Any other ultralight, small laptop like the MacBook Air with a good screen?

fuzzybabybunny

Moderator<br>Digital & Video Cameras
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I'll be hiking around with this thing a lot and need a fast, small, light laptop with a good screen for photo work. Zenbook screen is total crap with its shitty black levels. Viao Z is too expensive at 2k. The MacBook Air doesn't support swapping in off the shelf ram and ssd right? How well does it run windows 7?
 

Bateluer

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The RAM on the MBA is soldered in, but you can swap the SSD.

There's the HP Folio, the Toshiba model, and the Acer model. Though, I haven't heard good things about the Acer. I thought the Asus Zenbook's were pretty well regarded? They've gotten pretty positive reviews.
 

fuzzybabybunny

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The RAM on the MBA is soldered in, but you can swap the SSD.

There's the HP Folio, the Toshiba model, and the Acer model. Though, I haven't heard good things about the Acer. I thought the Asus Zenbook's were pretty well regarded? They've gotten pretty positive reviews.

Goddamn it on the ram, but at least the ssd is swappable with a standard off the shelf ssd.

Zenbook is highly regarded, but the screen still sucks. Too washed out. That's the problem with seemingly all the other ultrabooks besides the Air. The screens are horrendous.
 

jrocks84

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Goddamn it on the ram, but at least the ssd is swappable with a standard off the shelf ssd.

Zenbook is highly regarded, but the screen still sucks. Too washed out. That's the problem with seemingly all the other ultrabooks besides the Air. The screens are horrendous.

You can swap, but not with a standard off the shelf ssd. The macbook air uses a proprietary form factor so you'd have to still get one specifically for the MBA.
 

hans007

Lifer
Feb 1, 2000
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just get an x220.

better screen, cheaper, you can use an m-sata SSD or a normal SSD (might have to be 7mm, so intel or crucial m4 only)...
 

jrocks84

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just get an x220.

better screen, cheaper, you can use an m-sata SSD or a normal SSD (might have to be 7mm, so intel or crucial m4 only)...

Yep, the Lenovo x220 has an IPS screen, and takes 7mm high 2.5" drives.
 

kevinsbane

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Jun 16, 2010
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just get an x220.

better screen, cheaper, you can use an m-sata SSD or a normal SSD (might have to be 7mm, so intel or crucial m4 only)...

The x220 is definitely a very worthy option. I have one with the IPS screen, and it is great.

One thing of note is that the colour gamut of the IPS (premium) screen is relatively lacking, and for photo work, you may find that the colour gamut is not large enough. The biggest problem I find with it is that the reds tend to be slightly orangey when compared to the a true sRGB screen. That being said, the x220's colour gamut is superior to the Macbook Air's colour gamut. YMMV. I do not find this to be a problem except when working with external screens so I can compare the two reds.

On the other hand, just about everything else about the screen (brightness, antiglare, contrast, viewing angles, black levels) are superior to most if not all other 1366x768 screens out there.

The x220 also has much more lifting capacity than the MBA; it runs full power SB processors. I run AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012 on it, and it runs only slightly slower than my i5 2500 desktop on heavy lifting tasks; battery life is reduced by ~33% running CAD under normal use, or basically ~4 hours on a 6 cell (standard) battery. Web browsing and light work will get you ~6 hours. 9 cell = 50% more life.

In the MBA comparison, the MBA has a (vastly) superior trackpad than the x220.

MBA running Windows seems to lose quite a bit of battery life.
 

fuzzybabybunny

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The x220 is definitely a very worthy option. I have one with the IPS screen, and it is great.

One thing of note is that the colour gamut of the IPS (premium) screen is relatively lacking, and for photo work, you may find that the colour gamut is not large enough. The biggest problem I find with it is that the reds tend to be slightly orangey when compared to the a true sRGB screen. That being said, the x220's colour gamut is superior to the Macbook Air's colour gamut. YMMV. I do not find this to be a problem except when working with external screens so I can compare the two reds.

