The old adage is “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” and that seems to be the case in the ultra portable notebook category. The Apple MacBook Air has been the dominant choice by users who wish to purchase an ultraportable notebook. The MacBook Air has become one of Apple’s most popular products due to its compact feature set.
When a popular product is manufactured by one company it normally is a matter of time before others start looking at creating something similar. Dell, HP and others have all tried to replicate the Apple MacBook Air in some or other manner. Recently two manufacturers have tried to join this list of MacBook challengers. Yes, you guessed it. Samsung is one of them and Asus is the other manufacturer. Samsung it seems have been doing a lot of homework on a wide variety of Apple products.
The Samsung Ultra portable Series 9 notebook and the Asus U36JC are aimed at customers who want something like a MacBook Air but cannot afford it. They also might not want to buy an Apple device, yes that does happen.
It is a classic marketing move as manufacturers are counting on the confusion that is caused in the mind of user buying the product. The effects of these 2 new entries on the MacBook Air sales will most probably never be made public but it provides more choice to the user who wants to purchase an Ultra portable notebook.