Apple, Design, Hardware

Apple Air versus Asus Eee: A Comparison

01.16.08 | Comments

I think we all agree: The Macbook Air is a gorgeous machine. During his keynote presentation, Steve Jobs whipped the entire Macworld audience into a fervor with his trademarked Apple enthusiasm for this new member of the Macbook family. With the Air we have an insanely light computer that still manages to fit in a 13.3″ screen and a screaming fast Core 2 Duo CPU.

airvseee

But while it’s undoubtedly a singular machine, is it really worth the $1799 price tag when you can get much of the same functionality with Asus’s $400 Eee? I understand that the Air is more in competition with Sony’s TZ line that Jobs mentioned in his keynote, but it seems foolish not to compare this sleek new laptop to Asus’s wunderkind subnotebook.

Here’s a quick rundown of how they compare:

 

Macbook Air

 Asus Eee
Size
(H x W x D)
 0.16” - 0.76” x 12.8” x 8.94” 1.38″ x 8.82″ x 6.5″
Weight 3lbs 2lbs
Display 13.3″ LED-backlit LCD 7″ LED-backlit LCD
CPU 1.6-1.8Ghz Core 2 Duo 900Mhz Celeron Mobile
RAM 2GB 512MB
Hard Drive 80GB 1.8″ (or 64GB solid state flash) 2-4GB solid state flash
OS Mac OSX Leopard Custom Linux Distro
Price $1799 $300-$400

Let’s go over some of these topics to further inspect the differences between these two tiny titans.

Size

The Air is being advertised as “the world’s thinnest notebook”, and for good reason. The machine is certainly going to draw its fair share of stares when it starts popping up in coffee houses in a few weeks. Its paper-thin design has set new standards for industrial design, which is not at all unusual for Apple. Unfortunately, that thinness has also led to all of the compromises that Apple has had to make for the machine.

The Asus Eee is nowhere near as thin, but its smaller screen allows it to be significantly smaller than the Air overall. When it comes to choosing ultraportable computers, the key of course is portability. The Air, while thin, is still going to require you to carry around a laptop sized sleeve, case, or bag throughout the day. Its thinness can also be a problem if you’re carrying it in the same bag as heavy textbooks.

The Eee, on the other hand, can be treated more like a paperback. Its small size means you have far more options when carrying it around, and as we’ll discuss later, it also has many hardware features which should make you worry less about jostling around your bag all day.

Weight

Here’s one area where the Eee has a considerable advantage over the Air. It’s also something that may make a significant difference to someone considering an extremely portable laptop. While it may not sound like much, the difference between 2lbs and 3lbs in your backpack is the sort of thing that’s noticeable over the course of a day.

Display

This may end up being a deal-breaker for some. The Eee admittedly has a small screen which may be too difficult to use for some users. It also has a tiny resolution compared to the Air, which means it would be less ideal for multitasking and working with photos and other media. Still, for web browsing, word processing, and other productivity-related tasks, the Eee’s small screen is adequate.

If you absolutely need a high resolution display, either for watching movies or for the breathing room when working with media files, then the Air is the clear choice for you.

CPU

The processor differences is another area where the Air has a clear advantage over the Eee. Sporting a custom Intel Core 2 Duo processor that is the “width of a dime” and “as thick as a nickel”, the Air packs a lot of power into a minuscule package. While it’s nearly a full gigahertz slower than the chips in the Macbooks and Macbook Pros, it’s still fast enough to handle media encoding and high-definition video playback.

The Eee, on the other hand, has a processor that’s often belittled among technophiles. The Celeron was never a very strong chip, but what it lacked in processing capabilities, it made up for in low power usage and cost. For the simple purposes of the Eee the Celeron chip is more than enough. In addition, using this chip is one of the best cost-saving decisions Asus made when developing the Eee.

