WINDOWS VS APPLE MACBOOK

WINDOWS 8 LEADS APPLE MAC BOOK...????

THERE ARE THREE REASONS A WINDOWS 8 LAPTOP LEADS, MACBOOK LAGS

HP Revolve ultrabook is offered with a swivel touch screen, 4G/LTE as an option, and a well-appointed docking station.

This week Hewlett-Packard offered a few good reasons to consider a Windows 8 laptop over a MacBook.

Those arguments are embodied in an upcoming 3-pound HP EliteBook Revolvebusiness ultrabook "convertible" that was announced this week.

The MacBook Air is a fine design (I use one every day) and the new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro is an even better design. But the Apple way isn't the only way. Here are three features that the MacBook ain't got.

Built-in 4G: The EliteBook Revolve offers built-in 4G LTE or HSPA+. Wi-Fi-only MacBooks are getting a bit stodgy. It's almost 2013. 4G should at least be optional on a MacBook.

Let's put it this way, if 4G is an option for the iPad, why not for a tiny 2.4-pound MacBook Air? And if HP is including it in an ultrabook like the Revolve, you can bet there's a reason: some of HP's business customers are demanding it.

And sharing plans make it feasible to share 4G data across multiple devices now.

Touch screen: I've said this before and I'll say it again. Touch is de rigueur for any mobile device now. And two years from now, a portable device without a touch screen will be an anachronism. Like a keyboard without a mouse.

Fact is, HP offered a touch-screen tablet long before the iPad. Unfortunately, it was saddled with Windows XP. And HP (and Microsoft) could never see beyond the stylus as an input medium.

Docking station: I used HP docking stations for years (which the Revolve includes). They were a godsend. When you need to pick up and run, it's just a matter of popping the lappy out. No disconnecting and reconnecting cables.And good docking stations (like those from HP) offer every port under the sun. So by plugging into the dock, you get the range of ports typically found only on desktops.

Yeah, there are plenty of third-party docking stations out there, but nothing beats a dock spec'd by the PC maker.

Why? Because the dock's design starts on the laptop: high-speed, well-placed docking connectors must be conceived first on the laptop, then the dock design follows.

Like I said, I like my MacBook -- a lot. But its limitations can feel claustrophobic on days. Especially when compared with some of the emerging Windows 8 competition.

But that's what competition is about. Apple is only one company. The Windows 8 crowd comprises scores of companies with plenty of good ideas of their own.

HP VS APPLE

HP to Apple: Hey, we already make PCs in the U.S. 

 

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HP TO APPLE: HEY, WE ALREADY MAKE PCS IN THE U.S.

HP said 100 percent of the workstations that it sells in the U.S. are assembled in the U.S.

(Credit: HP)

If Made In USA is a feature, Hewlett-Packard's got Apple beat.

In effect, that's what HP said today. "Lots of noise...about Apple moving Mac production back to the U.S.... [We] wanted to offer HP's story," said an HP representative via e-mail Friday.

Part of that story was provided by way of a blog post.

"HP PCs have been assembled in the U.S. since the beginning," the post begins. "HP workstations and commercial desktop PCs are manufactured in Indianapolis, and HP servers are manufactured in Houston. These manufacturing facilities employ hundreds of people and produce billions of dollars' worth of products," the post said.

"There's a significant amount of customization...it's a higher value product than we might do in Asia. A higher level of customers that need build-to-order and close proximity," Tony Prophet, senior vice president of operations at HP, told CNET in an interview, speaking about the Indianapolis operations.Of PCs sold in the U.S., more than a third of business desktop PCs and all workstation PCs are assembled in the U.S., HP said, adding that it will assemble 2.9 million PCs in the U.S. this year.

Prophet continued. "We find that we are better able to serve our customers when we're closer, versus building them in China and shipping them by sea. The labor arbitrage is not really a driving factor," he said, referring to both North American and European desktop production.

Even a limited amount of laptop assembly is done outside China. Some business-classEliteBook laptops are assembled in North America, Prophet said.

And though the bulk of U.S.-based production is business PCs, small-scale consumer PC production is also being brought back to North America. "We're marginally moving even some consumer PC [assembly] back to North America. Doing less of that in China," according to Prophet.

Apple, on the other hand, is just starting to bring Mac production back to the U.S., after a long hiatus. CEO Tim Cook said yesterday that factories in the U.S. will handle "some" of the Mac production currently being handled internationally. Production will ramp up in 2013.

For HP, U.S.-based production is not just PCs. Printing components are made in Corvallis, Ore., and San Diego, Calif., HP said.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN