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Mossberg Reviews the Lenovo X300 Vs. MacBook Air
genji256 writes "Adding to his first impressions, Walt Mossberg has published a full review of the soon-to-come Lenovo X300. As a bottom line he 'recommends the X300 for road warriors without hesitation, provided they can live with its two biggest downsides: a relatively paltry file-storage capacity and a hefty price tag.' Gizmodo lists all the comparisons with the MacBook Air that Walt inevitably makes. Final score: it's a tie, though certain points are arguable ('Doesn't use Mac OS X Leopard. Winner: MacBook Air')."
I notice on the Amazon listing for the Macbook Air that there are nothing but five-star reviews. Is it really that good, or are they just shills? It's a bit odd that a review never appeared here on Slashdot.
The fact that the Macbook air runs an OS that the PC laptop can't is a major plus.
Unless you intend to run Windows on the Mac laptop then why compare?
Feh. Both of them leave me uncaring. I'd have expected more benefit from SSD in the runtime dept for the price premium it carries. But on the other hand the Apple is too much compromise in function to achieve 'cool factor' for my taste. If I really wanted to optimize the size (while still keeping something close to a real keyboard) over everything else I'd grab an eeepc.
Democrat delenda est
The X300 is like a tank, the Air like a sculpture, one is purpose built to get the job done, the other is purpose built to woo the eyes.
How is this a tie?
How can the lack of an optical drive, any expansion, etc be counted as so low.
Also, the X300 only has SSD as an option right now. Compare that to the SSD version of the MacBook Air, and the price is very comparable.
And, as others have mentioned, Hackintosh! They can both run Windows or OSX. Sure, one doesn't ship with the other, but seriously, its not like its that hard to figure out. OS should not have been factored in at all.
They used thicker + heavier + screen height as 3 separate points. That should all be 1 point.
I don't see how the MBA can even get close.
The Macbook air won in almost all the categories you would want from a laptop:
* Being able to use it from an airline seat (Macbook Air has a shorter screen and thinner base)
* Ait has longer battery life
* Air has faster processor
The only technical aspect I could see swaying some people, the X300 has more resolution. But not much more, and the processor/battery life in particular would seem to be key to me.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well duh. That's rediculous for a review. We aren't talking splitting hairs a few dollars more it's a lot more expensive and it's larger and heavier and it's not all pluses since the Mac has more drive space. It feels more like a "Gee I prefer windows" review than a head to head match up. Until some one has a machine of a similar size and weight for a similar price then reviews are pointless. The Macbook Air does exactly what it was designed to do. You simply can't install a DVD drive inside a machine of that size with current technology but give them a few years and they'll likely be the first to do it. Remember the first iMacs had external drives. These days you pull them out of the box and plug them in and they're smaller. Each machine reviewed does a good job for what it was designed for but they are very different machines with different goals. Macbook is the smallest and lightest and it's a solid machine not a radically under powered system just so they could have bragging rights. You want to know the winner? The consumer because the Macbook Air is driving the market so the PC makers will keep pushing to copy it. By then Apple will have the next generation out but the point is everyone will benefit from them pushing the envelope. when it comes down to it it's not fair comparing PCs to Macs because most people are branded and they'll always show a preference. There are advantages to both so once again the consumer wins because there's choice. Remember the dark days of beige computers? For a lot of years they were like model Ts, you can have a computer any color so long as it's beige. A few vendors started selling black cases then suddenly you had cases available that looked like a Rebook shoe, colors and style. We need more companies pushing the break the model. The Macbook Air fits easily inside a brief case without taking up much space. It's more like throwing a thick notepad in the briefcase. That was the intent and they pulled it off and made it afordable. I find it funny that there were complaints about the price on the Macbook Air and now people are touting a more expensive machine that's bigger and heavier.
It often surprises people, but when comparing computers with the same features, Macs often turns out to cost less.
Yes, you can get a Windows or Linux PC for $199, but it does not exactly have the performance of a Mac Pro. I was recently looking for a high performance PC, and found the Mac Pro was actually the cheapest one that met my requirements. What surprised even me is that even if I assumed I would be buying RAM and a display from Apple, it came out to less than a similarly equipped Dell, with Dell RAM and display.
Ehhh... I'm a hardcore Mac user (MacBook Pro for me)... and I disagree. One of the things that really kills me about the MacBook Air is the TOTAL lack of ports. You know, Apple was the first one to jump on the USB bandwagon, using USB HID peripherals when everyone else was still shipping them with PS/2 ports. But now, they ship a laptop with only TWO ports? The ONE thing I hate about my MacBook Pro (and the MacBook) is that it only has two USB ports, necessitating ANY serious user to get a USB hub (oh great, ANOTHER thing in the laptop bag). And now we're looking at... ONE PORT?
That to me is a dealbreaker. Especially considering that in order to use the disc drive you must plug it directly into the laptop, meaning you cannot use ANY USB PERIPHERALS while using the disc drive. Have you heard anything so ludicrous in your life?
