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Comment by malbs | Hacker News Reader

My wife went back to school this year, and she needed a laptop, so I got her one for christmas. I went with the base model 11" air because that's what I would have bought if I was getting it for me.

She hated it. I couldn't believe it. "The screen is too small", "I can't play warcraft 3 on it" (ok legit gripe, war3 doesn't work, and she still plays that game!) "I don't like the way the track pad works"

Admittedly, the track pad default settings leave a little to be desired. I made a few tweaks to her setup, and it worked a lot better.

I asked her the other day how she feels about her laptop now, with 6 months use under her belt. She loves it, as I knew she would.

Next laptop I buy for myself will be a 11" air. I'm no apple fan boy, but it is the highest quality laptop you can get. But if you've found a better one for the same price, please let me know

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I'm very happy with my Samsung NP900X1B (other than the ridiculous name). It's super-light, very tough (survived a >1m drop onto concrete - which put a bit of a dent in one corner but kept it fully working), runs my large collection of old windows games, has a very handy microsd slot for extra storage, and does HDMI out without an expensive apple-only cable. What's so good about the air?

How is minidisplayport Apple only?

Actually I've never looked at Samsung as a vendor for a laptop. They make great phones, I loved my S3 until it took a bath when I was drunk (hah).

If it doesn't creak when you hold it at the corners, I could be sold. The airs aluminium case makes it "feel" sturdy, and silent.

I also really like the feel of the keyboard when typing. Most laptop keyboards I fat finger constantly. The air (and probably MBP) actually feel good to type on

edit: Had a look around for Samsung laptops similar spec. MBA still can't be matched price vs perf

>If it doesn't creak when you hold it at the corners, I could be sold. The airs aluminium case makes it "feel" sturdy, and silent.

It's a duralium casing, it feels very solid. You do have to manually switch the power profile (at least, I found the automatic power balance unreliable) with a keyboard shortcut; in low power it's quiet, in high performance the fan whines.

I very much like the keyboard, and use it a lot, but my taste in keyboards is known to be weird.

I'm very surprised to hear of apple being cheaper for the same spec, but I'll admit I didn't really buy by the numbers. It's powerful enough to run eclipse or play supreme commander forged alliance, which are my use cases.

MBA's really are the best ultrabooks money can buy right now. I'd say the X1 Carbon from Lenovo comes close, except if you want comparable specs you'll have to shell out a lot more cash, and that's pretty much the same story with all other ultrabooks out there right now - if you want comparable form factor and hardware to the MBA, it's going to cost a lot more.

If you want a trackpad that doesn't suck balls, don't get the X1 Carbon (well, it does get me using the Touch feature more). Otherwise it is a great laptop.

Why is Apple the only company capable of creating a decent touchpad + driver (even under Windows)?

I bought my first Mac today after following MSFT from Windows 3.11 to 7. Laptop died today and after much hurried research, really wanting to avoid having to make the switch right now, I kept finding that almost every PC laptop had quality control issues. You have to look into the user reviews, not editorial reviews. Almost every ultrabook had trackpad complaints, especially the Samsung Series 9, which is a shame, because it's a beautiful machine otherwise. PC manufacturers can't seem to get their act together (or maybe they don't want to bother because no matter what they do Apple will always be considered superior quality by the consumer?)

Anyways, I'm happy with the switch so far but I think I'll always feel at "home" with Windows, given that I've been using it every day since I was 8 years old.

Running OSX it Windows - maybe you can have the best of both worlds?

While I find this option very attractive from what I've read the drivers aren't very well optimised for Windows and battery life in particular takes a rapid nose dive on Windows Vs. OSX.

I mean a Macbook Pro has better battery life than a Thinkpad Txx with a 6 cell battery (worse than 9 cell) but if you put Windows on the Macbook Pro instead of OS X then the reverse is true (@ 6 cell).

Your battery life will suck, but IMHO, Macbooks are still the best Windows laptops you can buy (but avoid the rMBP, since high res is troublesome under Windows).

I've been thinking about this for a while - you think they would have figured it out by now, right?

Then I took a look at how my clients use their Windows (Dell) laptops.

When they got the first laptop ever, their trackpad was a hilarious joke. Take a look at what we considered normal back around 2000-2005 - you were lucky if you got something larger than a postage stamp.

Fast forward to today (though only through one or at most three upgrades), and the average non-technical Windows user believes the trackpad is an accessory, an emergency device only to be used when your Logitech's batteries are dead. I've seen people outright refuse to use a trackpad, most likely out of a lack of experience.

If I was a PC maker, I'd know this, and wouldn't bother spending a dime on making things any better. Hell, I'd sell matching mice right next to 'em in the store.

Does the dog wag the tail or the tail wag the dog. That PC trackpads are notoriously horrible makes it reasonable that PC users would avoid them. This isn't true on the Macs, where they actually work...even in bootcamp! So a reverse switcher like myself (note I work for Microsoft) has much higher expectations for trackpads on a Lenovo that aren't being satisfied.

Yeah, the X1 looks slick! Does get pricey when you try and get it up to the same (albeit low) specs of the baseline Air. It's definitely second on the list

If you're still trying to get WC3 working, I'd suggest PlayOnMac (http://www.playonmac.com). It's basically a frontend for Wine, but I've found it works very well and is easy to setup.

Blizzard not bothering to create a new (non PowerPC) installer for Mac is poor service from them.

I might give that a go (if it resolves the missing texture problem), but I'm also hesitant to do it now given that she actually does work on her laptop now ;)

Just as sort of an aside because I'm thinking about one--why doesn't WC3 work? I still play it occasionally on a slightly older Air, so this is a troubling development.

And on that note, here's a shoutout to Blizzard for doing things like releasing Intel binaries for ancient games like WC3.

Unless I'm mistaken. the installer and updater for Warcraft 3 as well as Starcraft and Diablo 2 are Rosetta apps, even though the games themselves are universal. Since 10.7 removed Rosetta you can't install the games or update them any longer, though if you have a preinstalled copy you can continue to play.

The installer isn't the issue - I have an old mac mini I installed the game on to.

Half the textures don't load. The game menu is basically a whole lot of black buttons without labels, and if you get a game running by muscle memory, pretty much most of the screen is black. I spent a good couple of days trying to find some sort of resolution, all I found was other users complaining about the same issue.

This is what I meant when I complimented Blizzard -- they updated WC3 and the expansion to Intel, and the intel installers can also be downloaded from battle.net now.

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