First ASUS ultrabook to market: meet the Zenbook

[DainBramaged]

ASUS unveiled its new ultrabook, the UX 21/31 or “Zenbook,” at an event in New York yesterday. The smallest 11-inch version of the Windows 7 computer has an Intel Core i5 processor, weighs 2.43 pounds, and is priced at $999. The Zenbook has beaten all the other manufacturers to market, as it is the first ultrabook available starting today.

The Zenbooks are brushed aluminum unibody—er, “monoshell,” as ASUS puts it. The bladelike notebooks are 0.11 inches thick at the front and 0.67 or 0.71 inches thick at the back for the 11-inch and 13-inch versions, respectively—nigh-identical dimensions to the MacBook Air. The 11-inch version of the Zenbook doesn’t have the wide-and-squat screen the 11-inch Air does, but has the same 1366x768 native resolution; the 13-inch Zenbook’s screen is 1600x900.

Each notebook comes with one USB 3.0 port in addition to one USB 2.0, microHDMI out, and a miniVGA display connector, with USB-to-Ethernet and miniVGA-to-VGA adapters included in the box. The 13-inch model also has a built-in SD card reader. 4GB of RAM is standard in all models, and both sizes can be configured with either Intel Core i5 or i7 processors (1.6GHz Core i5‐2467M for the 11-inch, 1.7GHz Core i5‐2557M for the 13-inch, and 1.8GHz Core i7-2677M for both). The base 11-inch model has a 128GB SSD, and the most pricey versions of the 13-inch can be configured with a 256GB SSD.

A 0.3-megapixel camera is centered above the screen, and the battery life is rated at 5 hours for the 11-inch model and 7 hours for the 13-inch model. ASUS is also touting the “instant-on” capability of the Zenbook, which brings up the desktop in less than two seconds when it is opened. Standby time is where the Zenbook falls far short of the rival it is targeting in every other way—the 11-inch gets up to 7 days, and the 13-inch up to 10 days (all MacBook Airs get up to 30).




http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/10/first-ultrabook-to-market-meet-the-asus-zenbook.ars

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Ahh - imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." - S.J.*

* Channeled from the Other Side

[DainBramaged]

2. (sigh) could be the patent on the design ran out on Apple, or the agreement between suppliers

disintegrated now that Mr. jobs is passed. Just remember, without INTEL components, Apple would never had had the resurgence they enjoyed.

[FarCenter]

3. MacBook Air Teardown by iFixit

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Air-13-Inch-Mid-2011-Teardown/6130/1

Report: Quanta lands MacBook Air contract
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/01/17/report_quanta_lands_macbook_air_contract.html

The story about the Quanta contract is from 2008, so they may have changed Air production to a different Asian OEM.

But Quanta and other OEMS also make Ultrabooks sold under various names.

Apple reportedly has 10 times as many employees in Asia than the US.

[Matariki]

4. Out today?! Yay!! I've been (impatiently) waiting for this.

[DainBramaged]

5. That is (thousands) of us.........

:evilgrin: