The MacBook vs Windows Is In 2026
The MacBook vs. Windows Battle Has Never Been as Crazier As It Will Be in 2026.
Whether you wanted a laptop that was comfortable in your hands, that just looked sexy, and could last you a breakfast to bed on a single charge, you purchased a MacBook.
However, when the time to play the serious games with real muscle came, or when you just wanted to be able to attach all of your crazy accessories without having to purchase a dongle farm, Windows was your one and only friend.
Go back to 2026, and all that black and white world? It’s gone. Poof! The lines are completely crossed out and the selection is much more subtle and actually baffling. Well, now that we are seated, we shall proceed to calculate the five critical necessities you have to consider before you give yourself a serious coin on a new computer.
Meanwhile, I have left out the obvious, by the way. Everybody is aware whether you have an iPhone or not, the Mac ecosystem will draw you in. We are out of that and into the actual merits and demerits of these machines as we move now.
Windows Laptops Now Have Incredible Battery Life
Is it possible to have a brief silence moment to the pathetic battery life Windows used to offer? In earnest, you would just unplug your laptop and the battery percentage would drop at once. It was a joke! Of course, I am not saying that such great, enormous gaming monsters do not gorge on batteries.
However, in the case of ordinary, thin and light machine, your Zenbooks, your Vivobooks, all those smooth ultraportables, they are actually getting really impressive battery life.
We are discussing a long perseverance that previously was a Mac bragging right.
Recently I have been able to play with a Slim 7i that supported more than 16 hours of use! Other daily windows machines are achieving the same all-day figures.
I know. M4 MacBook Pro also remains an all time marathoner battery-wise. However, the point is this: the distance is now cut-throat close.
Windows vs Mac Gaming Performance
It is Not a Complete Disaster to Mac anymore.
This is, by far, the most interesting aspect since MacBooks have silently become quite competent in playing games.
And the craziness lies in this: they of course perform exactly as well in terms of gaming when they are connected to the wall as when they are on the battery. That is a massive advantage! You are able to play massive games such as Baldur’s Gate 3, Death Stranding, and Resident Evil 4 Remake very well. Besides, because of the Apple system, should you begin a game on your iPad, you can resume it where you left off on your Mac.
The problem? The game library is very small. It is not possible to play such classics as GTA 5 or such online shooters as Valorant and a plethora of other massive releases. The Mac list within the steam is still very thin.
On the windows side, though, it has always been the king of gaming. You possess a huge library, new materials falling down daily. The problem with this was always in the fact that it decreases performance when you unplug it.
You have a large and thick gaming notebook, then it will be much slower on the battery than when it is connected with power. You are just giving up too much power.
However, they are not the same when using the new models of a thin-and-light with the new AMD Ryzen AI or Intel Core Ultra chip, because, as it turns out, they provide near the same performance even when not plugged in!
In short, the gaming TL;DR therefore is that there is a limited number of games available on Mac, but the few that are available run flawlessly and on a consistent basis. Windows includes it all, though you must be careful about the battery performance degradation, unless you can afford one of the latest thin computers.
Upgrading in MACBOOK vs Windows Laptops
And this is easy: On a Mac it is impossible to upgrade. You buy it; you’re stuck with it. It is impossible to upgrade the RAM or the storage after, and Apple sells initial component bumps at an exorbitant price.
Fairly, nearly all the new MacBooks are now priced at 16GB of RAM which is fantastic. The same thing can not be said with Windows in which base models continue to creep in 8GB.
The only difference here is that most Windows laptops come with upgrades. Other than those extremely thin models in which the RAM is soldered,
it is easy (and often inexpensive) to upgrade the memory, storage or even the Wi-Fi card in the future. Asus has unveiled some new gaming laptops, even less complicated to disassemble and upgrade! Meanwhile, Apple also forces you to pay an arm and a leg just to check a larger RAM box on the first day.
Ports and Accessories: Hello, Thunderbolt 5!
Oh, it rhymes, accessories and ports, I did it again. Here things are changing rapidly.
Both sides now have the majority of the standard ports such as HDMI and SD card slots. The only small Mac hitch is that there is no USB-A port, but even some Windows brands are now beginning to eliminate it off their smoothest models.
The real headline? Thunderbolt 5 is approaching, and it will change all that to the reverse.
I will provide an example, the Asus XG Mobile external GPU. This device had only been compatible with particular Asus laptops due to the proprietary port. Why? The previous Thunderbolt 4 was not fast enough.
Guess what? Thunderbolt 5 will be the one with the necessary bandwidth.
This implies that any computer laptop, which has a Thunderbolt 5 port, can now communicate with these external GPUs with a single cable. Can you imagine: Any Windows laptop that has Thunderbolt 5 port can now turn into a complete gaming machine!
Thunderbolt 5 is already beginning to trickle into the new M4 Pro chip based MacBooks and it will be coming to windows laptops soon. This will open up the potential of so much power externally and docking. (I do not believe that these external GPUs will be compatible with Mac due to software, drivers, and platform-related issues it is so sloppy over there). However, to windows users this is earth-shattering.
MacBooks Don't Bend
The final one is straightforward, MacBooks are not available in any two-in-one format. You cannot today, in December 2025, acquire a touchscreen on any MacBook, or an 360-degree flip screen, or use it as a tablet.
I cannot say that I use a touchscreen in my laptop, however, I have friends who are completely in love with it, and my boss approached me today to suggest a budget touchscreen!
In the meantime, Windows laptops come in virtually any combination that you can imagine: touchscreen, tablet, dual, folding screen, etc. Windows are the place to be in case you require that physical flexibility.
Wrapping It Up
To be honest it is a good time to purchase a laptop since both types have indeed increased the game and actually corrected their flaws.
MacBooks are much more superior in gaming and providing connection.
Windows laptops are also eventually winning the battle of battery life and they are soon to be turbocharged using Thunderbolt 5.