The more I spend time drooling about a Macbook Air or similar apple laptop, the more I realize that it's more hype and less substance (in comparison). Of course Jobs had a taste and Apple has added some quality tweaks in the hardware-software parts, apart from the synergy between OS and the underlying hardware, since they own both. Everything is sleek and chic and minimalist and beautiful and perfect and top class etc etc. Or so they say. They? who? Apple fanboys mostly, and then some people influenced by sheer deluge of oh-so-awesome reviews, many of which are posted by those who buy Macs because (they think) it makes them look cool and sets apart. I was/am partially influenced as well. Jobs was afterall one of the sharpest and shrudest salesman of all time.
Macbook vs Others
The hinge of my netbook got broken recently, and that was enough of a reason for me to get engrossed in one of my favourite-most pastimes - looking for a new netbook/laptop. I came across and was impressed by the specs of this ultraportable - Lenovo (previously IBM) Thinkpad X220 - when I was looking for something powerful, yet small and light. This 12" 1.5kg intel core-i3 runnning laptop fit the bill perfectly. It felt like exactly the thing I was looking for. Feature-rich, small and light-weight, yet very rugged, lots of ports, verry good battery life for such a loaded configuration and less than $888 (starter). There was just nothing wrong with it ... but for the dated looks. But even my Palio's dashboard has dated looks, so I have learned to dig under the show-off elements. It came across as one of the most practical ultra-portables ever. So out of curiosity, I checked what people were saying about this. And lo behold, I came across this Thinkpad X220 review on Engadget.
More than the scintillating review, which was equally all agog with the performance, the best part on the engadget review post was the comments section. There was a hillarious war that took place between Apple fanboys and IBM old-timers. And the later literally destroyed the Apple fanboys. There were some very informative, some very hillarious and some highly scathing remarks from both sides, mostly from the IBM'ers and I found their views very sound and balanced. The conclusion I found was simple, Apple is not the only company which makes well thought out, one of its kind machines - a view smartly propagated by their fanboys. But even IBM also makes some really really well thoght out, rugged products, catering to the needs of a different creed (the programmers, the engineers) that I identify with more, than I do with the Apple crowd.
While Apple gadgets are excellent and well designed beyond doubt, what I have started to realise is that they are also subjected to some real high marketing hype, which is like some kinda (unintended) FUD, generated through those users who "want to buy laptops which matches with their clothes and shoes". Or sometimes through those who are switching from Windows to Mac platform, and have obviously got impressed.
Mac OS X vs Ubuntu
Taking a clue, I tried to find out how someone who has switched from Linux to Mac, finds the new envioronment. And I was so lucky, I came across this blog-post by a programmer who switched from Ubuntu to Mac out of curiosity. If I had gone on to switch to Macbook, it would have been a Deja-Vu vis-a-vis this blog. So very similar a condition. I read with interest. And there I came to know that I wont have much to expect from Mac, except for some jazzy new UI luxury. Till the novelty wears out, that is. The fact that a long time Ubuntu user who was a programmer and hence a power user himself, finds Ubuntu to be the ultimate programmer's OS, after spending time on both sides of the fence, and returns back to Ubuntu, was enough of a testimony for me to start removing Macs from my wishlist, slowly but certainly.
Macbook vs Others
The hinge of my netbook got broken recently, and that was enough of a reason for me to get engrossed in one of my favourite-most pastimes - looking for a new netbook/laptop. I came across and was impressed by the specs of this ultraportable - Lenovo (previously IBM) Thinkpad X220 - when I was looking for something powerful, yet small and light. This 12" 1.5kg intel core-i3 runnning laptop fit the bill perfectly. It felt like exactly the thing I was looking for. Feature-rich, small and light-weight, yet very rugged, lots of ports, verry good battery life for such a loaded configuration and less than $888 (starter). There was just nothing wrong with it ... but for the dated looks. But even my Palio's dashboard has dated looks, so I have learned to dig under the show-off elements. It came across as one of the most practical ultra-portables ever. So out of curiosity, I checked what people were saying about this. And lo behold, I came across this Thinkpad X220 review on Engadget.
More than the scintillating review, which was equally all agog with the performance, the best part on the engadget review post was the comments section. There was a hillarious war that took place between Apple fanboys and IBM old-timers. And the later literally destroyed the Apple fanboys. There were some very informative, some very hillarious and some highly scathing remarks from both sides, mostly from the IBM'ers and I found their views very sound and balanced. The conclusion I found was simple, Apple is not the only company which makes well thought out, one of its kind machines - a view smartly propagated by their fanboys. But even IBM also makes some really really well thoght out, rugged products, catering to the needs of a different creed (the programmers, the engineers) that I identify with more, than I do with the Apple crowd.
While Apple gadgets are excellent and well designed beyond doubt, what I have started to realise is that they are also subjected to some real high marketing hype, which is like some kinda (unintended) FUD, generated through those users who "want to buy laptops which matches with their clothes and shoes". Or sometimes through those who are switching from Windows to Mac platform, and have obviously got impressed.
Mac OS X vs Ubuntu
Taking a clue, I tried to find out how someone who has switched from Linux to Mac, finds the new envioronment. And I was so lucky, I came across this blog-post by a programmer who switched from Ubuntu to Mac out of curiosity. If I had gone on to switch to Macbook, it would have been a Deja-Vu vis-a-vis this blog. So very similar a condition. I read with interest. And there I came to know that I wont have much to expect from Mac, except for some jazzy new UI luxury. Till the novelty wears out, that is. The fact that a long time Ubuntu user who was a programmer and hence a power user himself, finds Ubuntu to be the ultimate programmer's OS, after spending time on both sides of the fence, and returns back to Ubuntu, was enough of a testimony for me to start removing Macs from my wishlist, slowly but certainly.
