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Ask HN: Any good Macbook Air alternatives?

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Re: Ask HN: Any good Macbook Air alternatives?

#111

Post by tintin »

loupgarou21 wrote: post #90
jarek wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you buy your laptops primarily to look at them, or to use them?

One of my clients is swapping all of their sales people out of their windows laptops and into MacBook Airs because the sales people just need office and a web browser and the airs are far more impressive looking. I have another client where the sales people have windows laptops, but they're not allowed to bring them to client meetings, instead they have to bring their iPads. Sometimes form _is_ more important than fu…

It can be tricky. Sometimes customers get the feeling you rip them off when you show off with expensive gadgets or expensive cars.

Re: Ask HN: Any good Macbook Air alternatives?

#112

Post by ToastOpt »

sjs wrote: post #93
eitland wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. However on Linux and Windows I don't need to use the touchpad as often.

When I use Windows I feel like everything is inside a damn context menu that's difficult to access with the keyboard. (imo of course) OS X beats Linux for keyboard shortcuts because they are more consistent. My ranking is: 1. OS X, 2. Linux, 3. Windows. I'm a keyboard junkie, to a fault sometimes, but I find that I use the trackpad on my MacBook quite a bit because it's so useful with all the gestures and such.

> context menu that's difficult to access with the keyboard

Hmm, I guess you're right. Without the dedicated context menu key, you have to use SHIFT+F10. That's a pain.

Re: Ask HN: Any good Macbook Air alternatives?

#113

Post by fgumo »

eschulte wrote: post #73
blinkingled wrote: post #22

I actually switched from 2010 Air to X220 after the 2011 Airs came out. Needed a Windows machine and did not like where Lion was going - with 2011 MBA I would have no choice but to run Lion and Windows with half baked support (AHCI, other minor annoyances) The X220 fits the bill - 1) Display is good - it's IPS panel with good viewing angles and great brightness (Make sure you opt for Premium HD display) 2) Battery li…

+1 for x220 8) The nipple mouse in the middle of the keyboard means you never have to take your hands away from home row.

So true! I've just bought a Thinkpad T420 and the nipple was key in the decission. Once you get used it can't be beaten and not having it is terrible.

And the new Lenovo trackpads are also multitouch, not as good as Apple's tough.

Re: Ask HN: Any good Macbook Air alternatives?

#114

Post by georgieporgie »

pyre wrote: post #94
sgt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a search for X220 and found this: http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-x220... Are you serious? This doesn't look like anything that may compete with Macbook Air in my book. Not to seem too negative, but the overall design is reminiscent of old laptops from the year 2001. (Typical for PC laptop designers).

> This doesn't look like anything that may compete > with Macbook Air in my book > design is reminiscent of old laptops from the year > 2001 1. The age of the design shouldn't necessarily say anything about how good it is. Would you claim that we should just get rid of art museums because everything in them is just 'too old?' 2. The ThinkPad was praised for it's industrial design back in it's day. 3. There are many p…

The original question posed was, "any good Macbook Air alternatives?" To me, that implies lightweight, compact, and, yes, elegant. The Thinkpad doesn't appear to be any of those.

Re: Ask HN: Any good Macbook Air alternatives?

#115

Post by fgumo »

davidf18 wrote: post #81

X201s, a previous model to the X220 (along with the non "s" X201) has a higher resolution display (1440x900 same res as Mac Air 13) than the X220 (1366x766) and weighs about 1/2 lb less than the X220. Loaded with SSD and 8 GB RAM it is my preference over the X220. If a 12.5" screen vs. the Mac Air 13.3" screen works for needs then you might consider this machine. The Thinkpad Trackpoint is great once you get used to…

Lenovo Thinkpad X1 has 13,3" and a full powered processor. If you want even bigger you can go with a T420 (14"), which is more similar to the X220 but with a media unit.

Re: Ask HN: Any good Macbook Air alternatives?

#116

Post by jdietrich »

sgt wrote: post #42
blinkingled wrote: post #22

I actually switched from 2010 Air to X220 after the 2011 Airs came out. Needed a Windows machine and did not like where Lion was going - with 2011 MBA I would have no choice but to run Lion and Windows with half baked support (AHCI, other minor annoyances) The X220 fits the bill - 1) Display is good - it's IPS panel with good viewing angles and great brightness (Make sure you opt for Premium HD display) 2) Battery li…

I did a search for X220 and found this: http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-x220... Are you serious? This doesn't look like anything that may compete with Macbook Air in my book. Not to seem too negative, but the overall design is reminiscent of old laptops from the year 2001. (Typical for PC laptop designers).

It's pig ugly, but it's not a bad design, just philosophically different to how Apple work.

Apple take their platonic ideal of design - a perfectly smooth pebble of metal and glass - and try and compromise it as little as possible in the process of making it a computer. They're amazingly good at that process, but inevitably face compromises.

