Her indoors

[Phage]

Has had an 11" Mac Air for years and loved it. But, it's starting to show its age to say the least and I was thinking an ultrabook would be better this time around.
Apart from the XPS13 - what else is there ? I rather pay less, and she'd rather have an 11".

[kalniel]

Asus zenbook was the poor man's mac air/ultra book when I last looked.

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computi...FSaH7QodMwkIUg

[GoNz0]

the xps13 is close to an 11" notebook size wise and Dell will no doubt be doing a black friday deal, worth bearing in mind.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You might want to check if she wants to use Windows first??

[Phage]

You might want to check if she wants to use Windows first??

Yes - I did. We're having issues at the mo as we are involved in a number of community projects and everyone else is using Windows and Office.
The wife's air is now so old that it refuses to even recognise any shared files.
It won't run anything later than snow leopoard and is struggling even then with browser compatibilities and other apps no longer supported

I was looking at the Dell and the Asus - but was kinda hoping there was a poor mans version.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yes - I did. We're having issues at the mo as we are involved in a number of community projects and everyone else is using Windows and Office.
The wife's air is now so old that it refuses to even recognise any shared files.
It won't run anything later than snow leopoard and is struggling even then with browser compatibilities and other apps no longer supported

I was looking at the Dell and the Asus - but was kinda hoping there was a poor mans version.

http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product...-intel-core-i5

http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/browse/...ac/macbook_air

An alternative would be the Dell XPS13 - a mate has one and it is a lovely laptop. It has been recently updated with newer CPUs,so I suspect you might be able to get some deals on the older version.

[Phage]

Thanks - where would I look for an older version. Their Black Friday site is a bit sparse !

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks - where would I look for an older version. Their Black Friday site is a bit sparse !

Don't seem to see much of the old one it seems:

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-13-9350...NNrG83yx&ven2=,

New one:

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-13-9360...p/pd?ref=PD_OC

Those Apple refurb details are worth looking at too.

Having said that,there apparently might be a clearance in-store at Currys for the older version:
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/new-...nstore-2548620

[GoNz0]

Dell outlet is worth looking at.

[scaryjim]

What's the usage? If it's just web and office then there's plenty of options under £200 that would do the job; anything on the first page of http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer...rice+ascending should be fine (they're mostly 11.6" bay trail laptops with 2GB RAM/32GB eMMC, like my Toshiba click mini) and I see no good reason to look beyond the £149 Lenovo Ideapad 100s; although if you do fancy something a biut better specced I'd personally be inclined to spend £180 on http://www.medion.com/gb/shop/cheap-...0021396a1.html - it's Celeron is the next generation on from Bay Trail with higher clocks, the 14" screen is full HD, and it has a 2.5" drive bay.

[peterb]

If you want to stay with Apple, Microsoft Office is available for the latest versions of OSX.

You can sometimes get refurbished/ex demo machines through the online Apple Store. These have the same warrantys as the new products, and can be extended with AppleCare, as for a new product.

[EndlessWaves]

I was looking at the Dell and the Asus - but was kinda hoping there was a poor mans version.

The Zenbook range typically starts at around £600 and there are lots of other choices between that and £1000 so it's not XPS 13 or £200 cheapie.

Generally most smaller machines are equipped with fancy hinges or detatchable screens so you have to look in the Yoga, X2, X360, Switch and so on ranges. There are a few traditional 11.6" laptops like the Thinkpad 11e (the non-yoga version) but many manufacturers start them at 12.5"/13" these days.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Looks like you missed out on a very good deal for a MBA:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/macb...age=3#comments

However,there are some decent looking deals here for alternatives:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/asus...5-john-2549941
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/leno...currys-2550048

[Phage]

Those look good. But how powerful is the M3 ?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Those look good. But how powerful is the M3 ?

Its a low power Core i3:

http://ark.intel.com/products/88198/...up-to-2_20-GHz

[IPBA]

You will get good offers on the Dell outlet but I personally would avoid the XPS with a barge poll.