ASUS Zenbook UX31E-DH72 13.3" Ultrabook

Pros: Fast, sexy, looks great. Great Newegg service, it arrived fast and in great shape.

Cons: Computer made a high-pitched whine (RMA 1), and the video display just failed after a little over a year (RMA 2). Now it's out of warranty. Cannot recommend a computer that fails twice in little over a year. Avoid ASUS.

Manufacturer Response:

Hello Bill,

I am sorry that you had to send your laptop in to our repair center multiple times. It wasn't clear based on your review, but is everything working properly now? If the laptop is still malfunctioning, I would be happy to help. Just shoot me an email with your laptop's serial number along with a short description of the laptop's problem. My email is cl-mark@asus.com.

Regards,

Mark
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: Sleek- very thin, very light. The SSD is very nice- boots Arch Linux to login screen in about 10 seconds. Resumes from suspend in <2 seconds. Battery life is exceptional. Touchpad is very responsive. Screen is bright and vivid.

Cons: The keyboard. The buttons don't seem to work very well unless you have impeccable aim and hit them directly in the center, every time. The CPU is a little lacking. YouTube videos are laggy. Speaker quality is OK- gets very distorted past 60% volume. Wireless quality is absolutely terrible. I can be sitting within 10 feet of the AP, with no major obstructions, and the internet connection continues to drop intermittently. It's extremely frustrating, as my work requires persistent SSH connections.

Other Thoughts: Overall, I love this laptop. It's light, easy to travel with, and speedy when it comes to i/o actions thanks to the SSD. However, I am upset that I paid almost $1500 for it. To me, this laptop's cons do not make it worth the amount of money I paid.

Pros: I have the 11' and the 13'. The 13" is i5 and much slower than the 11" i7. I want the 13" i7. but I want to add ram. possible?

Cons: Needs more documention where I need it. I cannot figure out the face logon. If I add an external mouse it warns me about instant own and I don't nkow why.

Other Thoughts: I want to configure with upgraded components. Is it possible?

Pros: With the ultrabook title, you expect a slim laptop, ASUS has done this to an extreme level and the sleek design makes the device look sexy. Alot of attention when into the design. I had to point out to 3 different techs the Intel & Windows branding stickers, as Asus pulled off some magic to get permission to use off colored ones. So the stickers blend right into the palm rest.

Asus includes 2 adapters (ethernet being the desired one) which made hooking up at the office a breeze.

When comparing to other Ultrabooks available now, this is one of the cheapest ones with the listed "high quality" specs.

Audio does sound really nice on this. From my Zune collection, movie collection or youtube HD videos, the sound seems to fill the room.

256GB of SSD storage is freaking sweet.

Cons: I quoted "high Quality" because here is were i'm having a problem. This is the 1st Core i7 mobile CPU i've used, however not the 1st core i7 branded CPU. I can tell you, from the desktop side, going from Core i3/i5 to i7, you noticed a big welcome change... however in the mobile platform, i am NOT impressed with the speed you get from the i7.

4gb of ram is a joke. I only like running 4gb of ram under Win7 x64 if i have a dedicated video card. Perhaps if the ram was clocked higher than 1333 it could have compensated for something.

The performance from the SSD is far better than your standard hdd, however its one of the worst Sata3 SSD's i've used. The SSD is a SanDisk, and i've used OCZ in other devices.

WebCam can't take 720p pictures?!?! Come one now!

Included Ethernet is only 10/100

SD reader only functions on the USB 2.0 Bus, which is maxed at 60MB/s. I'm a photographer and use cards much faster than that.

Other Thoughts: i have to start out that upon receiving both units, not 1 has shown any signs of mechanical or technical defect.

I'm more so questioning the real quality you get for the money you're paying.

If your someone who has never owned a Core iX or SSD device, of course this will seem so fast. However I've been dealing with the Core series through the 3 gens and this mobile platform isn't what i would expect.

With any laptop device, i always recommend getting a warranty but on this ultrabook, i EXTREMELY insist on it as all of the parts are "onboard" If any component bust, your *****out of luck if your out of warranty.

Also, consider the Ivy bridge version that is coming soon which includes a dedicated graphics. Also the Transformer Book is a full blown Win 8 device with a detachable keyboard for extreme portability.

As always, feel free to gmail my nickname with questions or comments.

Pros: Light weight, fast, long battery life. It would be great laptop except for its critical flaw!

Cons: The touchpad. Watch out. I've read they have two suppliers for the touch pad, a good one and the one I have. It selects (single click) stuff without doing anything. Very frustrating. You move the curser around, and bang it selects something, or better yet, you are typing and suddenely your typing somewhere else in you document.

I've tried every touch configuration I can find, and have the latest software. Nothing helps... including Asus support!

