News First ultrabook on sale

I will consider getting it just because it's in competition with Apple, I hate the Apple OS, I'm a PC and proud lol.

 

The Zenbook is a direct competitor for the Macbook Air. The Zenbook comes with Windows 7 installed and the Macbook Air comes with OS X. A critical part of comparing these two competing products is comparing the impacts of their respective operating systems. If you want to label everything as "Mac vs. Windows" then feel free, the rest of us will be enjoying our ability two compare two products, one which happens to be made by Apple and running OSX and another which happens to be made by ASUS and runs Windows 7, while trying to ignore posts like the one above.

 

Looks like the thickness of USB is limiting how thin they can make it....

 

Macs vs PCs in a nutshell:

1) In hardware terms, you get what you pay for and there are no cheap Macs.

2) PC software covers rather more tasks than that which is available for Macs but Macs do niches. PCs for the accountancy and banking tools, Macs for graphics design and media work.

3) PCs have Active Directory and are favoured by large, complex business. Macs have Open Directory for simpler administration in smaller businesses.

4) PCs take longer to prep and have "model quirks" inherent to their flexibility and hardware interoperability standards. Macs are commodity hardware with limited expansion and forced technological progression.

5) Mac OS currently has far fewer security threats than Windows but it's only a matter of time (if the doomsayers/security analysts* are right) - *delete as appropriate in 2015.

6) Windows has DirectX and all gaming GFX cards are optimized for it. OS X... er... has Steamplay.

And that's about it. They're different platforms for different people with different tastes. End of argument. (Please?)

 

With a MBA though you could have OSX and Win7.
With Asus' offering you only have Win7 with the possibility of a bit of faffing to get osx86/hackintosh up and running.

 

I'm glad you're not as shallow as those Apple fanboys.

 

I say let consumer beta-testers try the initial models at the initial prices. The modern Air wasn't built in a year or day, and even ultralights haven't hit their stride just yet. Samsung's Series 3 solved many of the problems raised by Series 9; however sleek and black the 9 might have been, the flagship still needs perfecting.

The Zenbook, like the 9, looks delicious, but hapless users will be left to discover the quirks of its curves.

When the Ivy Bridge takes root in next spring's Air, I might buy the 2011 model for less and configured with decent amounts of space and RAM. Or, if Samsung gets it right, I might pick up a remixed UL with one of their matte screens.

I've yet to use an Asus that didn't disappoint overall. I'm a fan of their processors and tweaks but never feel at home with their screens and keyboards.

 

Didn't intel have to subsidise these to get manufacturers to make them? @999 I'm surprised by that means there is not a lot of margin in macs. The highest cost is likely to be the development of a low powered chipset as well as the different boards to aqueeze them on. The cost of small and hopefully quality screens is fairly high too. All 13" are £100 dear than an equivalent spec'd 14" which are £30 dearer than an equivalent 15". Since netbooks also use 11" and the focus was on cheap, not many are very high quality. Maybe cost of developing those knocked price up a bit more.

 

MAC and PC's - it's a personal choice as both offer specific reasons to buy, there's no clear winner - I choose PC's because it has more software and more games available to it and in terms of cost, equivalent or better specc'd products are available for less in the PC market plac versus MAC.

I love ultrabooks, but of course no thread is complete without the obligatory:

But can it play Crysis at med/high settings in it's native resolution?

 

I've kind of lost the need for a laptop. Have the desktops when at home for work/heave gaming. The rest of the time, sat on the sofa our out of the house the android smartphone and android tablet get me everything I need from a portable device. A lot depends on your lifesyle though I guess.

 

$1000 in US = £1500 in UK following Asus price hike logic.
Its what they did with the Asus G73JH series so don't see them doing different here.

I imported by Asus G73JH-A1 from the US, total price was under £999. If had purchased locally would have cost me around £1800+.

 

hehe, so here we go, copy of MBA, wouldn't buy this over MBA - never ever

 

It looks good. I would choose it over MBA because I'm a Linux-user

 

And actually I only think the difference between Mac and PC is, that PC has games and the hardware, and Mac has the build quality and the best OS. Even better than Linux.

 

does it have thunderbolt? thunderbolt is brilliant. I like the idea of having a laptop for portability and big screen with external RAID box via thunderbolt at home.

 

yes and no. you have steam on mac and you have onlive on mac - that's how i play games if i don't play on ps3

 

@hexx

Ok, I must admit, that I'm not 100% familiar with Macs, and I just find it great, if solutions to "the gaming issue" with them has shown up.

I'd hope the same happens for Linux one day, I have Win 7 and Kubuntu in dual-boot, simply because I like to play a little CoD every now and then.

 

I think they should launch onlive for Linux, when you think about it it just streams games to your computer, that's why i love that idea, you can play really good games on a laptop or netbook (friend plays on asus eee). Not sure if Steam will be ported to Linux, hopefully it will as there are a lot of similarities between Linux and Mac OS, in the end they're both based on Unix.

 

Yeah, that would be nice! Itś exactly like you say: It's just a stream, so any platform should be able to adapt it.

Gaming on a Mac must be great, they have spectacular good screens.

 

I used to have Quad gaming PC, and then it was transformed to Hackintosh to try out Mac OS. I found myself using win less and less as I was playing on console and all soft I need was on Mac too w/o all those win related annoyances. So I bought MacBook Pro, sold gaming rig and problem solved. Have a portable computer which is hooked (when at home) on my TV and I play either on PS3 or on OnLive on Mac.