DT in Spanish could receive a commission if you buy a product from the siteIn the past, Apple's MacBook Air was the definition of a laptop: thin, light, with an amazing keyboard and excellent battery life.Today it faces much tougher competition, especially in the 13-inch range.It received an overhaul in 2018 that made it significantly more modern, but does it still have what it takes to outperform impressive new 2-in-1s like the HP Specter x360 13?The best of Apple vs.HP, below.The revised MacBook Air is familiar, but much more modern than its predecessor.Its chassis is thin, light, and sports small bezels, making it look like it belongs in 2020 instead of 2012.It is elegant and "conservatively" attractive.It comes in gold, silver, and space gray colors.The overall design hasn't changed significantly since then, just the underlying hardware.The current Specter x360 features a "gem-cut" iteration that makes it have angles all over it, catching the light.You can get it in Natural Silver, Nightfall Black or Poseidon Blue.Either way, it's a look that definitely stands out more than Apple's laptop.Both are solidly built, sporting an all-aluminum chassis that's stiff with little flex.The MacBook Air is thinner than the Specter x360 at 0.63 inches vs. 0.67 inches.Also, it's lighter at 2.8 pounds vs. 2.88 pounds.The keyboard matters too.The latest MacBook Air features Apple's new Magic Keyboard, first introduced in 2019 on the 16-inch MacBook Pro.After several attempts to resolve issues related to its butterfly switches, Apple turned to scissor switches and hasn't looked back.Meanwhile, the Specter x360 packs one of the best keyboards you'll find on a laptop, with deep, wide keys.Complementing Apple's Magic Keyboard, you'll find a large Force Touch trackpad that provides one-click feedback without using any moving parts, whereas HP's is smaller than the Force Touch version and now supports touchpad drivers. Microsoft Precision, which improves input over the previous model.One major point of divergence, however, is HP's touchscreen that supports an active pen for Windows Ink.The MacBook Air does not have a touchscreen and does not support Apple Pen.Connectivity is another point of divergence.The MacBook Air literally doubles down on USB-C with Thunderbolt 3, offering two of those ports and nothing else.The Specter x360 also has two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 3 and supports legacy devices with a USB-A 3.1 port, a microSD card reader for storage expansion, and compatibility with external cameras and accessories without an alternate connection.It's all the benefits of Thunderbolt 3 without the inconvenience of needing dongles for older peripherals.The MacBook Air uses 10th generation dual-core and quad-core Intel Ice Lake processors.The Specter x360, on the other hand, features a different 10th-gen chipset, but also has 11th-gen Tiger Lake CPU configurations.You'll see faster performance on the Specter x360 that better handles the most demanding productivity and content creation tasks.You'll have to jump to the MacBook Pro to find a worthy opponent.The MacBook Air's PCIe solid-state drive (SSD) is faster than the one that powers the Specter x360.That doesn't mean that HP is slow to access and save data, but this is the only performance metric that is in Apple's favor.Typically, MacBooks offer the best displays with the widest and most accurate colors, the best contrast, and the highest brightness.Unfortunately, the MacBook Air is an outlier here, with just average display performance provided by its 2,560 x 1,600-pixel Retina resolution panel.With the Specter x360 Full HD model we reviewed in early 2019, we found it to be about the same in terms of colors and brightness, but offered a much higher contrast ratio.At the same time, HP installed Intel's 1W display, which uses about half the power of a typical display.You'll see the results of this later in the battery comparison.Lastly, the Specter x360 model had a 4K AMOLED screen.It was bright enough at 405 nits and excelled in color, supporting 100 percent sRGB and 98 percent AdobeRGB.Because the screen was OLED, the contrast and black levels were better than anything we've seen in a long time.You won't notice any of these laptops in your backpack.They are equally portable and therefore a great option for anyone whose work isn't anchored in one place.However, size and weight are two portability considerations.Battery life is also important.In our web browsing test, the Full HD version of the HP Specter x360 13 from early 2019 lasted 12 hours and 45 minutes.The 2020 MacBook Air followed with 9.5 hours, and the Specter x360 from late 2019 with the 4K AMOLED display finished last with under six hours.In our video loop test, the HP Full HD model lasted 17 hours and 36 minutes, followed by the MacBook Air in just 10 hours.HP's 4K AMOLED review unit nearly matches the Air at 9.5 hours.Overall, the Specter x360 model with a Full HD screen is one of the most durable laptops we've tested, and that makes the laptop more significant.The most affordable MacBook Air costs $1,000.It comes with a Core i3 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD.With the lower price, improved keyboard, and double the storage, it's not a bad deal, especially if you have an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch.If you want more performance, the $1,299 model may be a better option.The HP Specter x360 starts at $950.The base model has a 10th generation Core i5 processor, 8GB of memory, and a 256GB SSD.You can equip it with a Core i7-1065G7 and up to 2TB of storage.The 11th-gen Intel version starts at $1,200 with the Core i5-1135G7, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD.Mac fans will no doubt prefer the look, feel, and multi-device unification associated with the Air.But, if you're a bit more agnostic, there's really no reason to settle for that.The Specter x360 is more powerful, durable and has 2-in-1 functionality.Win at almost every level.Enhance your lifestyle Product review, technology news, tools to navigate the digital world.