ASUS Zenbook (UX21) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 22, 2011 8:00 PM ESTBattery Life
With limited time to test before I board a plane to Nokia World in London I only had time to run through one of our standard PC battery life scripts. I chose the web browsing test which involves frequent opening/closing of web pages until the battery runs out. It's a pretty stressful test that's not just indicative of web browsing but also battery life in general.
As you may have already seen from our UX21 teaser earlier this week, performance here is as expected. The UX21 has a 35Wh integrated (technically non-removable) battery, which just isn't a whole lot of capacity—particularly compared to your more run of the mill 13- and 14-inch notebooks. Battery life is naturally the price you pay for portability and form factor. You're looking at around 4.5 hours of continuous usage on a single charge. Obviously run something more CPU intensive and that number will drop considerably.
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Panlion - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
Good call. I could not install windows using the USB 3 drive so having an USB 2 port saved me.I also think by having the power, USB3, and the 2 mini VGA and HDMI port on the same side, you have a real possibility of having a docking station like block for this notebook.
ggathagan - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
Given that Asus does not sell this computer without an installed OS, I doubt that concern is even on their radar.DanNeely - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
Unless you think that they've never considered how to do a restore after an SSD failure your assumption can't be true.komoornik - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
What about the heat and noise? No detailed tests?tipoo - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
Yeah, I recall Asus making some claims about this cooling system vs the "Fruit Brand" (yes they really said that) cooling system.lukarak - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
Then again, the first MBA was also not impressive, but that was some years ago. This is too little, too late imo.The price is competitive, but the thing is, the smaller you go with laptops, the price and what you get for it becomes less important, and the general feeling of usage starts to play a bigger role.
I know it's not easy to make a trackpad that will be as integrated into the OS like the MBxs. It's good that some gestures are making its way to other systems.
But for me, the biggest one, especially on such small screens, is the ability to swipe between multiple desktops available in OS X. That makes me work so much faster. I sometimes have 10 desktops open, and getting to them without having to use key combinations is just something i couldn't live without anymore. Even if it means paying 100 or 200 more for the same performance.
popej - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
I haven't noticed any info about screen type, but looking at the pictures it works like a mirror. IMHO you can't call notebook truly portable if it has glare screen. Reflections severely limit range of places, where it can be used comfortably.yzkbug - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
Ditto!JohnMD1022 - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
"ASUS elected to use torx bits instead of standard phillips heads to better match the industrial design of the system. While I appreciate the attention to detail I think I'd be happier if ASUS had stuck to standard screws."Most people, including computer geeks, don't have torx drivers around the house, as they do regular and Phillips screwdrivers.
However, a quick trip to Sears and about $5 will fix you up with the needed size.
lukarak - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
To be honest, that could be true 10 years ago, but now, torx (and torx security) is pretty much a standard.Now the new 'players' are tri-wing (although they started to appear in some boxed sets) and apple's pentalobe.