Dell is attempting to compare their Latitude E4200 laptop (catchy name) against Apple’s MacBook Air (Dell incorrectly titles it “Macbook”).
Dell’s video begins with a familiar manilla envelope, but, boy is this one stuffed with thickness!
Direct link via YouTube here.
Nowhere in the video does Dell mention that their thicker laptop is OS-limited whereas Apple’s MacBook Air – and all Macs for that matter – are OS-unlimited. Of course, it’s not surprising that Dell doesn’t want to mention that only OS-unlimited Apple Macs are capable of running all major operating systems and offer users the ability to run the world’s largest software library.
Apple’s original MacBook Air TV Commercial:
Direct link via YouTube here.
Find out more about Apple’s MacBook Air here.
[Attribution: MacNN. Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Peter” for the heads up.]
So it’s a bit smaller. BFD!
Boy, that is really lame!
HAH. That think looked like it was going to bust a seem when he put it down on the table!!!!
The Jumbo thickness of the Dell and it’s tiny screen and keyboard. Note how careful Dell is to not show a thickness comparison of their Laptop to the the Air.
Witness the last gasps from a desperate and dying PC company with margins so thin they only have one side.
it’s crap. there definetly is more substance in the little chubby laptop, it’s look like a short fat chick wearing clothes that don’t fit when it was in the manila envelope!!HAHAHA!!!
Tricky, notice they nicely avoid any unflattering side-profile shot which would show how thick the thing is. The tag line is a bit strange, too. “More substance”? as in…more bulk, more hefty?
It’s called “Air” because it’s thin and light, not because it has a smaller screen and a scrunched up keyboard. And I’ll bet the MacBook Air still has less volume.
(businessweek.com) “Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Inc., bought about $100 million of the computer maker’s stock last week, his second such buying spree in the past three months.”
“Dell now owns more than 225 million shares directly, another 3 million shares are held in a gift trust and his wife controls more than 26 million shares, according to Monday’s filing. The Dells’ holdings account for nearly 13 percent of the company’s stock.”
So, when he breaks up the company and the other shareholders bail he’ll refund the money mostly to himself. Nice scam.
Boy, Dell can sure make bad copies of things!
“More substance, Less air” Doesn’t that just mean it’s bigger?
1. When the lead dog (at least in the US PC market, which Dell is), you never mention the competition.
2. Compete with your own products you are replacing.
3. Never ever mention the company that is growing the fastest – ever.
4. Ignore, ignore, ignore the competition.
5. So they break all these rules, and in doing so, they even poke fun of Apple’s ad, but while doing so are trying to say they are better? The messaging is so confused.
Dell hasn’t a clue what they are doing on a marketing front… nor on a business front it appears.
Oookay I’ll try without the link. Maybe that won’t anger the censors.
Has anyone done a comparison of the Macbooks vs the Dell Studio line? It seems to me that the Dells are stronger machines at a much better price point. I’m forced to concede to my clients that it’s a great price for a Windows laptop with very impressive specs. Blows the Macbooks out of the water in every way except the OS.
That thing is as thick as a brick.
If I recall my high school physics, “more substance, less air” means higher density. It’s the first of the tiny black holes created by the Large Hadron Collider!
haha.
even their envelop is fat and bursting at the seems. Great comercial? Not.
so, it’s like a macbook air, only smaller!
hmm..!!!!
Wow that was a great ad. I wonder how much they paid the agency for such incredibly perceptive ideas…
Don’t they have a clue? Not even a small one?
Surely.
ya, but I’ll bet it costs more then an airmac!
Who really thinks Dell made this ad? Looks like fanboy stuff to me.
Black holes aren’t holes at all but very dense matter. They could not possibly be created by the LHC in CERN.
On the other hand the do suck hard!
I fell off my chair laughing when I read this one from PC Apologist (they need you): “Blows the Macbooks out of the water in every way except the OS.”
“BMW beats Ford hands down, but for the square wheels”.
