What Is A Great MacBook Air Alternative If You Don't Like macOS?

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Apple's MacBook Air is among the most beloved laptops on the market, but it's not for everyone. The Air has only improved over the years, with a thin and fanless design, an all-aluminum chassis, and Apple's in-house silicon at its core. The latest MacBook Air sports the M4 processor, which is putting up serious numbers in benchmarks, and even bucks Apple's reputation as a wallet squeezer by starting at a more reasonable $1,000 for the base version with 16GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. It fully deserves the SlashGear Editor's Choice badge we awarded it. But even with so many undeniable achievements, one element of the MacBook Air turns some consumers off: the macOS experience itself.

The MacBook Air is an undeniably premium piece of hardware, but for those who don't want to use the software it runs on, there are alternatives. Whether you're looking for a gaming experience the Apple ecosystem just can't deliver yet, a device that gives you a touchscreen and a stylus for creative tasks, or just want the Windows equivalent of the MacBook Air without all the quirks and foibles of macOS, there's something for you. 

Before we begin, let me give an honorable mention to the 2024 Microsoft Surface Laptop, which came very close to unseating my final choice for the best MacBook Air alternative thanks to its combo of design and performance. Ultimately, though, the following laptops beat it as the most attractive Air alternatives.

Perhaps the closest macOS-free experience to the MacBook Air is the 2025 ASUS Zenbook A14. Pound for pound  — 2.18 pounds, to be precise  — this is the "MacBook for Windows" the world has been waiting for. With Windows on ARM finally out of its awkward teenage phase thanks to Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon X processors, this premium thin and light laptop not only has a mouth-wateringly premium build, but is configured with the latest chips from Qualcomm, going toe-to-toe with the Apple M4 chip found in the newest MacBook Air.

The laptop boasts a unibody construction, which is made from a fingerprint-resistant material that combines ceramic and aluminum (Asus calls it Cearaluminum). Measuring 0.53 inches tall when the lid is shut, it's only ever so slightly thicker than the Air, which measures 0.44 inches. It's configurable with the Snapdragon X or X Plus processors (Asus's website mentions an X Elite variant, but I couldn't find it for sale anywhere), which qualifies it as a Microsoft Copilot Plus PC and competes directly with the MacBook Air on performance and battery life. However, you should check compatibility for the software you rely on most, as some programs that are unoptimized for ARM can experience issues. There's also an OLED display, which is an upgrade over the MacBook Air's LCD panel. It also one-ups Apple's port selection, with a full-fat HDMI port alongside two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The Zenbook A14 has earned good reviews, with Tom's Guide praising its thin, light, and premium aesthetic, CNET admiring its OLED display and generous RAM, and WIRED largely echoing those sentiments. This laptop starts at $1,000, on par with the MacBook Air, but with more starting storage.

In a sea of pathetic plastic laptops that creak when you carry them, the MacBook Air stands out with its sturdy, metal design. But the world of Windows offers an alternative in the HP Spectre x360 14, a two-in-one laptop with a foldover design and a whole lot of style. Yes, this one also has an all-metal chassis, but if the MacBook Air's sleek design has lost its charm for you, the Spectre x360's angular chamfers and accents may be the new flame you're looking for. There's truly nothing out there that looks quite like it, and it's sure to draw attention at your local coffee shop.

The Spectre x360 comes with some significant upgrades over the MacBook Air that may make it an even better choice for creatives. It offers a 3K OLED touchscreen panel that makes the Air's IPS LED display look quaint, and it includes a stylus in the box. Powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H with 16 GB of RAM and Intel integrated Arc graphics, it should give the MacBook Air a fair fight on performance for most tasks, but may fall behind for video and 3D workloads. It comes equipped with a 3.5mm headphone jack, two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, as well as a USB Type-A port that the MacBook Air lacks. The Spectre x360 has also garnered rave reviews, with a nine out of ten score from CNET and a four out of five from PC Mag. The Spectre x360 starts at $1,200, which is price-competitive with the MacBook Air, although you'll find this device at all sorts of price points depending on where you look.

One of the main reasons someone might avoid macOS is that they're a gamer. While some AAA games make their way to the Mac ecosystem, the list of titles is anemic compared to Windows. On the other hand, Windows gaming laptops have traditionally not been in competition with the MacBook Air thanks to their bulk, but that's no longer the case. Case in point, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14, a thin and light gaming laptop that's been a fan favorite for multiple hardware generations.

As of this writing, there's a new version of the G14 on the horizon, equipped with the current generation of AMD silicon and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5000 series GPUs. I cannot recommend it until professional reviewers do, but if it shapes up to be as good as previous G14s have been, it's worth a look. Even so, the 2024 model available right now has been an absolute powerhouse, with an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor, 16 or 32 GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 or 4070 GPU. All of that is crammed into a chassis just 0.64 inches thick, only 0.2 inches thicker than the MacBook Air. Speaking of the chassis, its port selection is robust. A Type-C USB 4 port keeps company with two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports and one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, a full-size HDMI port, a microSD card reader, and a headphone jack. The ROG Zephyrus G14 earned our SlashGear Select award, along with a score of 8/10 in our review. However, it gets pricier than the MacBook Air, starting at $1,468 on Amazon and $2,100 direct from Asus.

To satisfy SlashGear's rigorous editorial policies, each of the laptops included in this roundup was selected based either on hands-on testing and review from SlashGear, or reviews from trusted, professional sources, in addition to the writer's judgment based on extensive knowledge of the market. These laptops were also chosen based on their similarity to the Apple MacBook Air in terms of size, build, performance, price, and other points of comparison.