Lenovo (and IBM before them) build purely for performance and let form follow function. If a bulge in the chassis means a better machine, they put the bulge in the chassis.

For example, you'll notice a VGA port on the side. Apple would consider it an unacceptably bulky legacy port. Lenovo fit it because their target market values being able to hook up to a projector without a fragile and easy to lose adapter. There are hundreds of really clever bits of design on a Lenovo, but they're all about Getting Stuff Done.

I've alternated between Mac laptops and Thinkpads for as long as I can remember, probably over a decade. They're both the best in their field by a very long way, but they're competing in very different markets based on very different design philosophies.

Re: Ask HN: Any good Macbook Air alternatives?

#117

Post by serge2k »

mikeknoop wrote: post #66
sgt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a search for X220 and found this: http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-x220... Are you serious? This doesn't look like anything that may compete with Macbook Air in my book. Not to seem too negative, but the overall design is reminiscent of old laptops from the year 2001. (Typical for PC laptop designers).

I actually prefer the Thinkpad design.

Well the aluminum looks nice, I too prefer the thinkpad design.

Don't get all the fuss over the apple look. To me the thinkpad looks very sharp and functional.

Re: Ask HN: Any good Macbook Air alternatives?

#118

Post by pyre »

georgieporgie wrote: post #114
pyre wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This doesn't look like anything that may compete > with Macbook Air in my book > design is reminiscent of old laptops from the year > 2001 1. The age of the design shouldn't necessarily say anything about how good it is. Would you claim that we should just get rid of art museums because everything in them is just 'too old?' 2. The ThinkPad was praised for it's industrial design back in it's day. 3. There are many p…

The original question posed was, "any good Macbook Air alternatives?" To me, that implies lightweight, compact, and, yes, elegant. The Thinkpad doesn't appear to be any of those.

Elegant is subjective. It's better to talk about things like specs, issues, OS support, etc, and let people decide on the aesthetics themselves. Arguing over which design is more pleasing on the eye (or elegant) adds nothing to the discussion.

The original post suggesting the X220 listed a bunch of specs that it had (and that the poster needed) that the MacBook Air didn't. A response of, "Disregard that the design sucks cocks," adds nothing to the discussion even if that it your personal opinion. If someone thinks that the external looks of the laptop are important, they are not going to just blindly make the purchase based a comment on HN without personally checking it out.

The more important discussions are things like:

* X is billed as (or looks to be in the surface) a replacement for Y, but once you get it out of the showroom you'll notice issues A, B and C.

* X looks really cheap on the surface, but in my experience it's extremely durable.

* X looks really good, but doesn't run Operating System Y.

* X looks like it runs Operating System Y, until you need to use feature/hardware component Z.

Re: Ask HN: Any good Macbook Air alternatives?

#119

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

zobzu wrote: post #59
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #16

I just looked at the link to Samsung 9 series and the googled for the Sony Viao Z series. The Samsung 9 in the link is 1600EUR. I checked the German Apple site. The top end Air is 1499EUR. The low end 13" with a 128GB SSD like in the link is 1249EUR. I looked up the Viao Z series on the Sony German site and this is a bit confusing. It says that it starts at 1754EUR which seems like a really good deal. But at the bott…

Dunno how you got your prices but the MBA starts at around 1000E and ends at around 2000+EUR The Z starts at around 1700 and ends at around 4500EUR Not sure about the samsung. Of course, you don't get the same between a MBA and a Z. The MBA is a pretty nice machine in fact, if you're an OSX user and don't need the best-of-the-best (aka the Z, so far, its so much faster than the MBA it's not even funny)

The Samsung prices are in the link in tis topic. I got the MBA prices from the German Apple site. I got the Z prices from the German Sony site.

I only looked at preconfigured 13" systems. I was only looking at the basics too. CPU, RAM, SSD capacity. The Z is faster for sure, but I am not convinced it's worth the premium that they are selling it for.

Re: Ask HN: Any good Macbook Air alternatives?

#120

Post by georgieporgie »

pyre wrote: post #118
georgieporgie wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original question posed was, "any good Macbook Air alternatives?" To me, that implies lightweight, compact, and, yes, elegant. The Thinkpad doesn't appear to be any of those.

Elegant is subjective. It's better to talk about things like specs, issues, OS support, etc, and let people decide on the aesthetics themselves. Arguing over which design is more pleasing on the eye (or elegant) adds nothing to the discussion. The original post suggesting the X220 listed a bunch of specs that it had (and that the poster needed) that the MacBook Air didn't. A response of, "Disregard that the design su…

Elegant is subjective.

I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who honestly believes a Thinkpad to be more elegant than a Macbook Air.

A response of, "Disregard that the design sucks cocks,"

Excuse me?

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