PC, Mac, or Chromebook: Which is the Best Consumer Laptop for AI?
Cairo: Mai Kamal El-Din
On my left, one of the new Windows PCs from Samsung, the Galaxy Book 4 360, convertible into a tablet, starting at €1,799. On my right, one of the first Chromebook Plus from Asus, the CX3402 at €449. And in the center, the MacBook Air M3 starting at €1,299.
To pretend to do AI on a laptop, locally, without connection to a Cloud, you first need power: a lot of power and specific power. The capabilities for AI depend on the processor and the presence – or not – of what is called a “neural engine”, a kind of brain in the chip.
On this level, advantage, indeed to the MacBook Air M3. Macs come with what Apple calls a Neural Engine for three and a half years. And this third generation would be 60% more powerful than the first, according to the manufacturer.
We can say that the range is ready to handle the AI-based processing needs which are expected to increase exponentially this year. Unsurprisingly, on the Asus Chromebook Plus, the Intel Core i3 chip is sufficient to run Chrome OS, Google’s operating system, and applications that need an Internet connection – that’s the principle of Chromebooks – but little more.
Between the two, we find the Galaxy Book 4 360, with its latest generation Intel Core 7 processor (the 14th), but without a component dedicated to AI that the basic Intel graphics processor manages as best it can. In our comparison, however, it is the most expensive of the three laptops, in particular because of its touch screen which can be flipped over to transform the PC into a tablet, and which the MacBook Air does not have.
