When comparing ASUS ZenBook UX330UA-AH55 vs MacBook, the Slant community recommends MacBook for most people. In the question“What are the best laptops for programmers who travel/digital nomads?” MacBook is ranked 9th while ASUS ZenBook UX330UA-AH55 is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose MacBook is:
The laptop weighs just 2 pounds and is 13.1 mm thin. It's one of the thinnest and lightest laptops on the market and it's extremely portable and easy to carry around.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great battery life
It can last for up to 8 hours on a single charge, making it a good choice for people who don't have easy access to a power plug during their day and need to use the laptop for extended periods of time.
Pro Slim and sturdy build
All metal, 2.6lbs, 0.5" thin chassis that feels solid and well built through and through. Screen hinge is also very strong.
Pro Excellent linux support
Elementary OS and Linux Mint both work without issues. The only thing that doesn't seem to work is the fingerprint scanner.
Pro Inexpensive for the great build and specs
Slim, light, metal build, strong hinge, large battery, great keyboard (soft, good key-travel) 7th gen core i5, 8gb RAM, 256gb SSD, 1080p IPS display and back-lit keyboard for $700.
Pro Extremely portable
The laptop weighs just 2 pounds and is 13.1 mm thin. It's one of the thinnest and lightest laptops on the market and it's extremely portable and easy to carry around.
Pro macOS is developer-friendly
macOS is based on XNU (Darwin) kernel, it's a certified Unix and arguably a lot more developer friendly than Windows. Development for Unix is native on macOS.
There's a large selection of great development tools available for macOS. The operating system itself comes bundled with a powerful terminal emulator, called Terminal. Additionally, Apple provides tools, like Xcode, an IDE that contains a comprehensive collection of tools for developing macOS and iOS software, for free.
You can also install Homebrew, an extremely useful package manager.
Pro Amazing display
Everything about the display is very good - from its high resolution (2304x1440) to the brightness (325 nitts), uniform brightness distribution (90%), and high contrast ratio (1000:1) with over 95% of the sRGB spectrum. Overall, a great display which will come in handy for people who work with visual arts.
Pro Excellent trackpad
The MacBook has a large 4.4 x 2.7-inch Force Touch trackpad with a Taptic Engine that delivers haptic feedback whenever the user taps on it to give them the impression that they are actually clicking on it. It also supports gestures and multi-finger swiping.
The accuracy is almost perfect and there's virtually no lag or stutter when using the trackpad.
Pro Decent battery life
The battery lasts around 7h30m of continuous web browsing which is about average for this class of laptops. Where this laptop's battery truly shines though is under heavy stress where it manages to last an impressive 2h35m under a total stress test (maxed out brightness and processor usage - circumstances that you are likely never going to encounter in the real world).
Pro Completely silent operation
Thanks to the Core M processor (which doesn't require a fan) and the SSD storage, there are no moving parts the in MacBook. It will operate in complete silence.
Pro Very good speakers
The speakers, found above the keyboard produce loud and clear sound with minimal to no distortion whatsoever. They can be used for both listening to music and watching movies with no problem at all.
Pro Decent keyboard
Pro Available in 4 colors
The laptop is available in space gray, gold, silver and rose gold (pink) finishes.
Cons
Con Display is decent, but could be better
1080p IPS that isnt reflective nor touch screen. Enables lower brightness in bright rooms and saves battery life, but quality of screen could be much better.
Con The touchpad is good, but not great
The touchpad might work perfectly fine in Windows, but in Linux, it is not that great.
Con Occasional fan noise and coil whine
At times there can be some coil whine (as is common in ultrabooks), but it isnt terrible. The fan isnt and issue in normal browsing or document editing, but in anything remotely intensive it will spin up and is noticeable.
Con Bezels thicker than some modern designs
When compared to new screen designs on phones or the XPS line, the bezels are quite "old school" in comparison.
Con Not very powerful
With an Intel Core M processor, the Macbook isn't a serious development laptop. While it will get the job done for lighter tasks, it will struggle with heavier jobs.
Con Non-free software
Apple doesn't release the source code for most of their software & firmware. This makes it significantly more difficult to customize, automate tasks, and verify security.
Con It's a bit hard to get used to the keyboard
The keys are pretty shallow, with a travel length of just 0.5mm. They still provide good feedback and the writing experience itself is not bad, but it's just a bit hard getting used to, especially if you are coming from a laptop that's not a MacBook.
Con Connecting more than one thing requires a hub
The laptop comes with a single USB-C port that's used for charging as well as any other peripherals or external storage devices. Connecting more than one thing at a time requires using a USB hub.
Con Premium price for not-so-premium hardware
Macbooks are one of the most expensive computers for the hardware they have. Mac is the most expensive UX to buy, as the price has low relationship to how good the hardware is and, instead, is related to how the whole experience from opening the box, to the physical shop, to the cloud and sync services they have.
Con Too fragile, compared to the competitors
Can barely handle liquid, breaks easily with bumping and, at a premium price, has the largest probability of something just breaking without apparent reason.
Con Very expensive (official) repairs
Fixing any problem with a Macbook through the official means is a very expensive investment. Usually, any problem that happens means replacing most of the laptop for 80% of the price, even if the problem can be solved by replacing a 5$ transistor or a 15$ chip or even bypassing with a 1$ wire.