ASUS Zenbook UX21 First Results: MBA-Like Battery Life Under Windows 7
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 18, 2011 4:27 PM ESTFedEx dropped off our first Ultrabook this morning: the beautiful 11.6-inch ASUS Zenbook UX21E-DH71. We just got the first battery life results out of the machine and, as expected, they are near-identical to the 11-inch MacBook Air under Windows 7. Given the similarity in platform and identical battery capacities, similar results here aren't surprising. The fact that there aren't any surprises is a very good thing as it means ASUS' default configuration doesn't include a bunch of battery-taxing bloatware. We'll be running more tests over the coming days of course but it never hurts to have an early look:
Performance is also in-line with expectations. The model we have features a 128GB SF-2281 (SandForce) based SSD and a faster CPU than the base 11-inch MacBook Air model giving it the edge in PCMark 7. Although the system is configured to sleep rather than shut down by default, a full boot from scratch (not hibernate/STR) takes only 16.7 seconds. That's actually in-line with how long an 11-inch MBA takes to get into OS X (17.2s). Very impressive indeed.
The machine feels extremely well built and is quite snappy thanks to its Sandy Bridge + SSD combo. More details soon!
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MrCromulent - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
I've got 1200 bucks to spend. As soon as anyone of you builds an Ultrabook with a matte high-res screen, I'll happily give you my money.DanNeely - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
Does 1600x900 count? Someone, IIRC ASUS is selling 13" models with that resolution.I wouldn't hold my breath for 1080p; OS DPI scaling just has too many problems for it to be viable beyond a very small niche of users.
amdwilliam1985 - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
Is the screen with a black bezel?Why would they make a silver laptop with black bezel?
tipoo - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
Less distracting while watching fullscreen video IMO. I like it.michael2k - Wednesday, October 19, 2011 - link
Because that's what Apple did?frozentundra123456 - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
Be very interested to see how this compares in performance to the dm1z, which I saw at Best Buy and thought it was quite an attractive package, and must cost about half of the Asus model.welshy992 - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
you can see the difference above, the e-350 in the MSI x370 is the same as the e-350 in the hp dm1zFlyBri - Wednesday, October 19, 2011 - link
The dm1z is about half the cost of the Zenbook, and also 1/5 the laptop that the Zenbook is. The dm1z is a step above a netbook, where the Zenbook is a full-fledged true laptop with a core i5 processor, way better build quality with better materials, etc. etc.name99 - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
"The fact that there aren't any surprises is a very good thing as it means ASUS' default configuration doesn't include a bunch of battery-taxing bloatware."Uhh, so what is Flash :-) And you are aware that Flash is not included by default on MBA?
Solidstate89 - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - link
It's been proven time and time again that Flash uses less resources than HTML5video. Especially under Windows where they have full access to HWA instead of being restricted to the APIs they can use like in OS X.