Windows Laptop Makers Can’t Catch Up to the MacBook Air

http://www.pcworld.com/article/237992/windows_laptop_makers_cant_catch_up_to_the_macbook_air.html

by uladzislau • 15 years ago

37 73 15 years ago

mhb2• 15 years ago

...and Apple has booked solid all the lathes capable of carving a laptop body out of a single block of metal.

This sounds crazy not least of all because they use milling machines to make cases and not lathes. But I'm willing to be educated.

spacemanaki• 15 years ago

That sounded crazy to me too, although I don't know the first thing about CNC. The source for that is apparently this site: http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/NewsSearch.asp?DocID=PD000...

There's a comment re: lathe vs mill over there too. Is this some kind of "submarine" article from Mitac Precision, the fiberglass manufacturer?

jdietrich• 15 years ago

The line is remarkably blurry. There's a modern breed of "multiaxis machine" which are capable of both milling and turning. Nobody really knows what to call them, I imagine because they have more in common with industrial robots than a traditional machine tool. Lathe is probably the wrong word for the type of machine in question, but milling machine isn't that much more accurate.

I can confirm that there is a global shortage of certain types of CNC machining capacity. CNC machining is much less common than you might imagine in volume production. It's an expensive process that designers are usually desperate to avoid. Apple raised the bar for fit and finish with the Unibody Macbook and rather caught the rest of the industry on the back foot. A lot of designers and engineers still just don't see why you'd manufacture a housing in such an expensive and convoluted manner. Laptop OEMs are certainly not equipped for it, presenting substantial logistical problems.

mhb2• 15 years ago

Thanks for the info.

Just regarding the minor point of nomenclatural pedantry, this video (in last half of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OOtuftGO1U) shows some machining of the case and I would say that what they are using is indisputably a milling machine.

51Cards• 15 years ago

I mostly agree but I also think it has been done. You couldn't give me an Air for free and get me to give up my Sony VAIO Z. I also have a VAIO TZ here which was way ahead of the Air in its time. To me Sony is one of the few companies building truly innovative PCs but unfortunately they aren't moving enough volume to make them really price competitive at the low end. When you buy them fully loaded they are often slightly cheaper than a high end Macbook (with Apple's killer upgrade prices) but they just don't compete mass market wise in the cheaper price ranges.

SwellJoe• 15 years ago

I know it's not the point of your comment, but I'll point out that one of the major reasons I don't buy Apple products is how uncomfortable I am with the idea of Apple having more control over the tech industry...I simply don't trust them to do right by consumers when given a very strong market position.

Sony is one of the few hardware companies that I trust even less than Apple; actually I have a pretty strong dislike for Sony, not merely distrust. So, I'd be more likely to buy an Apple product than a Sony product if all other things were equal (and all other things aren't equal; Sony products look pretty ugly to me, while Apple products are beautiful).

shinratdr• 15 years ago

> You couldn't give me an Air for free and get me to give up my Sony VAIO Z.

Right, but you paid considerably more than the price of an Air for that machine. That's the point. You wouldn't switch, but for anyone looking for an ultraportable now, it's hard to beat the Air in any capacity.

As someone who was looking for a great ultraportable for years and kept a very close eye on Sony, I snapped up the 11 inch Air ASAP. Nothing can step anywhere close to it when it comes to offering a well rounded ultraportable.

Tichy3• 15 years ago

Also Sony did a few things that make them a difficult choice, like distributing root kits. Last time I tried one of their notebooks it was also loaded with crapware to the rim - and it was a high end model, too.

xtrimsky_• 15 years ago

I have a macbookpro and a dell, well I prefer my dell

Anti-Ratfish2• 15 years ago

This is about the Air, different product line.

anigbrowl• 15 years ago

He's spot on with one thing: manufacturers shouldn't let their customers tell them what to build. The general public usually doesn't know what it wants until it has already appeared.

SoftwareMaven• 15 years ago

I agree. You learn about your customer's pains, then build a product to ease them. Asking your customer what features they want is lazy product management and gives you " me, too" products.

JamieEi• 15 years ago

Yet it still happens all of the time at big companies.

krakensden3• 15 years ago

They're still pretty hamstrung by Windows- they can never innovate or differentiate in software, Microsoft won't let them.

mahyarm• 15 years ago

There are 30 apps that are installed in almost every laptop by OEMs, what is preventing them?

krakensden3• 15 years ago

They can write plugins and applets, but if you can't modify the operating system it's really easy to wind up with "you can't get there from here in Jersey" moments. Like all of those horrible network control applet replacements that were endemic a few years back.

r0s• 15 years ago

Maybe OEMs could present a more designy shell experience, the possibilities on windows are vast:

http://windows7themes.net/windows-7-mac-theme.html

Or maybe you mean some other way OSX is innovative, besides aesthetic?

