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> This one... is just another laptop It's pretty significant when you have a potential MBA/MB killer, a line which was very very hard to beat the past decade o
by IkmoIkmo 12y ago
> This one... is just another laptop
It's pretty significant when you have a potential MBA/MB killer, a line which was very very hard to beat the past decade or so. Some competed on better build quality, some did on specs, some did battery life, some did a screen, some did price, but rarely multiple or all combined.
But this new ASUS at $700 or so has 2x the Ram of an $1000 MBA (4->8) 2x the storage (128->256). Has a higher resolution (HD -> Full HD). Is thinner (0.68 -> 0.48). Is lighter (2.96lb -> 2.7lb), and slightly smaller in width/length, too.
Its performance and battery life benchmarks are virtually similar to the Air. (slightly better, slightly worse in the charts)
It has a metal unibody excellent build.
It's fanless.
That was pretty holy shit to me. If you decide this over the MBA, they will give you $300. And they will give you 4gb more memory. And 128gb storage. And make it thinner. And make it lighter. And make it fanless. And increase the resolution. And make it smaller.
In short it's absolutely crazy value. It's the type of thing that heralds a decade in which ultrabooks which are tiny, thin, fast, with great battery life, are available for bargain prices of $700, probably $500 in a few years. Compared to 8 years ago with the launch of the MBA which was $1800, and an extra $1000 if you wanted a 64gb SSD, with a weak performing chip and a few hours of battery life, this seems like a new generation of ridiculous 'performance/price' ratio.
I know performance/price always improves... but somehow for me this was a significant laptop. I haven't before seen anyone nail these specs, this build quality, this performance, this battery life, at this price. It feels as if the Nexus 4-5-7 just arrived for laptops, only then even a little bit better.
It's not perfect by the way. Biggest gripe is no backlit keyboard and a noisy click on the touchpad. But they feel minor and I expect future iterations to be really solid.