14 DAY TRIAL // A few days ago, Apple pulled the veil off its brand new MacBook with Retina display. The laptop is the thinnest and lightest to date to make it out in the MacBook family.
And while Apple has made a lot of fuss about it, highlighting the portability of the device and the fact that it boasts a completely fanless design, customers might not be too happy when they find out what the price of the new device is.
Apple’s new MacBook starts at $1,299 / €1,215, but if you don’t have that amount of money at your disposal, you can turn your attention towards the Windows ecosystem where you can find quite worthy alternatives to Apple’s new lappy. Here is a list of three models that might serve you just as well as the new MacBook.
ASUS Zenbook UX305FA
The notebook arrives with a 13.3-inch matte anti-glare wide-angle IPS full HD display (1920 x 1080 pixel resolution) with an ultra-wide 170-degree viewing angle.
It is quite luxurious as well, as it boasts an aluminum unibody that’s just 0.5-inch / 12.7 mm thick and breaks the scales at 2.5lbs / 1.13 kg.
Like the new MacBook Air, the Zenbook relies on a Broadwell-class processor, bundling a Core M-5Y10 (turbo speeds up to 2GHz) fitted with 256GB Solid State Drive.
The laptop also offers dual-band 2-stream 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. All this is offered for $699 / €653, almost half the price of the new MacBook.
Dell XPS 13
Dell’s XPS 13 laptop is gorgeous with its edge-to-edge display and indiscernible bezel. Starting at $799 / €747, the basic version of Dell’s device will bring you a 13.3-inch display with FHD resolution, just like it’s the case with the ASUS ZenBook. However, customers with more cash flow can increase it up to 3,200 x 1,800 pixel resolution.
Under the hood, customers have a choice between Intel Core i3 and Core i5 processors, but the cheapest version takes advantage of an Intel Core i3-5010U processor (clocked at as far as 2.10GHz) working in concert with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage.
The new MacBook relies on a fanless Core M chip (1.2GHz dual-core with Intel HD Graphics 5300), so the XPS 13 is a lot more powerful.
The Dell laptop is housed in a precision-cut aluminum chassis, obtained from a single block of the material, so it takes advantage of a sturdy, durable yet sleek chassis too.
The XPS 13 is a tad heavier than the 2015 MacBook, tipping the scales at 2.6 lbs / 1.17 kg.
Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro
The Yoga Pro line is one of the company’s most popular collections running on Windows 8.1. The company refreshed its 2-in-1 portfolio last year with the Yoga 3 Pro, which continues to take advantage of a unique hinge design that allows it to fold back 360 degrees into the keyboard.
The device arrives with a 13.3-inch screen and boasts an advanced 3200 x 1800 pixel resolution. The processor living under the hood is an Intel Core M-5Y70 Broadwell fitted with up to 8GB of RAM and backed by 512GB of solid state storage (a 256GB version is also available).
The laptop weighs 4.1 lbs / 1.9 kg, so it’s a bit chunkier than Apple’s latest laptop.
The Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro is a tad more expensive than the new MacBook too, coming with a price of $1,350 / €1,062, but its versatile form factor might convince you to spend the extra bucks.
