When recently looking to buy a new laptop, I am looking for a thin and light one that I can carry with to everywhere. Some people may definitely say Mac Book Air. However, one of my friends suggested that I should take ultra book for consideration. I began to do some research then. Finally, I brought …
“For years the Apple MacBook Air had no one to compete against but itself. Then ultrabooks came along. My, how things have changed. ” (Westover)
I read an article which discussed the similarities and differences between the Ultrabook, Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A and the 13-inch version MacThe MacBook Air.
pictures from bestbuy.com
Similarities and Differences
Circuit board: The main circuit boards are roughly the same size. The MacBook Air’s board layout is a little cleaner, but both are pretty clean by modern standards. The Zenbook seems to have more traces and connectors in its circuit board, though the differences are fairly minor. Oddly, we found bits of masking tape on the Asus board. The Air had no internal warnings, while the Asus PC had a sticker covering the SSD retainer screw that read “warranty void if removed.”
Cooling: Both computers use very shallow fans offset to one side, with heat pipes transferring the heat. Asus has heat dissipaters on both the CPU and the I/O controller hub chip, while Apple uses one on only the CPU.
Hard drive: Both machines use MSATA solid-state drives. These look a little like memory modules, but the connector is on the short edge. The Asus uses an ADATA drive that has a thermal shield on one side, while Apple keeps all the flash memory chips bare. In both systems, the memory is soldered to the reverse side of the circuit board.
Battery: The batteries were strikingly similar, too. Both were 50-watt-hour sheet batteries composed of multiple cell sandwiches. The Asus battery actually had masking tape strips reinforcing the connection from the battery to the system, though this may have just been a leftover from the build process.
The most important and visible differences for users emerge via the design and usability of physical user interface elements—the design of the keyboard, pointing devices, and LCD panel. Perhaps even more important is the design of the user environment offered by a computer’s operating system—and, in this regard, the user environments of the Zenbook and the Air are very, very different.
Given many similarities and important differences, how do you make a choice? I am a price sensitive consumer, I finally brought an ultra book whose price is $300 lower than the Marbook Air.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397811,00.asp
http://www.pcworld.com/article/262036/ultrathin-teardown-asus-ultrabook-vs-macbookair.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/260628/asus_zenbook_prime_ux31a_review_ultralight_pretty_and_capable.html