the MacBook Air it's helping make Apple
the hottest laptop maker on earth so
that begs one question isn't there
something else
I'm Brian Cooley with the top five
alternatives to a MacBook Air these are
all Windows machines by the way but
that's fair since the MacBook Air runs
Windows just fine through boot camp
number five is the Lenovo ThinkPad x1
now like most thing pads and unlike a
lot of other Windows laptops this guy
doesn't feel like it's made by Mattel
it's rock solid with a clean look and
Intel Core i5 CPU like some of the new
MacBook Airs solid-state drives
available and it has a webcam that works
really well in low light you won't
realize how much you'll like that until
you have it for all those little nasty
videos you shoot that I don't want to
see on the downside that solid
construction gives this 13-inch machine
kind of a porky weight about 3.8 pounds
versus 2.3 for the same size MacBook Air
and the battery life on this guy is
weaker as well number four the Dell XPS
15z this is the thinnest 15-inch Windows
laptop out there with an available full
1080p display to take advantage of that
big screen size and a nice metal case to
give you that luxury hand feel that
Apple MBAs have in spades now a MacBook
Air trait you won't get here is battery
life
we got a mere three and a half hours in
our video playback test compare that to
six and three quarters from the 13-inch
MacBook Air the sweet spot price for
this guy though is pretty good around
1,200 bucks
number three the toshiba portage a r 835
it's also powered by the Core i5 Intel
chip as a battery that lasts three hours
longer than the last model for a full
seven hours that's even nosing out the
13-inch MacBook Air also the price is
pretty good for this guy about 800 bucks
that's cheap for this class what it's
missing is sexy this is not a machine
you'll ever have to wipe any drool off
of number two is the samsung series 9
this little hottie has one thing even a
MacBook Air doesn't have an even more
outrageous price
at 1650 list this machine requires a
commitment and probably a second shift
to pay for it it's the most direct
assault on the MacBook Air though with
the same weight solid-state drive five
and a half hour battery life stylish
lines and a really good display and it's
all powered by the latest Intel Core i5
but you know even for this money it
doesn't quite have that machine from an
ingot feeling of quality still it's hot
but make sure you shop aggressively for
price if you're gonna buy one of these
always check the links to the best
merchants prices in the CNET review okay
here's the number one ultra portable you
want to carry when you don't want to
carry anything with an Apple logo it's
the Sony Vaio Z thin light powerful blah
blah blah that's basically par for the
course at this point but two things set
this guy apart this interesting docking
station that graphs on an optical drive
including blu-ray ability a bunch of
extra ports and a dedicated AMD Radeon
6630 graphics processor we've never seen
anybody create an ultra light with that
kind of range that we'd actually want to
own oh the other big difference it's a
fortune a voz starts at 2 grand
well you asked for number one Dan
Ackerman and Scott Steiner are busy
every week digesting the latest ultra
light laptops and you're gonna want to
find their reviews at CNS laptop review
section it's right there on the front
door and for more top 5s like this and
links to all the reviews of these
machines go to top-5 cnet.com i'm brian
coulis thanks for watching
you
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