Shadowing Practice: Microsoft Surface vs. MacBook Air (Lab Tested) - Learn English Speaking with Video

The MacBook Air has pretty much been the default recommendation for anyone looking for a thin and light laptop.

But with the all-new Surface laptop, Microsoft is looking to finally change that.

So today, we are putting these laptops through everything in our lab.

From our two-day battery test that simulates stuff like productivity and doing video calls,

to using our robot mouse and keyboard testing the performance in real apps like Browser and Photoshop.

We also measured the displays on here, the speakers, the webcams, and microphones, So that way, by the end of the video, you know whether the MacBook Air is still the laptop to beat,

or if the Surface is actually worth the extra $300 that Microsoft is charging for it.

Let's find out.

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Alright, starting off with the displays, the Surface immediately has two major things going for it.

First, it has a touchscreen, whereas the current MacBook Air still doesn't, and then second, it also has a faster 120Hz refresh rate.

So anytime you scroll through webpages, you're moving windows around, or just doing anything with fast motion, it just feels noticeably smoother than the MacBook's 60Hz display.

Now, when it comes to brightness, the Surface gets the edge once again.

We measured it at an average of 517 nits across 5 points, whereas on the MacBook it averaged around 460 nits.

Of course, brightness alone only tells part of the story, so we also tested the reflectivity.

And here, the MacBook has the advantage, where it just does a much better job at suppressing reflections, with the surface almost looking like a mirror by comparison.

Now, we also try to measure this more objectively, where under the same lighting conditions, direct glare made up just 18% of what you see on

a white MacBook screen versus 43% of what you see on a surface.

Which means if you're in a bright room with like a lot of reflections or if you're outdoors, that extra glare is just going to make the surface a little bit harder to read despite it technically being brighter.

But the good news for the surface is in the dark, it matches the MacBook exactly with both of them measuring in at under one nit.

When it comes to color accuracy though, there is a difference with the MacBook being just a a little bit more accurate at both sRGB and P3.

It's probably not something that most people would notice, but if you do sensitive color work and you don't want to calibrate after the fact, then the MacBook does have the edge here.

So overall, when it comes to the displays, if you want a more responsive experience with like literally responding to the touch or a 120Hz refresh rate, then obviously the Surface gets the win.

But if you care more about visibility when you're in a bright environment and you want slightly better color accuracy, then the MacBook gets the win.

But either way, you're going to need speakers to match those displays.

And before we even get to the measurements, just take a listen to these two sound systems yourself.

Now, how much of that you're able to hear depends on what you're actually listening to this on.

So let's also take a look at the data, where the Surface is clearly the louder of the two.

In terms of how they sound though, it's a mixed bag, where the Surface has more output from 200Hz up to 1600Hz, so it does better in the lower mid range where a lot of the vocals live,

but then past 1600, the MacBook takes over.

And this is what gives you more presence and detail.

And the thing that surprised me the most here was the bass, where while neither can actually produce meaningful low end since they are small laptop speakers,

Apple does seem to be generating harmonics to create the perception of bass.

Where when you turn the volume up and that beat drops, you just hear the thump on the MacBook in a way that you don't get on the Surface.

So the takeaway is this.

If you want the louder speaker and fuller sounding vocals, then the Surface is going to give you that.

But if you want the speaker system that sounds a little bit cleaner with more perceived bass, then the MacBook gets the edge.

Of course, the speakers don't matter all that much if the battery is dead.

So next up, we're looking at how long these two laptops can actually last.

And we're starting off with web browsing, which, you know, isn't too complicated.

We're just cycling through the same set of websites while also scrolling through them.

And after two hours, the MacBook Air did have a slight advantage, finishing with around 81% of its battery remaining compared to the Surface's 78.

So a small three-point advantage for the MacBook as we make our way over to productivity, where this time we're actually cycling between multiple apps.

So we're going from Microsoft Word and Excel and copying

and pasting text between the two

while also typing on every letter on the keyboard All

while having Spotify playing music in the background

So this does come close to like simulating how you would use your laptop in the real world

and after two hours The surface actually did significantly better actually

putting it ahead by five points as we move over to

zoom Where this test is simple again We're just trying to

simulate a real video call by using this cutout of my

head on a robot Where after 30 minutes the surface extended

its lead once again finishing with 57% remaining compared to the MacBook's

49% so this is really not the result I was expecting.

I really thought that it would be closer at this point

But we'll see how they do through this 16 hour Standby

and the good news is both laptops performed extremely well with

each losing just three percentage points here in Disney Plus it's worth noting

that we always calibrate the displays and the speakers to the same level

So like everything's going to be nice and fair here to the extent that we can control them.

And I'm kind of expecting the Surface to widen the gap.

Because unlike the MacBook, which is locked at 60 hertz, the Surface's display can ramp itself down to 24 hertz to match what the video is playing at.

Which, you know, in theory should give it an advantage when it comes to battery life.

And after two hours, that may have played a significant role here.

With the Surface only draining by 18 percentage points compared to the 24 point drop on the MacBook.

