The force touch thing seems extremely minor value. Perhaps in a few years when all hardware has it and every OS supports it, and all applications build around it... but right now? Oh wow I can speed up a video by 2x or 16x depending on how hard I click... as opposed to a million software-based solutions, like pressing longer makes it go faster, pressing a faster button makes it go faster, press and hold brings up a speed slider, clicking on the video bar to move around etc etc. I doubt you'll get any significant value out of this '3rd control' in 2015 or even 2016.
The keyboard design is an engineering effort, not a consumer benefit over alternative laptops. It was redesigned so it could still function while being thinner and smaller. A slightly thicker or bigger (e.g. 13' Zenbook/XPS/Air) laptop doesn't need this redesign. It has a butterfly switch now so that the keys won't sag on the edges, which isn't a problem normally. But for the 12', because the keys were made bigger in a small area, if you sag a key, your finger slides off and onto the other key causing typos. In other words, the butterfly switch is a solution to a problem created by its small size. It's not actually a better keyboard to type on than an Air. In fact, worse, as there's less travel, less space between keys, less space between keys and touchpad. In many ways the touchpad came out of this, too: no space for real travel, so let's remove travel of the touchpad and add magnets that give the illusion of clicking, so you can make it thinner. This isn't a better system, it's just necessary for a thinner device. And then you might as well play with the magnets and add a 'force touch'.
As for all your spec comparisons, read the review. The performance and battery benchmarks are pretty similar between the Air and Asus. And that means the Asus beats the MB, as the MB isn't quite as strong as the Air.
Seems like the Asus and Dell XPS have beat the MB and MBA competition pretty solidly if you ask me. Unless you're not OS-agnostic.
Comments
The force touch thing seems extremely minor value. Perhaps in a few years when all hardware has it and every OS supports it, and all applications build around it... but right now? Oh wow I can speed up a video by 2x or 16x depending on how hard I click... as opposed to a million software-based solutions, like pressing longer makes it go faster, pressing a faster button makes it go faster, press and hold brings up a speed slider, clicking on the video bar to move around etc etc. I doubt you'll get any significant value out of this '3rd control' in 2015 or even 2016.
The keyboard design is an engineering effort, not a consumer benefit over alternative laptops. It was redesigned so it could still function while being thinner and smaller. A slightly thicker or bigger (e.g. 13' Zenbook/XPS/Air) laptop doesn't need this redesign. It has a butterfly switch now so that the keys won't sag on the edges, which isn't a problem normally. But for the 12', because the keys were made bigger in a small area, if you sag a key, your finger slides off and onto the other key causing typos. In other words, the butterfly switch is a solution to a problem created by its small size. It's not actually a better keyboard to type on than an Air. In fact, worse, as there's less travel, less space between keys, less space between keys and touchpad. In many ways the touchpad came out of this, too: no space for real travel, so let's remove travel of the touchpad and add magnets that give the illusion of clicking, so you can make it thinner. This isn't a better system, it's just necessary for a thinner device. And then you might as well play with the magnets and add a 'force touch'.
As for all your spec comparisons, read the review. The performance and battery benchmarks are pretty similar between the Air and Asus. And that means the Asus beats the MB, as the MB isn't quite as strong as the Air.
Seems like the Asus and Dell XPS have beat the MB and MBA competition pretty solidly if you ask me. Unless you're not OS-agnostic.