Acer, Asus slash 'Ultrabook' orders by 40%, struggle against MacBook Air - Page 2

Most "switchers" I'm acquainted with are just plain tired of their "PC" experience. Some of them are leveraging their iDevice to revisit the Mac platform. Some, like the waitress at my local favorite restaurant, saved up tips for almost a year to buy a MacBook Pro, and gushed at me the next time I was in the restaurant how much she loved it. Interestingly, even though she hadn't budgeted for it, she also purchased both the AppleCare and the One-to-One training as well. They set it up with her at the store after the purchase, so it was fully operational before she left. Her first session in One-to-One that same week they transferred her data and started her out on the adjustments from PC to Mac. She is one happy customer! I asked why she would pass up cheaper computers for the Apple, and she said that she wanted something that had better value, and that she anticipated owning the MBP for quite a few years. And that all started because her boyfriend bought her an iPod Touch I guess. But she loved the personal attnetion they gave her during setup and training.

So people are willing to spend hard-earned dollars for something they see as having significant value for the price, even people with little money - like this waitress - want something of better value, and will wait until they can afford it.

Whether the buyers are motivated by quality or status symbols, Apple has taken total control of the high end of the portable computer market. this lackluster reception of these new Windows copy cat "ultrabooks" proves that beyond any doubt.

and adding Windows 8/Mango eye candy a year or more from now is not going to change that. Apple will upgrade its hardware and improve its software/cloud next year too. including expanded iOS integration with OS X.

no matter how much they soup up the hardware, in market perception Asus/Acer = Ford/Chevy. Sony the closest PC OEM = Lincoln/Cadillac, but they are lost and wandering these days, losing their cred (Samsung hopes to take their place). none of them = Lexus/BMW in market perception. but Apple does.

Same here!

I think you are over complicating this somewhat. There is 1 thing at play, and backed up by many many statistics over the years:

1. Apple sell the vast majority of PCs that cost over $1000.

So for Asus, Acer and anyone else who thinks they can muscle in on a premium market they don't understand was always optimistic at best.

It's one thing to not invent something, but as Steve said, when other people have done it already, how stupid do you have to be to not even know what to copy, and what not?

Notice the title of the review at Ars. The trackpad is always pointed as one of the nicest features of a MacBook. Sounds like the screen could be better as far as lighting goes (top and bottom half of the screen not similar brightness).

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/revie...g-trackpad.ars

We may be entering an era where people will be buying their last computer, or at least a computer that they hope to keep semi-permanently, like you do with a Stove or a TV set.

If so, buying a high quality item is well worth the extra money. Maybe we will see a gradual evolution away from disposable computers, as=nd towards the higher end of the market?

I like the Q&A Jobs gave at the 1997 WWDC where he addressed the old Apple slogan of Think Different. Jobs plainly stated, "If we can be much better without being different, that would be fine with me. I want to be much better. I dont care about being different."

PS: I wonder where this douche bag is now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-tKLISfPE

Yeah - I saw that. Another review mentioned a driver update that helped calm things down.

If the Zenbook is indicative of things to come, I'm all for it. But how long until Wireless N is common enough to make up for the lack of ports?

These other vendors can never get the trackpad right. I remember when the HP Envy came on the scene with its large, multitouch trackpad with integrated buttons. "It's just like Mac notebooks!" people cried until they tried to use one. More than a few reviews of the machines noted that you'll need an external mouse to make use of the machine. I think I recall one even saying that's not a big deal because gamers already do that.


It's been how many years since multi-touch trackpads were available and Synaptic has included basic drivers, yet they still suck. It's arguably one of the key HW/firmware features on any notebook that needs to be great.

Just was helping my brother buy a PC. He cannot afford Mac (although I tried to convince him). So he needs to stay under 900. Try to find 'quality' PC in that price range (let alone higher). We searched reliability etc high and low. JUNK OUT THERE. Ended up with Thinkpad T520 i5, with SSD. for $900. Thinkpads are 'ok' quality, not the rock they once were. Trying to find a 'quality' machine is very difficult

Did you mention total cost of ownership? If he has to wait a month to save up the extra money it's well worth it in the long run. So far buying iPhones has been a great investment as I can upgrade to the newest model and sell the old one without any cost to myself.

