Am I seriously being forced to buy a Macbook air?!

snuuggles

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Nov 2, 2010
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Here's what I want:

- light and thin. I bike around and every pound/inch matters
- fast enough for multiple windows/applications open w/o crawling (eg, no netbooks)
- higher than 1360x768 resolution
- ideally with ssd but this is not required

So far:

- x220, screen too low rez, same with x1 and samsung series 9 whenever that comes out
- t420 too heavy (I think)
- t420s still kind of heavy for the price, sheesh!

I'm at a loss for other contenders. 12/13/14" is fine, but the resolution is pretty important to me - what is the deal with the PC side?!? It's honestly crazy that lenovo and samsung can't provide a 1-to-1 feature competitor with the air.

Or did I miss something obvious?
 

Ns1

No Lifer
Jun 17, 2001
55,413
1,570
126
hating apple for the sole purpose of hating apple is massive WIN.


you're not forced to do <insert a word that's evidently warnable here>.
 
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gsaldivar

Diamond Member
Apr 30, 2001
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I don't understand what you are complaining about.

The x220 is the same resolution as the Macbook Air 11", and higher resolution screens (from all manufacturers, including Apple) are for heavier laptops. The higher resolution Air 13" is 3-lbs plus your power supply and whatever accessories you want to carry. So it's not exactly a "feather-weight" despite the clever name.

At some point you must make a trade off. Either sacrifice features, price, or weight...
 

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
5,957
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What's your use scenario? I'd say get a windows 7 slate, with a docking keyboard for when you need it.

Or consider a Zacate netbook loaded with memory and an ssd.

Or get an ULV Intel laptop.
 

snuuggles

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Nov 2, 2010
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any reason to have more than 1366x768 on a 12"?

My current laptop is 1360x768 13" screen. It's just a little cramped and I'd like to upgrade desktop space. 12" would be small, I guess what I meant was the 12.5" x220. If that had a high-res option I'm pretty sure it would be useful to me.

I don't understand what you are complaining about.

The x220 is the same resolution as the Macbook Air 11", and higher resolution screens (from all manufacturers, including Apple) are for heavier laptops. The higher resolution Air 13" is 3-lbs plus your power supply and whatever accessories you want to carry. So it's not exactly a "feather-weight" despite the clever name.

At some point you must make a trade off. Either sacrifice features, price, or weight...

The 13" MBA lasts long enough for me not to need the PS on a daily basis (~5 hours away from either work or home desktops). No accessories needed. So 2.9 lb is a pretty significant weight savings from the nearest competitor with remotely similar (or better) specs otherwise (t420s).

I am willing to pay high-end prices, my point is that I can't find a competitor at *any* price for the 13" MBA. Just seems odd... the laptop I currently have is the msi x340, which was just a slow, cheap, plastic version of the previous-gen MBA. I guess I'm just wondering why this particular set of features: thin, light, hi-rez, is not available *at all* on the PC side. Or maybe it is and someone here can direct me to it?

Thanks!
 

snuuggles

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Nov 2, 2010
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What's your use scenario? I'd say get a windows 7 slate, with a docking keyboard for when you need it.

Or consider a Zacate netbook loaded with memory and an ssd.

Or get an ULV Intel laptop.

Hmmm, I considered the slate route, but I guess I need the keyboard every time, I just wouldn't use it as a plain slate so it seems like a bit of a waste and a hassle to have two separate bits to lug. But interesting suggestion, I'll think about it again - thanks!

Zacate netbook, I am not able to get much when I google that term, but my experience with netbooks has been pretty negative - they were just too slow for how many thngs I have running at once. Plus, I suspect that anything in the netbook category is probably not going to have a higher-than-1360x768 resolution - something I'm very interested in.

'ULV Intel laptop' - again, didn't come up with much besides "future" stuff when I googled that, can you tell me an available model for one of those? Just so I can get an idea of what it is?

Thanks very much!
 

snuuggles

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Nov 2, 2010
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What's your use scenario?

Sorry, forgot to answer this. My use scenario is programming from different remote locations, plus some (very) light gaming/browsing. Most of the time I'll be doing stuff like scp-ing to multiple remote servers, editing many text files at once locally, IM client. Web-based email client open... Basically using it as a light work machine.

I move around a bit durning some of the day so having a light and thin machine is really useful.

