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Asus Zenbook Prime review

Zap

Zap

Elite Member
ASUS Zenbook Prime (UX21A) Review: The First of the 2nd Gen Ultrabooks

OMFG this thing seems really nice! What caught my eye was the UX32VD-DB71 model.

13.3" 1920x1080 IPS
ULV Ivy Bridge CPU
Nvidia GeForce 620M (Optimus) + Intel HD 4000
7mm 2.5" drive bay
1.45kg/3.2lb

About the only things "missing" for me are a gigabit Ethernet port and a bigger battery. I wouldn't mind this being a bit heavier if I can get a couple more hours battery life out of it.
 
I wish their was a slightly larger build with similiar screen size / resolution but with a better battery life as well. The older UX31 build had ~2 hrs more battery life than the UX21 model so maybe we'll see similar increases for the newer UX32 series. I would love to see some of these smaller wedge laptops bulk up a bit if it could help battery life a good bit. There aren't many options for laptops with awesome screens it seems. I really don't need an ultrabook size, but I really want to get solid battery life with a nice screen. A slightly larger build could potentially house a slightly better gpu as well to help push 1080p.
 
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I am curious to know how annoying the fan noise is in comparison to the Macboook Air. The Air we have gets quite loud when doing things like playing Flash games, to the point of me wanting to sell it for something else. If this Asus has better noise levels (or perhaps doesn't get as hot to start) I could see this as a good replacement.
 
DaveStall said:
I am curious to know how annoying the fan noise is in comparison to the Macboook Air. The Air we have gets quite loud when doing things like playing Flash games, to the point of me wanting to sell it for something else. If this Asus has better noise levels (or perhaps doesn't get as hot to start) I could see this as a good replacement.
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You could try setting the affinity to just one core for your plugin container (or whatever process is running flash). Most flash games run just fine on one core but they use two anyway. You could also manually throttle the cpu and in most cases flash will run just fine but power use will go way down.

Try throttlestop:

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2090/mirrors.php

It can be used for throttling too, not just preventing throttling!
 
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1080p IPS, under 14", and capable of a few older games, at least? With a not-bad keyboard, too? SSD from the factory and a non-astronomical pricetag?

I love my x200s, but damn is that tempting.
 
Bateluer said:
Too much interest in the 13.3in model. The 11.6in model is more interesting and attractive.
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To each their own.

Why the UX32 is attractive to me in particular is because it can use a normal 2.5" drive, albeit 7mm thick. Stock, it uses a HDD plus an SSD cache which makes me wonder if the SSD cache is really just an mSATA device using Intel RST. If so, then it would be possible to put a 240GB mSATA SSD in there, plus a 512GB 7mm SSD.

LOL_Wut_Axel said:
Don't really know what's the point of putting a GT620M in there. The HD 4000 is probably only a bit slower.
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Better driver support? As an example I get visual glitches with HD 2500 in League of Legends.

EDIT: Doesn't the GT 620M have 96 CUDA cores? If so, that's in the realm of the desktop GT 240 or 9600 GT, though probably a bit slower due to slower clock speeds.
 
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Zap said:
To each their own.

Why the UX32 is attractive to me in particular is because it can use a normal 2.5" drive, albeit 7mm thick. Stock, it uses a HDD plus an SSD cache which makes me wonder if the SSD cache is really just an mSATA device using Intel RST. If so, then it would be possible to put a 240GB mSATA SSD in there, plus a 512GB 7mm SSD.



Better driver support? As an example I get visual glitches with HD 2500 in League of Legends.
Click to expand...

🙄

Not this again. Ivy Bridge drivers are just fine.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5771/the-intel-ivy-bridge-core-i7-3770k-review/8

They could've saved space from not including it into a larger battery.
 
What I want to know is if I can get the screen in the 11.6" model and put it in a Clevo W110ER. If the dimensions and electrics are compatible then I would be tempted to buy one of each swap the screens and sell the butchered Asus.
 
I'm really getting my hopes up for the UX32VD model. Hopefully it can compete with the MBP. In a week or two we'll know! (maybe)

I'm really curious on how well the hybrid drive will work. Been running SSD's for last couple of years on all my system drives and going back to mechanical drives feels a bit iffy.
 
Zap said:
What caught my eye was the UX32VD-DB71 model.
...
About the only things "missing" for me are a gigabit Ethernet port and a bigger battery. I wouldn't mind this being a bit heavier if I can get a couple more hours battery life out of it.
Click to expand...

NotebookCheck Review Asus Zenbook UX32VD Ultrabook

Looks like it does have 10/100 NIC using a dongle, unlike the UX21/UX31 series. Not as good as gigabit, but better than no hard-wired at all.

Battery life is 5 hours actual web browsing, with 7 hours "advertised" (max possible?).

Keyboard is backlit.

Nvidia graphics provides up to near twice the gaming performance of the integrated HD 4000.

This is looking better and better.
 
:/ if all you can run is 2.4ghz wifi then yeah, a 100mb port is better but if you have a good 5ghz router and a good adapter in the laptop, there isnt that much difference.
 
I don't see the point getting ethernet on a Zenbook, I think they are not aimed to that kind of users.

Asus can not satisfy everyone!
 
Yazoo said:
It would appear none of the Zenbooks have Ethernet, but otherwise they look nice. The Sager NP6110 has some impressive stats as well.
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I think they all come with Ethernet adapters ready to plug in so no need to buy extras.

Does anyone know if Anand will do a review or benchmark on the UX32VD with the integrated graphics?
 
Is the UX21A available to buy anywhere?

I am in the UK and I can see that the US has the UX31A on Newegg but I can't for shit find any information on availability anywhere regarding Europe and the other products.
 
Dkcode said:
Is the UX21A available to buy anywhere?

I am in the UK and I can see that the US has the UX31A on Newegg but I can't for shit find any information on availability anywhere regarding Europe and the other products.
Click to expand...

The whole line is available in Portugal, so it almost certainly is in the UK.
 
I mean any form of scrolling where I don't have to lift my finger keep it going. The asus smart gesture doesn't seem to su pport it...
 
Download synaptics drivers & software. I also recommend twofingerscroll, which provides very useful features like two finger tap, left then right tap, swipe for back & forth, etc. Also, two finger scrolling (a la tablets) is incredibly smooth in Chrome and certain other programs.

Remembered that it's not easy to find the latest version:
http://lifehacker.com/5943337/twofingerscroll-dramatically-improves-windows-touchpads has a link to 1.0.9 with everything fine-tuned. I have had 2 or 3 occasions in the past year or so where features for both synaptics and twofingerscroll must've interfered and locked out any features. A simple restart of those 2 software solved the problem.
 
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