X220 (i5-2520M) vs. MacBook Air 13inch --> please no Fanboys

[expatCanuck]

The two interesting notebooks on the market to me are the 13" Air, for the 900 vertical resolution, and the X220. I debated them and ultimately went with the X220 mainly for the better matte screen, the stick and the dual drives. I also didn't want wait for the Air refresh. My X220i is a great notebook, but I think I easily could chose the Air and been very happy with my decision.

I just performed a similar evaluation -- but with the 11" Air.
At the end of the day, I opted for the X220i for battery life -- tho' I also prefer its keyboard.

The 11" Air was indeed a sweet machine -- but I wasn't convinced that it's battery life would be adequate.

And the 13" Air, to me, was not a good value (<$800 for a basic X220i vs. $1300 + tax for the 13" MacAir,
the former being an 'open' system & the latter (IMHO, prior discussion notwithstanding) being a 'closed' system).

- Richard
(who likes both Thinkpad & Mac laptops)

[asiafish]

[quote="expatCanuck
I just performed a similar evaluation -- but with the 11" Air.
At the end of the day, I opted for the X220i for battery life -- tho' I also prefer its keyboard.

The 11" Air was indeed a sweet machine -- but I wasn't convinced that it's battery life would be adequate.

And the 13" Air, to me, was not a good value (<$800 for a basic X220i vs. $1300 + tax for the 13" MacAir,
the former being an 'open' system & the latter (IMHO, prior discussion notwithstanding) being a 'closed' system).

- Richard
(who likes both Thinkpad & Mac laptops)[/quote]
The 11" Air gets between 5 and 7 hours real-world with screen at mid and wifi on, no flash (I use click-to-flash to block flash in Safari). Apple is very conservative in their battery life estimates, with their advertised runtime reflecting what you will actually get, not the best possible, which is considerably better than advertised. My Air is rated for 5 hours, and 6 seems to be the average.

The 13" Air (last year's) consistently ran 10 hours, though it was only rated for 7.