11 ms·

What I grasp from this is that John Gruber and Peter Bright are just too dim to understand basic online stores. This qualifies for mockery from Gruber/Bright:

What I grasp from this is that John Gruber and Peter Bright are just too dim to understand basic online stores. This qualifies for mockery from Gruber/Bright: > "Everyday Computing" But this is good understandable product description: > "The ultimate everyday notebook" (that second one is Apple's marketing copy for the Macbook Air). The low-end Macbook Air is $999 in Canada. Let's compare. I just priced a Lenovo X220 with a 50% faster processor, twice the ram, twice the SSD size, larger, better screen - which are all minimum choices for this laptop, I can't choose any lower to match the Macbook - and I came out to $84 more than the Macbook. Let's see, if I look at the other versions... I'd say the Macbook has about a $200-$300 price premium compared to the Lenovo. The two laptops weigh almost exactly the same and are the same thickness at the thickest point, although the Lenovo doesn't have the pretty tapered edge. The economy of scale advantage that he's talking about doesn't exist, or at least doesn't make it to the consumer (Apple may be keeping economy of scale profits, but that's not the point Gruber is trying to make). Gruber is just utterly full of shit and I fail to see why his articles merit any discussion. "Apple is great because [make up bullshit reason of the week]". Isn't that boring? Even if you love Apple products, isn't it boring?

