Revisions

To start off in the comparison process I want to talk about the crowd favorite. Money.
In trying to give reasons as to why one company is better than the other, I want to compare
the cost of hardware in the HP Spectre and MacBook Air. Even though the main purpose of
my blog is to compare PCs to Macs, I feel that in order to give a comparison, a more
specific example is needed. With that in mind, I chose HP to represent for PC. Both of these
are the small portable versions of the laptops within the companies. The MacBook Air that I
will be looking at will be the 2015 13 inch edition and the HP computer is the HP Spectre
x360-13-4101 dx. The Mac starts at $1000 while the HP starts at $1169. This shows a little
bit of unbalanced comparison ($169), but I will make sure this is emphasized throughout the
post. Now to get into the specification comparisons.
Size and Weight
The Air has a screen size of 13 inches and it weighs 2.96 pounds. The display is
LED-back-lit and the resolution is 1440x900. This is not one of the retina display computers
that Mac has been releasing recently. However, this resolution is good for the screen size
and retina display is often seen as over-priced for what it is. As for the Spectre, the screen
size is also a 13 inch display and the resolution is 1920x1080. The total weight of the
computer is 3.17 pounds. The touch screen feature in the Spectre is not a comparable
feature beyond the fact that the HP has it and the MacBook does not. I believe tht the retina
display provides a nice feature seeing how the MacBooks usually have good photo and
video editinig features and it provides a very crisp image. However, in my opinion Iin this
section the Spectre wins the spec comparison and outclasses the MacBook Air by $75$125.
Graphics
In the MacBook Air they an Intel HD Graphics 6000 card and in the Spectre they
have an Intel HD Graphics 5500. In this matter, the Air just simply beats the Spectre. The
6000 model is slightly above the 5500 graphics card. With this increase, as a user you will
be able to render higher quality graphics or same quality graphics at a higher speed. Both
are in the Intel 5th gen graphics and are in a similar quality range but the 6000 is the fastest
integrated Intel graphics card currently available. I would say that this is around a $50-$100
dollar difference but due to the graphics cards being tied (integrated graphics) to the
processor, the price is hard to predict. For the type of graphic processing units (GPU) that
these are there is not a very noticeable difference between the 6000 and 5500 so the
difference between the two is generally able to be overlooked.
Ram and Storage
In the Spectre, there are 8 GB of DDR3L SDRAM (Double Data Rate type 3
Synchronous Dyamic Random Access Memory) (1x8 GB) and for storage there is a 256 GB
mSATA SSD (solid state drive). The RAM of the Air is 4 GB of 1600 MHz LPDDR3 and the
storage is 128 GB of PCle-based flash storage. With all the fancy letters out of the way, you
see that the Spectre has 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of solid state memory compared to the
4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of solid state memory. These two features are key to the speed of
your PC and how fast they can pull up information and process certain apps or other
computing. The most important bits of information is the type of ram (each of these is DDR3
so theyre equal), the amount of GBs, and the style of storage (SSD or hard drive). The
Spectre wins this comparison and this is around a $150 dollar difference due to increased

storage amount and RAM.

Processor
The Airs processor is an Intel Core i-5 that runs at 1.6 GHz up to 2.7 GHz when
overclocked and the Spectre is using an Intel Core i7-5500U that runs at 2.4 GHz and no
overclock. This means that the Spectre has a better processor in it all in all but the Air can
keep up when it needs to with its overclocking capability. Generally speaking, overclocking
is not the best way to get performance for your machine and over use can wear it out faster.
The Spectre has the better processor by a landslide and this can range from $200-$300
difference. This all depends on who you buy from and whether or not it is just the chip (for
small laptops like these, the chips CPU is usually not sold separately). Sense the GPUs in
these two computers are both integrated (graphic processing power comes from the CPU) I
would say that combining the differences in both sections there is probable somewhere
around a $100-$250 difference in HPs favor.
Everything Else
Mac:

1 USB 3.0

Thunderbolt 2 port

SD card slot

Minijack

720 p FaceTime camera

54- watt hour battery

HP:

3 USB 3.0

1 HDMI

1 Mini Display

1 headphone/microphone combo port

3-cell, 56 Wh Li-ion Polymer battery

Conclusion
The best computer, in my opinion, is the HP Spectre x360-13-4101 dx. It is a total of
$169 dollars more but with that money you are getting a better processor, RAM, storage,
touch screen, and resolution. The only area in which the MacBook Air wins is the graphics
card and the retina display which makes up for its lower resolution. that is off by a slight
amount. After researching and comparing the two, Now, if you are in it for a computer that is
a great portable machine and is under $1000 then the MacBook Air is a fantastic computer.

