In the world of tech, there have long been two camps: Apple, and the rest. While the Cupertino-based company has earned legions of dedicated fans thanks to their familiar feeling devices, others are quick to find frustration with them.
Personally, I'm sitting somewhere in the middle. I've been an Apple fan for a while, enjoying the uniformity and general ease of use of my iPhone, and loving the way it interacts with my iPad. The piece de resistance, though, is the MacBook. It's art in every sense of the word, and just works better than anything else.
Until now.
At Computex 2024, a wide array of manufacturers brought devices to market based on next-gen chips. Models like the Snapdragon X Elite promise incredible battery life and exceptional performance, including fantastic AI capabilities.
One in particular has caught my eye – and it just might be the catalyst to drop Apple devices from my setup once and for all. Dubbed the Asus ProArt PZ13, it would be easy to miss this release.
The new ProArt range contains three laptops, with this sitting at the bottom of the range in a particularly hybrid role. It's a tablet, effectively, with a magnetic keyboard attaching to give it some laptop credentials, too.
It's an incredibly sleek device, sitting just 9mm thick and weighing a featherlight 0.85kg. That makes it the perfect accompaniment to a busy, on-the-go lifestyle.
Being built for creators, you can expect a top notch viewing experience, too. The Asus Lumina OLED display is bright and offers seriously good colour reproduction. Oh, and as a creators device, there's even an SD card slot on the side. Neat, right?
Of course, as part of the modern generation of Windows 11 laptops, it also features Copilot+ capability built-in. You'll find a dedicated Copilot key on the keyboard itself – the first change to that design in around 30 years.
That's an incredibly appealing prospect. There's a lot of talk around AI right now, with many different manufacturers heralding the potential of the new technology. Talk is cheap, though, and real world use cases are harder to come by.
Copilot+ changes that. Granted, I've only had a short opportunity to test the features here at the show, but it's the first instance of AI which has convinced me I would actually use it.
But the real reason why I'm finally being tempted to make the switch is because these devices can finally rival the MacBook for battery life. With the efficiency of the Snapdragon X Plus chipset inside – and a 70 Wh battery life – the PZ13 is certain to offer some absolutely staggering performance stats.
Priced from just £1,199, the Asus ProArt PZ13 is certainly a top value for money offering. It should appeal to creators, but I'd also expect a wide array of different users to enjoy its feature-set.
