If you know of any other 8 core, 64 bit, 220+ ppi, >=13", 18 hour battery life machines with a great keyboard that weigh less than 1300g, please do let me know. Bonus points for metal enclosure.
If you find such a beast, I will buy it instantly, and I will happily ignore the fact that the MBAir will still have a better trackpad and speakers.
It's worth noting that Apple's "18 hour" battery life on the MBA is listed when watching something via the Apple TV app, presumably as they have various optimisations both in the OS for that and at a chip level.
For regular desktop use it's 15 hours, which is about the same as other higher battery spec laptops.
Doesn't the Dell XPS meet those expectations? The 15" version can be specced to an 8 core i9 with around 290ppi and an 87Whr battery, and if you're happy with a 6 core i7 you can get a 13" with around 330ppi (same resolution), but with a 52Whr battery.
I'm not sure what "18 hours" means, I am inherently skeptical of any "hour" claims of battery — obviously the less you demand of your machine the less battery it will take.
The 15" is ~700g heavier. The 13" has 2 fewer cores (as you noted), and a slower GPU. 330ppi does sound amazing, though.
Apple's way out in front here, and they know it. That's why I wrote this article: because the choice is private xor fast.
There's perhaps some good news, though: it may be possible to disable the signed system volume checks on the Apple Silicon macs, which would allow editing of the OS startup scripts/settings.
If you find such a beast, I will buy it instantly, and I will happily ignore the fact that the MBAir will still have a better trackpad and speakers.
I am not looking to buy a "rig", but a laptop.