The Asus MacBook Air, sort of
marco.org
marco.org
Taking inspiration from something and making something new doesn't count for anything unless you can make it better or cheaper.
I'm not saying apple doesn't copy, because they do. Who doesn't in this day and age?
They did say that it's cheaper, no. That can be a form of better.
Between an unevenly lit screen and unusable trackpad, no magsafe connector and sharp case edges, it doesn't matter what hardware specs are being offered at any price, Asus missed the mark on 2 of the 3 primary means of interacting with the computer. I wouldn't want that computer if it were free.
On the level of a $1000-$2000 purchase, details matter and the Asus Zenbook just fails here. It doesn't matter that it has twice as much SSD space and RAM as the MBA because, I don't want to use a device that has a bad screen and bad trackpad.
As for differently laid-out magnets, I believe Apple's patent is pretty broad, and basically covers any magnetic attachment of a power supply to an electronic device. Supposedly (according to Wikipedia) some Japanese appliances have magnetic connectors, so it's questionable how valid Apple's claim is. I guess the real issue is whether anyone wants to fight Apple over this. And to be fair, Apple clearly put out a genuine innovation here.
I agree that it seems PC laptops should have some way of improving the power connection. The status quo is crappy.
I have a Sony Vaio Z. It weighs less than the corresponding 13" Macbook Air (carbon fiber! Like a Ferrari!), has better specs and an innovative design. For one, it does not look like an Air--it does not taper to a point, which is something that annoys me in both the Asus and the Air. It has an actually minimalistic design and looks gorgeous in black.
However, the real innovation is in the "Power Media Dock" which--despite the silly marketing name--is actually a brilliant piece of hardware. The laptop itself does not have a DVD drive and uses an Intel HD 3000 graphics chipset. However, it comes with a dock using Intel's LightPeak protocol that contains a discrete ATI graphics card and DVD drive. This lets you have a meaty graphics card at home and a mobile one on the go--very useful. I can also plug my extra monitor and various peripherals into it so that I only need to plug one thing into my laptop when I come home.
There are a couple of problems: the keyboard is "not brilliant" at best, although I've gotten used to it. I've tried the Air's keyboard and, while it was better, it was also not brilliant. Additionally, the Linux support on the laptop is spotty. However, from what I've heard, this is also true of MacBooks, so it isn't a differentiating factor.
The last issue, of course, is the cost--it is closest to a 15" MacBook pro rather than the Air. However, for this, you get specs equal to a MacBook pro--including either a 1600x900 or 1920x1080 resolution. Even the lower-resolution screen--the one I have--looks fantastic.
Overall, the Vaio Z is exactly what the poster is deriding the Asus for not being--innovative, capable and well-built. It is "radically better" than an Air and the only really significant downside is that it's correspondingly more expensive. It even has a rather good touchpad. Oh, and raid-0 ssds. Oh yeah. I do not regret splurging on it at all.
I've also heard bad things about Macs, but they all end with happy stories about Apple's support which is definitely a point in their favor.
While I can't say anything about Sony's cheaper offerings, the Z seems well-built and sturdy. The only real issues I've had were to do with Linux drivers, but I ultimately managed to resolve those satisfactorily.
However, in my current incarnation as a dainty EECS major, the closest I get to a machine shop is the CS building beside it, so a Toughbook--while indubitably awesome--would be a bit of overkill.
Also, the tacit assumption that macs are the best laptop is, I think, flawed--there's no question that they're good, but there are plenty of cases where there are better options...
Beware, Panasonic has a bunch of different toughbooks series. I'd expect what you used for robotics was a "fully rugged" series: looks like a small case and can be rolled over by trucks (basically what they use in combat fields, truck shops and whatnot).
Those are pretty much indestructible short of using explosives (and even then), but they're big and heavy. Panasonic also has lines of wimpier "business-rugged" laptops built merely to withstand being dropped from tables, thrown against walls in fits of fury and having mugs of tea dropped on them.