dasil003 15y ago
The critique of "Everyday Computing" is as a search option next to a bunch of other abstract phrases, not marketing copy per se.
ugh 15y ago
So, you really wanna claim that Apple has an equally confusing product lineup compared to other manufactures? That’s a quite daring claim (and also some impressive misleading quoting you are doing there). Apple doesn’t ask you to decide based on non-sensical marketing blabber like that. They use it, sure, but it isn’t central in the decision process of the buyer. Go to their store and check out how they do it: http://store.apple.com/us http://store.apple.com/us If you want a laptop you are asked to make only one decision: Do you want a MacBook Pro or Air? Finding out what those two laptops are all about is easy, if only because it’s only two and not four or more. They are also clearly different from each other, in a way that’s obvious even to someone who doesn’t know anything or doesn’t want to know anything about technological details. Just looking at them is more or less enough to figure out what they are all about. When you have made that decision, you more or less only have to decide on the screen size you would like: 11" or 13" if you want an Air, 13", 15" or 17" if you want a Pro. I would love it if other manufacturers did the same. Shopping for PCs is just so damn frustrating. It’s no fun at all.
- jseliger 15y ago
  So, you really wanna claim that Apple has an equally confusing product lineup compared to other manufactures? That’s a quite daring claim (and also some impressive misleading quoting you are doing there). Apple doesn’t ask you to decide based on non-sensical marketing blabber like that. They use it, sure, but it isn’t central in the decision process of the buyer. One other point: all three Macs I've owned were ready to use out of the box. No stickers, no crapware, no nothing. Contrast this with a recent Anandtech review of a recent Sony Vaio that, hardware-wise, is quite nice, but: Because of that initial bloat I have a hard time recommending the VAIO S to any end user that can't fix it (including but not limited to just plain physically upgrading the hard drive) or doesn't know someone who can. This is an otherwise fantastic notebook with a lot of potential just looking for the right user, but if you're not comfortable getting elbow deep in cleaning it out (or preferably doing a clean Windows 7 installation), it's not going to be the notebook for you. For those of you who are willing and able to put in the time, though, you'll likely be very well served by the Sony VAIO S. (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4748/sony-vaio-sb-all-day-consumer-computing/7 http://www.anandtech.com/show/4748/sony-vaio-sb-all-day-cons...) I read something like that and think, "Where's the MacBook Air link again..."
  - dlss 15y ago
    What an odd way to decide which machine you'll use every day for the next year or more. A clean install is really easy -- maybe one hour if you sit and watch it, fifteen minutes if you use your old laptop while it's going... why would you let a cost of <one hour drive your buying decision? Setup time is part of the cost of a system. I'm sure that the apple machine isn't actually ready for you to use it out of the box -- if you're like most HN readers you'll have tons of tweaks you need to install before the computer actually works the way you want it to. I'm writing this on a x220 with a 240GB Vertex3 under the hood, which is 4-10x faster than my coworker's13" 240GB macbook air for bioinformatics workloads. It cost about $100 more, and yes it required a clean install as part of setup. The profit I've made on that $100 + 1 hour is insane... probably 100x return so far this year on decreased compile & run times (calculated as delta in experiments per day times my annual salary)
socratic 15y ago
I tried to make this point below in a more subtle way, but you take on the issue more directly. Gruber's arguments never make any sense. Historically, he changes his opinions more or less based on what Apple is currently doing. He adds little value, and it seems clear that he's making a lot of money as a pro-Apple cheerleader from his blog posts. (Which is fine, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't make him a good news source.) However, I'm not sure how to get rid of Gruber posts. With certain types of posts, HN can feel like an Eternal September. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September Certainly the first few times I read a Gruber post, I thought there was some legitimate content there. But now, his posts feel largely like regurgitated commentary on discussions had elsewhere, and his opinions feel utterly discredited by their uniformity. Without downvotes, and without flags removing Gruber posts, I'm not sure what we can do. Could we possibly, as a community, just agree that a blacklist of Gruber posts is good for us? How would we begin such a discussion?
- rumpelstiltskin 15y ago
  Sites can definitely be blacklisted (Valleywag, for ex). There's nothing in the HN FAQ about how to go about submitting a site for blacklisting though. For the record, I'm all for blacklisting daringfireball.
- dasil003 15y ago
