Much has been written about the MacBook Air since its introduction earlier this month. Sure, its the world’s thinnest notebook and it is visually stunning, but how does it really stand up to the other "heavy hitters" in the ultra-light notebook market? AppleInsider published an article that compares the MacBook Air with the offerings from Sony, Lenovo, Fujitsu, Panasonic, and Asus. For a summary, you can view the chart below, and for the detailed findings, you can click HERE.
Source: "How the MacBook Air Stacks Up Against Other Ultra-Light Notebooks" by Prince McLean, published at AppleInsider.
But what about notebook design? Surely that’s a factor not only lawyers look at when we trudge these things to court (in a manila envelope of course). I think the chart needs a picture cell.
Played with one in the Apple Store here in Knoxville, TN last night when I was in for a Genius Bar visit. While I really don’t think I have any real need for this beautiful piece of engineering, it certainly is pretty.
The store staff were basically encouraging everyone, before really looking at it, to close it and pick it up. Of course, they have a USB lock in it, but that thing is hella sweet.
The two they had in store were the ones with the solid state drives, but I noticed very strong quality on the speed. I tried a couple of average density web pages in Safari and opened MS Word 2008. Both were perfectly respectable.
As much as I carry my 17″ MBP with me now, I couldn’t imagine sleeping without the computer if I had the Air.