“Boeing beats Airbus everytime, except for the no wings part”.
etc. etc. Too funny.
Fuuuuugly!
You notice how they _never_ show that thing from the side?? Clever cut-arounds to be sure we never notice that it’s fat…. Very revealing to watch the MBA video versus the Dell one, side by side
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There’s a gray fog with a sickening stench hovering over Round Rock, Texas. It has the smell of desperation.
If Dell’s following Apple, it makes Apple the leader. Nice of them to admit it.
One nice feature: the name “Latitude E4200” doesn’t exactly roll trippingly off the tongue. It’s very forgettable. Dell’s customers are probably going to ask for “that computer that’s like the MacBook Air,” meaning that every purchase of a Dell becomes an advertisement for a Mac.
At Dell Computer, only their profit margins are thin and light as air.
Macaday –
Aye, there’s value in the OS, but the new conventional thinking has been that Apple is producing superior machines at a similar price point to the Windows boxes, even before TCO is taken into account. No low-end systems, so by the time you brought the cheap Dell or Gateway up to spec with the Mac, it was the same price or more expensive.
But their new product line seems pretty clearly to be superior hardware for A LOT less cash. Certainly puts the old “it’s cheaper” excuse for not switching back into play in a big way.
I’m surprised they actually named the MacBook Air in their commercial. The first rule of advertising is that you never name the competition. And they almost seem to invite ridicule by playing lame clinky keyboard music instead of the hip techno-folk theme Apple uses.
But it’s Dell, so what should we expect? Anything other than a bad copy?
look at how THICK the doggone thing is!
<a >Pic of Dell’s BrickBook</a>
But their new product line seems pretty clearly to be superior hardware for A LOT less cash. Certainly puts the old “it’s cheaper” excuse for not switching back into play in a big way.
If that is indeed the case, Dell’s margins get worse for little to no gain/growth. They die sooner.
That Latitude E4200 is what one would call a ‘Fat Bastard.’
Anyone else see the resemblance between this and Apple’s “Better Results” spot?
http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/
“More substance, less air” – Hey that’s pretty good! Clever. Yeah. Nice.
Latitude E4200. A name only the Pentagon could love.
Did anyone else notice how clumsily the Dell guy yanked the Latitude out of the envelope? The envelope was bursting at the seems and the whole thing looked awkward.
My PowerBook 12″ also fits in one of those envelopes.
“Did anyone else notice how clumsily the Dell guy yanked the Latitude out of the envelope?”
The actor was nervous. During the shooting, Michael Dell was hovering over him with a loaded gun pointed at his head. Dell was shoveling cream filled doughnuts into his mouth while sobbing uncontrollably and muttering “Who’s your daddy now, smartass?”. It took 14 hours to finish the video.
Good clean competition – I love it. There needs to be a lot more that in the OS domain.
P.S. I forgot to mention that Dell was wearing a schoolgirl outfit and a rainbow colored afro wig. He had bright red lipstick smeared all around his mouth. No one said a word.
for tiny people with small hands, the dell is OK, but the extra size of the macbook air, allows the rest of us to use it as a laptop. with those sub notebooks sized like the Dell, us guys have to crunch our nuts by clamping out legs together so it doesn’t slide off our laps. On the MacBook Air the wrists have a comfortable place to rest without a sharp edge, like the dell, putting pressure on the underside of the wrist causing carpal tunnel.
Too bad apple can run an ow, my nuts response to this that would appear on maxim, etc.
@ HMCIV
The Dell Latitude is awkward from removing the fat bastard from the envelope to chucking it on top of the MacBook Air and the Air almost tipping over from the weight. My perception is the Dell is one heavy SOB. Then when they don’t do a profile sweep of the Dell sitting on top of the Air it’s even more reinforcing the perception that the Dell is much thicker and heavier. Then the catch phrase seals the deal that the Dell Latitude is a heavy system with a small screen and keyboard made out of cheap plastics and full of dangerous flame retardants.