  Nobody said Gruber wasn't biased, but he forms cogent arguments. The same can not be said for Apple's consistent detractors who seem to have a real chip on their shoulder and thus end up grasping at straws. Granted there is a lot of valid Apple criticism that you won't get from Daring Fireball, but everyone has their viewpoint. Gruber is far from the worst stuff that shows up on HN.
  - socratic 15y ago
    I am not sure if this is what you meant, but cogent means convincing. 1. Are you convinced that going forward, Apple's most "sustainable advantage" is economies of scale? Do you believe that consumers primarily buy Apple products based on price? 2. Do you believe that building up economies of scale would take Dell or Samsung a "decade"? (These are the primary claims in the conclusion of Gruber's essay.)
wysiwtf 15y ago
Are you sure that X220 is similar enough to an Air, it doesn't look like an air and the design specs are quite bulkier: MacBook Air 11 inch: Height: .68 Weight: 2.38 MacBook Air 13 inch: Height: .68 Weight: 2.96 X220 12 inch: Height: 1.25 Weight: 3.6 I don't think it matters that you spec'ed it out to be slightly faster, I bet many of the people who want an Air-like notebook want the thinnest, cleanest, lightest notebook that can still perform very close to a traditional fat notebook, the X220 probably isn't what they're looking for.
- Steko 15y ago
  Apple had to send their engineers over to Intel to teach them how to build the chips they wanted for the Airs. They wanted lower Ghz.
  - officemonkey 15y ago
    Believe it or not, people once did productive work on a computer with a 386 chip. Fastest does not necessarily equate with best. EDIT: I misinterpreted the above comment. It's Friday and I'm sleepy.
    - Steko 15y ago
      I think you've misread my comment. The extra Mhz here is wasted because Apple intentionally values the heat/battery dynamics more in this product. That's how the whole 1.7 Ghz lines of the Core Duo (and now the Core i5/i7) chips came about: Apple worked with intel to make the chips and got a good deal of exclusivity. This was all made clear when the Macbook Air debuted with Paul Otellini and Jobs onstage together.
  - jarek 15y ago
    The same Intel that came up with the first Pentium M? Yeah, I'm calling bull shit on this story.
    - mkr-hn 15y ago
      It's not unusual for hardware companies to work with chip companies. Nintendo works with their CPU suppliers to build a custom processor for their consoles. I doubt Steko is saying Apple taught Intel how to do chips right even though it came out that way.
Steko 15y ago
"The two laptops weigh almost exactly the same" Rofl no. "and are the same thickness at the thickest point" If by the same you mean the Mac Book Air is half the thickness of the Lenovo then yes. [edit]It's really hard to take your comment as anything more then a troll when you call other people dim but make basic factual errors like this.[/edit] This is where "configure your own Macbook Air" arguments always end up: some ugly as shit clunker with a couple +1 features that give you wiggle room to claim a "$200 Apple premium".
- jarek 15y ago
  Well geez that's a really strong argument in return. "Ugly as shit" is not subjective at all.
  - Steko 15y ago
    Clearly the entirety of my argument. You have delivered internet checkmate tonight sir, bask in the eternal glory.
    - jarek 15y ago
      Thank you sir. May you enjoy the beauty of a black plastic keyboard surrounded by grey aluminium forever. Or at least until Apple unveils the new beautiful look.
- old-gregg 15y ago
  "Ugly as shit"? I think Lenovo machines in their matte black rubberized cases look gorgeous. It's all about what you've been pre-conditioned to like. I will not buy a laptop with a glass-covered glossy screen. That screen would be useless to me. Also I will not own a laptop without a layout like this: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/03/thinkpadx22015-1300471463.jpg http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/03/thinkp... It's called attention to detail and immaculate ergonomics: you have a fully operational mouse without moving your fingers away from the FJ position. I can't imagine working on a laptop without it. Why bother suffering? I understand that people like sparkly and shiny things. I understand clever marketing, sleek design and the adrenaline of being part of the crowd. Fine, have fun - it's very much like rooting for a football team. But seeing Mac users trying to "cross swords" in a feature/function battle is simply ridiculous. Try this on your notebook: write a sentence, go and change the 3rd word in it. Time yourself. Divide that by 5 (to get my time) multiply the difference by 1923 (that's how much we do this while coding), add a few minutes on top to compensate for missed "Esc" and "Enter" hits and then throw your arms up, scream in pain and anger, and be enlightened. Free of charge, I do this for charity.
rayiner 15y ago
