Subnotes

I’ve got two ‘subnotes’ in the house here. An Asus eee PC and a MacBook Air. Yes, it’s true that the MacBook cost five times the cost of the eee PC but the differences are startling.

Attribute	MacBook Air	eee PC
Screen res/size	13″ @ 1280×800	7 inch @ 800×480
Screen border	<1 inch	1 inch+
Weight	3 lbs	2 lbs
Thickest point	0.76 inches	1.4 inches
Processor	1.6 GHz dual-core	630 MHz Celeron-M
RAM	2 GB	512 MB
Storage	80 GB (70 GB free)	4 GB (1.3 GB free)
Battery	4 hours	2 hours
Keyboard	Full size, backlit	Cramped hunt-n-peck
Software	Mac OS X plus iLife	Linux

The real question becomes one of why the MacBook air is now being touted as the “one to beat” as if the PC industry was poising itself for defeat just like they did with the iPod. It’s true that Apple tends to attract focus in terms of free publicity but the more apt comparison would be with the Lenovo X300 which is, feature for feature, relatively comparable to the Air, but a lot more expensive and a lot uglier.

I do mention the looks of the machine and, let’s face it, that’s not going to matter to someone who’s used to Linux or Windows. But I appreciate a machine that’s well put together, that doesn’t flex and creak when you lift it and which is easy to carry. Again – like Mac OS X, it’s more than just an aesthetic. The Air is very thin which means that if you’re carrying it with books/papers then it just fits in. The eee PC needs a bit more attention because it’s an awkward shape (half A4, 1.4 inches thick at the widest point) and in a bag, the awkward shape is liable to deform or damage other things in the bag. I’d certainly think twice about carrying the two together in a bag.

I don’t like the eee PC. It’s a perfect example of you get what you pay for. The plastic is cheap and ugly, there’s a strange amount of flex in the unit, sleep functions are almost entirely absent and how anyone can work on that keyboard with that screen. And it’s so sluggish. Yes, it boots up marginally quicker than the MacBook Air but then the MacBook Air has better battery life and very seldom needs rebooted (as Sleep works!) whereas the eee PC needs rebooted often. And the wireless? Is it just Linux? Can’t it ‘just work’. Can’t it automatically reconnect to my two different WiFi networks? Why does it need reconnected manually every time?

To be honest, I’d be more likely to wonder where the utility of the eee PC comes in when compared to the iPod touch, the Nokia N810 and other such devices. It’s the bare minimum of a computer – the UI, capabilities and portability of the N810 and iPod touch leave it far behind.