Yeah, the classic let's copy Apple (power nap), but only half-ass it. Bonus points for completely throwing out S3 sleep (though I hear some laptops still support that).
Speaking of Linux, on my particular HP laptops (Elitebook 840 (intel 11th gen) and 845 (zen 3)) it wipes the floor with Windows. Even though "HP Recommends Windows 11".
Main reason being that it actually stays asleep. Windows, half the time, will wake back up moments in. When it stays asleep, there's a high probability that it will somehow crash and reboot [0] or just randomly wake up while being closed in a bag.
There's no power management while the actual OS hasn't started booting [1], so you get the screen going at full blast, etc. Good times, especially in a bag or at night [2]. It also sometimes starts spinning the fan while pretending to sleep. It does indeed get rather warm, so I'm not really sure what it does.
What Windows sometimes does and Linux never does: wake from sleep to a black screen, wake from sleep to a garbled screen, sometimes with the fan blowing like a jet engine.
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[0] No, it doesn't reboot for updates. The event log talks about unexpected shutdown. It also doesn't run out of battery, since it also happens while being plugged in.
[1] I use bitlocker with TPM + PIN, so it doesn't boot on its own
[2] I don't usually close it because the screen touches the keyboard, so it gets dirty.
May be some app you use is preventing sleep from functioning correctly? Is this something that happens to many users?
I have two M1 macbooks, one that I use almost daily and another that I only use a couple times a week. None of them have had any problem with sleep or battery life, I'm actually extremely happy with them in this regard.
Meanwhile, my wife's Apple laptop fails to go to sleep if it's plugged into a Dell monitor via USB-C, instead it wakes up and dings every time it's about to go to sleep.
As always in Apple world, how well something "was nailed" depends on your exact circumstances, and when something doesn't work, you have no hope of ever getting it to work.
On my old Intel Mac the so-called "smart sleep" would leave my laptop hot to the touch after carrying it in my backpack. Utterly useless. Even at its best it would still result in a 20% reduction in usable charge. Just give me a hibernate option, FFS.
Edit: This is what I'm talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHKKcd3sx2c