Just gotta know where to look. I know an online / retail location selling new Core 2 Duo based MacBook Air 11" models for $899. PM me if you want the link. I'm not gonna spam the forums. Apple also has some great refurbished deals on their website that come and go daily. Look for it.

However, if you really want a PC instead of Mac OS, I guess a ThinkPad will do, but they don't make them like they used to. The T series is nice, but the newer ThinkPad Edge models are ThinkPads in name only... What a shame.

You might want to get your ears checked, or borrow the wayback machine to revisit the majority of consumer press reviews of the first two generations of the MBA.

"Overpriced for what you get" was just the lead in...

Bought a MB Air a month ago and love it!


Unfortunately, I need in my profession to run Windas-only programs (esp. the expensive but essential ChemBio Office suite). The MBA takes just 20 secs to open Windas 7 64 in VMWare and ChemOffice from a cold start - brilliant!

FWIW, I read a recent review that Parallels is considerably faster, so you might be able to reduce that time even more.

I'm not sure if you remember the original macbook air. It held a very limited appeal because it didn't really hit the right combination on price, performance, etc. I like the rigidity of these things quite a bit. I'd just like to see them run a bit cooler when fully taxed, and come with enough ram to last more than one OS version. I hate the disposable device mentality.


Apple started a lot earlier. It's what happens if you try to ride someone else's success. The other problem here is that these silly manufacturers are just looking at what Apple is doing rather than examining their own customer base. They should look at what people who don't see OSX as an option want. Not all of them simply want cheap hardware.



It's not quite the difference you're suggesting here. OSX has had plenty of persistent bugs too. I think their pricing will become more competitive if any of them stick with it. With Apple their first macbook air generation was much more expensive even if that was partially driven by the cost of SSDs at the time.



The mac pro pricing isn't very good at all. At the 12 core level it's pretty close to the PC guys but you get about half the hardware features (others have built in esata, native SAS support, more drive bays, etc) without spending a lot extra. At their starting point the pricing is terrible.

When they first brought out the mac pro, the starting configuration was really pretty basic on workstation features, but it was priced really competitively outside of the high cost of specialized ram (no matter where you purchased it). Since then it's gone in somewhat of a bad direction. Apple needed more people trying out mac pros in place of PC workstations around the time of Windows Vista regardless of what OS they had to use. This would have given them the opportunity to ship these things in better volume.


Companies like Autodesk actually certify some Windows only products on Parallels. It's not a bad product. If you're using it for anything heavy I'd go for more ram than would be required for OSX alone.


This really wouldn't be a bad thing. There are some engineering issues to deal with in making this work for mobile devices. People expect to close laptops as soon as they're done working. With as hot as macbook pros can get, this can put quite a bit of stress on the machine. The transition to lower wattage parts should really help there.

I think you hit the nail on the head.

People are overwhelmingly choosing computers under $1000. The biggest competition for the $999 Zenbook is coming from the likes of the $399 15" Dell with similar specifications.

The MBA has OSX as a differentiator. Ultrabooks have no such luxury, and it appears people are finding it hard to justify the $600 premium.

The PC OEM's need to get these prices down before they will start shipping in volume. Maybe not to the $399 level, but at least somewhere in-between like $699.

Not to mention how well iPads, iPod Touches, iPhones, and ATV2 combine with the Macs.

For example, while I would like my ATV2 to play 1080p videos, it was easy to setup, and my 6 year old uses it to stream movies from iTunes and Netflix.

Setting up a WD media box at my sisters, and the UI wasn't as clean, and it had some issues with the router.

Having less headaches is worth it for me.

I think you are right.

This isn't about ASUS v's Apple but Microsoft v's Apple. As the world becomes more affluent they are spending more money on ICT. Even the less well off are spending a larger percentage of their money on ICT, which makes Apple not a luxury anymore.

