Ultrabooks: the Apple opinion

[charlie1991]

Hi Everyone,

As Apple users, in my opinion you are all used to having great hardware, top customer service and just a great overall user experience. The rest of the industry is playing catch up to products like the Air and the newer Retina Mac books. I think this is a big reason why Intel created the Ultrabook category of devices, to spur on innovation, better price points and just spice the Windows laptop industry.

Big question really, but whats your favorite and least favorite things about Intel's Ultrabook category of devices in general? I am asking this for some university work so would be really grateful for your opinions! Has this definition helped laptop makers catch up with Apple in terms of design, usability, innovation and customer service or has it hindered the laptop industry in general?

What would you change or improve about Ultrabooks, or are you already thinking of switching over?

Thanks very much for your thoughts!

 

[Hexley]

Price of ultrabooks
Ssd size
Ssd price
Lack of wired Ethernet
Apple's custom ssd stick non-standard
No SATA 12GB/s

 

[Ploki]

Marketing gimmick.

Power/portability compromise has been a part of laptops since ages. Even Apple only offers top of the line performance in at least 15" size...

You can slap a name on it, like "pro", or "macrobook" or whatever, but it's always just power vs. portability.

Apple with Air has created a trend that leans toward portability, merely because majority of users doesn't need more power than such form factor can offer. Naturally, if you gain nothing in user experience with power (seriously, an average user doesn't have a need for quadcore i7), and you actually gain more in user experience with SSD, why would you compromise portability?

Kinda stupid, but as much as prosumer market is shrinking, first the towers (Mac Pro) will be gone, then "less-portable" portables. Inevitable.

 

[Mrbobb]

What would you change or improve about Ultrabooks, or are you already thinking of switching over?

are u writing a school paper or something?

PRICE.

Two months ago I find out I can buy a BMW about the same price as a Toyota, so guess where I went?

But, they already know this, next Ultrabooks is gonna be more price-competitive am almost certain, BUT win8 is gonna kill them, so they better offer the option of bundling it with Win7 instead, IMHO.

 

[charlie1991]

are u writing a school paper or something?

Yer, trying to get as many different opinions from different users. I find Apple users to give the most interesting answers as they are used to a really high quality service that the Windows laptop guys may not be used to, so give great feedback as many have owned both a mac and a Win laptop and have a good overall perspective! the more answers the better

 

[Mrbobb]

Apple makes sexy hardware. PC camp don't know sexy from a square. They only "try" to imitate. But if the PRICE is right, am willing to pay 40% discount for 90% sexy hardware as indicated before.

 

[Abazigal]

To me, there's nothing I dislike about Intel's ultrabooks. Just that I find the air ultimately suits my needs best.

1) People will point out how there is this laptop which beats the air in battery life, another which is better in specs, a 3rd with superior display, then there will a cheaper option etc. However, the point is that there is still no one laptop which is able to best the air in terms of absolute specs and price.

These laptops which are better than the air in one category, they will invariably lose in the others. This means that the air still represents the best 'compromise' of all the features which makes an ultrabook, an ultrabook. You want a light, mobile, durable, dependable and affordable laptop, the air ticks all the right boxes.

2) Macs run OSX, Ultrabooks run windows. This is ultimately an issue of personal preference, but I generally find OSX more smooth and fluid, plus its latest features tend to make it more suited to running on a laptop. Windows 7 just feels like a more bloated, reskinned XP with no new, noteworthy features, and Windows8 doesn't excite me terribly.

3) The trackpad. Till now, it baffles me how some companies can screw up such an essential piece of hardware so completely (cursor randomly jumping about the screen without me touching it? Really?).

4) This is more of a personal peeve, but I dislike how Intel's definition of what constitutes an ultrabook is practically non-existent; any vendor can term his offering an ultrabook, however thick or bulky it is. To me, this just dilutes the entire brand.

5) The whole integrated Apple ecosystem. Granted, this can be as much of a bane as a boon (given that some of the limitations Apple imposes are artificial). Also, cloud services from dropbox and google are catching up, but with Apple, I find it is often one less step.

6) Some of Apple's apps just run better. Eg: Preview vs adobe reader, OSX's inbuilt features like cmd+shift+F4, while Windows users still need to print-screen and paste in paint or use 3rd party software like Jing, whole ilife suite etc.

All in all, at the risk of sounding cliche, it really just works.

 

[vastoholic]

The thing that draws me the most to the Air instead of ultra books, and this is true for all macs, is the ability to run both windows and OSX when I need one or the other. Otherwise I'd just go with an ultra book. I have to buy either one but I've been looking into an Air recently.

 

[Mrbobb]

All in all, at the risk of sounding cliche, it really just works.

This is mostly true, but not always.

Currently am dealing with synching my Cal, reminder, contacts, simple enough right? I want to sync with Outlook, a bonafide productivity tool wouldn't everybody say? But apparently there is some politics going on between Apple and MS, so they are pointing the fingers to each other. End game = user lose. But if Apple wants to make it right, then they should go ahead and make available something comparable to Outlook, they don't have it (it's another Google-Map Gate).

WIFI-Sync, I googled, it's hit&miss. And when you ask at the Apple.com community forum, you get this corporate answer. I find that when there is a problem with Windows, there are 10 work-arounds, with OSX, if something doesn't work, is a black box.

I probly stick with OSX because the trackpad is just fricking smooth, but if Wintel can duplicate the Trackpad, that's a signal for me to look over the fence again.

 

[malman89]

The only thing I dislike about the Ultrabook category is it is still too wide/open ended. There's been laptops with optical drives and dedicated graphics that technically still fall under the Ultrabook category.

I'm not really against optical drives and I actually love/desire dedicated GPUs, but it's that wild that it can encompass such a large range of products.

 

[Bernard SG]

The one big pitfall is that they run Windows.

 

[smoledman]

Honestly unless you are hard tied to OS X the only reason to get an Air is the sexy hardware. I detest OS X.