Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
Which OS would that be?
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
No! But a Beowulf cluster will give you:
That is all.
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.
The first time I have ever seen someone use "inexpensive" to describe the Macbook Air.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
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.
OSX86 is a nice little hobby, but for someone that wants a full working computer it's annoying. Even people building from computers scratch using 'ideal' components can't always get things working perfectly (eg, Me). Laptops it's even harder to find drivers, etc. Oh sure it'll run, but sleep won't work. Sound is flaky and wireless won't work. Especially considering there might not even be OS X WiMax drivers.
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.
Have you ever held one? The Air is quite solid, for something so thin. I would have no hesitation lugging one around in a backpack ad not having to worry about treating it gently.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Can we stop calling travelling salesmen 'road warriors'. Its a pathetic attempt to make very safe ordinary jobs done by people in suits sound like ninjas.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
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
I'm really not sure I see the advantage of this point:
Has USB Wireless. Winner: Lenovo X300.
I usually use Mac portables, but the ultra-lightweight, while a decided gift, also means reduced functionality. I don't want to load my stuff via a wireless connnection; it's slow and ties up the resources used.
The Lenovo when compared to the MB Air SSD version comes out nearly the same in price as might be expected, and for good Cost-of-Goods reasons.
But if you want to use a Fujitsu Lifebook, you can get a tablet-based notebook, airline usable, all the ports and guts, and a reasonably decent (Lenovo and Apple are known for theirs, sorry Dell users) and run whatever you want if it's Windows or Linux Something.
It's very cute and sexy, and if that's why you buy Apple, you'll be happy. Still, it's a stunted machine, and the Lenovo, while pretty cool, is pretty expensive, too. The Lifebook ain't cheap, but it's a contender here.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I believe my sig speaks for itself here.
Thank God for evolution.
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."
The Apple Slice. A razor thin laptop with a bunch of bloody smiling fingerless people.
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!
Personally, I'd take my Thinkpad X61s over either of those. Much cheaper, faster, and (the deciding factor for me) 10 hours of battery life. The small size increase of the X61s is trivial to me when I can get MUCH longer battery. Stock OS does not matter to me either, as I use Gentoo on all of my machines.
Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer
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
"* Being able to use it from an airline seat (Macbook Air has a shorter screen and thinner base)"
It accomplishes this by being deeper. The X300 is shallower and taller due to its hinge design. I don't accept Mossberg's opinion that the Apple design is more airplane-friendly.
"* Ait has longer battery life"
Mossberg's MBA battery life measurement is highly suspicious. He hasn't provided any evidence that the MBA battery life for a traveler is actually better and there's plenty of reasons to feel otherwise, namely (a) lower power X300 processor, and (b) more battery options on the X300. You are wrong here.
"* Air has faster processor"
Yes it does, but the Air is crippled by its terrible hard drive and its faster processor is harder on battery life.
"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."
Yes, resolution is a significant advantage for the X300, just not the only one. If you choose to travel with the DVD drive, as the MBA forces you to do, the X300 becomes lighter. If you choose a conventional hard disk rather than SSD, the X300 will offer a 50% larger drive. If you value battery life, the X300 offers two sizes plus a secondary battery in the DVD bay. Then there's the complete complement of IO, the cellular and the GPS options. You are again mistaken.
I've never ever had trouble opening my MacBook Pro in any airline seat... It seems to me 1" is plenty thin enough to be an airline workhorse... Any thinner IMHO is a bit pointless.
I agree with GP, overall the Lenovo is looking like the better machine. More ports (yay!), better resolution (a small bonus, IMHO), WiMax integration (meh right now, may become important later), and integrated disc drive (yay!), is a lot of pluses, considering its only penalties are being thicker, and having slightly less battery life.
About the only real place where the MBA wins over the X300 is the weight. Sure, 0.5 lbs don't seem like a lot, but then again, people said that about the 2 lb difference between the MacBook and MacBook Air. Weight does matter for people who are traveling with the device ALL DAY.
