New Asus Zenbook released; competes well with MacBook Air

I've mentioned the lack of competition in the ultra portable market vs the macbook air in performance, price and portability. That changed a month earlier than I expected with the new Asus Zenbook.

Brushed alu body, from 0.11 to 0.71in thick, 11 and 13" versions, as light as 2.43 pounds, 1.6GHz Core i5 to 1.8Ghz Core i7 cpus, and a non-widescreen 1366x768 or 1600x900 screens; starting at $999.

The Zenbook comes with more ram and a larger SSD by default - an MBA with 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD costs $200 more. (edit: also, the Zenbook's SSD is an SATA 6.0 part, so faster drive response if the actual SSD can fill the pipe). There doesn't seem to be a 256GB SSD option, or a higher res screen option for the Zenbook on the higher end, however.

It looks like a nice machine, and good option for windows-only users who travel a lot but don't need those extra 4 battery hours (business travelers on ~3 hours flights, students with <2 hour classes, etc).


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

link to the zenbook website itself:
http://zenbook.asus.com/

edit: removed battery life reference, as my numbers were wrong.

 

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A thousand dollars? Good lord. Just buy the regular Asus netbook - it's not quite as thin or hi-performance, but it's the same weight and battery life (and still quite compact) and it costs like 1/3 of that.

 

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points against the netbook option:

1) Size is important when travelling.
2) Build quality matters.
3) Atom processor vs Core i processor power is huge, as in 10-20 times more powerful. Compiling code, systems modeling, etc, even games - anything CPU bound demands something more than an Atom. Excel and Word? Sure, go with the netbook.

Atom vs core i benchmarks: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/d510mo-intel-atom,2616.html

 

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The netbook is almost the same size (it's a bit thicker, but the same weight).

That's why I bought an Asus netbook - it has good build quality. I've travelled with it, spilt beer on it, dropped it, etc., without any trouble.

What kind of caveman tries to run intensive processes like that on a mobile computer? That'll eat your battery life alive. The mobile machine is for remotely logging in to the big iron you have plugged in wherever, which does the nasty stuff like compilation, simulations, etc. Likewise, intensive games are the one thing that people still buy desktop PCs for.

If you're doing anything CPU-intensive on your mobile computer, then you're doing it wrong.

 

follow-up from Ars: some issues, but the trackpad is so bad it kills the whole experience. drat.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/revi...-steely-marvel-with-an-appalling-trackpad.ars

What about a professional photographer who wants on-site previews to show clients? Wedding photos, corp. headshots, etc?

A caveman who constantly travels across the country for work, like me. I spent 3 days at home in Oct, and of the rest, a good portion of the time I had no or terrible internet access. Remote desktop is a wonderful tool, but it's not always a serious option; some flights from the east to the west coast of the US have wifi now, but not all of them.