Convince me not to buy an AIR

[Spud1]

The time has come for a change in laptop again. I have been using a HP Touchsmart TX2 for the past 14 months or so, but I don't really use the touch functionality as much as I used to (used to be great for meeting notes and demos, but i'm in a different job now) and i'm looking for something a little more portable.

I am both a mac and windows user..in fact apart from this laptop all my hardware is actually apple made (mac pro as main machine, mac mini media hub), and the air really attracts with it's form factor, the fact it comes with OSX and the visual appeal (that it will match/work with all my other gear). I'd be dual booting it of course, as I do my other macs, so the OSX aspect isn't the be all..but it would be a nice bonus.

Anyway, cost is what puts me off, as you are looking at around £900 after discounts etc for one of these machines, but it's not a big factor, I can afford one.

What alternatives are there out there, that are as slim (almost) and good looking as the air?

Couple of restrictions/definites - Minimum screen size of 11.6", nothing that has a plastic chassis/case, and must have a "real" CPU (no Atoms please). What options are there out there?

[jimbouk]

Just go for the air, you know it makes sense

[Biscuit]

Dell Adamo? Cant seem to find it on the dell website though :/

[oolon]

Sounds to me apple has a firm grip on you. Get the Air its a nice bit of kit if you don't buy it every time you have a problem with your other laptop your be thinking... should have bought the Air.

[Terbinator]

Could you not jsut go for a Pro instead?

Or an HP Envy?

Edit: You already have one, greedy person.

[abaxas]

Just bought one for the 'lass'.

Fantastic little machine and with vmware fusion, XP boots in 6 seconds!!

Dont forget to use the 'higher education' link and get the base model for 748.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would wait until the AMD Zacate based laptops are released.

[directhex]

Alienware m11x!

[Spud1]

Sounds to me apple has a firm grip on you. Get the Air its a nice bit of kit if you don't buy it every time you have a problem with your other laptop your be thinking... should have bought the Air.

The thing is, with my mac mini and mac pro, they were the best bang for buck at the time of purchase..both those models were cheaper than their "standard" pc equivalents. Things have changed for both the mac pro (not macbook pro) and mac mini though, as PC equivalents are now available for much less.

The air though has a clear apple tax of at least 20%..so hmm...

will look at the Zacate (though amd puts me off..they still have the heat issues of all other mobile amd chips?) and the alienware though!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

will look at the Zacate (though amd puts me off..they still have the heat issues of all other mobile amd chips?) and the alienware though!

AMD Zacate actually is designed to run cooler and consume less power.

The CPU is in-between an Atom and a CULV in processing power and the IGP is faster than the Nvidia Ion.

AFAIK,the laptops with an 11.6" screen should be under £500.

[oolon]

I got an Alienware M11X, did a little review on here about it too (In response to the HeXus review). So if you have any specific questions about it feel free to PM me. Having lived with it a while one of the features that I thought was a complete gimmic at the time, has be really useful, the illumiated keyboard on a laptop is great, when your working in low light areas. It is rather a heavy machine and not particularly good looking, however inside its pretty good. Though the secondary (performance) graphics card is a bit on the weak side. I think I think it misses most is the lack of a gigabit network port its only 10/100BT. There still isn't a machine out their I would prefer to have rather than my m11x (however I have not looked to hard as I would hate to find one so soon!).

[Biscuit]

will look at the Zacate (though amd puts me off..they still have the heat issues of all other mobile amd chips?) and the alienware though!

There is rumors of apple using AMD platforms in some future products so personally if it was me, i would leave it a while and what happens with Zacante.

[scaryjim]

... the air really attracts with ... the fact it comes with OSX ...

Damn, there goes my one line for convincing you against the Air *sigh*

As others have said, wait to see what happens with Zacate. The E350 (dual core, 1.6GHz, 80shader iGPU, 18W TDP) looks to have the processing muscle of a last gen Celeron CULV allied to an iGPU that beats out any previous integrated solution handily. It should also appear in laptops at significantly less than £500 (mini-itx boards based on the chips are coming in at ~ $100 - $150, apparently!).

[Duke_]

There's a long thread in a well known competitor's forum about a guy who's Macbook turned up with a scratch on the case, the next replacement had a scratch on the screen and he's working on getting replacment number three!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

There's a long thread in a well known competitor's forum about a guy who's Macbook turned up with a scratch on the case, the next replacement had a scratch on the screen and he's working on getting replacment number three!

Don't worry this is Hexus - you can mention OcUK!