RAM

The Air comes with 2GB of RAM standard, compared to 512MB of RAM with the Eee. The Eee is upgradeable to 1GB of RAM, however. While these numbers may sound like the Air is trouncing the Eee memory-wise, the truth is not that clear cut. The Eee needs less RAM to perform optimally than the Air due to its Linux operating system, whereas OSX Leopard eats up quite a bit of memory on the Air.

In addition, I’ve stressed that the Eee is meant to do less than a fully-decked out laptop or desktop. Since the practical use of the Eee is more limited than the Air, it’s a given that less RAM is required.

Hard Drive

The difference in hard drives is another wide disparity between the Air and the Eee. The Air uses an 80GB hard drive that is also found in Apple’s 80GB iPod Classic. There is an optional 64GB solid-state flash disk available, but at a $999 premium, it’s not worth the cost just yet. The Eee uses a 2-4GB solid-state flash disk, depending on which model you buy.

The size difference is certainly significant, but as I’ve stressed already, the Eee’s purposes are very different than the Air. For working with small documents, the Eee’s solid state disk is more than enough space. In addition, you can always expand the amount of available space by using a separate USB flash disk. With the rise of online office suites, I also suspect we’ll start keeping far less data on our computers than before.

The other benefit of the Eee’s disk is that it has no moving parts, which means less of a chance for data corruption when traveling around with the computer. In addition, the Eee’s flash disk is a much faster storage solution than the Air’s 1.8″ hard drive. As this Tom’s Hardware article shows, there is a significant performance penalty in using these sorts of hard drives.

While the Air seems like a clear choice for multimedia work because of the larger hard drive space, its 1.8″ hard drive may end up being too slow for people looking to do advanced multimedia editing and encoding.

Operating System

The Air is running Apple’s latest operating system, OSX Leopard. The Eee is running a customized version of Xandros Linux. There’s a lot written online about Leopard already, but simply put, if you’re a Mac lover your mind is probably already made up. If you want an operating system that’s well-known and compatible with a variety of popular hardware and software, then Leopard is the clear choice as well.

Asus’s chosen operating system, on the other hand, is more fine-tuned to take advantage of the particular strengths of the machine’s hardware. It consists of open-source applications like Mozilla Firefox and Open Office, and other useful software like Skype. You can install some other programs using the Eee’s rudimentary package manager, but it appears as if the choice of new applications is currently slim.

Both the Air and Eee are capable of running other operating systems as well. Techie types can still use Boot Camp to run Windows on the Air as well as take advantage of Mac Linux distributions. As for the Eee, you can easily wipe out the included operating system and install any version of Windows or Linux that you’d like.

Price

Here is where the Eee clearly triumphs over the Air. For a smaller, albeit less powerful, computer, you end up spending at least $1300 less for the Eee than you would for the Air. The Eee is clearly a much better value, especially if you only need basic computing capabilities in an ultra-portable format.

The Air’s $1799 retail price also puts it in competition with Apple’s own Macbook and Macbook Pro. For $1099, you can get a Macbook with a faster processor, faster hard drive, and a weight gain of only 2lbs. For $1999 you can get an even faster overall machine, the Macbook Pro, with a dedicated 3D graphics card, bigger and faster hard drive, and a weight gain of only 2.4lbs.

In short, it seems that the Air is a bit of a luxury item that I honestly wouldn’t recommend to any of my friends on value alone. On the other hand, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the Eee to someone looking for a cheap ultraportable laptop.

In the Air’s defense, it is priced competitively with the lowest priced Sony TZ ultraportable laptops while offering a bigger screen.

other considerations

I’ll throw the Air a bone and take some time to discuss its features that don’t fall into the above categories. Perhaps most importantly, the Air features a full-sized keyboard, which is a rarity among ultraportable laptops. While I know I can get used to typing on the Eee’s small keyboard, I could see it being a showstopper for some folks.