IanDrake• 15 years ago

I don't understand your comment. I'm typing on a MBA running Windows 7 like a champ...what is it about Windows that's causing the problem?

krakensden3• 15 years ago

I mean if you're HP, your Windows 7 is always going to be just the same as Dell's Windows 7. If Apple decides that they can use a new scheduling algorithm to better exploit current hardware, they can do that. Acer and Asus have to wait for Microsoft to release a patch or roll out the next version of Windows (in... N years).

I'm not taking the position that Windows 7 is so intrinsically terrible that it can't support the 'ultrabook' category, just like you're not supporting the position that it couldn't be improved upon.

Anti-Ratfish2• 15 years ago

> one of the main reasons people don’t buy a Mac these days is because they can’t buy one for less than $1,000, pricing your Mac alternative well above that price doesn’t do you any favors.<

I'm not in the US, but isnt the Air $999? Not much less than 1k, but an odd statement considering the focus of the article. Am I missing something?

mixmastamyk6• 15 years ago

Starts at $999, the one you want is always more. Also, tax isn't included in US prices, so you're looking at ~$1080 + possibly shipping minimum.

iamelgringo2• 15 years ago

I've been using a Dual core Atom Netbook as my portable computer for 3 years. 120GB SSD, 9 Cell Battery, 2GB RAM.

Total Price: $450.

Granted, not sexy looking at all. Not particularly thin.

Runs Windows 7 Ultimate like a champ. The only time the low processing power ever bothers me is when I'm unzipping large files.

It's cheap, made of plastic and plastered with stickers. I carry it in my man purse, and bounce it around with me pretty much everywhere I go. I've been doing that for years.

Everything is backed up to DropBox. It's so cheap as to be disposable. If it breaks, I don't care. I'll buy a new one. I have a full set of USB / Network, VGA ports, and I don't have to worry about buying extra dongles to connect things to a projector. The little brute has been stable as a rock. I can't remember a single crash in 3 years.

It has enough battery life for me to be able to Code from Barcelona to SFO on one charge, and I typically charge the little beast about once or twice a week.

Yup. PC makers just can't keep up.

thaumaturgy4• 15 years ago

Meanwhile, my main system is an Apple laptop which is not much older ... and my OS is now two versions out of date, since Apple stopped supporting it. The set of software I can run on it is becoming more and more limited, as more developers give up supporting my terribly antiquated operating system and hardware, and move on to the current thing.

This is the third time this has happened to me.

I don't care if PC makers can or cannot keep up with Apple. All I know is, this is my last Apple.

jsz0• 15 years ago

and my OS is now two versions out of date, since Apple stopped supporting it.

No machine that shipped with Leopard is unable to run Lion. Only the Mac Mini 1,1 and MacBook 1,1 from early 2006 with 32bit processors are unsupported.

sandGorgon• 15 years ago

Install Ubuntu - surprisingly, they now make images which are designed to be installed on macs

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/11.04/release/ubuntu-11.0...

mixmastamyk6• 15 years ago

There's been a lot of churn (OSX, 64bit, Intel) in the Apple world the past few years, I'd be surprised if it continued at the same clip. And frequently you can install Linux once the OS ages too much.

Now that I think of it, many of my old PC laptops had to have Linux put on them as well because they didn't support the latest version of Windows either. Or rather there were no updated device drivers from the manufacturer. So the issue isn't as clear looking to the future.

YooLi• 15 years ago

Calling BS on this. I just installed Lion on my 2006 MacBook. That's a 5 year old MacBook fully supported by Lion.

muhfuhkuh• 15 years ago

Hmm a vague OS reference and the generic "Apple laptop" instead of just saying what model it is, as there haven't been that many.

I have a feeling this wont be your last Apple because there probably was never a first one. Or you don't want to admit you're talking about a PPC PowerBook which is over five years old at this point.

Auguste2• 15 years ago

What brand and model netbook are you using, exactly?

Auguste2• 15 years ago

I recently bought a ThinkPad as my first laptop, but it's unfortunately got some technical issues (need to send it off for warranty). In the mean time I've been using my old ASUS Eee PC 1000HA, and I've really settled in. I'm surprised at how productive I am, despite the lack of horsepower.

mixmastamyk6• 15 years ago

If it was on a table next to an Air under a sign that said, "free computers" which one would you grab first?

Turns out $1,000 more isn't that much for a productivity tool these days; the dollar ain't what it used to be. Not to mention you'd probably get a much nicer screen and keyboard which helps a lot for coding.

That said, I'm still using my trusty Sony tr2a for trips just because of inertia and that it still works fine. But I won't pretend I wouldn't rather have an Air. ;)

Jach2• 15 years ago

I'd probably take the Air, try it out, decide I didn't like it or Mac, and resell it. Buy the original thing I saw, or something else cheaper and nicer, and treat myself to a large steak afterwards.