I appreciate that Apple is concerned about the form of our electronics and not just the function, but sometimes they do take it too far. When form compromises functionality, you know you're doing something wrong!
Clearly your philosophy comes from the conspicuous consumption school or spending. There are virtually no mid-class "business" seats for domestic travel in the U.S. On the vast majority of flights, only two-tier seating is available, and from my experience, First Class is filled with upgraders for two weeks from the flight date.
Not sure what airline or where you fly, but I'd pass along a bit of advice that has served me well: "Fly coach now so you can fly first class later."
As much as I like the MacBook Air, you neglect what happens when you get to the meeting:
* You need to get something off a CD or DVD
* You need to plug in ethernet as well as a USB flash drive
* The resolution of the X300 is much, much better
If I had my way, my next laptop upgrade at work would be an X300 (I have a T60 now), and an additional personal laptop would be an Air (I have a MacBook Pro now). Toss in the high-res screen from the X300, and the Air could easily *be* my next laptop.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
no you wouldn't :)
I've spent 2800 (well minus taxes) Euro on my MacBook Pro. I fly economy class.
Business class is ridiculously expensive.
Also laptops last longer than a flying business 2 times.
People using html in email should be shot.
For a laptop that is .1 inch thinner than a regular Macbook Pro and is on average is about half an inch thicker than a Macbook Air, I fail to see how this Thinkpad is really compairable to the Macbook Air to begin with. It's like saying, "Haha, my Van can seat more than your compact car!!!" Holy crap people, regular Macbook Pros are famous for having about that much thickness and having that many ports for years.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Hang on a sec, you're being ridiculously pro Mac here and overlooking a lot of things:
Is thicker than MacBook Air. Winner: MacBook Air.
Really, who gives two craps about thickness... it's all marketing from Apple. Who has honestly gone "Gee wizz, this laptop is just too darn THICK for my needs!"? Pretty much no-one... where does it being super, super thin make for a big boon? Any bag you're going to carry said laptop in is going to be able to handle another centimeter or so... geeze.
Is heavier than MacBook Air. Winner: MacBook Air.
Weight does matter, indeed... but when it gets to a certain point, it doesn't any more, light enough is light enough, unless you have some sort of musculature atrophy that makes you unable to lift the heaviest version of the notebook at a whole... ooh, 3.5 pounds. Geeze... from his review: "is still very thin and light. It's under an inch thick and even at its heaviest is only 3.5 pounds." So, these points are just mindless waffle.
Has less battery life in both tests and normal use (so much for SSD.) Winner: MacBook Air.
This does indeed have baring on actual use, I give full points to this one.
Has way more ports. Winner: Lenovo X300.
This is very important, yet you just ignore the need for a large number of us to have different ports for different uses.
Has built-in DVD possibility. Winner: Lenovo X300.
YOU say "Whooptee doo." Big plus for me... my laptop MUST have a built in DVD drive as I use it as an entertainment station for the kids while we're away, and having a separate drive hanging off on a usb cable is a big NO NO. You also contradict yourself with for the Lenovo "You get to lug a DVD player", and yet for the Apple you say "you can bring along a USB powered DVD". Which is better, one that's in built, out of the way, doesn't need the external casing, or one hidden away in the body of the machine... if you NEED or WANT a DVD player (which a LOT of us still do), then it's a major failing to not have one in the unit. Yes, I can see certain people who'll have little need for one, but don't off handly say it's not a good thing.
Has SSD drive built-in. Winner: Lenovo X300.
YOU SAY "Smaller disk (with zero advantages on speed or battery)" which is ignoring the robustness of a solid state drive, nothing to do with speed/battery... missing the point entirely.
Has WiMax connectivity. Winner: Lenovo X300.
I like how you ignore this, which considering that the Apple lacks drives and needs to share others, would seem to be something it could do with, data transfer wise.
Has USB Wireless. Winner: Lenovo X300.
While this isn't widespread yet, how cool to not have to plug in new devices? Very nice.
Has GPS location-finding. Winner: Lenovo X300.
YOU say "Whooptee doo." Yeah, just discount something many, many people would find handy.
Has higher screen resolution. Winner: Lenovo X300.
You say "Whooptee doo." Again... um... higher resolution is a BIG plus for many people, yet you just discount it... well done.
Has a screen that stands up higher, leaving less viewing angle while travelling on plane. Winner: MacBook Air.
Yeah, valid point here, no two ways about that.
Has slower processor. Winner: MacBook Air.
Except "In my tests, the X300 performed very well, even though it has a relatively slow processor, slower than the MacBook's." So, a bit of a moot point it would seem.
Doesn't use Mac OS X Leopard. Winner: MacBook Air.
This SO doesn't apply to most people... SOME want OSX, OTHERS want Vista/XP, you can't put this as a carte blanch statement.
It comes down to what you want a laptop for... and looking at what YOU deem to be important and applying that to EVERYONE is such an immature attitude.
