Is a MacBook or Windows laptop better for astrophotography?

If you have one of the best cameras or telescopes to capture stunning images of the starry night sky, then you also want a top laptop to match. Both Windows and MacBooks have plenty to offer for astronomy and astrophotography, but picking which one is best depends on your budget, the applications you're most used to and how much power and performance you actually need from a machine.

When you're looking for the best laptop for astrophotography and astronomy, you should look for a few key criteria, including good performance and battery life, as well as a few niche factors that you should be aware of, such as RAM standard and SSD speeds.

While you should generally expect MacBooks to perform at a high standard, they're not the best option for everybody — there are plenty of Windows machines that could not only meet these levels but also represent better value for money. When thinking about which system you should buy into, you need to consider price as well as reliability, but it's also essential to remember elements like software compatibility.

Windows vs MacBook: Which is more powerful?

Most Windows laptops cannot match the newest MacBooks in terms of performance, and that's borne out in our testing data, having examined dozens of machines. We have found that the M-Series Apple processors are generally more powerful than the newest Windows CPUs (whether they are made by Intel, Qualcomm, or AMD) by some distance.

There are a handful of exceptions and caveats, however. The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite (12 cores) processor offers exceptional multi-threaded performance (when you are running applications using multiple cores) that's comparable to the M4 chips. But they offer less on single-core performance. Apple's newest M5 processor, however, offers performance scores that are a generation ahead — with public testing data showing as much.

The exception is graphics performance, where high-end graphics cards made by Nvidia and AMD tend to be extremely punchy, based on a combination of our internal data as well as public benchmarks.

While the M-Series chips are much better than most entry-level and some mid-level graphics cards, you will get plenty more from a Windows machine with a higher-end GPU. For example, the M5 processor in the newest MacBook Pro scores around 48,000, compared with the Nvidia RTX GeForce 5080, which hit 181,959 in our testing. For reference, the Nvidia RTX GeForce 4060 hit 35,981, which was slightly less than we got with the M4 chip fitted into the MacBook Air and Pro (between 36,000 and 39,000).

MacBook processors tend to be a generation ahead of Windows chips — with the caveat that we await the release of the new Intel Panther Lake CPUs this year. For graphics performance, you get more than enough with the graphics cores in the M5 (or even M4) processors — but for the most intensive tasks, like stacking hundreds of high-resolution images, you'll want to pick up a Windows machine with a high-end dedicated GPU.

Windows vs MacBook: Watch out for software compatibility

If you're looking for a laptop for astronomy or astrophotography, the software you use and whether it'll run properly count for more than anything else. If you already own licenses to specific applications, you should find a machine that's compatible with them as the first port of call. That matters less if your heart is set on a particular system and you're happy to buy new licenses, potentially.

Anecdotally, most users find that you have far more options available to you if you're using a Windows machine in terms of the astronomy software available to you. The options are more limited in a macOS environment, according to users commenting in the Cloudy Nights astronomy forums. That said, you can definitely make a macOS system work for you — and a fantastic resource in the form of Mac Observatory brings various programs that you can use for astronomy and astrophotography if you've picked up a MacBook.

If you're hoping to use a machine for Adobe software like Lightroom, Photoshop or Premiere Pro then both Window and MacOS systems work just fine, depending on the standard of your hardware and the amount of RAM your system is fitted with. From experience as well as testing, the base 16GB unified memory in a MacBook Air would be enough to run at least one or two applications without much of a hitch. If you're using a Windows machine, we'd recommend at least 32GB RAM as a safety buffer.

Windows vs MacBook: Which is better value for money?

MacBooks have a reputation for being premium machines — and for a very good reason. But in recent years, since Apple ditched Intel CPUs for custom Arm-based M-Series processors, they have also become more affordable. Whether a MacBook represents better value for money depends on your budget to begin with, as well as how powerful you need the machine to be for your uses.

For most basic users who want to edit photos or do some light video editing, the latest 13-inch MacBook Air is the best bet, given you are guaranteed top-of-the-line performance and capable graphics capabilities for under $1,000. This isn't to mention the lightness, portability, build quality and excellent display. The downside is that you'd need to carry a dongle to use additional ports or inputs, like an SD Card reader, and the hard drive might not be as large as you'd find in a lot of Windows machines.

Where we'd avoid recommending the MacBook Air is if you're running on a very restricted budget. There are plenty of reasonably priced Windows machines that could let you edit photos at a push, especially with the newest entry-level graphics chips offering a much better standard than in years gone by. They won't run as smoothly or as fast, but can get the job done on a machine for under $500 — especially if you look during a sales event.

For power users — for example, users who want to perform stacking, high-resolution video editing or 3D modeling — the picture gets a little murkier. While the MacBook Pro is a considerable step up from the Air, it's also more expensive. From there, you can upgrade the specs (including switching the base processor to a Pro or Max version), as well as both RAM and SSD capacity — but the cost also scales up considerably.

If you want the most powerful system that money can buy, a fully-specced MacBook Pro is incomparable. But is it worth it? For a small percentage of users — yes, especially those who run applications specific to the macOS ecosystem.

But you will likely find a much better deal on a premium Windows machine with a dedicated GPU. When you're talking about picking up a new laptop that costs thousands of dollars, you should make detailed comparisons and keep factors like size, weight and screen quality (among others) into account. You know what you're getting with a MacBook — whether it's the Air or Pro models — but there's so much sheer variety between Windows machines, even in devices made by the same manufacturer, so it's always worth doing your homework on a case-by-case basis.