As an avid Android fan, I do not see iPhone 4S, iPad, or the comming Apple TV as a big threat to Android. Big competition - yes, threat - no.

The biggest threat to Android is Apples growth in iMac and Macbook sales. Everywhere I look, people are changing from windows to apple for their laptops and desktops. Apple have made significant progress in this area over the last few years, and this is just accelerating. Maybe iPhone etc are helping push this a bit, but it will be Apple beating Microsoft in the top end ICT arena that will be Androids biggest threat.

He's nobody. A critic. A hater. Critics destroy. They criticize, complain, talk, whine. (and troll on forums like this). But they never build anything.

Steve's answer to the guy's question is right: you can't sell $6-$8 billion in product if you start with the technology and try fit it to the customer experience. You have to start from the customer experience and build technology to achieve that. History shows that Steve followed through with that, and look at where Apple is today. That whiny douchebag who was complaining about Apple abandoning OpenDoc? I think everyone knew OpenDoc was a failure by 1997, and it wasn't going to save Apple from bankruptcy.

BTW, I hope that guy is still around so he can show his grandkids that YouTube video of gramps being a spiteful, small-minded ant barking at Steve Jobs in 1997.

Uhm... MacBook Air?
Just a thought. \

This was always to be.


Intel upped their prices by something like 50% above expectations.
People are just too used to buying $500 laptops.

Just watched the PBS show on Steve and apparently, he envisioned the iPad 30 years ago at Apple. It wasn't just that he envisioned a slate/tablet computer, either. He envisioned it revolutionizing the print media and other things, as well.

Which of course some people will say he was just riffing on the Dynabook, but I watched the same documentary and the way that journalist described it, it came out very close to what they were discussing. Reminds me of how David Fincher's crew was talking about Fight Club and how when they were first envisioning some scenes he was describing a car that would be in a background shot and 2 years later that exactly detailed, beatup car that had nothing really to do w/the film was there just as he had described it 2 years before. Attention to detail and staying focused on them are very interesting traits.

General consumers will look at it and say "its not cheap like that Dell over there".

Computer literate people like myself and many others will simply touch on some very big problems:

• I think the SSDs are the same in each machine and the 11" Asus is the same price as the 11" Air. £849.
  
• The Asus has double the SSD capacity and double the RAM but it falls short in other areas and you can tell this is where they've saved money to match the price point.
  
• The sound system in the Asus is standard analogue stereo audio - the Air is studio quality analogue audio with S/PDIF optical support in combo jacks - Asus is just a headphone jack. The Asus may have better built in speakers but it means nothing when the sound card is just the standard intel chipset.
  
• Mini HDMI and Mini VGA are useless and rare - especially when the Air has Thunderbolt that can do HDMI + VGA + DVI + Mini Display.
  
• The screen is the absolute biggest let down on the Asus: very poor contrast of approx. 144:1 compared to the 634:1 for the 11" Air. I've got a Compaq with a similar contrast ratio and I, honestly, would feel conned paying £849 and getting a monitor on par with a £299 Compaq. The brightness is also very uneven.

Yeah woo more RAM and Disk Space, but is it worth it for that monitor and sound-card? I think the WebCam is standard VGA as well but don't quote me on that...

The speakers and headphone jack were both said to sound kiind of tinny and not that great in the Ars review. Also the Facetime camera in the MBA is a 0.3MP VGA camera just like the ASUS one.

I was under the impression it was a HD cam in the Air given it was a "Facetime" camera. My bad then

So the speakers, ports AND the soundcard are cheap and crappy - so much for those premium speakers...

I'm puzzled by the idea that the release of Windows 8 will fuel a huge explosion in Ultrabook sales.

Is the idea that people will be looking to upgrade and take the usual "just buy a new computer" path? That might work if the replacement computer is a Walmart tower for $400 with monitor, but not for a $1,000 laptop. That's a considered purchase. At which point one might consider the real deal, which can run Windows 8 if you wish.