Meaning heading into the final test in Adobe Premiere where we're gonna run it until these laptops die, the Surface has a 14 point advantage.

But what's different here in Premiere is unlike all the rest of the tests that we've done, this one is actually taxing those chipsets.

Whereas up until this point, all the other tasks have been relatively lightweight.

And here, the story completely flips.

While the Surface was obviously more efficient during the lighter workloads,

the MacBook was dramatically more efficient under this heavy workload with it nearly erasing the Surface's lead completely,

with the two laptops ultimately shutting down just 5 minutes apart.

Now technically, the Surface did get the win, but considering that we're talking about 20 plus hours of combined testing, I think 5 minutes is well within the margin of error.

So I would call it more of a tie overall, and really it just comes down to the way you use your laptop.

If you're mainly doing lightweight stuff like web browsing, office work, and like video calls, then clearly the Surface has the advantage.

But if you're doing anything heavy duty like photo

or video editing then the macbook would probably last you longer

but one thing

that is definitive no matter how you splice it is the charge speeds where using the included power brick

that comes in the box the macbook was able to reach 46 after 30 minutes

while the surface was only able to get to 33 percent

all right it is time for what we've been waiting for where we used a robot controlled mouse

and keyboard to actually test these laptops using real world applications And as we wait for each laptop to boot up here, let's quickly go over the specs,

where we configured each at their lowest possible price point.

So you get the Snapdragon X2 Plus on the surface, and the M5 base chip on the MacBook.

100

And at least when it comes to booting into their OS's, the MacBook was around 3 seconds faster.

101

So the first real world test we're doing is web browsing, where on our locally hosted website, we're loading videos, we're loading 3D models and maps,

102

and we're even performing calculations to generate a chart where alright

103

the two laptops tied exactly both finishing in just 18 seconds

104

next up we're loading a 500 page document in microsoft word

105

and somewhat surprisingly the microsoft hardware was actually slower at doing it with the macbook being nearly twice as fast

106

but i'm curious to see what happens here in file extraction though where each laptop has to unzip the same 6GB file.

107

And oh man, the difference is pretty big.

108

The MacBook just zipped through it, finishing in under 10 seconds, while the Surface takes nearly 4 times as long, and this was consistent across all of our trials.

109

But hey, maybe file extraction is just slower on Windows, so we'll see what happens here in Photoshop, where not only are we loading the app up,

110

but we're editing the same exact 50MP RAW image.

111

First doing a spot heal, then we're using the smudge tool across the brush we're doing an object selection of the cone in the background

112

and then finally doing a content aware fill

113

and this time the results are a lot closer the macbook

114

still finished first at 26 seconds with the surface this time only coming in six seconds later

115

but now it is time for the biggest test yet in

116

adobe premiere the first thing we're doing is loading the app

117

then we're creating a project we're importing the same exact two clips on each laptop

118

and then we apply a color grade to the longer clip

119

we add a warp stabilizer to the shorter clip we render it as

120

if we wanted to preview it and then we export the entire sequence

121

so a lot of tasks thrown at these laptops in short succession

122

and the difference is pretty staggering the macbook finishes in 1 minute

123

and 46 seconds while on the surface

124

that same set of tasks takes nearly twice as long with it finishing in at 3 minutes

125

and 19 seconds so not the best performance from the surface so far

126

and unfortunately things don't improve here in blender where the surface

127

took 27 seconds longer to render the same 1080p image

128

and the crazy thing is all the apps that we've tested

129

so far have been running natively on arm 64 on the surface

130

so the translation penalty doesn't really apply although it does here

131

in cyberpunk where it is being translated allowing the macbook to

132

finish first at 39 seconds with the surface taking 48 seconds to fully boot into the game of course

133

that was just booting into It says nothing about actually playing it, so we also ran Cyberpunk's benchmark at the Ultra settings.

134

Where despite having to go through the translation layer, the Surface actually held its own, with it matching the 18 frames per second on the MacBook.

135

Obviously neither of these laptops are designed to play AAA games, you'd probably want something else if that was your sole use case, but at least with FrameGen you could get playable FPS,

136

especially if you crank down the graphics quality.

137

But overall, it's a clear win for the MacBook when it comes to performance.

138

Obviously we didn't test every app out there, and your experience may vary depending on the software they end up using, but at least across the apps that we did test,

139

the MacBook was either matching the surface or in many cases it was beating it by a significant margin.

140

Speaking of image quality though, we also tested the webcams using our realistic silicone head.

141

And here, the difference was pretty significant across a variety of lighting conditions, including low light, bright light, and scenes with higher dynamic range.

142

Where the MacBook was just consistently better.

143

The skin tones looked more natural, the image was noticeably sharper, and there was also less noise overall, especially when you looked closely at the subject's face.

144

So if you're spending a lot of time on video calls for like work for example, you'll definitely look more polished on the MacBook.

145

As far as how you'll sound though, well, just take a listen for yourself.

146

After two long years of R&D, the phone buff camera test is finally here.