Dell Latitude E4200, Heavier, Hotter, More power consumption, More Chemicals and Less Air.
If by substance they mean stickers all over the front and back, I’ll give that to them.
It’s a 12.1″ screen
Some comparative specs:
Screen: 13.3″
Resolution: 1280 x 800 pixels
Height: 0.16″ – 0.76″
Width: 12.8″
Depth: 8.94″
Weight: 3.0 lbs.
Processor: 1.6 – 1.8 GHz
RAM: 2 GB
Battery: 37 Watt-Hours
Storage: 80 GB Hard Drive / 64 GB Solid State Drive
Price: $1,799 – $2,598
Screen: 12.1″
Resolution: 1280 x 800 pixels
Height: 0.79″
Width: 11.4″
Depth: 8″
Weight: 2.2 lbs (Referred to as “Starting Weight” on Dell’s Website)
Processor: Speed Not Listed (Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo Ultra Low Voltage)
RAM: 1 GB with expansion up to 5 GB (As stated on Dell’s website.)
Battery: 4 Cell or extended 6 Cell battery (6 cell probably looks like a tumor.)
Storage: 64 – 128 GB Solid State Drive
Price: ???
Wow, it made me think of my 12″ AluPB. Small but pudgy.
Update! After some serious Googling, I found the Processor Speed for the Intel Core 2 Duo “Ultra Low Voltage” Processors: 1.06 – 1.33 GHz.
Michael Dell, my PowerBook G4 and I will meet you out at the track! And don’t forget your Photoshop this time.
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That Dell Latitude E4200 looked absolutely gorgeous…..
Until he took it out of the envelope!
Go take a look at the gallery of images of this E4200 little laptop…. every image, even the 360 degree view, fails to show the bottom of the package. Very careful camera angles indeed.
The only clue as to what the bottom may look like, is the one image that shows the Latitude docking option. No doubt, as with just about every PeeCee laptop on the market today, with the docking connector, all the stickers, cooling vents and slots and the underside looks like the back of a microwave oven.
The MDN magic word = beyond….
It is beyond my limited intellectual capacity to imagine why anyone (other than ZuneTang) would consider such excrement.
And what’s with the hairy arms on the dude?
And why does this look like it was shot by a student filmmaker?
Probably cuz Dell has no money for marketing… so rip off Apple, get a student to work for free (or for a Latitude whatever it’s called) and upload it to YouTube.
Something’s rotten in Texas.
The ad suffers from continuity dis-connects. The envelope keeps changing in each scene.
The opening scene shows a stuffed, blank Manila envelope. The scene with the unwinding of the red tie string has the envelope opening toward the left, with printing on the back below the tie. In the very next scene, the computer is taken out with the opening toward the right, the printing has been magically transferred to the front, and the back is suddenly blank back with vent holes in the envelope paper.
It’s probably a subliminal hint as to the inconsistencies of the OS installed on the Dell…
DELL did NOT make this Ad. Fanboys did.
@ HMCIV
Interesting that Dell offers to sell you 5 GB of ram when 32 bit Vista cannot use more than 3.2 GB according to a recent <a>href=”http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/09/03/road_to_mac_os_x_snow_leopard_64_bits_santa_rosa_and_the_great_pc_swindle.html”> Apple Insider</a> article.
Best quote:
“And so many PC users are installing 4GB of RAM in their PCs and thinking that it is being used by the system, when in fact it is no more beneficial than if the RAM were simply poked halfway into the CD slot.”
i guess the macbook air is more than a novelty if Dell has decided to try to compete against it.
@ Swordmaker
It’s probably a subliminal hint to the Zune Tangs of the world that like an ugly broad, in order to play with it, you have to put a bag over its head.
so dull.
“It’s probably a subliminal hint to the Zune Tangs of the world that like an ugly broad, in order to play with it, you have to put a bag over its head.”
And they’re a lot more fun once you unwind their little red strings.