Or maybe it's that Windows 8 makes the Ultrabook experience better? I'm not seeing how, unless the plan is to give those Ultrabooks touch-screens, in which case we're talking about an expensive gimmick (which, given the track record of Windows box assemblers, doesn't actually seem that far fetched).

Yeah the difference is the MBP has the Facetime HD camera, the MBA just has Facetime. The speakers themselves might be good,m but if you have a shitty soundcard driving them....




Currently they can't manage to give better screens to MBA competitors that cost the same or more, how are they going to roll touch screens in there while still maintaining screen quality and price? I don't see that happening. Plus there is the old issue about using a touch screen at arm's length. It's one thing having a tablet sitting in your lap, but having your arm stretched out to the desktop for extended periods....not so interesting.

It's interesting to note that tech seems to be coming more and more into alignment with Apple's way of doing things.

Apple has always emphasized a personal relationship with their devices, working very hard to create satisfaction across the entire product experience-- from purchase to packaging to set up, from hardware and software and most especially the interaction of the two-- Apple explicitly intends to "delight" with a kind of intimacy.

Now, in the era of dirt cheap PC towers, all of this could be dismissed as a kind of fetishistic affectation for a "particular kind" of customer, as Apple haters were eager to remind us. The idea that subtle details, careful attention to intangibles, deep integration, and most certainly the notion of a machine capable of "delighting" were anything worth paying for was not only anathema to the "I can build that for $5" brigade, but an actual source of disgust.

Flash forward to now. Mobility rules the roost. Touch is taking over. What does that mean for our relationship to the devices we use? It becomes more intimate. We care more about the details, because the way we use them is more tightly coupled to the hardware. Big ugly beige boxes you can stick under the desk. Now we carry and touch our phones, tablets and laptops, and those represent the majority of our daily computing experiences.

I think the Air beats the competition because when you're purchasing a featherweight laptop you want to really, really like it. You want to smile every time you use it. The PC world has only ever been about delivering at a price point, and making you smile is tacked on as a feature, if at all.

Right, a touchscreen on a laptop is ergonomically disastrous, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if one or more manufacturers use same to "differentiate" their product, once it ships with Windows 8. After all, there will be a huge media storm around the Windows 8, and its touch abilities will be front and center. To the point that plain old desktop Windows 8 may suddenly look sort of old school.

Sure, a touch screen would add cost, but it wouldn't be out of character for the Windows box assemblers to cut corners elsewhere in order to deliver that all important bullet point.

And now, who say Macs are more expensive than PC.

I'm new to this forum, but as I was reading up on the ASUS Zenbook and the MacBook Air, I couldn't help but notice this post. So, here's my two cents:

I bought my MacBook Air about two months ago and loved it! Last month, I attended the Gartner Symposium 2011 in Orlando and learned of the ASUS Zenbook. So, upon my return from the conference, I placed an order for the Zenbook. To my surprise, the company I ordered it through told me it wouldn't be delivered until 12/2/11. What?! I thought you have to be kidding. Anyway, it arrived ahead of schedule last Thursday.

Now, I've been using it everyday since and I have to tell you, I love it more and more the more I use it AND I have been using my MacBook Air less and less. Don't get me wrong, the Air is a great machine, but I live and work in a Windows world and to be honest, the first thing I did after booting up the Air was to download the latest VMware software and install Windows 7 as a virtual machine. It's the only way I can get any work done.

So, my purpose for posting here is to say that I wouldn't be so quick to say that ASUS is out of the picture. Their slow start may be supply chain related. I think they will pick up a lot of momentum as more and more people get their hands on the product. I'm evaluating it for the company I work for and for now, it looks like we'll be ordering 80 to 100 more in the coming months. It's an early outlook, but the performance is really looking good so far. As an aside, we are currently running on Dell Latitude laptops that are too heavy to be useful.

Good luck to all and I look forward to checking back in early 2012 to see where the ASUS Zenbook is in the lineup at that time. Cheers!