147

After two long years of R&D, the phone buff camera test is finally here.

148

So the MacBook does pick up a little bit more of the air conditioner in the background, but the voice itself just sounded more full and natural,

149

which is probably why it came closer to matching our reference mic when we did a frequency analysis.

150

So like they both sound decent, but I do have to give the edge to the MacBook once again.

151

Where the Surface pulls ahead though is in the I.O department, where like the MacBook, you get two USB-C ports and a headphone jack,

152

but where it differs is you also get a full-sized USB-A port.

153

Now the trade-off for this though is Microsoft had to use this wedged design, where the back half of the laptop is a little bit thicker to accommodate for that port.

154

So overall, the MacBook does end up being thinner while also being lighter as well.

155

And then when it comes to the actual speed of those USB-C ports, well, the advantage swings back to the MacBook.

156

Where when we did our 50 gigabyte file transfer test, the MacBook was able to complete the transfer in just 13 seconds, compared to 43 seconds on the surface.

157

Of course, if you don't have external drives that are capable of these speeds, then obviously the difference won't be as dramatic.

158

And the good news is at least

159

when it comes to wi-fi there really isn't anything separating the two with both supporting wi-fi 7

160

and both delivering pretty much identical results as for the rest

161

of the hardware both laptops have large haptic track pads

162

that you can click on anywhere although the macbooks is a little bit wider than the surfaces

163

and the hinge angle is ever

164

so slightly larger on the macbook with it opening to 134

165

degrees compared to 133 on the surface like really not much

166

of a difference all right we covered a ton of data

167

and yet there are still two things that we haven't even really talked about yet.

168

So the first one is the price, where at the time of filming this, the Surface costs $300 more than the MacBook.

169

And then the second thing is the OS and app compatibility.

170

Where you know, while ARM has definitely come a long way on Windows, it's still not as far along as Apple Silicon on Mac OS.

171

So if you're leaning Surface, I would just make sure that the apps that you use on a daily basis are fully supported here.

172

Now as far as which one's the winner though.

173

Well, when I look at the Surface, it's got the more responsive display, it's got the louder speakers, and it also has a small advantage when it comes to I.O.

174

But then when I look at the MacBook, it pretty much has the edge over the Surface and everything else, including the price.

175

Obviously, you already know what you want, our job is just to give you the data, so let me know what you think is the better deal.

176

Anyways, that is it for me in this video, thank you for watching, and as always, I'll see you in the very next episode.

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275 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Microsoft Surface vs. MacBook Air”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: macbook, surface, laptop, test. This video has 176 sentences and 2980 words to shadow. The speech runs for 14:52. The speaker talks fast, about 201 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
boot noun	/but/	A heavy shoe that covers part of the leg.
simulate verb	/ˈsɪm.jə.lət/	To model, replicate, duplicate the behavior, appearance or properties of.
browse verb	/bɹaʊz/	To scan, to casually look through in order to find items of interest, especially without knowledge of what to look for beforehand.
keyboard noun	/ˈki.bɔɹd/	A set of keys laid out in a gridlike pattern, used for typing on a typewriter, computer, etc.
premiere noun	/pɹəˈmɪɚ/	The first showing of a film, play or other form of entertainment, often held as a special event with celebrity guests.
calibrate verb	/ˈkæl.ɪ.bɹeɪ̯t/	To check or adjust by comparison with a standard.
glare noun	/ɡlɛɚ/	An intense, blinding light.
hertz noun	/hɝts/	In the International System of Units, the derived unit of frequency; one (period or cycle of any periodic event) per second.
nit noun	/nɪt/	The egg of a louse.
noticeably adverb		In a noticeable way.
webcam noun	/ˈwɛbˌkæm/	A video camera whose output may be viewed in real time over a computer network, originally the World Wide Web.
adobe noun	/əˈdoʊ.bi/	An unburnt brick dried in the sun.
brightness noun	/ˈbɹaɪtnəs/	The quality of being bright.
buff noun	/bʌf/	Undyed leather from the skin of buffalo or similar animals.
refresh verb	/ɹɪˈfɹɛʃ/	To renew or revitalize.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
check out verb		To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
come down to verb		To reach by moving down or reducing.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.
go out verb		To leave, especially a building.
go over verb		To look at carefully; to scrutinize; to analyze.
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
make up verb	/ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/	To constitute, to compose.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	we've been waiting · have been running
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have been · we've done · we've tested
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	is sponsored · is locked · being translated

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 58 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, you're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: refresh /ɹɪˈfɹɛʃ/, extraction /ɪkˈstɹækʃən/, reflection /ɹɪˈflɛkʃən/, conditioner /kənˈdɪʃənə/, benchmark /ˈbɛn(t)ʃmɑːk/
Long words — get the stress right: technically /ˈtɛk.nɪˌkəl.i/, productivity /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/, conditioner /kənˈdɪʃənə/, objectively /əbˈd͡ʒɛktɪvli/, compatibility /kəmˌpætəˈbɪlɪti/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like boot, simulate, browse.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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