On the other hand, just about everything else about the screen (brightness, antiglare, contrast, viewing angles, black levels) are superior to most if not all other 1366x768 screens out there.

The x220 also has much more lifting capacity than the MBA; it runs full power SB processors. I run AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012 on it, and it runs only slightly slower than my i5 2500 desktop on heavy lifting tasks; battery life is reduced by ~33% running CAD under normal use, or basically ~4 hours on a 6 cell (standard) battery. Web browsing and light work will get you ~6 hours. 9 cell = 50% more life.

In the MBA comparison, the MBA has a (vastly) superior trackpad than the x220.

MBA running Windows seems to lose quite a bit of battery life.

Nice! Didn't know about the IPS option for the x220. I used to own a 2008 x220 but the screen was horrendous, hence why I never bothered to look at another x220.

But that shitty 1366 resolution.... Give me at least 1440.... Damn Lenovo.
 

vbuggy

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MBA also takes 5x longer to boot into Windows - no reason for that beyond crippling. Also an interesting other crippling - with exactly the same HD3000 drivers, the Air's are ~4x slower in OpenGL performance when compared with a (slower) Windows machine - I was running some tests with the Z830 I bought on impulse and even with an i5, the Tosh beat the living daylights out of the top-spec Air in terms of general everyday Windows performance. Just a slight shame about the screen, which is very legible head-on and is usefully matte but does suffer from limited vertical angles.

Pathetic battery life - although not actually that pathetic over OS X, it's just that Applefanbois bend over backwards to hypermile them in OS X, rendering them useless for anything but Starbucks blogging.

I also don't agree with the 'X220 trackpad is a lot worse than Air'. I prefer the pads on my X201's and X220's actually, since I don't have the coordination of a preschooler.

In the US the Z2 is a much harder recommendation for people who don't want the PMD - you get it regardless of whether you want it or not. Dumb move on the part of Sony IMO as the Z2 is an Air-blowing-away exercise in function and utility over form (though yes, as with the Air nothing is upgradable - if you need that token level then the Lenovo's are defo the ones to go with). It's what I've chosen as my 'main everyday' and if you can find a means to stretch, I'd definitely recommend it, though it has some cosmetic issues.
 
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kevinsbane

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I also don't agree with the 'X220 trackpad is a lot worse than Air'. I prefer the pads on my X201's and X220's actually, since I don't have the coordination of a preschooler.

The trackpad on the x220 is usable. It's just that the trackpad on the MBA is superior in just about every way. It is larger, more sensitive, easier to click, and much more responsive, especially to multi-touch gestures. If you are good with it, the X220 works. The MBA trackpad just works better. That being said, I use my trackpoint and not the trackpad, so the relatively poor quality of the trackpad doesn't bother me.

As much as I'm a fan of my x220, I cannot honestly say that the quality of trackpad is a positive aspect of the x220.
 

Puddle Jumper

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Nov 4, 2009
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The trackpad on the x220 is usable. It's just that the trackpad on the MBA is superior in just about every way. It is larger, more sensitive, easier to click, and much more responsive, especially to multi-touch gestures. If you are good with it, the X220 works. The MBA trackpad just works better. That being said, I use my trackpoint and not the trackpad, so the relatively poor quality of the trackpad doesn't bother me.

As much as I'm a fan of my x220, I cannot honestly say that the quality of trackpad is a positive aspect of the x220.

The x220's trackpad isn't that bad. it may not be quite as good as the one in a MBP but it's still far better than the ones found on most laptops.

As far as the 1366x768 resolution is concerned it's worth keeping in mind it's only a 12.5" screen. Compared to nearly all other laptops that's excellent pixel density and it is IPS so the viewing angles are better than all of it's competitors.

The x220 also has much better battery life than any of the ultrabooks if that is a concern for you.
 
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