They're also much more lightweight, and somewhat better looking. The one I was talking about is the C1: http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/business-rugged-... which sports pretty standard laptop look (apart from the trackpad) and while pretty solid (certified for 30" drops, 6 ounce of liquid and 225 pounds of pressure) is nowhere near a fully-rugged MIL-STD-810G-certified Toughbook 19 or Toughbook 31.
The C1 is for carrying your laptop a lot and not really caring if it happens to fall or encounter bad juju.
I suspect the one you're talking about is one of the few models with that sort of hinge not to fall apart immediately--the others I've seen were very weak.
I've been burned like this before, ordering a laptop that was reviewed with bluetooth and receiving one without. My mistake was I ordered version B and not version C.
I've spent significant time on both various versions of Windows and Mac OS (a bit of 9 but mostly 10). I've had the best experience, and been the most productive, on Linux.
If you are not willing to tolerate anything except Mac OS, then obviously the quality of non-Apple hardware is of little importance. (I guess you could go the Hackintosh route, but I think that rarely goes well.) Besides, Windows 7 is really not that bad at all--certainly no worse than Mac OS, just different.
But I will always need OS X for my main machine. It's all the little details helping me to get work done. I adjusted my workflow to Exposé and Spaces and it's the most well designed OS, so I love it's consistency, scrolling in windows off focus, CMD not CTRL for shortcuts (so I can use my thumb and don't need to move my hand or use the little finger), taking advantage of more shortcuts in general (but they killed some in Lion) etc.
And many of those little helpers are only possible because of the great trackpad. It's no problem for Win7, because it does not rely on gestures, but it would be great they would include something like that. (do some artful linux devs work on those things?)
In my experience, Mac OS is not the most well-designed OS at all. Whenever I have to use it, it manages to annoy me fairly consistently. It isn't bad, of course, but all modern operating systems--especially Linux--have improved drastically in the last several years.
CMD vs CTRL is not a function of Mac OS/Windows, it's a function of your keyboard layout and both proprietary solutions get it wrong: CTRL is actually the key labelled Caps Lock. Everything else you've mentioned is also present in Linux, at least with KDE--it's well designed, consistent and even lets you scroll windows off focus (I think the scrolling, as well as other window conventions date back to older Unix window managers that predate both KDE and Mac OS). KDE also lets you have some very useful key combinations. Particularly, I like being able to tile a window left or right with a single keystroke, which is trivial with KWin. That said, I'm going to take this idea to the next level and switch over to XMonad soon, which is a nice upgrade for OS X as well (a couple people I know have used it there successfully).
Coincidentally, why would you need to get another notebook for Windows and Linux? As far as I know, you can dual/triple boot with a Mac, or you could just get a virtual machine.
Ultimately though, the qualities of Mac OS are rather tangential here (and we're ignoring the philosophy behind it even more)--if you're not willing to use anything else, you're stuck with Apple. If, on the other hand, you're like me and see no reason to use it, the quality of hardware become important and finding the best lightweight notebook pertinent.
When reading your post, I think you are the efficiency guy, and OS X is for ease of use and both things are sometimes conflicting. But I got around using OS X in an efficient way, so I feel happy with it.
Thanks for your infos.
I have used it for over 4 hrs of active use interspersed with sleep periods (e.g. with the lid closed) without running out. I plug it in whenever I can, which means it gets a little charged whenever I'm at home, at work or at the library (but not in lecture). My schedule means I rarely need to use it for more than three hours without being able to plug in at some point.
Since it doesn't use the switchable graphics cards that are popular in other laptops, this is not an issue. Unfortunately, I think it still does better on Windows.
That said, if it isn't enough, you can always get an extra sheet battery you could attach to the bottom of the laptop--it's pretty neat.
So I've had this laptop for maybe two months (enough time to install the Windows 8 developer preview, granted) and run Linux exclusively. I really can't answer your question.
What I can say, though, is that while Linux tends to have more driver problems than Windows initially, they tend to be much simpler to solve. So if you can't upgrade from Windows, just switch to Linux ;) For every sleepless night I've spent looking for Linux drivers I spent two looking for Windows ones a couple years prior.