@PC Apologist
Matching up the hardware AND software between the Dell Studio 15 and the MacBook (Black, not the base model) I come up with $1,417. Superior hardware? Yeah. More cache in the CPU and 2 inches more screen real estate (but at the same resolution). If you want the discrete GPU you pay more and the cost gets near regular MacBook Pricing.
You have to include the FULL version of Vista. Vista Home is not comparable to OS X 10.5 Leopard.
You need to include something to compare with iPhoto and iMovie (Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements).
You also need to boost to the 802.11 N, boost HD to 250G, up the RAM to 2G, add 30 days phone in support to match the other specs on the MacBook.
By the time I was done it cost more than the Black MacBook. So sure, you get “superior hardware,” but only by splitting hairs. A hotter processor, to be sure — 2.5GHz and 6M of cache. Once the other options are matched it no longer seems nearly as much in Dell’s favor as your initial statement would suggest.
@NIck Fury
….and really gross fat rolls fall everywhere……
I was just issued a Dell Latitude XT at work. How bad is it? I wanted my 3 yr. old RIM Tablet back.
What they trying to say. Apple have made smaller notebooks than the MBA. PowerBook G4 12″ anybody?
Dell are really reaching this time.
The design and size of the Air is amazing. Performance? Size of hard drive? Both leave a lot to improve upon.
If Apple had delayed the release until they could put a faster processor in it and a 128Gb SSD, I would have bought one and this laptop would have been a real contender.
However, Dell did break an important rule of salesmanship… don’t bash the competition. It makes one’s own product look weak.
Couldn’t Dell have used a NEW manila envelope?
“Couldn’t Dell have used a NEW manila envelope?”
No. Budget cuts.
To me, the key point in this ad is that a leading PC manufacturer now finds it necessary to compare one of their products with a Mac.
That’s great! A few years ago they wouldn’t have bothered.
So to make it smaller, they had to make it fatter. It looked like that envelope was about to break. How many “takes” and how much glue was needed to make the commercial? Dell and Microsoft needs to spend their money wisely instead of making these stupid commercials.
Please dell, it’s over and you are so lost. You don’t now when to give up.
Sure its ugly and boxy, but it is smaller, lighter and just slightly thicker than the Air. The MBA looks so small because of the extreme taper to the front edge. You have to admit that the Dell has the Air totally beat with respect to connectivity and ram capacity. Gigabit ethernet, USB, Firewire, e-sata, VGA out, audio out, express card slot, dock connector and audio in (mic). Pretty slick. However, it is powerful ugly. I still love the Air, but wish it had the options that the Dell has…
I am getting really sick of the pompus attitude that MDN and many MDN users display on a daily basis. Maybe the Dell commercial was poorly done. But for lots of computer users, the Latitude E4200 is far superior to the MacBook Air — although in truth I wouldn’t buy either machine because a computer without an built-in optical drive seems stupid to me.
With the exceptions of processor (uncertain), screen size, and obviously the OS, the E4200 is better hardware than the Air. For example: memory card reader (none on Air), optional fingerprint reader (none on Air), up to 5 GB of DDR3 @ 800 MHz RAM (only 2 GB of DDR 2 probably @ 667 MHz RAM on Air), up to 128 GB solid state drive (only option for Air is 64 GB solid state), Intel’s new 4500MHD integrated graphics (only older Intel X3100 on Air), a “starting weight” of 2.2 lbs. (Air weighs 3 lbs.), etc.
PS: It appears that 64-bit Vista is an option on the E4200, as is XP Pro for Vista haters.
“I am getting really sick of the pompus attitude that MDN and many MDN users display on a daily basis.”
And yet, you keep coming back? Glutton for punishment?
Justified, for many the Dell may be better, but NOT for the reasons highlighted in the video (can’t be an official Dell video).
The Dell is “smaller”, but not in ways that help the average user (My briefcase holds 8.5×11″ things by default, like magazines and file folders. I carry around a 8.5×11″ sketchbook wherever I would take my computer).