SkyMarshal• 15 years ago

Same, Asus EeePC 1000HE running Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04 like a champ. As responsive as a regular laptop for most things, and the heavy lifting I offload to AWS free tier. Everything redundantly backed up to Dropbox and SpiderOak. <3 it.

Having said that, I'll probably pick up 13" Macbook Pro or Air soon to start getting into iOS dev, and have to say I do look forward to running VMs locally again, even though AWS free tier obsoletes that now.

pangram• 15 years ago

I had almost the exact same setup, and ended up moving to a Macbook Air recently -- basically for a nice screen and a good trackpad. It's difficult to find decent screens in the sub-$500 price range.

Cushman• 15 years ago

...how did you get ahold of a 120GB SSD three years ago for under $450?

mistermann2• 15 years ago

This is a very good question, I'd like to know the answer myself.

wisty2• 15 years ago

Why the MBA is better: faster CPU (meh), waaaay better screen (the 11" is the same resolution as the 13" MBP), big trackpad, nice keyboard, and nice speakers.

OK, it's also sexy, but who gives a toss?

And I've been unable to find a reasonably priced PC laptop with an SSD (when I last looked, the only Sony ones with SSD are the MacBook Air clones and the top-of-the-line business and gamer models), so that means swapping a hard drive. Most people don't swap hard drives in laptops.

I don't care about thinness and aluminium casing. I just care about the weight, battery, screen, keyboard, trackpad, and SSD. Apple is the only one that really delivered when I was looking, about 6 months ago.

ugh2• 15 years ago

OK, it's also sexy, but who gives a toss?

I do! I do! (Though I won’t ever call anything that’s not a human “sexy”. Sorry.) Don’t assume that just because you don’t care for aesthetics other people also don’t. Aesthetics is one of the most important factors whenever I buy anything and there is nothing wrong with that. (People who don’t care for aesthetics always have so much trouble understanding that, it’s actually quite funny how baffled they always are.)

r00fus2• 15 years ago

Sorry, three years ago it was impossible to find dual core SSD based net books for that price... Care to tell us what model and where you bought this wonder of engineering in 2008? Something doesn't add up.

cubicle67• 15 years ago

There used to be a saying about MS; that it took them three goes to get a product right

I was thinking about Apple products, and I think perhaps they deserve this now. Each new (1st gen) product from Apple is a bit short on features and a bit expensive, but they have commitment. 2nd gen is a decent product, and 3rd gen has typically been great. [Cases in point: iPhone, iPod, MacBook Air, Apple TV (3rd gen still to come)]

The difference (between Apple and HP et al) comes down to commitment to a product. Apple (like MS) gear them selves up for the long haul; they expect to spend lots and take years to achieve their vision. Other PC manufacturers (speaking very generally here) seem to have a bit of a half arsed shot at something and kill it if it doesn't fly.

mixmastamyk6• 15 years ago

I think you're speaking of the late 90's MS, they seem to have lost much of that edge.

Apple does something a bit different. It starts slow, getting the core features right and then builds on them. It doesn't pile on features, they are added slowly only as they mature.

Of course it also drives demand for several years, a very profitable formula.

tluyben2• 15 years ago

It's what all startups (here) should follow; make a MVP and if it works perfect it. Normal practice you would hope, yet it isn't; comments here and to the article directly are too techy. The 'public' wants the air because it looks great and is easy to use; they don't care about 'power'. Don't take it from me or the article writer; just look at the sales. People who would normally not consider spending $1000 on a laptop are buying these, I can see it around me; men and women, computer illiterates a lot of them, went from 300-400$ netbooks to the latest air. No-one knows what processor or memory they have, they are light, just work and are 'much easier than Windows' (between quotes, because I don't find either one particularly easier or harder than the other one; just a matter of getting used to).

People who talk about 'better specs', 'only a few inches thicker but twice the cpu power', 'does have a dvd drive' are tech or at least into computers; most people are not, they don't care.

keeperofdakeys• 15 years ago

I personally have a Samsung Series 9. Besides the price tag and battery life (about 3-5 hours), I am happy with it. Unlike the Air, this thing has quite good linux support (the graphics work, but could be better; this is true of all sandy bridge computers). I know someone who used to run linux on his Air, but he gave up after all the crashes. These were related to his Broadcom wireless card, I believe. I used to have a Broadcom in my computer, it worked but I replaced it for a card with dual-band support.

On an Air, a lot of components (like ram and ssd) are soldered on the board. On the Samsung, they are easily replaceable. In fact, I have already put in a new wireless card and added more RAM. It comes apart easily with a Phillips-head screwdriver. In the future, I will probably upgrade the SSD (it has 128GB at the moment). A new 'msata' standard has emerged from all these Ultra-portables, which use the pcie plug.

