ASUS UX31A: Putting the Ultra in Ultrabooks
by Jarred Walton on August 28, 2012 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Intel
- Asus
- Ivy Bridge
- Zenbook Prime
- Ultrabook
Benchmark Setup
We’ve covered our current selection of benchmarks previously, but in order to keep the graphs a bit more manageable so we can just say “ASUS UX31A” in the charts instead of “ASUS UX31A-DB71 (i7-3517U, HD 4000, 4GB DDR3-1600, 256GB SSD, 50Wh, 13.3-inch 1080p IPS LCD”, we’ve put together this handy reference table of the laptops we’ll be using in this review in the following table. Since this is an Ultrabook review, we’re focusing on Ultrabooks along with a couple of smaller laptops. If you’d like to make your own comparisons, our full selection of laptops is available in Mobile Bench. Note also that all of the laptop names in the following table link to the appropriate review.
| Laptop Configuration Overview | ||||
| Laptop | CPU | Graphics | Storage | Battery |
| Acer TimelineU M3 | Intel i7-2637M | GT640M/HD3000 | 256GB SSD | 55Wh |
| AMD Trinity Prototype | AMD A10-4600M | HD7660G | 128GB SSD | 56Wh |
| ASUS Zenbook Prime UX21A | Intel i7-3517U | HD4000 | 256GB SSD | 35Wh |
| ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A | Intel i7-3517U | HD4000 | 256GB SSD | 50Wh |
| ASUS Zenbook UX31E | Intel i7-2677M | HD3000 | 256GB SSD | 48Wh |
| Clevo W110ER | Intel i7-3720QM | GT650M/HD4000 | 750GB Hybrid | 62Wh |
| Dell XPS 13 | Intel i7-2637M | HD3000 | 256GB SSD | 47Wh |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | Intel i7-3667U | HD4000 | 2x128GB SSDs | 56Wh |
| HP Folio 13 | Intel i5-2467M | HD3000 | 128GB SSD | 60Wh |
| Ivy Bridge Ultrabook Prototype | Intel i5-3427U | HD4000 | 240GB SSD | 47Wh |
First, you’ll notice that every system tested in the above charts uses an SSD for storage, with the exception of the Clevo W110ER. That particular laptop used a Seagate Momentus XT 750GB hybrid drive, mostly because we wanted to get a feel for how it compared to pure SSD storage. The short answer: it doesn’t. While best-case workloads might not look bad, in practice there’s a big difference between SSDs and hybrid solutions. 64GB of SSD caching might be enough to eliminate most of the difference, but at that point you could just run with a 64GB OS+Apps drive.
In the other areas, we have eight Ultrabooks—four Sandy Bridge models and four Ivy Bridge models—plus our reference AMD Trinity laptop and the aforementioned W110ER. While Trinity is a 35W TDP processor, the improved gaming potential is certainly worth a look, and in practice battery life isn’t all that different from ULV Ultrabooks—though the size is generally quite a bit thicker unless you opt for a low voltage A10-4655M (which we still haven’t been able to test). Looking at the sizes of the laptops, the UX21A and W110ER both sport 11.6” LCDs, although the W110ER chassis is substantially larger than the 13.3” Ultrabooks. The AMD Trinity and HP Envy 14 Spectre are 14”-screen laptops, the Acer M3 is our sole 15.6” representative, and the remaining five Ultrabooks sport 13.3” LCDs.
We’ll draw two major comparisons throughout this review by highlighting the numbers in the graphs. Besides the UX31A, we’ll look at how much ASUS has improved since the UX31E, and we’ll also see how the UX31A stacks up to the prototype IVB Ultrabook from Intel. We’ll also highlight the Trinity results in AMD red, just so they’re easy to spot, but it’s not a major focus of the review. And with that out of the way, let’s get to the benchmarks.
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cknobman - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
You know best buy sells this model: UX31A-R5102FWhich has:
128GB SSD
core i5 3317
1080p screen
Best part is it only costs $999
So you can get a full 1080p ultrabook for under a grand.
Connoisseur - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Careful with the best buy versions. From what I read on the AT forums, the quality control on the store model screens can be lacking as compared to the direct purchase versions. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence that the screens in the stores come with a higher prevalence of stuck pixels, bad backlight bleeding etc. They also mention that Asus doesn't cover the store model versions in their stuck pixel guarantee.Captmorgan09 - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Yep, I purchased this model about a month ago for traveling and working on photos in Lightroom. When I first saw it on Best Buy's site at $999, I was skeptical about it having the 1080p IPS LCD but decided to take the plunge anyways. I absolutely love the monitor, I finally have a travel laptop that I can be fairly confident in post processing my photos and posting online.As for the 4GB of RAM being on the slim side for photo work, Lightroom is actually not too bad in terms of RAM consumption. Yes, I would like to have 6 or 8, but 4GB does work when editing Canon 7D sized RAW photos in Lightroom 4.1.
*Lightroom 4 is a SLOW POS no matter how much RAM/CPU you throw at it. If it wasn't for a few very nice new features, I would go back to 3.x.
quiksilvr - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Why did they go through the trouble of putting mini-displayport at all? I thought Ivy Bridge was Thunderbolt ready.janderk - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
It's not a mini-display port (that is a small, probably soon fixed, error in the nice review). It is a mini VGA connection. My UX31A came with a VGA dongle which can be connected to this port.JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Oh, you're right! I assumed it was mini-DP with an adapter to VGA. What a shame!Roland00Address - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
And there was no real reason to go with mini vga. Mini vga is a non standard connection that will need an adapter to go to vga.They could have gone with mini displayport which is about the same size and has 4 advantages.
0) It can be adapted to vga with a cheap adapter
1) It can be adapted to dvi with a cheap adapter
2) It can be adapted to hdmi with a cheap adapter (and this adapter will carry sound)
3) It can run a 2560x1600 display with a mini displayport to displayport cable
4) Mini displayport adapters are far more common thus if you lose your adapter all you have to do is go to a apple store or a best buy to get this cable since macs have standardized on mini displayport/thunderbolt. Thus if you are a professional that needs to do a presentation and you are in a hurry and you need the adapter now you can go to a brick and mortor store and get this adapter right now.
peterfares - Sunday, September 9, 2012 - link
Yeah, that mini VGA port is really stupid. Dell's ultrabook has a mini DP connector. It just makes so much sense.DanNeely - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Nope. You still need to add a TB chip for an extra $20-30 to the total cost and whatever tradeoffs the extra space needed on the PCB requires.boogerlad - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Is it possible to remove the cooler right after removing the back cover, or is the io cable going to get in the way first? I'd like to replace the thermal paste. Any warranty void stickers?