My Asus UX305 has a very similar design to the 13" Air but a Core M CPU, no fans, and a great 1080p matte IPS display. The track pad is excellent as well.

It cost me $600.

That all being said, I switched from MacOS to Ubuntu a couple years ago because I was finding the increasingly frequent notifications and general ugliness/usability of newer MacOS versions were becoming very Windows XP-esque.

I might very well be the only person who prefers Unity to MacOS.

Linux runs on UX305 very well. Tried Fedora/Gnome and have been running Slackware/KDE for a while now with no issues with either.

I like the Dell XPS 13 quite a bit.

Earlier in my life, I always ended up buying Dells, mostly because they were the best purchases for me.

Then at one point I needed a new laptop, and the 11-inch Air was the only one that really fit the bill hardware-wise. There was the Yoga, which I almost purchased, but I didn't quite trust it despite its appeal and positive reviews.

After about about a year or so, it seemed like Apple abandoned that small laptop market, and multiple other vendors started releasing really competitive products in that space, especially HP and Dell.

If I was purchasing a new laptop, it would almost certainly be an XPS 13. This sales news isn't anything new.

These things seem to go in cycles--I suspect in 7 years or so we'll be talking about how Dell isn't keeping up with Apple again.