The problem is not using "everyday computing" as a descriptive element in the marketing copy. It's using it as a category differentiator. Let's go laptop shopping! store.apple.com. Presented with pictures of things, with the name of the line under them. I can see (I don't even have to read or select a menu, I can just see!) two types of laptops: the Air and the Pro. One is little and the other is big. Do I want a little laptop or a big laptop? Little! Click on the little one, then click through "select a macbook air." Presented with two more pictures: 11" and 13", each with text underneath offering two options (more or less HDD space). At every point, the gist of what the difference is between the various selections is painfully clear to the shopper. shop.lenovo.com. Presented with: promo for IdeaPad U300s. What if I want other laptops? Shop -> Laptops & Notebooks in the small text below the big promo. Now I'm presented with three lines of laptops. Aside from color, they look the same. How do I differentiate? One is for "basic everyday computing" the other for "dazzling multimedia experience" and the other for "tools to save time and money." Whereas I didn't even read the marketing copy on the Apple site, because I had pictures that got to the heart of the differences between the models, here I'm stuck reading marketing copy to make a decision. If I select "prices you'll love" does that mean the others will have "prices I'll hate"? Luckily Lenovo has given me a matrix to help me choose. The matrix has 38 rows... Say I blindly click on the ThinkPad. Now I'm presented with 6 series. The bold text to help me differentiate is more marketing copy: "environmentally friendly" versus "mobile freedom." Are some of these laptops not environmentally friendly? Do some lack mobile freedom? The information that is most pertinent to me as a laptop buyer (weight and screen size) is actually at the bottom of the lists in the same font size as the footnotes and legalese!
- aw3c2 15y ago
  Notebook shopping for "dummies": If you are not sure what you want, make a list of things you want to do with your laptop and ask someone who knows about computers to tell you what you would need for it (gaming -> number of decent chip names, writing and internet -> nothing matters, storing a lot of movies/games -> more than XX Gigabytes of harddisk space, video chatting -> webcam & microphone, etc) Make a checklist of the things you want/need. Browse for notebooks and write down those that fit all of your criteria. Choose the one that has the shiniest finish or cutest name. Done.
gbog 15y ago
Agreed. Moreover, push Gruber et al logic to its logical conclusion and you get 1984.
alastairpat 15y ago
I've been reading Gruber for a couple of years now and I really believe that it's not nearly as critical/analytical or interesting as it used to be. While previously he would write much more in-depth articles (often of a technical nature relating to OS X or Cocoa/Obj-C) now I feel he is really just writing what his audience wants to hear and, what's more, 95% of the time simply linking with a sentence of commentary. Some of his links are interesting but for the most part they're either criticising one extreme or showering praise on the other. I'm an Apple fan, but yes - it really is boring waking up every morning (I'm Australian) and reading the same thing day in, day out. He's just as guilty of shock-jockery as half the people he links to.
- ambler0 15y ago
  "Some of his links are interesting but for the most part they're either criticising one extreme or showering praise on the other." I tend to agree, but I don't think this particular piece is an example of that. It frustrates me that the HN crowd has such a hard time rationally discussing Apple (let alone something written by, gasp, GRUBER)
  - alastairpat 15y ago
    I've only been active on HN for a few months now and didn't realise there was such animosity towards Gruber, although I had picked up on the Apple discussions - sorry if I was feeding this.
gamble 15y ago
The X220 isn't remotely as thin as the Macbook Air: http://www.engadget.com/photos/lenovo-thinkpad-x220-review/#3982218 http://www.engadget.com/photos/lenovo-thinkpad-x220-review/#... versus http://www.engadget.com/photos/macbook-air-review/#4317649 http://www.engadget.com/photos/macbook-air-review/#4317649
AlisdairO 15y ago
That's not an entirely fair comparison - the x220 is currently substantially reduced in sales in NA, to the tune of over $400. It's not a reflection of the usual price of the machine, or its price in the rest of the world.
- wpietri 15y ago
  Reasonable, but wrong. The Lenovo site always has sales running. Bullshit, but effective bullshit.
  - AlisdairO 15y ago
    Not in europe, as far as I can see. It's also particularly difficult if you want a particular model, as they certainly don't always discount the x220, for example.
alexmuller 15y ago
Trouble is, anyone can spec a machine so that their manufacturer of choice comes out smelling of roses. For example, I'm looking at the Lenovo site now: X220, i5 2.5GHz, 12.5", 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD = £1330 (including a £175 September discount) And Apple: MacBook Air, i5 1.7GHz, 13", 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD = £1100
Bratwurst 15y ago
Paying $200-$300 for OSX, a MagSafe, glass trackpad, aluminum unibody, glass screen is just fine. Who knows, maybe OS X will have better battery life, and cooler operation? Then again, I'm a programmer, but still the type of guy who would get one of those new, overpriced, Commodores or VICs.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

