For today’s high-powered and highly mobile innovators, staying ahead of the game requires gear that excels when they need to put their best foot forward. Some professionals need a business laptop that can power through complex productivity workflows or resource-intensive creative tasks, while others may prioritize ultralight portability or a first-rate audio-visual experience for remote collaboration. With any workflow in any industry, outstanding performance is always welcome, and affordability is always in style, so an ideal system would provide top-notch performance at a great price. In a crowded business laptop market, buyers want to have confidence that they’re getting a device that meets their needs and provides excellent value for money.
In two separate studies, we used a wide range of industry-standard benchmarks and hand-timed tasks to compare the performance of two pairs of laptops. In the first study, we compared a 16-inch Lenovo ThinkBook 16p Gen 4 powered by a 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900H processor to a 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro powered by an Apple M2 Max processor. In the second study, we compared a 13-inch Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 2 powered by a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1255U processor to a 13-inch Apple MacBook Air powered by an Apple M2 processor. In our tests, the ThinkBook 16p received higher productivity, content creation, and machine-learning benchmark scores—and completed Microsoft 365 and Adobe Photoshop tasks in less time—than the MacBook Pro. The Lenovo ThinkBook 13x offered better single-core performance and booted and completed hand-timed Microsoft 365 tasks faster than the MacBook Air.
To better understand the remote collaboration experience that each device has to offer, we also conducted specialized speaker, microphone, and camera comparisons on both pairs of systems. In those tests, the ThinkBook 16p provided better video conferencing user experiences than the MacBook Pro, and the ThinkBook 13x provided better microphone and speaker performance than the MacBook Air, along with good camera quality.
Our studies show that Lenovo ThinkBook laptops can be great high-performance alternatives to Apple’s corresponding systems. In addition, when we ordered the laptops, both Lenovo systems were significantly less expensive than their respective Apple counterparts. That means that buyers can get that Lenovo performance at a much lower price.
For more details about our Lenovo and Apple business laptop performance comparison tests, check out the reports and summary below.
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