I will give you that the Vaio Z looks like a nice machine, but it costs double what the Air does. I think I'd probably rather have the Air and a desktop at home rather than one laptop and that Dock thing, but each to their own.
As for Linux, I suspect it depends a lot on the exact hardware and distro in question. I had issues with OpenSUSE; it worked immediately with Fedora (only after spending a while playing with SUSE :().
As for the MacBook Pro, I have a friend who has been relegated to living almost exclusively in a Linux VM on Mac OS because running it natively caused it to overheat. The only way I see of being sure of not having any Linux issues would have been to buy a computer with Linux installed, but I didn't see any interesting ones in this particular market.
Agree on Linux preinstalled; that's pretty rare full stop. Dell had a few at one point but IIRC it was not across their whole range.
Now whenever I use a PC trackpad, I'm astonished at just how bad they are, even on premium PCs.
Why can't PC manufacturers get it right?
FWIW only Apple trackpads made me drop lugging a mouse around. This big-ass, ice-like sliding, smooth surface is a wonder to work on for hours. It seems PC manufacturers conspire to make the smallest, most post-10-min-of-use grinding surface ever: not only the size makes it a pain to aim, having to fight against the surface just kills it.
Don't know about PCs, but the current and last gen of MacBook Airs uses the Broadcom bcm5974 touchpad controller, and I believe the MBPs do as well. The Linux "synaptics" driver drives a lot more than just Synaptics chipsets these days.
Do you remember what touch pads were like even 10 years ago? Fiddly things that made you carry a mouse around with you? Mice feel so primitive to me now.
Most laptop users I've observed only use the trackpad when there is no alternative. If they have 5 minutes to put the laptop down on a desk (or any flat surface) they'll break out a mouse.
I think IBM had a good idea with the trackpoint nub but most users (unless they were really ardent Thinkpad users) couldn't get the hang of it and went back to the crummy pad or USB mouse.
What I miss when having to deal with Windows, is to, spread my work like I do on OS X. Also, I miss being able to scroll in Windows currently not selected (of any application kind). So I can code in an IDE and scroll through a PDF (only mouse over it) without having to leave the focus of the IDE.
The touchpad makes scrolling easy with the two finger swipe.
Yesterday I had to install something on my old computer and I realized how bad the keyboard was, there it was , a piece of clunky , and cheap plastic. I have got used to mac keyboard so much.
I also use the magic track pad, OMG, using wacom trackpad was terrible.
"Why can't PC manufacturers get it right?"
Because it takes a lot of work and money. Apple products are patented and they can't just copy them(magic trackpad uses good quality glass and aluminium instead of plastic) so they need to design new ones, costing millions of dollars per device and this only makes sense if you could sell millions overnight like Apple does.
They do get it right. In fact I find Macs very limiting since they lack this: http://notebook.pconline.com.cn/testing/0504/other/we1net_ib...
A laptop without this is not worth buying. See? Who knew than another guy's opinion can be so different...
I can type and operate "mouse" without moving my palms from the typing position. I can do all three types of mouse clicks with my thumbs! Moreover, Thinkpad's touchpad provides the most direct feel when moving the cursor [more on this later]. Having the central "pin" for quick cursor jumps (while typing) is absolutely invaluable.
Now, about the directness and precision of the touchpad. It's all about drivers. Early white Macbooks had a terrible lag of cursor movement but Apple fixed it later in software. My Thinkpad had somewhat inadequate "cursor feel" under windows 7 which came with it, but under Ubuntu it has the most satisfying "mouse" money can buy, called Ultranav.
Lenovo gets it right.
I’m not exactly sure, though, why you seem to be so outraged about someone else’s opinion.
I think this is a dramatic exaggeration of his opinion to illustrate the existence of opposing perspectives.
I have also owned several laptops, both Windows and Mac OS X based and my MBP's trackpad is far superior over any other trackpad I've used.
