14 DAY TRIAL // You might have heard that BestBuy ran a killer deal earlier today, putting forth an ASUS Intel Atom notebook pre-installed with Window 8.1 for the staggeringly low price of $99 (€80). Unfortunately, the system is now sold out. Online, at least.
Best you can hope for now is to nab one in the retailer’s brick-and-mortar stores, but even that’s a stretch. What you can do, however, is shell out ten times more cash – $999 (€800) and get yourself a sleek MacBook Air. The specs aren’t ten times higher, but it’s guaranteed to mend that broken heart.
Take it for what it is
First off, we need to rule out any preconceptions. At the end of the day, a little sarcasm can’t hurt anyone. If you’ve set out to own a Windows PC, this notebook probably isn’t your cup of tea.
Secondly, everyone knows a thousand bucks can get you a lot farther in terms of technicalities, so we’re not here to make any spec-for-spec comparisons.
But for the aforementioned price, you get the most awesome and craved for laptop out there. Hands down, the prettiest thing you can pull out at Starbucks while you’re sipping your overly-priced latte surrounded by hipsters.
A bang for your buck
It’s thinner and it’s made from aluminum, not plastic. It’s got the the iconic Apple logo on it, not the vendor’s name written in capital letters. And it shines in low lighting conditions. It’s not magical, but it sure seems that way.
The processor is faster and more power-efficient. Not by much, but enough to know it’s better than other 11-inchers. That’s your first good excuse for parting with half a month’s salary: 1.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 2.7GHz) with 3MB shared L3 cache. ASUS puts forth the following oomph: 2MB cache and 1.33GHz processor speed with Intel Burst technology up to 1.8GHz.
Memory-wise, it has 4GB of RAM, whereas the ASUS only has 2GB. It doesn’t really matter when the OS just freezes if you dare run five apps at a time.
In the storage department, MacBook Air trumps the ASUS X205TA by 4:1. Apple’s has 128GB of Flash storage, but neither 32GB nor 128GB is ever enough.
Battery life doesn’t seem to be advertised by ASUS, but the people in Cupertino proudly tout “up to 9 hours wireless web,” whatever that means. Point is, it probably lasts all day. If you’re not a gamer.
ASUS says theirs weighs only 2.1 lbs. and measures just 0.7" in depth. Apple’s notebook rocks a metal enclosure but it can still hold its own: 0.68 inches (1.7 cm) by 12.8 inches (32.5 cm) by 8.94 inches (22.7 cm), and weighs 2.96 pounds (1.35 kg). Yes, it’s heavy.
Neither ASUS nor Apple will say what the VRAM offerings are for their respective devices. The former says Intel HD graphics, the latter says Intel HD Graphics 5000. Whichever sounds fancier is probably better, right?
Let’s not forget Apple throws in OS X – the most advanced OS in a 10 light-year radius – the front-facing FaceTime camera, the unboxing ritual, the faster Wi-Fi that only works if you’re not running the current version of Yosemite, the stereo speakers that might as well not be there (on any laptop, for that matter), apps like Game Center, Numbers, and iBooks that anyone hardly ever uses, the limited warranty that ensures your laptop breaks exactly one day after it’s expired, and everything annoying that happens to any laptop after one year of use.
Make your pick.