If I would need a new machine, Thinkpads are the way to go. My T61p still is an excellent machine. I have yet to find a keyboard that performs as well!
Regarding battery life, an hour is too short, but any time that you really need to be productive, concentrate and get something done, a power outlet is never that far.
My runner up would be the Samsung. Support is not quite as good as Lenovo, but still reasonable.
High-end 13-inch laptops
by ZDNet Author | May 17, 2011 12:00pm PDT | Image 1 of 4
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The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 is the thinnest ThinkPad ever made, and it's a slim, cleanly designed 13-incher worth a look for business travelers--but it's not as thin as a MacBook Air, and its battery life isn't as good, either.
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.. that's rich: "this light, well-featured, and striking 13-incher is the closest the Windows world will ever come to a MacBook Air". Dude, you can always install Windows on a MacAir and turn it into an actual PC rather than a fashion statement. As for this Samsung, the high price is somewhat justified, compare the specs on the two of them and you'll find that a similar equiped Air (with I5 not the old Core Duo and with an SSd) is more expensive. So either the Apple praising machine is hard at work, or whoever done this... "article".. should actually charge Apple: no point in doing it for free mate.
I love these machines but they're too expensive. I the performance available here, I need more like atom with better graphics. Why is there a gaping hole in the market between atom netbooks (10 inch, 1024 by 600) and these sorts of machines? In terms of specs these are much better than twice as good as a netbook, so they are also more than twice as much. Surely there's space for something in between. The author is right - any small laptop needs to look and feel really sharp, it is part of the appeal.
I've been running the Seagate hybrid drives in three laptops over the past year or so. In one, a Dell Latitude 2100 10-incher with an Atom and 2GB RAM, the added performance actually makes it enjoyable to use, although the 7200 rpm will drain the battery quicker than a 5400 rpm. For a 100 bucks I would say upgrading to a Momentus XT should be considered to maybe help fill the "gap" simon@ mentioned. Still waiting for WD to produce a hybrid - I'll be all over that, but looks like it won't be this year (see storagereview dot com/western_digital_hybrid_hard_drive_works). Although the Seagate drives come with a three year warranty (and I have not yet seen a failure in mine or the many I have installed in customer machines) I would say just keep it backed up cause I'm no fanboi of reliability in Seagate products of late.
Your comparison of the MacBook Air to main stream Windows laptops is flawed. The MacBook Air is at best a bridge between a Netbook (what the Air used to be) and a full fledged laptop. The best 13 inch laptop is the MacBook Pro with Core i7.
The current infatuation by laptop makers with the 16:9 aspect ratio is going overboard. Dudes (ahem, product engineers), 16:9 is not optimal for an activity called "work" -- this is an activity that people sometimes (ahem) do on laptops.
And also, building screen resolutions less than 1440x900, will become harder to view websites and interact with ever more crowded PC desktop screens, and use applications that crowd evermore more toolbars and secondary windows onto the screen.
In addition, optimal viewing resolutions for many websites are increasing. (Remember when a 800x600 screen was big enough to view a webpage -- not anymore.)
And also, building screen resolutions less than 1440x900, will become harder to view websites and interact with ever more crowded PC desktop screens, and use applications that crowd evermore more toolbars and secondary windows onto the screen.
In addition, optimal viewing resolutions for many websites are increasing. (Remember when a 800x600 screen was big enough to view a webpage -- not anymore.)
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