However, with the minimal price increase for the large increase in power, speed and
graphics is a more than worth it increase,. I would say that in order for these two computers
to be comparable with the hardware that they have, the Spectre would have to be at least
$1300. At that price, the pros the the Spectre have and the cost increase start to level out
but as is, the Spectre is in a better price point than the MacBook Air.

Original Draft
In trying to give reasons as to why one company is better than the other, I want to
compare the cost of hardware in the HP Spectre and MacBook Air. Even though the main
purpose of my blog is to compare PCs to Macs, I feel that in order to give a comparison, a
more specific example is needed. With that in mind, I chose HP to represent for PC. Both of
these are the small portable versions of the laptops within the companies. The MacBook Air
that I will be looking at will be the 2015 13 inch edition and the HP computer is the HP
Spectre x360-13-4101 dx. The Mac starts at $1000 while the HP starts at $1169. This
shows a little bit of unbalanced comparison ($169), but I will make sure this is emphasized
throughout the post. Now to get into the spec comparison.
Size and Weight
The Air has a screen size of 13 inches and it weighs 2.96 pounds. The display is
LED-back-lit and the resolution is 1440x900. This is not one of the retina display computers
that Mac has been releasing recently. However, this resolution is good for the screen size
and retina display is often seen as over-priced for what it is. As for the Spectre, the screen
size is also a 13 inch display and the resolution is 1920x1080. The total weight of the
computer is 3.17 pounds. The touch screen feature in the Spectre is not a comparable
feature beyond the fact that the HP has it and the MacBook does not. In this section the
Spectre wins the spec comparison and outclasses the MacBook Air by $75-$125.
Graphics
In the MacBook Air they an Intel HD Graphics 6000 card and in the Spectre they
have an Intel HD Graphics 5500. In this matter, the Air just simply beats the Spectre. The
6000 model is slightly above the 5500 graphics card. With this increase, as a user you will
be able to render higher quality graphics or same quality graphics at a higher speed. Both
are in the Intel 5th gen graphics and are in a similar quality range but the 6000 is the fastest
Intel graphics card currently available. I would say that this is around a $50-$100 dollar
difference but due to the graphics cards being tied to the processor, the price is hard to
predict.
Ram and Storage
In the Spectre, there are 8 GB of DDR3L SDRAM (1x8 GB) and for storage there
is a 256 GB mSATA SSD. The RAM of the Air is 4 GB of 1600 MHz LPDDR3 and the
storage is 128 GB of PCle-based flash storage. With all the fancy letters out of the way, you
see that the Spectre has 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of solid state memory compared to the
4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of solid state memory. These two features are key to the speed of
your PC and how fast they can pull up information and process certain apps or other

computing. The Spectre wins this comparison and this is around a $150 dollar difference
due to increased storage amount and RAM.
Processor
The Airs processor is an Intel Core i-5 that runs at 1.6 GHz up to 2.7 GHz when
overclocked and the Spectre is using an Intel Core i7-5500U that runs at 2.4 GHz and no
overclock. This means that the Spectre has a better processor in it all in all but the Air can
keep up when it needs to with its overclocking capability. Generally speaking, overclocking
is not the best way to get performance for your machine and over use can wear it out faster.
The Spectre has the better processor by a landslide and this can range from $200-$300
difference. This all depends on who you buy from and whether or not it is just the chip (for
small laptops like these, the chips CPU is usually not sold separately).
Everything Else
Mac:

1 USB 3.0

Thunderbolt 2 port

SD card slot

Minijack

720 p FaceTime camera

54- watt hour battery

HP:

3 USB 3.0

1 HDMI

1 Mini Display

1 headphone/microphone combo port

3-cell, 56 Wh Li-ion Polymer battery

Conclusion
The best computer, in my opinion, is the HP Spectre x360-13-4101 dx. It is a total
of $169 dollars more but with that money you are getting a better processor, RAM, storage,
touch screen, and resolution. The only area in which the MacBook Air wins is the graphics
card and that is off by a slight amount. After researching and comparing the two, Now, if you
are in it for a computer that is a great portable machine and is under $1000 then the
MacBook Air is a fantastic computer. However, the minimal price increase for the large
increase in power, speed and graphics is a more than worth it increase. I would say that in
order for these two computers to be comparable with the hardware that they have, the

Spectre would have to be at least $1300. At that price, the pros the the Spectre have and
the cost increase start to level out but as is, the Spectre is in a better price point than the
MacBook Air.