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!
I don't you really need the DVD drive with you when you're on the road. Just use Handbrake or some other software to rip the DVD to your HD, then you don't have to worry about your kids getting peanut butter on the disc. Or you can get an iPod or other portable video player so you don't have to worry about wasting your battery on movies.
WiMax isn't meant for local networking. It is to Wifi as cellular phone is to portable phone. The MacBook already has 802.11n, which is decently fast. That said, yes, having it would be better than not.
It's called Bluetooth. I haven't plugged a mouse into my PowerBook for the last four years. Similarly, most printers can be either plugged into the network directly or plugged into the USB port on an Apple Wifi router (I don't know if other companies make routers that do this yet). So, the device that will take advantage of Wireless USB are going to have to be things that need a lot of bandwidth, but don't use Wifi. That rules out hard drives, since there are tons of wireless NASes on the market. So, basically it just leaves iPods/other media players and digital cameras, but already some of those use Wifi. So, while WUSB is a good idea, and I wish it luck, it's not such a big deal. It's just a minor evolution of existing standards.
The MacBook is more versatile. If you want to run XP/Vista, you just need to install it. With a PC laptop, you can only run OS X illegally, which is sure to be buggy and lead to headaches.
One more point for people on both sides:
I've heard a lot of complaining about the tiny size of the MBA's hard drive. And while that's true, what people are ignoring is the fact that we now have wireless NASes. So, just put a terabyte in your living room, store your media library on that, access it wirelessly from your laptop, and when you go on the road, just sync it to a portable media player first and keep your serious computing separate from your entertainment.
You are comparing the Lenovo to the wrong machine. For tour usage pattern, you discount thickness and weight, but like more screen, built-in ports and a DVD. Why not get a macbook pro? But in that fight the Lenovo really takes a dive.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
the devices should be compared as they will be used in the real world, different OS and all.
Running Windows (32-bit) on a Mac is supported. Boot Camp is a fully supported part of Leopard. Apple produces a complete set of Win32 drivers for every Intel Mac.
OSX86 is, by contrast, a hack. A very useful hack, but a hack. You need to make sure you have *exactly* the right hardware and, in most cases, break a license.
Posted anonymously so as not to undo previous moderation.
Windows *is* supported on a Mac, provided you have it legally.
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
Well some of us have a Mac and have not joined the cult. Point in fact here is that I am currently typing this on my new Macbook Air which I have owned for two days now without feeling the need to wear black jeans and a turtleneck.
Now the reason I have bought a Mac is probably unique (see my blog, I am not typing it in again), but I don't feel the lack of Mac features when I am using my Vista machine. In fact the only real difference between the two is that I can use one downstairs on the couch and the other has a 30" display.
I had been considering the Lenovo prior to realizing that I needed to get a Mac if I was going to write anything on Security Usability. Even though Apple is not doing any better than Microsoft on the measures I am concerned with it is necessary to answer those whose answer to every usability problem is 'get a Mac'.
The reason I would not get the Lenovo X300 is that I would wait for the convertible tablet model. I don't rate the handwriting analysis as a killer application, at this point I type faster than I write. But the ability to scribble and whiteboard is very useful.
On the side by side comparison, I don't think the Lenovo comes close to the MacBook Air. First it is a thousand bucks more and second its not much different to the X61. Its a Thinkpad with a solid state drive, well big whoopsie, I didn't pay for the SSD on my MacBook and I wouldn't pay that on the Thinkpad either. To be worth having the SSD has to cost half as much and provide twice as much space.
Here is a hint, nobody knows if your MacBook Air has an SSD or a hard drive inside. You can buy three years of AppleCare and a TimeVault for $550. By the time the AppleCare runs out there will be a new MacBook Air.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
it does not matter if seven or more features of both the laptops match or not, but the main thing is that who will be able to keep pace with the changing tecnology and upgrage their laptops faster to give better service and stay ahead in competiotion. I think Apple will win on this.
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+.