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Comment by graue | Hacker News Reader

“If, all you need is to run Linux then you can use one of the plethora of other great machines and save money.”

I didn't find that to be the case. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon was the only Ultrabook that compared at all favorably to the Air in reviews, and it costs something like $1450 versus $1140 for the Air. Thought about it. Couldn't justify the higher price. (Edit: Price has apparently dropped, see below)

Another contender was Asus' Zenbook Prime, which got mostly good reviews and is cheaper than the Air. But it's only slightly cheaper ($1080) and the Ubuntu wiki mentioned a bunch of ugly issues I didn't want to deal with: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbookPrime

Xubuntu (Ubuntu with the Xfce desktop) is my favorite operating system. I'm not settling for less by using it. I set out to run Xubuntu on a great, lightweight laptop with an SSD, and the Air was the most compelling option. Simple as that.

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> The ThinkPad X1 Carbon was the only Ultrabook that compared at all favorably to the Air in reviews, and it costs something like $1450 versus $1140 for the Air. Thought about it. Couldn't justify the higher price.

This is not true. Lenovo (like pretty much every company except Apple) has regular discounts. You can easily get the ThinkPad X1 Carbon for a price comparable to the Air. Also, I would say that the X1 Carbon is better than the Air in many ways. You get a bigger screen, higher resolution, better keyboard, the TrackPoint, and a 3G SIM card slot.

I see that now: $1120 “after coupon”. https://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoP...

At the time, I was definitely not seeing it under $1400. It may have been before the X1 Carbon was officially released, or while they were experiencing manufacturing delays in September.

I agree with you: if I were buying today and had that information, I'd go with the X1 Carbon, mainly for the higher resolution.

I wish this were true because I'm dying for a new laptop, but I haven't seen a single one other than the Air that can compare in specs.

Does the X1 Carbon come with 8GB of RAM, a Core i7, and a battery that lasts 6+ hours? Do you know of a single laptop other than a MacBook (and the Samsung Series 9 15" which is too huge for 1600x900 resolution) that carries those specs? If you do, I'll buy it immediately.

My X1 Carbon has 8 GB RAM, it has lasted for 5+ hours without the battery getting to a critically low level (I've only had it 2 days, so I haven't fully tested it), and it has a Core i5. The only issue is that the Core i7 option and 8 GB RAM option appear to be mutually exclusive, so I went with the Core i5, and I haven't regretted it so far.

Also keep in mind that there are also several advantages to the X1 Carbon over the MacBook Air, which I mentioned in my previous post. The biggest one is that despite being the same physical size as the 13" MacBook Air, you get a 14" screen.

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