Basically, the machine I have right now (MSI x340) is pretty great form-factor-wise except for:

1. resolution is just a little cramped (1360x768) for the work I do
2. it's a little slow. Not sure if its the CPU the HD or both, but it can get annoying...
3. battery life is a little weak with the standard 4-cell (2-3 hours)

The 13" MBA solved all those issues and does it for between 1300-1700. It's high, but I'd pay to get all those features (while retaining the thinness and lightness) on a PC (like a lenovo). Seems like there just isn't anything though. Wish I could pick up and handle a t420s, seems like that's the only thing that's could possibly work for me.
 

vshah

Lifer
Sep 20, 2003
19,003
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is 2-3 pounds really going to kill you on a bike? lots of stuff on the pc side if you remove that restriction
 

snuuggles

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Nov 2, 2010
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is 2-3 pounds really going to kill you on a bike? lots of stuff on the pc side if you remove that restriction

Nope, just got used to the old x340 form-factor and kind of am surprised that there's no corresponding competitor to the new 13" MBA. I *am* considering the t420/t420s, just not happy that I have to make the choice considering I'd pay for all the features I want, they just are not offered in *anything* but the MBA.
 

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
5,957
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Instead of Zacate, I should have said AMD's E-350 cpu.

AMD's netbook cpu is a class above Atom, and paired with an SSD is fairly speedy. It doesn't compare to the performance of a Macbook Air, but it beats Atom.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0005&amp;Tpk=e-350
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-656-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-259-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-103-_-Product

There's also slower (but even lighter) C-50 based products.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...15067&amp;Tpk=c-50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...15081&amp;Tpk=c-50 (tablet pc)

If you want to see performance: (desktop review though)
http://techreport.com/articles.x/20401/7
The E-350 beats pretty much nothing but Atom. However, the processors the E-350 competes against in power usage/form factor are weaker than the ones in that review, the 1.4Ghz-1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo of the Macbook Air shouldn't completely destroy the E-350. You'd be looking at a cpu 65&#37;-75% the performance of the e6400 in that review, so the e-350 compares fairly well to Intel's Ultra Low Voltage Chips. The main advantage: since it's AMD, the e-350 comes with decent integrated graphics, meaning full Direct2D and flash acceleration. There's a youtube video of crysis 2 being played on it at lowest settings.
The e-350's performance still sucks, but it's within striking distance of the cpu used by the Macbook Air.
 

Emulex

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2001
9,759
1
71
7 days a week support in-store or depot (mail-in) = major win for apple.
the new i-series macbook air = soon = win.
looks = apple = winwin

Whenever they decide to make a 17" retina display macbook air = superwin :) (it's coming!)
 

gsaldivar

Diamond Member
Apr 30, 2001
8,691
1
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looks = apple = winwin

Outdated technology = fail

Air's outdated Core 2 Duo processor vs. 2nd-Gen 2011 Intel Sandy Bridge on the Vaio linked above.

Guess which one wins at performance hands-down...
 

LOL_Wut_Axel

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2011
4,310
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You can't possibly be serious. Are you telling me that you can't carry 4.8 pounds in your bike? The T420 has a higher res of 1600x900 compared to the 1440x900 on the 13" MBA when you configure, plus it has much better connectivity. Build quality is also higher, though the MBA is no slug in that department, either. The biggest difference, however, will be in the computational performance. The Core 2 Duo SL9400 in the MBA should be over 50&#37; slower than the Core i5 2520M.
 

OS

Lifer
Oct 11, 1999
15,581
1
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i was looking for an ultra portable also with a shred of gaming ability and ended up with a MBA 11.6, despite being a windows user for life.

so far great, it plays HD videos and portal 2 max detail no probs.
The form factor is amazing, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
The LCD screen, great like people give apple praise for.

Yes supposedly the CPU sucks but i have not noticed, it does all my stuff fine.
The new sandy bridge MBA will supposedly only have intel graphics which seems weaker than the nvidia IGP so i figured i would not wait.

that said...i actually don't care for OSX, it works fine but i don't see any incredible benefit in usability over windows 7.
If operating systems were free i would just load win7 back on to my MBA o_O
 

ghoster

Junior Member
Apr 21, 2011
24
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You can always go for a Sony Vaio Z 13.1" 1080p with an Arrandale i7. As you can probably imagine it will cost a pretty penny.
 

