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Darren Waters

Light laptop showdown

  • Darren Waters
  • 7 Feb 08, 17:20 GMT

The release of the MacBook Air has thrown a wider spotlight on the ultra light laptop market. Lots of people pointed out to us that Apple had done nothing particularly innovative with its MacBook Air, and said companies like Sony and Asus had been releasing similar products for years with little fanfare.

darren203.jpg

My colleague Rory Cellan-Jones want to put this new category of laptop to the test so we've managed to acquire a MacBook Air and an Asus U1E.

We'll be blogging our findings in the coming week. To kick things off, we're both posting our first impressions. Here are Rory's.

I'm in possession of the Asus, which runs Vista Business. As a design object the Asus can't match the MacBook Air's sleek looks but it isn't too shabby and feels well-built and just about sturdy enough to survive being knocked about in a rucksack.

I'm impressed with the connector options - plenty of USB ports, Ethernet and a mini Firewire port.

It has a built-in web cam and fingerprint sensor - which I couldn't get to work.

The model I have comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo running at 1Ghz. And to be honest so far the machine seems to be a little underpowered.

Even opening a fresh Word document takes an age. And resuming Windows from sleep when the lid has been down takes as long as my personal laptop takes to boot from cold.

We'll be going head to head in detail next week. If you're a U1E user, I'd love to hear your views.

Comments

I am not a user of one, but I know someone with one, and have played with his.

I don't remember much, it wasn't great, but I was impressed with it's MacBook Air style features. I think that was it.

I have yet to experience the Macbook Air for myself, I hopefully will soon, then I can make more suitable judgements.

  • 2.
  • At 02:33 AM on 08 Feb 2008,
  • Hari Purwanto wrote:

I don't know actually which one is the best. And I don't really care about that now. One thing I am very concerned is my budget. So please tell me which one is the most economical?

  • 3.
  • At 05:04 PM on 08 Feb 2008,
  • Yo wrote:

The Asus U1E is great, it's crap to for you because you are running power hungry Vista.

I have used it running a cut-down version of Linux and it's great. It's better as a practical toy for techy's rather than business users.

  • 4.
  • At 03:58 AM on 09 Feb 2008,
  • Martin wrote:

Even at 1Gig a core 2 duo would still be slightly faster than the old 3gig Pentium 4 which is still perfectly fine for general PC useage if using Windows XP or Linux.

It would be interesting to see how the Asus Eee (which I'm using right now as it happens) stacked up when compared to the U1E and MacBook Air.

In this fun comparison, you have to be careful comparing hardware and software.

The Apple operating system is probably more suited to a light-weight hardware. I've used Vista on a Sony Vaio with 1Gb of RAM: a very painful experience. But with 2Gb of RAM it rolls along just fine. If you don't have 2Gb in the Asus, I think you should upgrade it before you start the comparison.

'Yo' at #3 makes a good point; a cut down laptop is bound to benefit from an efficient OS.

Any volunteers to compile Linux on to the Apple now that they have moved to Intel chips? [or, controversially, put Leopard onto the Asus...]

Whichever, just remember this is a comparison of Apple OS X Leopard and Window's Vista Business as well as MacBook Air vs Asus U1E.

In this fun comparison, you have to be careful comparing hardware and software.

The Apple operating system is probably more suited to a light-weight hardware. I've used Vista on a Sony Vaio with 1Gb of RAM: a very painful experience. But with 2Gb of RAM it rolls along just fine. If you don't have 2Gb in the Asus, I think you should upgrade it before you start the comparison.

'Yo' at #3 makes a good point; a cut down laptop is bound to benefit from an efficient OS.

Any volunteers to compile Linux on to the Apple now that they have moved to Intel chips? [or, controversially, put Leopard onto the Asus...]

Whichever, just remember this is a comparison of Apple OS X Leopard and Window's Vista Business as well as MacBook Air vs Asus U1E.

In this fun comparison, you have to be careful comparing hardware and software.

The Apple operating system is probably more suited to a light-weight hardware. I've used Vista on a Sony Vaio with 1Gb of RAM: a very painful experience. But with 2Gb of RAM it rolls along just fine. If you don't have 2Gb in the Asus, I think you should upgrade it before you start the comparison.

'Yo' at #3 makes a good point; a cut down laptop is bound to benefit from an efficient OS.

Any volunteers to compile Linux on to the Apple now that they have moved to Intel chips? [or, controversially, put Leopard onto the Asus...]

Whichever, just remember this is a comparison of Apple OS X Leopard and Window's Vista Business as well as MacBook Air vs Asus U1E.

  • 8.
  • At 08:33 PM on 09 Feb 2008,
  • Bhasker wrote:

Well I've just picked up an A5 sized 2lb solid state drive WLAN-enabled laptop in the shape of the ASUS EEE PC and it's something you should also try out.

The MacBook Air is about 1lb heavier, at least five times more expensive (the EEE PC is around 拢219) and has a bigger footprint than the EEE PC.

The Air is thin and somewhat cool, but the EEE PC is small, light and so damn cheap. Oh, and it has a cool voice command feature ... ;)

  • 9.
  • At 09:53 AM on 11 Feb 2008,
  • John wrote:

@Malachy
Actually, no re-compile needed, just grab a recent version of your favorite Linux distro, Apple's Boot Camp, and google for the one of the many sites with instructions and you're away laughing.

My choice of mobile platform for now is the eee, but I'm hoping the 9.8" screen version comes out soon.

  • 10.
  • At 01:10 AM on 16 Feb 2008,
  • wrote:

Verizon is about the only place you can get the authentic RIM product and matching door. Most other sites are out of stock and even when they are in stock they have the black battery door which looks like crap.
I tested this camera for a client. I didn鈥檛 have the light running for more than 15 minutes. The battery lasted approximately 6 hours before recharging. The LCD, however, had a few dead pixels - never saw this before. Tried returning for exchange and had to put up quite a fight. Anyone else seen this?
:)

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