The same is true for my brothers old dell laptop and my dads not so old dell laptop.
Looking down the row of laptops left and right to the S3 I was, however, struck by how tiny all the other trackpads were. This seems like such a simple fix.
My old 2007 MBP has a larger trackpad than all those Windows laptops.
(The S3 actually looks like a pretty nice laptop. It feels nice and stable. The Acer logo also isn’t quite as ugly as the Asus logo. Still, it does many of the usual crappy things Windows laptops tend to do: there are too many damn LEDs and too many damn letters and logos on that thing – and I’m not talking about the removable ones. Those are bad enough but at least removable. And now: monochrome. I guess that’s progress.
Specs are a wash – as usual. The S3 has a crappier screen and a worse CPU (not that it matters) but you get more SSD for your money. I’m still not entirely sure why anyone would buy the S3 over the MacBook Air, though. The difference in price is actually pretty small. The only model that is worth considering is the base model with HDD since Apple doesn’t have anything in that price segment.)
The Samsung Series 9 seems nice, though I haven't used one for an extended period. My boss's boss had one and didn't like it, but I'm not clear why. The trackpad felt nice when I used it, but the port cover design is moronic (they had to add stickers explaining how to open them, and they're fragile, too). It also has bottom vents, which is pretty lame.
I'm considering the Lenovo U300s, which looks nice, and not like an Air clone. The only real drawback seems to be the glossy 1366x768 screen.
I've tried things like Decelerate and had no joy - the movement of the cursor just seems not to match up with my hand.
The MacBook Air was never about specs, where the Zenbook might be okay (except for weight and height).
The newer touchpads like the ones on my laptop and Macs are okay, but constantly switching between that and the keyboard is ultimately slower than just using the keyboard. Once you get used to navigating around with the keyboard as much as possible--assuming your OS supports it well--the quality of a touchpad stops mattering.
I am now consistently annoyed by web apps and programs that force me to use the mouse unless I really have to.
Ultimately though, my point wasn't really so much about the laptop as about the tone of the article, which your post doesn't seem to address. Even if the Asus deserves derision, and antagonistic response is still not necessary, and still generates more views and comments.
The worst bit is that--by virtue of replying here and commenting on the thread--I've shown that his tactics are successful.
The title itself I think is not too bad, but after seeing the URL slug, I tend to agree on the childish tone.
I for one hope that this Ultrabook is a wild success, if I want to buy a Mac in my country I have to pay about 900$ more compared to the US and I don't even get AppleCare, but an equivalent. The world shouldn't begin and end with Apple, competition is healty.
Put it another way, I don't see a reason to automatically grant extra lenience or extra credit to anyone that produces a clone of an Apple product. This isn't golf and there are no handicaps. Either make a better product, or be ridiculed.
It's also worth remembering that all our deriding, ridiculing and arguing counts for little in the real world. As Jobs nicely put it in an interview (paraphrased): if we build something people want then they buy it and we get to come to work another day.
For instance, the keyboard design on the Mac has "separated" keys because it's needed to give better structural support to the unibody frame. It's not just a "cool design thing". Jony Ive talks about it here: http://youtu.be/t0fe800C2CU?t=2m46s
Watching other companies copy this keyboard design in many ways resembles the first people trying to fly by flapping their cloth covered wings. "It looks exactly the same as what the bird does, dammit, why isn't it working?!"
Now, imagine how many different, _better_ products one could have if only more companies had someone as obsessed with product design as Ive, and gave him some authority.
What if some laptop manufacturer made a thinner, more sturdy ultraportable design that for some reason didn't need this keyboard design? It wouldn't have to look anything like the MBA, and it wouldn't be accused of being a rip-off.
Some companies are better than others, but I don't know of any that takes attention to detail to the extremes that Apple do. The underside of the X1 very "clean" compared to other laptops: http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/content/img_lib/products...
But it wouldn't be good enough for Ive: http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/hQs2dpxbDLwekWTm.huge
Of course, only design freaks worry about something like this. But it's attention to detail that has gotten Apple to where it is today.