And let me just be frank about the Air: It’s a dead sexy machine in ways the Eee could never hope to be. If you’re the sort of person with money to spare and a penchant for high fashion, I’m sure you’ve already preordered your Air. The Eee is a cute machine, but it simply does not exhibit the sort of commitment to industrial design and drool-worthiness that Apple has built its reputation on. Then again, the Eee is also a truly amazing machine in its own right given what it offers for the price.

The multitouch trackpad is also another noteworthy feature of the Air, but I assure you it will be popping up in future revisions of the Macbook and Macbook Pro. If that is at all a major factor in your decision to purchase the Air, then I suggest waiting a few months until it’s transitioned to the other members of the Macbook family.

Final Words: Eee for value, Air for style

After comparing the Macbook Air and the Asus Eee, it’s clear that Apple’s new notebook is not that great of a value compared to Asus’s surprise hit. The Air wins in overall sex appeal, raw horsepower, and a bigger screen. At the same time, the Eee is simply a more practical machine for those who only need a secondary machine to word process and browse the internet on the go.

CrunchGear is running a great article on the “uselessness” of the Air which boils down many of my issues with it succinctly:

The MacBook Air is not a subnotebook. The Eee and Everex, and Redfly are subnotebooks. They are tiny, basic, and are designed from the ground up to be micro-sized and limited. The Air is trying to be a regular notebook but failing - what Apple has done is take a regular notebook and flatten it (very well I might add), while simultaneously crippling it.

In addition, it doesn’t fair that well compared to other ultraportable laptops like the Sony TZ series because it lacks an optical drive, and many connectivity options.

I’m a practical person, and the Air is simply not a practical choice. Your money is better spent with the Macbook, or Macbook Pro if you’re looking for a dedicated computer. And if you’re just looking for something to accompany your desktop, then the Asus Eee is by far the superior choice.

Update: Battery Follow-Up

It’s been pointed out countless times that I forgot to compare the battery differences of these two machines.  Silly me:

In the comments below, Wing pointed out the biggest difference between the two battery-wise:

One big thing that some sites mentioned was that the Air doesn’t have a user-replacable battery. [Emphasis mine] It can be switched by an Apple tech but that’s only for when it dies. The eee on the other hand has a user-switchable battery. I can imagine it being very useful when you;re on the road (where you will be taking these things) and need an extra battery or two. Asus is also coming out with six-cell batteries which will probably last quite a bit.

It sounds like Air users will run into the same inconvenient issue as iPod users whenever their batteries die.

As far battery life, this Laptop Magazine review of the Eee reports that it gets around 3.5 hours of uptime. Ars Technica reports 5 hours for the Air, which seems to be on par for other ultraportable laptops. Since the Eee’s battery is user replaceable though, you could easily take along an extra charged battery for double the battery life. This is a common strategy among road-warrior types and is unfortunate for Apple since they’re also the perfect target market for the Air.


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Viewing 51 Comments

    • ^
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    The eee can have up to 2GB RAM. One thing about the Air is that you MUST have 2GB RAM. No upgradability. Also, you're stuck paying Apple price for the RAM.

    You forgot batteries: One big thing that some sites mentioned was that the Air doesn't have a user-replacable battery. It can be switched by an Apple tech but that;s only for when it dies. The eee on the other hand has a user-switchable battery. I can imagine it being very useful when you;re on the road (where you will be taking these things) and need an extra battery or two. Asus is also coming out with six-cell batteries which will probably last quite a bit. The eee doesn't sleep well though; if the Air can sleep as well as a regular Macbook it'd be really, really great. I'd imagine that at some point some crazy Linux god will come out with a fix for the eee sleep issue though.

    The thing about the Air is that it is the ONLy Mac "subnotebook". One of my coworkers travel a hell of a lot and needs a Mac, so he bought one yesterday. (He also buys things like airplanes and horses, so he's in a completely different market than a lot of people. Or, rather, he's in Apple's target market.) Macs do intergrate much better than Linux does in small organizations.

