100% sRGB vs 70% sRGB in 120Hz one).

I can see ships in 4+ months as well. Likely too many orders.