dasil003 15y ago

The critique of "Everyday Computing" is as a search option next to a bunch of other abstract phrases, not marketing copy per se.

ugh 15y ago

So, you really wanna claim that Apple has an equally confusing product lineup compared to other manufactures? That’s a quite daring claim (and also some impressive misleading quoting you are doing there). Apple doesn’t ask you to decide based on non-sensical marketing blabber like that. They use it, sure, but it isn’t central in the decision process of the buyer. Go to their store and check out how they do it: http://store.apple.com/us http://store.apple.com/us If you want a laptop you are asked to make only one decision: Do you want a MacBook Pro or Air? Finding out what those two laptops are all about is easy, if only because it’s only two and not four or more. They are also clearly different from each other, in a way that’s obvious even to someone who doesn’t know anything or doesn’t want to know anything about technological details. Just looking at them is more or less enough to figure out what they are all about. When you have made that decision, you more or less only have to decide on the screen size you would like: 11" or 13" if you want an Air, 13", 15" or 17" if you want a Pro. I would love it if other manufacturers did the same. Shopping for PCs is just so damn frustrating. It’s no fun at all.

jseliger 15y ago
So, you really wanna claim that Apple has an equally confusing product lineup compared to other manufactures? That’s a quite daring claim (and also some impressive misleading quoting you are doing there). Apple doesn’t ask you to decide based on non-sensical marketing blabber like that. They use it, sure, but it isn’t central in the decision process of the buyer. One other point: all three Macs I've owned were ready to use out of the box. No stickers, no crapware, no nothing. Contrast this with a recent Anandtech review of a recent Sony Vaio that, hardware-wise, is quite nice, but: Because of that initial bloat I have a hard time recommending the VAIO S to any end user that can't fix it (including but not limited to just plain physically upgrading the hard drive) or doesn't know someone who can. This is an otherwise fantastic notebook with a lot of potential just looking for the right user, but if you're not comfortable getting elbow deep in cleaning it out (or preferably doing a clean Windows 7 installation), it's not going to be the notebook for you. For those of you who are willing and able to put in the time, though, you'll likely be very well served by the Sony VAIO S. (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4748/sony-vaio-sb-all-day-consumer-computing/7 http://www.anandtech.com/show/4748/sony-vaio-sb-all-day-cons...) I read something like that and think, "Where's the MacBook Air link again..."
- dlss 15y ago
  What an odd way to decide which machine you'll use every day for the next year or more. A clean install is really easy -- maybe one hour if you sit and watch it, fifteen minutes if you use your old laptop while it's going... why would you let a cost of <one hour drive your buying decision? Setup time is part of the cost of a system. I'm sure that the apple machine isn't actually ready for you to use it out of the box -- if you're like most HN readers you'll have tons of tweaks you need to install before the computer actually works the way you want it to. I'm writing this on a x220 with a 240GB Vertex3 under the hood, which is 4-10x faster than my coworker's13" 240GB macbook air for bioinformatics workloads. It cost about $100 more, and yes it required a clean install as part of setup. The profit I've made on that $100 + 1 hour is insane... probably 100x return so far this year on decreased compile & run times (calculated as delta in experiments per day times my annual salary)

socratic 15y ago

I tried to make this point below in a more subtle way, but you take on the issue more directly. Gruber's arguments never make any sense. Historically, he changes his opinions more or less based on what Apple is currently doing. He adds little value, and it seems clear that he's making a lot of money as a pro-Apple cheerleader from his blog posts. (Which is fine, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't make him a good news source.) However, I'm not sure how to get rid of Gruber posts. With certain types of posts, HN can feel like an Eternal September. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September Certainly the first few times I read a Gruber post, I thought there was some legitimate content there. But now, his posts feel largely like regurgitated commentary on discussions had elsewhere, and his opinions feel utterly discredited by their uniformity. Without downvotes, and without flags removing Gruber posts, I'm not sure what we can do. Could we possibly, as a community, just agree that a blacklist of Gruber posts is good for us? How would we begin such a discussion?

rumpelstiltskin 15y ago
Sites can definitely be blacklisted (Valleywag, for ex). There's nothing in the HN FAQ about how to go about submitting a site for blacklisting though. For the record, I'm all for blacklisting daringfireball.
dasil003 15y ago
Nobody said Gruber wasn't biased, but he forms cogent arguments. The same can not be said for Apple's consistent detractors who seem to have a real chip on their shoulder and thus end up grasping at straws. Granted there is a lot of valid Apple criticism that you won't get from Daring Fireball, but everyone has their viewpoint. Gruber is far from the worst stuff that shows up on HN.
- socratic 15y ago
  I am not sure if this is what you meant, but cogent means convincing. 1. Are you convinced that going forward, Apple's most "sustainable advantage" is economies of scale? Do you believe that consumers primarily buy Apple products based on price? 2. Do you believe that building up economies of scale would take Dell or Samsung a "decade"? (These are the primary claims in the conclusion of Gruber's essay.)

wysiwtf 15y ago

Are you sure that X220 is similar enough to an Air, it doesn't look like an air and the design specs are quite bulkier: MacBook Air 11 inch: Height: .68 Weight: 2.38 MacBook Air 13 inch: Height: .68 Weight: 2.96 X220 12 inch: Height: 1.25 Weight: 3.6 I don't think it matters that you spec'ed it out to be slightly faster, I bet many of the people who want an Air-like notebook want the thinnest, cleanest, lightest notebook that can still perform very close to a traditional fat notebook, the X220 probably isn't what they're looking for.

