But I really like the size–13.3"–and the look. A lot of regular laptops are basically freakin' bloated. Same price range as the regular MacBook.
Any alternatives? I know of the Vaios.
edit : I wud advice to look for "Centrino" branded stuff. That usually works out of the box. But YMMV.
The primary concern is the WiFi drivers (thought graphics can also be an issue). If it has the "Centrino" label, it's probably running an Intel WiFi and graphics chipset...both of which are documented fully and thus are very well supported in all modern Linux distributions. I have one of the first generation Dell's that included the then-freshly opened Intel WiFi and graphics chipsets, and it has always worked great, through numerous distros and versions.
The Eee 1000 Linux is very well built too, although the low screen resolution would probably make it unsuitable for a main dev box.
My recent-model MacBook Pro has a wonderful display panel, good discrete GPU, and a decent-enough keyboard, but it's big, heavy, throws off tons of heat, and lasts at best four hours on a battery. My old ThinkPad X41, on the other hand, despite being almost five years old, beats it in basically every category other than screen size/brightness and raw CPU/GPU power.
T-series units are even sturdier and definitely keep up in CPU/GPU specs, but there's just something about a 3-pound laptop that pretty much removes the excuse to not have it with you all the time. (That may or may not be a good thing for your lifestyle, of course.)
I had to use someone else's VAIO for a few hours recently, and it sucked. The keyboard is lousy, and has a horrible layout if you're used to Fn and Ctrl keys in the places where Apple and IBM (Lenovo) put them (and you don't properly swap Caps Lock and Ctrl). I ended up plugging in an external keyboard to be able to get anything done. In addition, the whole thing looked and felt gimmicky.
So far so good for me - no problems. Perhaps wait a few months for the aluminum macbooks?
Rip. Off.
So, it's not directly Apples fault, but still, they should hire somebody else to do it. When your job is your computer two weeks without it is a very, very long time.
I'm dual booting XP (for my music stuff) and Hardy on it (for my programming stuff) without a hitch, it has 1680x1050 resolution (screen real estate that the macbooks just can't compete with), swanky compiz effects to rival osx's and if anything on my machine goes wrong within the 3 years after purchasing, dell will fix it within 5 days. ANYTHING. (Used it once. Got my laptop back 3 days after I mailed it in!) The warranty alone is the main selling point for these machines.
I can't think of a better price/quality ratio than the Dells
Plut it's cheap. Search YouTube for some nice reviews and comparisons.
http://www.buy.com/prod/hp-mini-note-2133-pc-via-c7-m-ulv-1-...
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=197182
You can get used to pretty much anything, except Sony's. I, and friends have had reasonable experiences with Toshiba satellites. They score tolerably well on the 4 deal killers: display, keyboard, fan noise and heat. The best thing is that Costco and Target sell them with 90-day return policies (restocking fee at Target). Besides these criteria, i look for at least 4 or 5 intelligent reviews on amazon.
read the 5-star sony reviews on Amazon, many of them say: my Vaio's great, except for bloatware, and poor reliability, keyboard, battery life and customer support/service. Sony's customer service pretty much guarantees you'll never buy another sony if you have to contact them.
Computer repair people will tell you to stay away from vaios, Takes a ridiculous amount of work to replace e.g. harddrive, it's almost as if they're designed to be impossible to service/replace. Any other laptop, should take 45 seconds. i also had a horrible experience trying unsuccessfully to upgrade Windows on a Vaio a couple years back. You too when you have to resinstall O/S and can't find the media. Sony really pisses me off
I would caution to stay away from firs tproduction runs of a new generation of apple laptops. Witness people cooking eggs on the early 2006 MBP's, and MB airs throttled down to one core
A large part of the reason my Eee goes with me rather than my MacBook is that it's a lot more robust than the MacBook. I can treat the Eee pretty much the same way I would treat a book when I take it with me. It's a solid little chunk, and it cost about 1/4 what my MacBook cost.
also, if it's the same thing failing over and over, talk to a manager at apple store about getting a replacement. They can look up repair history, verify that it's a looper.
Their website is a pain to get information from, as they rely on their reseller partners (like me) to sell their products.
Full Disclosure: I sell Ausus products, and therefore might be biased. But then, I wouldn't be selling their products if I didn't like them!
The Eee PC's are small, low cost systems.
I've also had good luck with Fujitsu Lifebooks, and might give them another shot.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=197364
The customer service is what convinced me that I'd get another one in the future. I paid a bit extra for it, but then again, this computer is my business, so it makes sense.
Having said that, I would only ever buy a MacBook. :)
I think the major diff between a TP and MBP is like the diff between a Jeep Wrangler and a Porsche. Just depends on what you need it for and your OS preferences.
I use the macbook to screw around online, read mail, etc on occasion. But when I go to do some work, it's the thinkpad that comes with me.
That being said, I am primarily a mac user at home; but on a macpro, not a laptop.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xps...
For me (and I'm guessing for most others), MacBooks cost the majority of a paycheck... Certainly not cheap enough to buy spares.
If a MacBook cost 3x as much, I would definitely have issues over the build quality. My MacBook is currently duct taped together.
(I've been at Sony for nearly nine years and almost all laptops I've seen have been VAIOs).
You won't find anything better from other manufacturers IMHO.