The MBA is large enough to have a full size keyboard and a good size screen. That design decision “cost” me nothing, since making the footprint smaller only means it would rattle around next to my papers. On the other hand, the thinness is a huge help.
The only way I can see the Dell as “better” would be in the other features it offers.
@ Modbus: MDN is a great source of interesting stories. But MDN and many of its users have obviously been indoctrinated to believe that Apple deserves nearly-unconditional loyalty. As I argued in my previous post, the E4200’s hardware is superior to the MacBook Air’s hardware in nearly every way. But neither MDN nor 99% of MDN users will ever willingly acknowledge the superiority of the E4200’s hardware, because they think that Apple is Heaven and Steve Jobs is God.
Mac OS X is a fantastic operating system. But intelligent computer users may be tempted to pick the E4200 over the Air because of the Air’s inferior hardware. Thus, a computer user who buys an E4200 is not automatically worthy of scorn & ridicule.
@ disposableidentity: I agree with you that the Air may be better for some, while the E4200 may be better for others. But IMHO, there is a good chance that the Dell ad is real. Time will tell…
You guys are all losers. LOL. The MAC Air book, Or whatever it’s stupid name, is a lame computer. It’s a joke in the computing industry and is an example that Apple has lost the ball when it comes to computing. In a couple years it will end up in the bottom of the ocean next to all the lame iMacs. Boy I feel sorry for the losers that bought into that crap. LOL….. Gimme a Dell any day!
@Justified
A curious way of approaching sub-notebooks has occurred to Apple. Their approach is the answer for the existence of the nearly portless MacBook Air.
How many people use 1 port on a given day, leave alone multiple ports? If I can choose only 1 port, which would it be?
If internet access is increasingly wireless, do we need a wired port?
Just to be on the safe side, let’s also include a very tiny VGA out port and include an adapter.
Apple didn’t set out to make a swiss army knife because the average user just doesn’t need one very often, especially when “out and about.” The MacBook Air is, in my opinion, an extremely elegant computer made to suit the needs of the masses. Do the masses attach E-SATA devices to their laptops on a daily basis? How about Express Cards? I have a MacBook Pro issued by my work. I use a Verizon Express Card to access the internet on a regular basis. I plug in a firewire drive I’ve had for years as a TimeMachine backup (though it could just as easily be used as a USB device). I have a cradle for my iPhone attached. But the latter 2 are only attached when at my desk. I’m guessing that the MacBook Air isn’t meant primarily for the office desk.
The MacBook Air is the ideal “in between” computer for the user who has a solid desktop computer and may want a mobile machine for note taking, doing a presentation, occasional web surfing, etc. It’s not a workhorse and was never intended to be, else they probably would have named it the MacBook Pro Air or something like that.
So, does the Dell beat the MacBook Air in every spec that counts? All except the processor if the above comment is accurate. Will that attract customers? Probably, but more likely the kind of customers who actually need and use those extra ports. To fault would-be customers of either platform for not taking the swiss-army-knife when they only need a simple penknife is kind of presumptuous. Perhaps as nice an analogy is buying an SUV when you only need a simple commuter car.
What a ludicrous commercial. The music is umastered, the commercial not smooth and did anyone take a look at the underside of that monster? Dell, come on you can do better than that.
….Or maybe you should just fold up the tent and give the shareholders back their money.
…one more thing. The envelopes are completely different. Dell’s is a mailing envelope which is bigger (thicker) and it’s still bulging. Apple’s is an interoffice envelope and it still has room.
Come on Dell, give the shareholders back their money.
I was in Round Rock last week and stumbled upon Dell’s “campus” there by mistake. Ewwww.
They had a large banner across the front of the special ed wing that advertised the Latitude E4200. Gawd, I just love Dell’s names for their computers, like E4200 is supposed to mean something? Perhaps Dell is trying to one-up Mercedes and their E-Class cars.
Who bloomin’ knows?!