Steko 15y ago
Apple had to send their engineers over to Intel to teach them how to build the chips they wanted for the Airs. They wanted lower Ghz.
- officemonkey 15y ago
  Believe it or not, people once did productive work on a computer with a 386 chip. Fastest does not necessarily equate with best. EDIT: I misinterpreted the above comment. It's Friday and I'm sleepy.
  - Steko 15y ago
    I think you've misread my comment. The extra Mhz here is wasted because Apple intentionally values the heat/battery dynamics more in this product. That's how the whole 1.7 Ghz lines of the Core Duo (and now the Core i5/i7) chips came about: Apple worked with intel to make the chips and got a good deal of exclusivity. This was all made clear when the Macbook Air debuted with Paul Otellini and Jobs onstage together.
- jarek 15y ago
  The same Intel that came up with the first Pentium M? Yeah, I'm calling bull shit on this story.
  - mkr-hn 15y ago
    It's not unusual for hardware companies to work with chip companies. Nintendo works with their CPU suppliers to build a custom processor for their consoles. I doubt Steko is saying Apple taught Intel how to do chips right even though it came out that way.

Steko 15y ago

"The two laptops weigh almost exactly the same" Rofl no. "and are the same thickness at the thickest point" If by the same you mean the Mac Book Air is half the thickness of the Lenovo then yes. [edit]It's really hard to take your comment as anything more then a troll when you call other people dim but make basic factual errors like this.[/edit] This is where "configure your own Macbook Air" arguments always end up: some ugly as shit clunker with a couple +1 features that give you wiggle room to claim a "$200 Apple premium".

jarek 15y ago
Well geez that's a really strong argument in return. "Ugly as shit" is not subjective at all.
- Steko 15y ago
  Clearly the entirety of my argument. You have delivered internet checkmate tonight sir, bask in the eternal glory.
  - jarek 15y ago
    Thank you sir. May you enjoy the beauty of a black plastic keyboard surrounded by grey aluminium forever. Or at least until Apple unveils the new beautiful look.
old-gregg 15y ago
"Ugly as shit"? I think Lenovo machines in their matte black rubberized cases look gorgeous. It's all about what you've been pre-conditioned to like. I will not buy a laptop with a glass-covered glossy screen. That screen would be useless to me. Also I will not own a laptop without a layout like this: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/03/thinkpadx22015-1300471463.jpg http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/03/thinkp... It's called attention to detail and immaculate ergonomics: you have a fully operational mouse without moving your fingers away from the FJ position. I can't imagine working on a laptop without it. Why bother suffering? I understand that people like sparkly and shiny things. I understand clever marketing, sleek design and the adrenaline of being part of the crowd. Fine, have fun - it's very much like rooting for a football team. But seeing Mac users trying to "cross swords" in a feature/function battle is simply ridiculous. Try this on your notebook: write a sentence, go and change the 3rd word in it. Time yourself. Divide that by 5 (to get my time) multiply the difference by 1923 (that's how much we do this while coding), add a few minutes on top to compensate for missed "Esc" and "Enter" hits and then throw your arms up, scream in pain and anger, and be enlightened. Free of charge, I do this for charity.

