Macbook Air M3 vs Microsoft Surface 7 vs ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED

I'm enrolled to study Computer Science at university starting next week and would like to buy a new laptop that'll help me throughout my course. The laptops mentioned in the heading of this post are the ones that I'm currently considering as my main options. I would like to go with the MacBook Air M3, but am hesitant because I will be learning Assembly language during my course and having a MacBook would not allow me to code natively in x86 Assembly like a Windows would allow me to. The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 also seems quite premium and is comparable to a MacBook Air but it uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips which are Arm based chips, this means that the Surface 7 would not be able to run some apps natively and would use emulation instead. The ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED seems to be the best choice so far as it offers more bang for my buck from the looks of it - 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, Intel Core Ultra 9 processor.

I'd like to hear some thoughts and advice on what might be a suitable laptop for me.
Thanks in advance.

Reply 1

TNGFR

Original post

by Robin0o0o

I'm enrolled to study Computer Science at university starting next week and would like to buy a new laptop that'll help me throughout my course. The laptops mentioned in the heading of this post are the ones that I'm currently considering as my main options. I would like to go with the MacBook Air M3, but am hesitant because I will be learning Assembly language during my course and having a MacBook would not allow me to code natively in x86 Assembly like a Windows would allow me to. The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 also seems quite premium and is comparable to a MacBook Air but it uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips which are Arm based chips, this means that the Surface 7 would not be able to run some apps natively and would use emulation instead. The ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED seems to be the best choice so far as it offers more bang for my buck from the looks of it - 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, Intel Core Ultra 9 processor.
I'd like to hear some thoughts and advice on what might be a suitable laptop for me.
Thanks in advance.

For a CS degree I think going for something based on traditional x86 processor, for all of the benefits the new generation of ARM brings to both Mac and Windows laptops, current gen Intel/AMD processors are still great and I'd take the benefits of doing all the work you'll need to be doing natively.