

Dell launches purported MacBook Air killer - snydeq
http://www.infoworld.com/article/09/03/17/Dell_launches_purported_MacBook_Air_killer_1.html

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dandelany
I've seen very little evidence, based on Air sales, that it is popular enough
to warrant killing.

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unalone
Where do you get your sales info from? I've never seen sales numbers for the
Air, and I'm curious to see what they're like.

Dell can't use this to compete with the Air. The Air's a luxury product -
possibly the only real luxury laptop. It's for people who really, really,
really like beautiful things that feel good, and who don't mind the fact that
for that you're paying more than you would for a more powerful computer. Dell
doesn't make luxury computers. I doubt they're skilled enough to make
computers that work beautifully enough to deserve a luxury. Furthermore, you
can't "kill" items in the luxury market.

This is more a computer whose form was influenced a lot by the Air. That's it.
It's not as pretty but it's still thin, and it's a lot cheaper since chances
are Dell will try to sell it to people who _aren't_ rich.

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noamsml
That's a very nice way of saying the Air is for idiots who have too much money
and are more impressed by shiny stuff than by real merit.

~~~
unalone
If by "shiny stuff" you mean "it works really nice and feels good," then yes.
That's what I'm saying.

I guess people who pay money for wallpaper are stupid? It serves no practical
purpose. I guess people who buy expensive desks rather than cheap wooden ones,
they're stupid? Or people who'll buy a sports car rather than a smart car? The
people who'll pay money for an original painting? All really, really stupid,
right?

There's a sort of design deficiency in the world of hackers and programmers.
I'm certain it's not _just_ among us, but it's here that I see it most. People
really don't seem to notice things like feel and look and effect. For a lot of
people a design is just a long list of features.

The Macbook Air is not a machine for people who want features. It's a machine
for people who want to feel a delight when they look at their computer, for
people who enjoy the feel of a really light computer tucked under their arm.
It's got a beautiful form and it feels beautiful when you have it open on your
lap and typing feels beautiful. Those aren't features. There isn't a site that
rates how good it feels to type on a computer. There's no score for this.

That said, calling good design "shiny" and saying it lacks "real merit" is
pretty damn stupid, and I find the people who look at the Macbook Air and say
they don't get it a little bit despicable. It's a bad attitude that gets
people nowhere and encourages deliberate blindness.

(Another way to put it is: what do you have to gain from seeing movies in a
movie theater? It's expensive and the food is bad and unless you're sitting
particularly close to the screen, there's nothing that it offers you that a
huge TV doesn't - with one exception, which is the experience of going to a
movie theater. Good design is an experience.)

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laut
This "killer" talk is lame. It won't kill anything.

I remember seeing the Air at the top of the laptops sales charts on the
Apple.com store.

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bunnyhero
at 4 lbs it's too heavy to compete with the air.

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TweedHeads
The Air is thinner, way thinner. Adamo looks more like a cheap Macbook,
therefore it should compete in the lower end segment, and price, specially
price.

~~~
ggruschow
Depends on what you consider "thinner".. The Dell would fit in a 3mm smaller
slot but won't cut cake as well.

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ajju
The MacBook air is a so-so piece of hardware with a world class operating
system. Dell can easily best the Air at hardware but definitely not at
software (unless Apple frees Leopard)

~~~
noamsml
Why not? Dell sells Ubuntu laptops.

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unalone
Ubuntu is not world-class. I think Ubuntu might be close to competing with
Windows, though it still lacks a lot of basic stuff. Both Ubuntu and Windows
(up to and including Windows 7) are still years away from being on the same
plane as OS X. (My policy is, until I see a text editor as good as TextEdit on
another operating system, I won't even consider a comparison between the two.)

~~~
jpd

       My policy is, until I see a text editor as good as 
       TextEdit on another operating system, I won't even 
       consider a comparison between the two.
    

You forgot to mention your first axiom:

    
    
      1) Nothing is as good as TextMate.
    

Be realistic here: VI(M), Notepad++, and Emacs are all great text editors.

~~~
unalone
Sorry - I was referring to non code-focused editors. The great thing about
TextEdit is that it looks like Notepad when I launch it, and yet it has
incredible support for design, typography, layout, and positioning. I can
write most school papers in it, but it still looks and feels ultrasimple.

TextMate does some awesome stuff, from what I've heard, but it's much more
focused on coding. TextEdit is more general-purpose, which is why it's my
standard. Until another OS spends as much time making a kickass all-purpose
editor, it probably hasn't got the level of detail that I want in my operating
system.

~~~
jpd
Oh, woops! Misread TextEdit for TextMate! That said, I find that Wordpad is a
fantastic simplistic tool for creating school papers. For Linux I tend to use
the slightly more complex (yet still very clean) LyX.

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unalone
Wordpad is really good, but it lacks the wow factor of TextEdit (which I'm
slightly addicted to).

I've never used LyX; forgive me if this is a dumb question, but is it
available for Ubuntu? I might boot up a virtual machine and give it a try if
so.

~~~
sharkbrainguy
Sure is, it's in the repo so "sudo apt-get install lyx" should grab it.

It's also available for Windows/OS X so you might be better off just trying it
on your primary OS.

<http://www.lyx.org/>

I don't think you're going to find the kind of simplicity you enjoy in
TextEdit though.

Personally I use text-editors e.g. vim, for every kind of writing I do, code
or not.

Plaintext formats like <http://eleanor.rubyforge.org/> (for screenplays) and
Taskpaper (for planning/todo lists) are really helpful for this sort of thing.