By the way, I love the Dell Vostro…another catchy yet meaningless name.
Ha! Their envelope is all crumpled because that Dell thing is too fat! And they try to hide that fact by pulling it out so fast!
I’d take the E4200 as a work computer, but only because my current machine is an older and slower Latitude D430, and my employer has an exclusive agreement with Dell, so the MBA is not an option.
Thank goodness I have a MBP, iMac and TiBook at home.
Sure, the Dell’s lighter, but how much of that came out of the battery, such that it only has a 15 minute battery life?
And that envelope is really beat up…a metaphor for Dell.
Of course, when it comes to envelopes…
<vbg>
-hh
@maccam
“And so many PC users are installing 4GB of RAM in their PCs and thinking that it is being used by the system, when in fact it is no more beneficial than if the RAM were simply poked halfway into the CD slot.”
Funny, when I got my new Compaq desktop that’s exactly how my extra memory came. Maybe those folks on the fringe of HP have a little more foresight than I gave them credit for.
“Nowhere in the video does Dell mention that their thicker laptop is <u>OS-limited</u>.” (emphasis mine)
Why would they (that would be false advertising) since clearly you can run OS X on a Dell laptop! This is common knowledge, not new information, and ironically Michael Dell publicly stated: “If Apple decides to open the Mac OS to others, we would be happy to offer it to our customers” – Michael Dell June 16, 2005 [Source].
From the same article is Apple’s response to Dell’s offer:
“Mac OS X will only run on Macs. Apple has no plans to sell Mac OS X software to run on PCs,” an Apple spokesperson said in an e-mail response to questions about Dell.
Here is the single sentence in Apple’s OS X Software License Agreement that forbids installation on non Apple hardware (this is a license limitation on Apple’s part, not a technical limitation on Dell’s part):
“A. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single <u>Apple-labeled computer</u> at a time.” (emphasis mine) – [Source] (First sentence in section 2 of the license under the “Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.” section.)
So MDN, you censor any mild criticism now? I simply asked why you removed the comment from PC Apologist which referenced the Dell Studio laptops (with a link to the Studio) and you removed my comment.
I expect that this one won’t last long on your site, so I’ll have to take a screenshot just to remind myself that I posted it.
PS. I have always been, still am and always will be a Mac fanatic
Very few people really, truly CARE that the Mac will run one more OS than the Dell. If you want the Apple OS, ya gotta buy the Apple. And chances are good you don’t WANT to use Linux (too often) or Windows (1 sec longer than posilutely, absotively required), so quit with the “OS-unlimited” talk, OK? More people know about it than care … and most who care will get over that as soon as their IT Dept gets past their “problem”.
BTW: will it run AmigaDOS? How about that cute C=64/Apple ][ thing from Berkeley Softworks? Or CP/M? Not quite “OS-unlimited”, now, IS it?
FWIW: it IS nice to say “ours will run yours, and more, will yours run ours?”. So, stop talking like an MS ad-man!
Dell should shut down their operation and return the money to the shareholders.
“Apple Macs are capable of running all major operating systems “
So are Windows PCs, unless with 3% worldwide share Mac OS X suddenly became a major operating system.
“i guess the macbook air is more than a novelty if Dell has decided to try to compete against it.”
You seem confused. with the Air Apple finally decided to compete in the lightweight compact notebook market. Sub 3lb notebooks have been available from other vendors for several years. You need to look outside your limited Apple world a bit more.
The air case is slim and pretty, but the notebook itself is heavy compared to competing products from Sony, Lenovo and Dell and also is less fully featured than products from those vendors.
And any road warrior will tell you you’ll value almost 1lb less in weight and the ports you need built in rather then having to carry a mess of external dongles more than you’ll notice a tapered case a few fractions of an inch thinner at it’s widest point.
But nevertheless the Air is great for Apple because it finally gives them something which at least almost matches the small lightweight notebooks other companies have done for years. And as always it’s done with traditional stylish Apple industrial design.