Broheim

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2011
4,592
2
81
Instead of Zacate, I should have said AMD's E-350 cpu.

AMD's netbook cpu is a class above Atom, and paired with an SSD is fairly speedy. It doesn't compare to the performance of a Macbook Air, but it beats Atom.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0005&amp;Tpk=e-350
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-656-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-259-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-103-_-Product

There's also slower (but even lighter) C-50 based products.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...15067&amp;Tpk=c-50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...15081&amp;Tpk=c-50 (tablet pc)

If you want to see performance: (desktop review though)
http://techreport.com/articles.x/20401/7
The E-350 beats pretty much nothing but Atom. However, the processors the E-350 competes against in power usage/form factor are weaker than the ones in that review, the 1.4Ghz-1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo of the Macbook Air shouldn't completely destroy the E-350. You'd be looking at a cpu 65%-75% the performance of the e6400 in that review, so the e-350 compares fairly well to Intel's Ultra Low Voltage Chips. The main advantage: since it's AMD, the e-350 comes with decent integrated graphics, meaning full Direct2D and flash acceleration. There's a youtube video of crysis 2 being played on it at lowest settings.
The e-350's performance still sucks, but it's within striking distance of the cpu used by the Macbook Air.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/328?vs=110

on the cpu side of things there really isn't much of a difference between E-350 and Atom, the real difference is the GPU.
 

Joseph F

Diamond Member
Jul 12, 2010
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You can't possibly be serious. Are you telling me that you can't carry 4.8 pounds in your bike? The T420 has a higher res of 1600x900 compared to the 1440x900 on the 13" MBA when you configure, plus it has much better connectivity. Build quality is also higher, though the MBA is no slug in that department, either. The biggest difference, however, will be in the computational performance. The Core 2 Duo SL9400 in the MBA should be over 50% slower than the Core i5 2520M.

I agree with everything said here. I used to cycle almost every day back in 2008 and I usually carried an old Toshiba Tecra 520CDT with me. (It must have weighed about 8 pounds)
 

hmsrolst

Diamond Member
Mar 18, 2001
5,269
1
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I suggest you think about a Lenovo X200s with a 1440x900 screen. It has great build quality, an outstanding keyboard, the same generation CPU as the Air, and weighs about 2 1/2 pounds with a four-cell, and still easily under 3 with a six-cell. I have one with an Intel X25-M SSD, so for basic things it's very snappy. I see no reason to "upgrade" and get lower resolution.

Used ones on ebay seem to run about $700, and there are new ones with warranty for $1,000.
 

smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
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While you say every pound matters, could you really tell the difference between 2lbs? I find it extremely hard to believe.
 

ViviTheMage

Lifer
Dec 12, 2002
36,190
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madgenius.com
I was in the same boat as you ... I bike around with my x220, sucker lasts 13~ hours with the 9 cell and an i7 2420m.

I can DEAL with the resolution, because of the epic battery life, usb3, 12.5", full keyboard, IPS panel....and man, my SSD runs very fast in this little guy.
 

snuuggles

Member
Nov 2, 2010
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Just to be clear with all the "are you kidding?!?!" commenters:
1. I guess it's true that while biking I likely wouldn't feel the difference. But I do bike 10-15 miles every day, rain or snow or shine with some fairly significant hills, stop-and-go traffic etc. I try to pack the bare minimum, so yeah, it's a consideration I feel is justified.
2. I already have a form factor I'm happy with, and it just seemed strange that I would have to downgrade that form factor in order to upgrade the screen and cpu *and* stay with on the PC side.

The Vaio s looks interesting, but basically the same as the T420s, something I'm seriously considering already - thank you for pointing it out!

The Vaio Z is pretty much exactly what I was looking for, though the price is now getting into heart-stopping territory. I do stand corrected that there is no direct compition "at any price". Again, thanks for that suggestion.

Fox5, I appreciate the detailed post(s), unfortunately the resolution on the devices you linked to are all 1360x768, which, as I think about it, is rapidly going from an "I'll consider it", to "why shoud I have to" :) Thanks, I'll keep looking at the line you are talking about, but I suspect most netbook-level devices will be resolution-limited...

x200s - now that's something I hadn't thought of, I'll check those out... pretty weird they downgraded the resolution for the x220, I suspect that would be the machine I'd get if it had the same rez as the older machine. Thanks!