It seems to me Apple "sweats" details until they don't, and the classification under which the underside of the X1 wouldn't be good enough but the back side of the iPhone - complete with FCC and CE logos - is seems rather arbitrary.
Without a battery cover to hide them, I think those logos need to be there. It certainly seems like they have put thought into the placement, font size etc. Given the constraints, the designers did the best they could.
The underside of the X1 has many "arbitrary" vent holes and screws. Why are they placed like that? Well, probably because the internal components demanded they be like that. The designers did the best they could given the constraints.
Now, why were the internal components designed like that? Who knows. Could they have been designed in another way to make the vent holes look more symmetrical? Yes, but it would probably be very expensive. That's one of a ton of decisions that are made, where someone at Apple said "screw it, lets spend the money and do it the proper way".
So, to me, the X1 backside tells a deeper story about the design process of the product, how engineers and designers worked together to create the product, and how compromises were made. The iPhone backside only tells you that some regulators wants their logos on products, and that some marketer (maybe Steve Jobs) wanted you to feel good about owning a product assembled in China.
I'd be wrong to say that this isn't a compromise, but they thought a clean and thinner design and fewer parts was more important than keeping the logos off the back and allowing the user to easily replace the battery.
If a battery cover was important to them, they would have spent the resources to make it work. Likewise, if a clean backside was important to the Lenovo designers, they would have fixed the ugly vent holes.
If this laptop was better than the Air, or significantly cheaper, it would not get panned. But it's not, and it's not.
> Why we (or this class of person) have chosen to deride it I don't understand.
Because it's garbage?
No really, do you have any source for this? Because after reading about Steve Jobs obsession with the internal design of a device in his biography, I don't believe Apple would let another company do this.
You can pretty much guarantee that Intel designed most of that ASUS motherboard. Do you really think they copied Apple? Apple (or anyone else) couldn't make a motherboard without Intel's help.
Apple fanboys live in a fantasy world where every single good innovation (such as the trackpad, the A5, the touchscreen - all acquired) comes out of Cupertino, and all the crappy stuff is what other companies do - not realizing that the iphone, ipad, macbooks etc. are built around dozens of different companies - all of who work with more than just apple.
That's what all the evidence suggests.
"Apple (or anyone else) couldn't make a motherboard without Intel's help."
Apple has a 35 year history designing motherboards without Intel's help.
So, that shows that Intel have been producing reference designs to compete with Apple's design. Where is the evidence that Intel designed the MacBook Air?
Also, didn't Apple get Intel to produce a small package, low-voltage processor just for the Air? Did anyone expect them to restrict its use solely for Apple? This is basically a campaign to sell more chips.
Reference designs allow precisely that: do the heavy "from-scratch" work and allow manufacturers to bend the reference to fit their constraints.
Also, didn't Apple get Intel to produce a small package, low-voltage processor just for the Air?
It's more probably the usual ULV variant that has existed for every Intel chip since they cared about wattage. I suppose it's more a case of the usual Apple strategy of upfront ordering bucketloads of components, essentially locking the production to themselves.
That may explain the similar layout, honestly. But what strikes me the most about those pics is that the Asus internals look like a cheap toy version of the Air.
the Asus and the Air probably do come off the same line
Edit: to add to this, it is important to understand that how tech is manufactured has changed in the past 10-15 years. It used to be that a company like Apple would design the case, the circuit board, all the components, etc. and then take it out to manufacturers and get a quote. What happens now is that the ODM is involved from very early on in the process, and it is more likely that it is the ODM (like Pegatron, Flextronics or Foxconn) go to the tech company first with a new board.
for eg. in the case of the Air-type laptops, Intel designed that chip and board with this market in mind. Intel would have went to the ODM's, and they would have designed reference boards and reference devices together. The ODM's and their marketing and tech guys then would have taken all this out to Apple, HP, Sony etc. and pitched it to them, and then went back to Intel and locked in a multi-year contract on component supply (which wins them favor when the next set of chips and boards are released).
