Picking up from Lia’s Post over at Gadgenista, I’d like to post my thoughts regarding the Eee PC and MacBook Air comparison started by Juned on our private b5media google groups.
I’d like to take this chance to post my thoughts on this matter. I really feel that this is an unfair comparison. On one hand you have the MacBook Air which is somewhat an ultra portable computer. I can’t fully say that it’s ultra portable because while it’s thin it still has a large foot print. Although fitting it in a Manila envelope, this leaves room for argument. On the other had you have the Eee PC which is thicker than the MacBook Air but with it’s small foot print it can really fit in a small bag. You can even compare it to a medium sized book.
One costs $1800 and the other $400. If price is what you’re after, the Eee PC wins hands down. You can buy 4 of them for one MacBook Air.
The Eee PC is great if you want a small laptop that you stow in a small bag and bring around. However with this small size comes compromises. One it’s got an old celeron processor. It also has a small albeit solid state hard drive. The biggest capacity so far is an 8GB model which means that an iPod Touch 16GB has more storage than it. So that means you won’t be bringing around your music or video collection with you.
The Eee PC has a customized Linux OS installed. It features open source software that can be used to email, surf, chat and communicate. All the software bundled are open source and/or freely available. Hence the cheap cost of the Eee PC.
Unless you’re just a casual user, the Eee PC will never be your primary computer. It just has too little space for it to become a primary computer. It is however great as a secondary computer. With the affordable price if it gets lost you won’t cry as much.
The MacBook Air is simply a much more powerful computer. It’s running a current generation processor. It offers enough power to run the latest Mac OS X applications. The MacBook Air can run intensive apps such as Adobe Photoshop. In fact the MacBook Air would probably run circles around my old PowerBook G4. I was able to use that for my design work. So I’m confident that if needed the MacBook Air could probably do the same. Although it won’t be as fast as the MacBook Pro I’m using now, but it can. The Eee PC can’t do this.
The MacBook Air features a 13.3 inch screen which is perfectly usable to a whole day at work without straining your eyes. Try working one whole day with the Eee PC and I’m sure it won’t be pleasant. It’s also the 13.3 inch screen that gives the MBA a still big footprint.
Jayvee of Celphone9 said that he doesn’t need the MacBook Air since he already has a black MacBook. This is true if he already has a MacBook then he probably won’t benefit from a MacBook Air unless he travels a lot. But see, if really needed, he can replace his MacBook with an MBA and he’s still be able to do most of his work. I doubt the Eee PC will be enough to replace his MacBook. Unless all he’ll be doing is blogging. But that means saying good bye to managing photos and doing edits on them.
With all due respect to Lia’s statement, the MacBook Air is not a glorified Eee PC because the MacBook Air can do so much more than the Eee PC can. Same as the Eee PC is not a crippled MacBook Air. Both products target a different market.
In my opinion the Eee PC is suited for students, people who want a connectivity device while they travel, people who only surf, email and want to keep in contact with friends and relatives. While The MacBook Air is geared towards executives or road warriors who need a much more powerful computer for work. The MacBook Air will allow them to work on their documents, emails, photos, presentations, etc.
So it’s really an unfair comparison. What do yo think?
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