ON A GOOD COMPETITOR TO THE MACBOOK AIR

INTO THE FRAY

It's clear four days after the announcement of the new Apple MacBook Air, there are quite a number of folks who are focused more on what the unit doesn't have than what it does have. 

Typical complaints have included:

• no optical drive
• no Ethernet port
• no stereo speakers
• no Express card slot
• no built-in wireless broadband WLAN option
• too small a hard drive
• non-expandable 2GB of RAM
• sealed battery that's not owner replaceable (have to send it into Apple for $129)
• only one USB port
• no fire-wire port
• no standard VGA port

I'm probably missing a few more, but those are the biggies.

And though there are several Windows ultra-portables out there in the same weight class (3 lbs), most of them involve other compromises, especially in the area of screen size (typically 11 or 12 inches diagonal vs the 13.3" LED back-lit screen on the MacBook Air, and the lack of a full-size keyboard.

For instance, even though I own the competitive Sony TZ series laptop with a 32GB SSD drive, I find that it's smaller screen and keyboard do hamper extended use, especially with this user's aging eyes.

And the bigger LED screen and full keyboard are among the key reasons why I ordered a MacBook Air.  They were the two biggies for me.

I'm not too bothered by the absence of most of the items in the list above, with the possible exception of the no built-in wireless broadband option. 

That's the only one that gave me any reason to pause before hitting the Buy button on the Apple online store. Especially given that the unit doesn't have an Express card slot that would accept a plug-in external wireless broadband modem from Verizon, Sprint or AT&T.  There are however USB options, but they make for a clunkier solution.

However, Gizmodo reports that there may be good alternative coming for all those who think the MacBook Air asks for too many compromises (see Techmeme discussion). 

It has the two biggies in my book, the 13.3" LED back-lit screen and a full keyboard, in the under 3 lb weight-class.

And it comes from no less a venerable laptop company than the Thinkpad unit (formerly of IBM fame) of Lenovo.

"It appears that Lenovo have themselves a new ultralight X300 series Thinkpad—and outside of the price and release date, we have all of the specs that you need to know.

At a glance, some of the major features include: a 13.3-inch LED backlit 1440X900 screen, an ultralight 2.5 pound form factor, and Intel Merom Santa Rosa Dual Core CPU (2.0 Ghz / 880 Mhz ), a 64 GB SSD, up to 4GB of DDR2 PC2-5300 memory, and 4 hours of battery life."

The story has lots of additional pictures and specs on the device. 

But the bottom-line is that the unit has an equivalent 13.3" LED back-lit screen, with a full (Thinkpad) keyboard.  Not to mention other features missing on the MacBook Air:

• a built-in optical drive
• double the RAM
• faster 2 Ghz processor than the 1.6-1.8 Ghz available on the MacBook Air
• stereo speakers (maybe...conflicting info in the spec sheets)
• built-in camera
• an express card slot, built-in broadband wireless options from either Verizon EVDO or AT&T HSPDA
• replaceable and presumably expandable battery
• full complement of ports including Ethernet, 3 USB ports, and a VGA port
• Gigabit Ethernet capability
• both GPS and Wimax capabilities
• fingerprint scanner
• lock port for security
• a touchpad AND a Trackpoint for mouse input.

The last one is a biggie for me, since I'm one of the few folks who likes those eraser-head Trackpoints in addition to a touchpad.  It's also important to point out that the Thinkpad won't have the multi-touch Touchpad features available uniquely on the MacBook Air.

The system offers an integrated Intel graphics chip solution as in the MacBook Air.

And it weighs 2.5 lbs.

It isn't as thin as the MacBook Air though, with a width range of .73 to .92 inches as compared to .16 to .76 inches on the MacBook Air.

And you can choose either Windows Vista or XP as your OS.

It's not clear if it  comes with  only the 64GB  SSD  (solid state  drive) option, or if  it's available with a regular hard drive.  That'll certainly make a big difference in the pricing. 

At this stage, most  SSDs typically offer about a 10-20% improvement in boot-up times vs. mechanical drives, with a similar improvement in performance in most applications, along with a 10-15% improvement in battery life.  It makes a big difference in price at this stage, with the MacBook Air 64 Gb SSD drive unit going for a thousand dollars over the $1700 for the unit with the regular 80 Gb hard drive.

No word on pricing on the X300 Thinkpad.

So with this new Thinkpad/Lenovo unit, we now we have a horse race, with more entrants sure to come from other PC vendors.

Now if it could only run Mac OS X Leopard, an increasing biggie...

Comments

[Fiber Optic Cable]

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[Alex Tolley]

I think you are missing the point of the Macbook Air". The thinness is the cool factor, not the specs.

We are getting close to the computer that is both thin and FLEXIBLE like a folder. OLED display technology is going to be the technology that delivers this (the keyboard can be software or a touch sensitive membrane, ny guess the former with iTouch like capability).

An A4 sized machine, thin a folder, using solid state memory for local storage and web storage for main storage, browser based UI for built-in web centric computing and solar cell power/recharge of paper-thin carbon batteries. It will become what the Kindle and Asus eePC are aspiring to.

My time frame for this is within 10 years.