Dilger: MacBook Air Stacks Up Well Against Ultra-lights

by , 1:50 PM EST, January 23rd, 2008

Daniel Eran Dilger at Roughly Drafted took a close technical look at other ultra-light notebooks computers against which the MacBook Air competes. The conclusion was that, while the MacBook Air sets some new trends with connectivity omissions and design focus, Apple has also done a good job balancing the design and accurately represents the battery life.

Mr. Dilger, who curiously cross-posted at Apple Insider under a pseudonym, is known for detailed and well researched comparison charts. In this article, he's outdone himself with a comparison of the MacBook Air to the Sony Vaio G, Lenovo ThinkPad X, Panasonic Toughbook R6, the Fujitsu LifeBook s6510 and the Asus UIF in a very complete comparison chart.

The author noted that the competition uses a bewildering array of names and model numbers to hide the reality of the design choices they had to make and allow attractive feature descriptions. In addition, they advertise low weight with a small default battery, but then recommend an extra battery in order to obtain the maximum advertised battery life. Moreover, they do that with Wi-Fi tured off.

The MacBook Air, on the other hand, is one product with one set of specs. One battery, one weight, and a five hour battery life with Wi-Fi turned on.

For those who doubt that the MacBook Air is for them and are perhaps confused by the claims of the competition, Mr. Dilger turned some very hot air by the competition into a strong argument that the Air will be a very hot seller.