Are you honestly bitching about having to lug a small usb hub? I would think you'd be bitching more about the substantially larger accessories your lugging around for no reason. The only thing I ever plug into my Macbook is a thumbdrive, and maybe my cellphone's USB charging adapter. My mouse is the Bluetooth Apple mouse, and my phone syncs via Bluetooth as well. The only thing I could possibly need to plug into my Macbook is a webcam, or DVD burner, which it already has built in!
People who have to work in airplane seats, i.e. exactly the target audience of the Lenovo.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I cannot imagine a 'road warrior' or any other business man ever finding that much space cramped, you could have 20 divx movies and a thousand mp3's on that hardware and still have what, a paltry 40gig left? No doubt necessary for the 32 million spreadsheets and documents you use every second of every day.
In my opinion if your not haxing l33t warez and downloading copious amounts of porn and lat3st n gr3at3st moviez my 5 yo 32gig raptor is more space than I will need for the foreseeable future.
http://www.awfullybigmoustache.com
How does thickness affect someone working in an airplane seat? I can see depth being a factor -- a wider, more rectangular chassis being preferred so your wrists aren't pressed up against your stomach as you type.
But thickness? It's not even a concern.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
For this one, I'd rip a few discs worth, then pack away the DVD drive until I'm done watching them. If you're not re-encoding, it's fairly easy to rip just the movie (not the special features), and even with the 64 gig solid-state, that's still a good 4-5 movies. Figure, also, that it's a lot less wear on the discs (if you're bringing originals) to rip them in some stationary place, then put them away for the car (or plane) ride.
True, but the same applies to this as to OS choice. The Baby Boomers hate it when I turn their resolution up, because it makes everything smaller and harder to read, and they don't know how to set resolution or font size in most places. This is less relevant for OS X -- if they can figure out how to use the awesome zooming feature.
I think it does apply to a lot of people -- I'd imagine there are far fewer people who don't have a preference than people who prefer one to the other. But unless you really don't care about OS X, it makes sense to have the option, and Parallels if you need XP programs.
Otherwise, good points.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Really, who gives two craps about thickness... it's all marketing from Apple. Who has honestly gone "Gee wizz, this laptop is just too darn THICK for my needs!"? Pretty much no-one...
How many people feel lust for a phone? Pretty much no one... until the iPhone.
How many people feel lust for a laptop? Pretty much no one... until they see something with sex appeal.
It's bizarre and somewhat telling about how many regular, non-technical people stop and ask about the iPhone if they someone use it. A similar effect is happening with the MacBook Air (zomg it's so thin! wow that's light! Look at how bright the screen is! Hey that SSD makes the apps snappy!)
The MacBook Air is the two-seater roadster of laptops -- a blast to drive, eye-catching, not overly practical, and sneer-inducing among those who want a larger, or faster, or more practical model.
Not saying it's universal, just saying that Apple seems to be tapping into a lust-factor that one hasn't seen with consumer electronics in some time, if ever.
-Stu
It often surprises people, but when comparing computers with the same features, Macs often turns out to cost less.
Ah, slashdot: you point out the truth that macs actually are cheaper than PCs, and you get modded a troll. Sorry man.
But it is true, so the moderators should mod the parent up. Macs might not be quite as configurable as PCs, but if you compare a low-end Dell to an iMac (say), you'll find that the iMac packs a better video card, bigger monitor, bigger hard drive, more ram, and better CPU for the price. You can argue that you can't upgrade the video card/processor/whatever in an iMac, but most people never do that anyway (and if you want to do that stuff in a Dell, you're going to have to buy a new [proprietarily wired, so expensive] power supply).
Obviously it doesn't hold true for roll-your-own PCs, but then roll-your-own PCs don't come with a decent 1-3 year warranty where you can go to just one company for the machine to get fixed...
Strange how the "Macs are expensive" myth is still out there.
Reid
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
The problem is that often that "Macs are cheaper" claim is based on comparing the Mac to a PC that has every single spec at least as good as the Mac (which isn't always possible so some are bigger). Of course noone really needs every last spec at exactly that level. If you turned this comparison around, took a PC and looked for the cheapest Mac that reaches or exceeds that PC in every spec you'll end up with a much more expensive Mac (because it's easy to have a single spec in a PC that's only reached by a top-end Mac). This is pretty much the result of quantization errors.
You seem pretty fixated on Dell, there are literally hundreds of other stores out there that offer complete PCs and you can choose one you really want or need instead of the closest step. E.g. my sister needed a cheap PC that can do text processing and web browsing, she got a 300€ system that does what she needs. You should compare systems to your requirements, not other systems.
If you compare requirements and none of the requirements is "must be a Mac" then you'll often end up cheaper with a PC because often you'll have to go to the next bigger line of Macs if you want a specific feature not available in the lower Macs.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
A possibly better example would be the Motorola RAZR, which was nothing special - except it was ridiculously thin. It sold (and continues to sell) like hotcakes, even when it was initially $500+.