    My take: I'd feel less guilty dropping or putting stickers on an eee.
    • ^
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    The eee is actually upgradeable to 2GB; however, the default Xandros distribution will only make use of 1GB. Other distributions or an available modified kernel file can use the full 2G.

    It is also possible and inexpensive to use a SDHC memory card as a "permanent" solid state drive upgrade. The eee supports SDHC cards in the provided slot, probably up to 256GB; which aren't available on the market yet - largest commonly available is 16GB.

    I was waiting for Apple's announcement before committing one way or another; the MacBook Air convinced me to keep my MacBook Pro and add an eee for now. Maybe next year Apple will be on the bleeding edge with OLED display and WIMAX support; the Air is more of an admittedly elegant packaging job.

    KeS
    • ^
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    You didn't address battery life, of which the Air only has 5 piddly hours. They could have ditched that core 2 duo for something more energy efficient and gone all Solid state on the disk and actually had a market to sell to. Now it's only marketable to people with too much money as it needs a dongle for EVERYTHING, including ethernet, DVD, etc. Not having ethernet is just plain stupid. Apple fails on this one. The first major computer with 10+ hours of battery life without an extended battery pack that sells for less than $2000 will win, if it doesn't already exist.
    • ^
    • v
    Thanks for the comments guys, an update on battery life is forthcoming :)
    • ^
    • v
    Another Linux hit piece with fanboys in the comments. If it weren't, you wouldn't have spent the whole article constantly defending the Eee, or end with a slam on the Air (which you cowardly quoted from someone else instead of having the stones to say it yourself).

    I get it, Linux is so amazing you can install it on a toaster. Get over yourselves. The Air is obviously made for a different crowd.

    And don't kid yourselves–Leopard isn't really a memory hog. I've got it running fast on an old PPC 1.3 GHz iBook with no problems (of course my processor IS faster than the Eee...).

    The Air has a full size keyboard, a screen that's nearly twice as big, an (optional) processor that's four times as fast (remember, it's a Core2Duo), four times the STANDARD memory, and a hard drive that's 20 to 40 times larger.

    Oh, and I noticed you conveniently left out how you lose a significant chunk of that overwhelming "2-4 GBs" to all the preinstalled software and the OS. My $20 jump drive has more memory than your computer.

    Simple fact is, the Eee was made by people who were trying to make a machine as portable as possible.

    The Air was made by people who were trying to make a machine as portable AND USABLE as possible.
    • ^
    • v
    By making it 'usable', they destroy the portability. Can't have your cake and eat it, Job-boy.
    • ^
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    i don't get the comparison... if you want something with 8gb of solid state HD, that serves you for web browsing and limited things over the web, you don't buy an air, you buy an ipod touch and a keyboard. i don't think you are comparing apples with apples...
    • ^
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    "While the Air seems like a clear choice for multimedia work because of the larger hard drive space, its 1.8″ hard drive may end up being too slow for people looking to do advanced multimedia editing and encoding."

    a full fledged C2D compared to a 900 celeron? i think i know where the bottle-neck is (and its not the drive)...

    i personally think the two devices are designed for quite different purposes, so i'm not sure if its that useful to 'compare' these two. its better just to say which one is better suited for what kind of tasks.
    • ^
    • v
    Just go with a dell vostro. It cost around 500-650USD depending on the model and it has both style and performance.
    • ^
    • v
    So when Air is put against against technologically better and faster computers, its "portability" becomes important and the integrated battery, slow hdd, lack of ports and expandability becomes unimportant sacrifices for "thinness". Yet when Air is put up against EEE which is -by far- cheaper, lighter and expandable, Air becomes so much better because it has a faster processor and more standard RAM, with Apple fanboys suddenly switching arguments.
    Don't you find it funny trying to justify a computer that is the jack of everything but king of nothing except for thinness?
    • ^
    • v
    This piece is not comparing apples to apples. It isn't even comparing apples to oranges. This is like comparing an apple to an apple seed. It blows my mind that any producer of computer hardware would even manufacture such an inferior product. Additional mind-blowage occurs when i see someone trying to compare this shoddy piece of machinery to an exponentially better computer.