What the tech company does now is manage outsourcing relationships, supply chain (which is also now outsourced), industrial design (can also be outsourced), marketing and retail. The ODM takes care of what the internal layout is and this is done to a spec (although not a detailed spec). At the manufacturing plants you have design offices - this would be 2-3 people from Apple and around 30-40 people from the ODM working on the schematics and tooling. The Apple people would hang around during the prototype phase. ODM's offer this service at no charge based on orders coming in later.
On the Crunchpad project we got hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of design work done for us for free with various ODM's on the promise of us manufacturing with them. Our specs were very vague, the initial prototype hardware spec was a 15-line email at 3am in the morning from me. Two days later I was holding a netbook with those specs. They all work the same way, and when you are in China or Korea you see the reps from all these other companies hanging out in bars and around the factories.
Intel bends over backwards to get their chips and their boards into new devices. They heavily discount and will throw as many people at you as you need. I wouldn't say that it is easy to start a hardware company, but it is certainly more efficient and a lot easier than what it was before the ODM model. If you have a brand and a decent idea the ODMs will fall over each other to get your attention - and will likely run it at cost to you, with tooling costs financed etc. for the first x thousand units.
The key point here is that the story about Apple sitting in their lab and designing a laptop which nobody else can see and that others have 'copied' couldn't be further from the truth. That board and a lot of that design comes from the ODM's, and they know that other companies are working there as well. This is why you hear Apple complaining about gestures being copied but not complaining about Laptop design being copied.
Further Edit: I know a lot of tech investors shy away from Hardware startups, but if you have a good hardware idea the MVP costs have come down just as much as they have for software. If you have a good plan you can get to a prototype that you can then use to test the market and raise more money from for very little. I would hasten to say that with the market being as competitive as it is now, that you could almost get it for free - by just signing a longer term agreement. All the ODMs have large teams of engineers that they want to put to work. If you present an idea well and take it to the 5-6 majors one of them is bound to pick you up. Just demonstrate that you understand the market, will be able to build the brand and are stable enough to trust with long-term finance. If anybody is thinking about doing hardware feel free to email me
You can say, Intel describes how the components are connected, but the physical layout should be done by Apple.
And yes, they do this since the Apple I.
Edit: The guy above looks like he knows something, but I think Intel goes directly to Apple, not via an ODM.
I have an answer for this. I don't think they can create something that blows the MacBook Air out of the water. The bar has been set too high for the PC manufacturers to properly compete in design, at least for the moment.
Of course, I'm probably a little biased against Apple--although I seriously considered getting an Air as my new laptop recently--and have found their recent laptop designs a little garish. There is a gigantic, light-up logo in the back! My roommate had a Mac Book Pro last year and it would light up our room if he used it at night. I favor a more minimalistic, muted aesthetic--if I could, I'd get an all matte black laptop with no labels at all (including the keyboard), but I do not think anything like that exists. The new Vaio Z is close though.
That's not a recent design. Apple notebooks have had a lit logo on the back of the lid for the last 13 years[1], starting with the PowerBook G3 Wall Street.
In any case, this 'problem' is easily remedied by covering it up with a sticker. That's what production companies do[2] when they want to use a notebook in a TV show or motion picture that doesn't have 'promotional considerations'[3].
"if I could, I'd get an all matte black laptop with no labels at all"
Apple's black MacBook[4] and Google's copy[5], the CR48, came close. Matte black, barely any labels.
[1] http://denniswever.dyndns.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/0...
[2] http://www.geeksugar.com/TV-Shows-Cover-Up-Apple-Logo-Mac-La...
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement
[4] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/MacBook.j...
I have seen the black MacBooks, and they are better than the normal ones--rather good looking, actually--but I'm not sure if they sell them any more and I was looking exclusively at thin, light laptops akin to the Air. As far as I know, matte black Airs do not exist.
