Should I buy a Macbook Air?

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I want it for the following reasons:

1. It's small and light to carry (duh)

2. I hear Macbooks last far longer than laptops. This is what I want. I've looked into Toughbooks and they're very pricey. I've looked at Lenovo laptops and I can't see any which advertise durability. Same for other names at least with current laptops.

If there are any long lasting laptops out there which have a screen of less than 13 inches then I'm interested. Can't be much more than £1000 either. I want something that is reliable and reasonable value in the long run. I'm not interested in majorly fancy features and I won't use it for gaming.

I'm in the UK.

To add is there a way of upgrading the HDD without paying a fortune on the apple website at time of purchase?

Firstly, the MacBook Air is essentially one of the first 'UltraBooks', as they are known as in North America. As such, there really is no way to upgrade the Hard Drive at all due to the fact that they don't have hard drives, they use Solid State Memory, which I belive, in the case of all 'UltraBook' type computers is hard mounted to the main board, so there really is no way to get more memory without specifically ordering one from the manufacturer, and in the case of Apple no way of avoiding paying a fortune for this upgrade.

That being said, Lenovo, Samsung, Dell, and Acer also make UltraBooks that while they are not cheap, are significantly less expensive than what is soffered by Apple. --If I was going to get an UltraBook system, I would most likely go with either a Samsung or a Lenovo, with as much storage memory as I could afford, and use one of my USB HDD's for extra storage.

But do even the new ones last? Lenovo in particular, or Samsung if they are as good.

Lenovo is formerly IBM, and the lines that they make target for business usage are good. Everything that I've seen of current Samsung products indicates that their ultrabooks would be quality product. If nothing else, look for Ultrabooks with cases made from Titanium or some form of Magnaloy rather than plastic. This is important for systems that are convection cooled/fanless as the case doubles as a heatsink for the CPU/GPU and the mainboard chipset.

The MacBook Air, I believe has a Magnaloy case.

Generally speaking though, anything available at a 'Big Box' electronics store like BestBuy, or it's EU/UK equivalent may be somthing that you want to avaid, as they will generally have ( or at least BestBuy at any rate) consumer grade systems, rather than better engineered systems designed for business/corporate travellers. --I have no idea of of what might be available in the UK or EU, so you might want to ask/ or seek out reviews of Ultrabook systems that are available in those markets to further your knowlege of which system would appeal to your useage.

Thanks for your input Fogman.

I have had a look at these and there is this one too. I think the main difference is the processor, HDD space and Windows. Would you please tell me the difference between the Intel and AMD processors?

And I can't tell what the casing is on these. The site says if they're dropped the HDD will stop in order to save the data:

I don't know how drop-down hinges save the laptop.

AMD Processors run hotter and at higher voltages than Intels. Go with the Intel. The battery in the Intel models will last longer.

For someting with specs closer to the Macbook Air, you might want to look at what Samsung or Acer 'S' series

With Lenovo, The Edge Series are not their actual Ultrabooks , [/b]these are their ultrabooks[/b]

All of the above will cost a bit more than consumer grade systems, but the designs of them will be considerable more robust and durable as well, much like the MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs, which are business class systems.

All of the above will have convection cooling, Intel CPU's and Integrated SSD's rather than hard drives. Because of the fact that they have neither fans nor motor driven Hard Drives,and quite often LED displays, Battery life will be longer models that require fan cooling, and have hard drives. LED displays also consume less power than backlit LCD types. --MacBook Airs are also similarly equipped.

SSD's also have the advantage of booting faster and loading programs, files faster as there is no seek time as there is with standard hard drives. The disadvantage of SSD's is that they are generally more expensive for the storage that you get in return. -- essentially why you would want to use an outboard USB drive to store
data that you want to have but don't use as frequently.

I see. This is all very useful to take into account. Noted about the processors and SSDs, and LED screens. I actually found the Lenovo laptops I linked to through that ultrabook link you suggest though, they are listed in it. So I'm not sure if you mean a specific series.