MacBook Air for girlfriend? Ultrabooks?

[Ulti]

Hey Hexites,

Girlfriend is wanting to "upgrade" her laptop. She has a 3 year old clunky Sony Vaio (forgot the CPU but it's a poor one).

I'll personally be getting an SSD if she were to choose something without one.

As we're students we can take advantage of any student offers (Apple give out 15% discount).

Now for use: She WANTS something portable so I was thinking either the MBA or Ultrabooks, however they both seem quite low powered but personally I've got a Lenovo X121e and the i3 2357M does everything I need it to without ever being sluggish so I'm sure for her it won't be underpowered either.

We study Actuarial Science so we don't really have any software we need to run as we'd probably run them from the uni computers anyway.

Basically she only does web browsing, video streaming and basic tasks that mums would do. Ideally she would like something that she could carry easily and the only things I know of that aren't "ugly" would be the MBA and the ultrabooks. Now with the MBA at £730 for the 11.6"er, are there any ultrabooks that can beat it at a substantial price or have better features/specs?

[Pancake]

The Lenovo X Series is what i would go for, much more durable than a macbook.

[Hoonigan]

If you want portable, and you're eligible for the 15% discount, I'd personally go for the MacBook Air.

And as for what Pancake has said, in my personal experience, MacBooks are brilliantly well made and will last a good while, especially with the unibody's they have.
I have a late 2009 MacBook Pro, and it's lasted me very well. It's been thrown about all over the place, has been dropped a few times and even had a drink spilled on it, but everything still works absolutely fine.

The only way you can really decide for yourself is to try out all the different options in person. Especially if you're planning on spending upwards of £700.

[Pancake]

Well, its only £530 for the Thinkpad

http://www.ebuyer.com/288727-lenovo-...edium=products

^ Has 3G too
Magnesium alloy roll-cage
ABS Plastic (Wont bend like MBA)
Much better Warranty (Up to 5 years onsite with accidental damages)
Spill Proof keyboard
Can have mSATA SSD + Hard Drive config
Doesnt look shiny and stupid. Looks like you are doing WORK
Has extended 9 hour battery

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Lenovo makes some of the most reliable laptops ATM. They are consistently in the top five for reliability AFAIK.

If you want looks and thinness the MacBook Air is very nice. If you want a good value for money workhouse get the Lenovo X121e.

[abaxas]

Cant really add anything to this thread other than when the choice was between an air or x121e. We went air with edu discount as we could go to the apple store and test the keyboard/mouse.

Wife uses it for about 2 hours a day hence the keyboard quality was the deciding factor.

[Ulti]

I've got the X121e myself, got it for under £300 when it was on offer and girlfriend thinks it's fast enough and small enough. Personally I think as it's her only "PC" I think 11.6" is too small but she said it's fine.

Tbh it seems for a small portable the MBA is the best for her, I also don't want any hassle so if anything goes wrong straight back to the Apple store it is and they can fix the problem.

[TheAnimus]

"Yes that sounds like a fair swap".

helpful mode I think the real gulf of the ultrabooks is still 3-6 months away, might well see some price drops in the desirable end of the market then.

[Ulti]

I don't think she can wait that long. I laugh when she opens MS office because it lags, I should uninstall some programs for her but I've neem a bit lazy.

Does anyone know if Ultrabooks can be opened up to change the RAM and HDD? With the MBA the RAM is soldered on, is this the same with Ultrabooks?

[Pancake]

Yeah they can be opened, they are not macs

[Pancake]

Cant really add anything to this thread other than when the choice was between an air or x121e. We went air with edu discount as we could go to the apple store and test the keyboard/mouse.

Wife uses it for about 2 hours a day hence the keyboard quality was the deciding factor.

Huh? Thinkpads are known for the awesome keyboards, much much better than a mac

[Ulti]

Yeah they can be opened, they are not macs

Yeah although chiclet keyboards may look better (I'm sure to most females they would and to me they do as well due to their minimalistic design) but they are never better than Lenovo or "proper" keyboards in my opinion, and a lot of people's opinion.

Just searched and found that Ultrabooks also have soldered RAM.. Well at least most Ultrabooks that I've seen are coming with 4GB RAM, but I guess with OSX, 2GB is enough as I heard it's very efficient? I wonder if we can change the HDD/SDDs though? I doubt it though as almsot all of them will come with SSDs due to Ultrabook's definition but it'd be nice to replace a small SSD with a bigger one if needed some time down the line.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yeah although chiclet keyboards may look better (I'm sure to most females they would and to me they do as well due to their minimalistic design) but they are never better than Lenovo or "proper" keyboards in my opinion, and a lot of people's opinion.

Just searched and found that Ultrabooks also have soldered RAM.. Well at least most Ultrabooks that I've seen are coming with 4GB RAM, but I guess with OSX, 2GB is enough as I heard it's very efficient? I wonder if we can change the HDD/SDDs though? I doubt it though as almsot all of them will come with SSDs due to Ultrabook's definition but it'd be nice to replace a small SSD with a bigger one if needed some time down the line.

The MacBook Air comes with a proprietary SSD AFAIK. If you want to change bits get the Lenovo.

Edit!!

Picture of the MacBook Air motherboard:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4528/t...3inch-review/4

The empty space at the bottom is the SSD slot.

[Ulti]

How about Ultrabooks, CAT?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

How about Ultrabooks, CAT?

Here are internal pictures of the Acer Aspire S3:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/21/a...uld-have-show/

http://www.techrepublic.com/photos/c...rabook/6333841

It looks like you can use a normal hard drive or SSD but you will need to check the pictures.

I still think the MacBook Air is the nicest laptop of its kind. However,the Lenovo is better value for money IMHO.

[Pancake]

It depends what Ultrabook, Anything from Lenovo you can change the RAM, as with Asus iirc