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Sorry to hear that the touch pad is too sensitive. Have you tried updating the drivers? I will give you our support site below for your product. So if you need to update the bios as well.

http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&amp;m=UX31E&amp;p=3&amp;s=369&amp;os=30&amp;hashedid=okyFhGJT4AM8jMkZ

I too have issues when using the zenbook. I believe because the touch pad is so large that just the slight touch of the palm or side of the fingers will move your cursor to where ever your mouse is at.

If you have any questions or comments feel free to email me at cl-jeffrey@asus.com and I'll be glad to help. Asus strives to meet and exceeds our customer expectations within our warranty policy. Please reply with reference# C1042-1340

Regards,

Jeffrey
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: Excellent battery life, low heat, fast boot time

Cons: lcd failed within 27 days of purchase. Have to wait 10 days to get the unit repaired... not, I repeat not happy.

Other Thoughts: After spending an considerable amount of money for a laptop, there's a high amount of expectation inregards to performance and reliability. I've found the performance to be excellent but if I can't see my screen cuz the lcd's gone haywire and everything is WHITE, well the performance doesn't matter. Make better parts.

Pros: Extremely Portable, the unit is lightweight, very slim. The performance on the High Performance level is outstanding. I have not had any overheating issues with the unit whatsoever. I think I have noticed the fan come on a few times since I bought it back in January. The screen is adequate and it dims and brightens as needed. The sound from the B&O is just short of awesome for a notebook this size. I didn't buy this unit as a multimedia machine, so the sound system was actually a bonus for me. The battery really does last forever. I get 6 to 9 hours of battery power on average out of this notebook.

Cons: The keyboard is nice and spread out and comfortable. However I experience frequent typo's due to the keyboard just not being receptive. The mouse is even worse. The Mouse Issues were something that I knew about ahead of buying this laptop. Performance of the machine in anything but High Performance mode is lackluster. Simple tasks such as switching tab's in a browser is laggy.

Other Thoughts: Portability was my primary concern. I have an Asus G series gaming laptop that I bought for performance, it still performs like a champ 4 years later, but it weighs 9lbs. I am not much into gaming and wanted portability and performance, this unit cracks the whip and is very speedy in high performance mode. I have remedied the keyboard and mouse issues by using a Logitech K750 slim wireless Keyboard and a Logitech Performance MX mouse that is also wireless. They use the same wireless USB device which stays in the machine all of the time. My total investment in this machine with the keyboard and mouse is over $1600. I would do it again if I had to start over.

Pros: Portability 5 stars nice pretty powerful good size screen very fast.

Cons: after 2 weeks of heavy usage it failed on me started overheating very quickly and very hot shut itself down then it had a good behavior until the next 2 weeks the screen just went grayish on the top half of the screen then all the screen went white to grayish I can here the OS but cant see it and its doing a clicking noise must be the ssd drive and the GPU for a core i7 it must take heavy usage im going to return it to the store for a new one if it happends again im going to have to take a refund and go HP.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Sorry to hear that your unit was overheating on you. If you returned the unit and got another one I hope you are using it to reply back to this email.

In the future if you have questions or comments you can email me at cl-jeffrey@asus.com. Asus strives to meet and exceeds our customer expectations within our warranty policy. Please reply with reference# C1042-868

Regards,

Jeffrey
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: Looks that can compete with the MacBook Air.
USB 3, carry case and price makes it a better value than the Air.

Cons: If you type fast, it's easy to "incorrectly" punch the keys so they don't register. Error rate for me is currently one character per sentence. I use it for writing code most of the time so it's not so bad, but it can get annoying when I'm typing a message on instant messengers or emails.

Other Thoughts: I would have picked the Air if the price gap closed by $300.

Pros: This laptop is amazing. It's beautiful, elegant, very thin (Thinner than both my roommate's macbook air and a friend's Samsung Series 9), and powerful. With the i7 processor behind it the zenbook is super fast and has dealt with every application I've thrown at it so far without a blip. Asus is also true to their word in that it wakes up in two seconds or less every time, no matter how long its been asleep. The SSD it ships with is both spacious and fast, and the 4GB of ram more than enough for most tasks.

The stuff that comes with the computer is also top notch - the laptop sleeve, adaptors, and power cord (which is thankfully very long).

Cons: Honestly, I only have two complaints about the laptop: It does not ship with a mini-HDMI/HDMI adaptor or cord and it is so thin that resting your hands on the thin/sharp front edge can be uncomfortable. Other people have told me that it's hard to open without holding the bottom down, but I personally have not experienced this.

Other Thoughts: I love this machine. I'm a college student who had been lugging a massive 11lb RoG 74sx to my compsci classes - this has been the perfect solution!