Hey HN. I'm looking for a light, powerful developer laptop which I can use for android, robotics (FRC), java, and web development. I'm mainly a windows user so I naturally looked at some ultra books. The one laptop which really attracted me was the Thinkpad X1 Carbon. After looking into it, I went to place my order and found out that even if I ordered today, it would only ship out of their offices on the 27th of this month. I need a laptop before the 20th so I can use it in the robotics competition I am attending.<p>Looking around I found that the Mac Book Air had exactly the same specs as the thinkpad and cost slightly less.<p>My question is this: Should I get the MBA and make the switch to apple products (I've sparingly used them and have been a windows/android user my whole life), or should I look at alternatives in the windows ultra book area?<p>Any advice is greatly appreciated, Thank you.
I ordered the top end 13" MBA on Friday with 2-3 day shipping (an extra $13). It shipped last night with a scheduled delivery of this Wednesdaym two days away.<p>But it sounds like you want to look at the X1 Carbon as I don't see the need or benefit of you converting to Mac at this point, given your information.<p>Lenovo is always a slow ordering shipping process. It's never quick. Whenever I buy a Lenovo, I buy it off of eBay after carefully examining a seller's feedback and reputation.
If you want to stick with Windows, go for the X1 Carbon, but if you can't find a way to purchase it in time, I would highly recommend the MacBook Air. I switched to Mac last year and don't have many regrets. If you find you dislike working in OSX, you can always install Windows 7 in bootcamp. Android, Java and web develop work great on OSX (though I have no idea about robotics). The only thing I would recommend is go for the upgraded RAM and SSD, as the MBA's hardware can't be upgraded at a later date, and from my experience, OSX kinda sucks at memory management (if you do a lot of multitasking).
Carbon X1 is a great laptop, I would recommend it over an air, mainly because of the 14inch vs 13inch screen. If urgency is an issue I guess thats something else. But I recently purchased one, its rock solid and well built. cheers
I bought Dell Inspiron 14z for half that price ($574) last month: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0081YPUT8" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0081YPUT8</a>
My experience has been good so far.