Ultrabook to replace Air

Nymins

Nymins

Nymins

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After having a Macbook Air for a few months, I just can't get use to OS X and I'm looking to go back to a Windows based machine (I realise I can install Windows on the mac, but I'd prefer not to).

I much prefer the ultra book form factor, so I'm looking for something equal to or better than what I have now.

I've spotted the new 2014 XPS 13, which seems to tick all the boxes. One popped up on the Outlet for about £850inc which was i7, 8Gb ram, 256Gb SSD, FHD Touch display. So I'm going to check there fairly often to see if something similar pops up.

Budget is around £800, obviously the lower the better, but I'm looking for a fairly high res screen (don't care much for touch screen, but if its there all the better), 8Gb ram and a decent sized SSD. Probably pretty tough to find, and I've probably already answered my question with the Dell Outlet, but was wondering if you guys had any suggestions?

Cheers!
 
Yea I may hold out awhile whilst the price comes down on the Outlet. £750 seems to be the range for the i5, 4GB, 128GB SSD and £850 for the i7, 8GB, 256GB SSD.

Still not too if you compare to the Air, but closer to £700 for the i7 would be perfect.
 
Sorry, don't understand why you don't just install Windows on the Air which is highly regarded as the best ultra book form factor available.

I triple boot OSX, Windows and Ubuntu on mine. I wouldn't swap it for any Windows machine, it's awesome :)
 
pumaz said:
Sorry, don't understand why you don't just install Windows on the Air which is highly regarded as the best ultra book form factor available.

I triple boot OSX, Windows and Ubuntu on mine. I wouldn't swap it for any Windows machine, it's awesome :)
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I could but it would feel odd to me. I could give it a try and see how it goes I suppose. I realise its the same hardware as any other machine, but the big glowing Apple logo and running Windows feels wrong. Stupid I know but hey ho.

Don't have the room to dual boot as its only the 128GB SSD model. I've been trying to find a way to take an image of the hard drive in case I feel like going back to it, but don't have access to an external hard drive or network share.

I still have my Dell Inspiron 14z (N411z) which I used before the Air. Still a good laptop, so I'm half tempted just to sell the Air, keep the money and go back to my old one and wait until XPS prices go down.
 
I quite fancy an ultrabook, I bought myself a 10" netbook last year and threw an SSD in it. But I found myself using it a lot and a 1.0GHz AMD duel core doesn't cut it. But these ultrabooks are horrifically expensive :(
 
I have a VAIO Pro 13 with the i7 and the PCie ssd. Was a bit more than your budget though but they are discontinuing at the end of march so you might get some bargains after that.


Are the XPS13s on the outlet the current model or the last one?, haswell makes a massive difference to battery life.
 
Seen the vaio pro 13 and it looks very nice. Seen a couple pop up on the Sony outlet store too.

Yea the Xps 13s are mostly the Haswell models (9333 I think it is).
 
I have a Gigabyte X11. A great alternative to the 11 inch Air. Let down by the fact it comes with Windows 8 and the battery life is abysmal (around 3 hours under heavy load). But then again, you're never going to find an Ultrabook that'll come close to matching the battery life of the 11 and 13 inch Airs, at least not at the minute. And I'm never away from a power source for that long running it at full tilt anyway.

I have Debian running on mine and everything is fully supported. The bluetooth was the only thing I had trouble getting to work. But installing the firmware-atheros package under debian solved it with the ath3k driver.
 
Nymins said:
I could but it would feel odd to me. I could give it a try and see how it goes I suppose. I realise its the same hardware as any other machine, but the big glowing Apple logo and running Windows feels wrong. Stupid I know but hey ho.

Don't have the room to dual boot as its only the 128GB SSD model. I've been trying to find a way to take an image of the hard drive in case I feel like going back to it, but don't have access to an external hard drive or network share.

I still have my Dell Inspiron 14z (N411z) which I used before the Air. Still a good laptop, so I'm half tempted just to sell the Air, keep the money and go back to my old one and wait until XPS prices go down.
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You could buy a cheap USB stick and make a bootable OSX installer (easy to do just google) and keep it in a safe place then install Windows straight onto you Air. There's absolutely nothing wrong with running windows on a Air and I guarantee if you sell the Air you will regret it at some point.

If I was you I'd dual boot OSX and windows with maybe a tiny 20GB partition for OSX and the rest for windows and give it a couple of weeks before you make a decision.
 
You can easily dual boot OSX and Windows on a 128gb air.

I'd be interested to know what your particular gripes with OSX are. I find some things much better, and others much worse, but have adapted to it with the help of a few programs over time.
 
Making a bootable drive now just as a backup.

The OS isn't particularly bad, but I just can't seem to be as productive on it as I am on Windows. Probably because I use Windows 7 and Server 8 hours a day at work. Coming home to the mac just makes doing things feel slower.

Don't really like the way it handles application installations/removal, file management, apps that don't take up the whole screen when opened, and a few little bugs that have come up like icons disappearing, Finder not refreshing itself to show a file thats been moved or downloaded.

The hardware is the best part. Excellent battery life and the trackpad is fantastic, even in Windows on a VM.
 
daver said:
I have a VAIO Pro 13 with the i7 and the PCie ssd. Was a bit more than your budget though but they are discontinuing at the end of march so you might get some bargains after that.


Are the XPS13s on the outlet the current model or the last one?, haswell makes a massive difference to battery life.
Click to expand...

Biggest issue with the Vaio Pro 13 is the carbon fibre body isn't stiff enough so when you open the screen which rises the ultraviolet up as it rests on the edge of the screen, the entire body flexes when typing.
If it wasn't designed to sit that way it wouldn't be an issue, and it's very nice hardware. Slightly on the expensive side though.
 
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