Tichy3• 15 years ago

You can upgrade the Air easily, too: just buy a new one. Hey, it is just 1000 bucks. Apple is training us to be good consumers.

ja27• 15 years ago

And you could probably sell the old one for $800. Recent Apple hardware holds it's value pretty well. The guy in line behind me for the iPad 2 launch just sold his iPad 1 that day for $100 less than he paid. So his net was paying $100 for a year of iPad 1 use (minus network fees and tax).

So when will Apple introduce hardware subscriptions?

rdl2• 15 years ago

I love my Air (and my other Apple products); aside from excellent hardware and software, one of the big advantages for me is that there are Apple retail stores all over -- I can walk in and have a pretty consistently good experience (buying accessories, or getting service, or buying a replacement if necessary); far better than any other computer retail store or mail order process.

For a company, being able to fairly easily get ~30 correctly-configured machines instantly is great too -- with Dell, I'd be stuck waiting until they build and ship, and with HP or other vendors, trying to find a store which stocks them.

jbellis• 15 years ago

Really? My experience with Apple stores has been so consistently terrible (long wait times WITH an appointment, techs that can't do anything but send it away for a long wait) that one reason I'm going back to a Thinkpad is the overnight mailers Lenovo drops off when you need something fixed.

rdl2• 15 years ago

Where do you live? In SFBA, the Palo Alto University Ave store has consistently been amazing; if you get a business account, service is globally even better.

The PA-U store has done fixes up to basically replacing entire just-out-of-warranty machines for me. I've had same-day repairs, and at worst, 3 day mail away, but usually overnight fixes. A lot of it comes down to how you engage the staff -- being an easy customer (having done all the checks, being really polite, etc.) helps. One big plus is having everything already backed up, so it's ok for them to wipe/replace drives if they need to.

My only complaint is that some markets don't have Apple Stores yet, especially internationally.

Thinkpad service is the one other kind of service which is good; their contract support outside the US is superior to the Apple international support. Unfortunately they don't sell a full line, only laptops (at least, their desktop products are pretty weak in comparison).

On the purchasing side, though, Apple wins hands down. Lenovo is painful because there are 25-50% discounts periodically, so you feel you're being ripped off if you don't buy during those times. And, website without a lot of the options (e.g. you couldn't order a QXGA R51 online, only through the phone), etc. And no good retailer stocking anything but ideapads in person.

alastairpat• 15 years ago

I have to agree with you. I've tried phone support with other brands and it's been terrible.

With Apple, I can take a 20 minute drive and speak with somebody who is knowledgeable, polite and actually able to authorise almost anything on the spot, even if it's not exactly in line with policy.

Point in case, my brother's MacBook battery died about a month out of (non-AppleCare) warranty. The genius did some diagnostics and replaced the battery for free.

FireBeyond• 15 years ago

I'm not so convinced... I went to my Apple store to buy an MBP, 17", 8GB, SSD.

Nope. "We only stock the HDD models in store here." Not "we're out of stock".

Hmm, okay... well maybe I could just buy an SSD from NewEgg, and sell the HDD...

"What about with 8GB... I only see 4GB prices out here." "Yeah, we don't stock 8GB models. We can install 8GB and give you the 2 x 2GB chips."

Yeah, not so much.

ImprovedSilence• 15 years ago

So ive always been a pc guy. But more and more lately ive been playing around with linux distros. It's about time to get a new laptop, and ive been looking around the market causually for a bit. i really want one with only linux (system 76 looks kinda good). but the more and more I look around, the more i'm drawn to macbooks. they are just SO.FUCKING.SEXY. Their case is perfect. the gui looks incredible. they just work. im pretty much to the point where im going to have to build my own to get what i want, or buy a mac. and its going to be hard to find any kind of case thats as sexy as macs, mostly cuz nobody makes anything like it.

pc companies, listen up. I want linux, on an ssd, in a case that SEPERATES itsself from all your other plastic junk, IN A GOOD WAY. dont be average, dont be consertive, do be a perfectionist. dont try to please everybody. I think this is macs biggest weapon, they dont try to please everybody, they build what steve wants. tfa hit the point perfectly with the hp calc comparisson, and i feel the same way. fucking grow some balls. this goes for cell phones too. Fuck I hate motorolla.

r00fus2• 15 years ago

Samsung Series 9 are damn sexy but they don't come cheap. For Linux, a Macbook might just make more sense.

mikhael• 15 years ago

has anyone else noticed horrible dithering on the new macbook air's screen? i will say that i absolutely love the machine otherwise, but - especially when e.g. watching a movie - i find this problem terribly distracting and have even thought about returning it as a result.

gte910h• 15 years ago

The air also runs windows great

Windows Laptop Makers Can’t Catch Up to the MacBook Air

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