MacBook vs Windows Laptop: Which Should You Buy in 2026?
Where each side wins — software, price, repairability, resale — with a decision table you can actually use.
The honest answer is that it depends on three things: the software you already use, whether you need to open the machine later, and how much of the price you expect back when you sell it.
Software
Final Cut Pro, Logic and Xcode are Mac-only. Most engineering CAD, many games and some enterprise tools are Windows-only. Everything else — Office, Adobe, browsers, most development stacks — runs on both.
Repairability and upgrades
Every MacBook we tested has soldered memory and storage. The Dell XPS 15, ThinkPad X1 Carbon and Legion Pro 7i let you add an SSD; the Legion and Aspire 5 let you add RAM.
Battery
MacBooks and the Snapdragon-based Surface Laptop 7 lead our rundown tests by a wide margin over Intel and AMD machines.
Resale
Three-year-old MacBooks sell for roughly half their price; equivalent Windows laptops for a quarter to a third.
» See the full rankings: Best MacBooks of 2026, Best Windows Laptops of 2026, Best Laptops of 2026 .