    900 mhz processor? The air's power is nearly 4 times that, with a 1.4 ghz dual core chip.

    7 inch screen? Thats nice, if I have no muscles in my body. Then i can lay on the ground, and slide it up real close to my face. From that angel, its like being in a movie theater!

    Additionally, the keyboard cant be any larger than the screen. I dont know about you guys, but when i place my hands at a comfortable distance apart on the keyboard, its a lot longer than 7 inches.

    Next is hard drive capacity. With the air at a slim 80 gb, or the option of a blazing fast 64 gb SOLID STATE hard drive. Solid state means instant access to your information. No reading from a scratchable, crashable disc. But i suppose its unfair to not mention the whopping 4 gigs of flash memory in the EEE. What do they think people are going to be using this for? Web browsing? Text editing? for 100 dollars less, you can buy an ipod with storage space two times larger than that. The ipod can access the internet, take down notes, and is only a fraction of the size.

    For your next review, why don't you guys compare a car with a tricycle? I can see it now: "Get a car if you are really concerned with style. Buy a tricycle for safety and affordability."
    • ^
    • v
    This is a bit like comparing an apple and a slice of bread. They both may be considered food, but the similarities pretty much stop there. Personally I kinda like the Eee, but until either of them support wireless usb or a line of bluetooth accessories (CD/DVD, portable hard drive, etc...), neither will achieve a very large market. Both are good options for what they are trying to do, but I still think they are still too far ahead of their time. In another hardware generation or so (larger screen, wireless usb/bluetooh support), the Eee could very well be a major force in the market.
    • ^
    • v
    sexy: air
    power: air
    portability: eee
    price: eee
    something I don't mind throwing into the back seat of my car without a carrying case: eee!
    • ^
    • v
    Let's look at this from a mathematical standpoint for maxed out eeePC and maxed out MacAir:

    eeePC/Air

    Price: $399/$3200 = ratio of 0.125
    HD: 8gb/64gb = ratio of 0.125
    RAM: 512mb/2048mb = ratio of 0.25
    Screen: 7inch/13.3inch = ratio of 0.5
    CPU: 900mhz Celery/1.8Mhz C2Duo = 0.25 (900/3600)
    Weight: 2lb/3lb = 0.67

    So in all, for one eigth of the price, you get a one eigth of the disk space, a quarter of the ram, half the screen size, a quarter of the cpu power, and only two thirds the weight. That means the Asus eeePC is a pretty good deal all things considered.
    • ^
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    I don't think anyone would be considering either or a MBA or eeePC. This is just fuel for the fanboys.

    Just in case you missed..
    The 2G has a 800 MHz Celeron M underclocked to 517 MHz and the models with the 900Mhz Celeron M is underclocked to 630Mhz. Also the 2G has no level 2 cache. Please note that the battery life figures provided by Asus is with these default clock speeds.

    Asus has said that future revisions of the eeePC will have the RAM soldered onto the motherboard and that they will be cutting down on the mini-pci slots.
    • ^
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    @antonio: ..i don’t think you are comparing apples with apples…

    he isnt comparing apple with another apple...he's comparing apple with EEE pc...lol...but neways...macs have always been overpriced...so if this doesnt fit ur budget...go buy something else...ppl who buy macs...will buy this...not everybody but some of them...so eh

    i'd go for a customized laptop...like asus notebooks, ibuypower or cyberpowerpc...but then thats me
    • ^
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    "I dont know about you guys, but when i place my hands at a comfortable distance apart on the keyboard, its a lot longer than 7 inches."

    I believe that is what is known these days as a "wide stance".
    • ^
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    This is not even in the slightest a fair comparison. You gathered this piece by choosing the next smallest laptop available to compare to the Air (and it still does not even compare in size). Look at those spec differences!

    How much does Asus pay you to write these botched articles??