I remember seeing the beta Chromebook and really liking the design; unfortunately, the ones they actually sell now look different and too much like normal netbooks.
Where both fall short is the keyboard--in a perfect world, there would be a version with unlabeled keys. It would match my DasKeyboard :).
The Vaio Z I currently have also comes close. From my perspective when I'm using it, it's actually almost exactly what I want (except for the annoyingly omnipresent labeled keys). The back of the screen is a dark blue with a metal (not lit) logo. I rather like that effect as well, although it doesn't quite have the appeal of a completely blank laptop. Having a plastered-over Apple logo wouldn't do either--all this would ruin the effect I want.
Of course, I recognize that the laptop I picture is incredibly silly and can never be more than a very niche product, but I am perfectly content being silly.
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Could anyone explain why this is on the front page? The only piece of information in this rant is that there is some new Asus notebook that looks like a MB Air.
Apparently at least 75 people's intellectual curiosity is very easily satisfied...
To give my opinion on the matter I like the 13" Zenbook's 1600x900 resolution better than MacBook Air's 1440x900. The 13" Macbook Pro has 1280x800 which is useless to me.
When running Visual Studio or Eclipse I definitely like the extra 160 pixels to have the sidebar wider without sacrificing space from the editor.
On the other hand there are radically differently designed ultrabooks, so don't take Asus for the general norm?
Oh and as many on this page I'm typing from a Vaio Z21 running Linux and of course, everything just works. Of course its way faster, yet lighter than the MBA. And while you may hate Sony because "its not hype to have a Sony dude!" its well built and works perfectly well, 20h a day so far.
On a different note, the attempt to show how the internal design of Asus copies that of Apple is laughable. The PCBs look completely different, except for maybe the main fan placement. But think about the space constraints in such a device and it becomes obvious there aren't too many options!
For example the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s: http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/8/2546923/lenovo-ideapad-u30... [a review from The Verge]
Why not make something equal first, we seen it with android, although I'm not saying that Android is built as a clone of iOS, but they got feature parity and then went onto more innovation.
Personally as someone who loves the look and feel of the MacBook, but who for a number of reasons won't be purchasing one ( expensive for a college student, not a fan of Mac OS). An entry into the market like this appeals to me greatly. Keep it up Intel and partners!
As a college student, I think you'd get almost the same utility out of a nice netbook running Linux as you would an Air unless you're a heavy gamer. I have several friends who went that route and their uniformly happy and productive (unlike some of the people I know using Mac OS, although that is more a function of their not being CS people).
Of course, I say this almost hypocritically as a college who did splurge on a laptop and doesn't regret it. I just had some money left over from an internship--that's my excuse.
Until then the Samsung Series 9 is probably a better choice.
Look at how many models Apple makes: http://www.apple.com/why-mac/compare/ . Five distinct designs.
True attention to detail is surely impossible with Asus' scattergun approach.
In this case, it suffices to look at the title of the article - the Asus is being seen as a copy of the MacBook Air, and not the definitive form of Ultrabook that all other makers are going to try to copy. If they had succeeded in stealing the idea, the article would have been talking about how the Asus was going to be the benchmark all other Ultrabooks were going to be judged against, and it would have highlighted how the Asus had filled in the weaknesses of the current champion, which is the MacBook Air.
Clearly a case of copying.
When faced with a $300 million dollar movement to basically rip-off their product? I doubt they'll move nearly as quickly.
What made Apple Apple until recently was an intrinsic force(from within the company) to innovate an improve(a perfectionist and angry force that will insult and denigrate you if she did not wanted what you made, that will demand the best of you whenever the company is well or not).
In life you don't have to wait for others to force you when you could force yourself for your best. E.g students that choose careers their selves (even hard ones) are way happier than those that let others to decide for them.
"I doubt they'll move nearly as quickly."
Your opinion is based on a prejudice "Apple responds to market pressures just like any other company".
Apple had made very good products without "market pressure" that comes when things go bad, sales and. stock go down. The last decade had no pressure on Apple so your prejudice is not true.