rayiner 15y ago

The problem is not using "everyday computing" as a descriptive element in the marketing copy. It's using it as a category differentiator. Let's go laptop shopping! store.apple.com. Presented with pictures of things, with the name of the line under them. I can see (I don't even have to read or select a menu, I can just see!) two types of laptops: the Air and the Pro. One is little and the other is big. Do I want a little laptop or a big laptop? Little! Click on the little one, then click through "select a macbook air." Presented with two more pictures: 11" and 13", each with text underneath offering two options (more or less HDD space). At every point, the gist of what the difference is between the various selections is painfully clear to the shopper. shop.lenovo.com. Presented with: promo for IdeaPad U300s. What if I want other laptops? Shop -> Laptops & Notebooks in the small text below the big promo. Now I'm presented with three lines of laptops. Aside from color, they look the same. How do I differentiate? One is for "basic everyday computing" the other for "dazzling multimedia experience" and the other for "tools to save time and money." Whereas I didn't even read the marketing copy on the Apple site, because I had pictures that got to the heart of the differences between the models, here I'm stuck reading marketing copy to make a decision. If I select "prices you'll love" does that mean the others will have "prices I'll hate"? Luckily Lenovo has given me a matrix to help me choose. The matrix has 38 rows... Say I blindly click on the ThinkPad. Now I'm presented with 6 series. The bold text to help me differentiate is more marketing copy: "environmentally friendly" versus "mobile freedom." Are some of these laptops not environmentally friendly? Do some lack mobile freedom? The information that is most pertinent to me as a laptop buyer (weight and screen size) is actually at the bottom of the lists in the same font size as the footnotes and legalese!

aw3c2 15y ago
Notebook shopping for "dummies": If you are not sure what you want, make a list of things you want to do with your laptop and ask someone who knows about computers to tell you what you would need for it (gaming -> number of decent chip names, writing and internet -> nothing matters, storing a lot of movies/games -> more than XX Gigabytes of harddisk space, video chatting -> webcam & microphone, etc) Make a checklist of the things you want/need. Browse for notebooks and write down those that fit all of your criteria. Choose the one that has the shiniest finish or cutest name. Done.

gbog 15y ago

Agreed. Moreover, push Gruber et al logic to its logical conclusion and you get 1984.

alastairpat 15y ago

I've been reading Gruber for a couple of years now and I really believe that it's not nearly as critical/analytical or interesting as it used to be. While previously he would write much more in-depth articles (often of a technical nature relating to OS X or Cocoa/Obj-C) now I feel he is really just writing what his audience wants to hear and, what's more, 95% of the time simply linking with a sentence of commentary. Some of his links are interesting but for the most part they're either criticising one extreme or showering praise on the other. I'm an Apple fan, but yes - it really is boring waking up every morning (I'm Australian) and reading the same thing day in, day out. He's just as guilty of shock-jockery as half the people he links to.

ambler0 15y ago
"Some of his links are interesting but for the most part they're either criticising one extreme or showering praise on the other." I tend to agree, but I don't think this particular piece is an example of that. It frustrates me that the HN crowd has such a hard time rationally discussing Apple (let alone something written by, gasp, GRUBER)
- alastairpat 15y ago
  I've only been active on HN for a few months now and didn't realise there was such animosity towards Gruber, although I had picked up on the Apple discussions - sorry if I was feeding this.

gamble 15y ago

The X220 isn't remotely as thin as the Macbook Air: http://www.engadget.com/photos/lenovo-thinkpad-x220-review/#3982218 http://www.engadget.com/photos/lenovo-thinkpad-x220-review/#... versus http://www.engadget.com/photos/macbook-air-review/#4317649 http://www.engadget.com/photos/macbook-air-review/#4317649

AlisdairO 15y ago

That's not an entirely fair comparison - the x220 is currently substantially reduced in sales in NA, to the tune of over $400. It's not a reflection of the usual price of the machine, or its price in the rest of the world.

wpietri 15y ago
Reasonable, but wrong. The Lenovo site always has sales running. Bullshit, but effective bullshit.
- AlisdairO 15y ago
  Not in europe, as far as I can see. It's also particularly difficult if you want a particular model, as they certainly don't always discount the x220, for example.

alexmuller 15y ago

Trouble is, anyone can spec a machine so that their manufacturer of choice comes out smelling of roses. For example, I'm looking at the Lenovo site now: X220, i5 2.5GHz, 12.5", 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD = £1330 (including a £175 September discount) And Apple: MacBook Air, i5 1.7GHz, 13", 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD = £1100

Bratwurst 15y ago

Paying $200-$300 for OSX, a MagSafe, glass trackpad, aluminum unibody, glass screen is just fine. Who knows, maybe OS X will have better battery life, and cooler operation? Then again, I'm a programmer, but still the type of guy who would get one of those new, overpriced, Commodores or VICs.

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