ASUS Zenbook (UX21) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 22, 2011 8:00 PM ESTIntegrated VGA Camera
ASUS integrated a VGA camera into the display bezel of the UX21. Its performance is pretty much what you'd expect for such a small sensor. Given enough light you can actually send a halfway decent image at a high frame rate to someone at the other end of a Skype call:
Unfortunately if you're not in studio lighting, both image quality and frame rate suffer tremendously. The camera is still usable, but don't expect anything wonderful out of it:
Video Out
The Zenbook UX21 features two display outputs: mini VGA and micro HDMI. ASUS supplies a dongle to conver the former into a standard female VGA connector, while you'll have to supply your own cable for the latter. Maximum display output over VGA is 1920 x 1200 while it's 1920 x 1080 over micro HDMI. I tested both outputs and they worked as expected, with quick detection and switching times between outputs.
With an external display connected the Zenbook automatically shifts into clone mode. You can cycle through notebook panel or external only configurations by hitting fn + F8. There's also a dedicated combination (fn + F7) to blank the display entirely if you want a quick way to hide what you're working on.
Networking Performance: Wireless & USB Ethernet
ASUS integrated a very small Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 802.11b/g/n WiFi solution into the UX21. Unfortunately the specs of this particular radio aren't anything to write home about. It supports only 2.4GHz and a single spatial stream, limiting its performance to 72Mbps with 20MHz channels and 150Mbps with 40MHz channels. Unfortunately Apple's AirPort Extreme only supports 40MHz channels on the 5GHz band so my testing was limited to 20MHz channels at 72Mbps. Real world performance is obviously significantly lower than that, I measured about 50-60% of the link rate for most transfers within 10 feet of the AP. That works out to be around 5MB/s over 802.11n. If you can connect using 40MHz channels however, expect to see about twice the performance. ASUS is limited by the availability of 1/4 length PCIe WiFi solutions since the Zenbook uses that form factor. Apparently a 2x2:2 version is due out next year; we'll hopefully see it in time for the second generation Zenbook.
All Zenbooks ship with a USB to Ethernet adapter, enabling 100Mbps Ethernet if you need a wired connection. Inside the dongle is a ASIX AX88772B USB Ethernet controller. The controller works quite well, and I had no problems sustaining over 90Mbps in a transfer on my local network.
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Fradelius - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
what if i work in a corporative enterprise (90% windows) ? do i have to switch to osx, wich i dont like, coss its not for working?btw im a unix sysadmin
and still prefer windows for workstations.. ALL THE WAY...
the real question is, why would i go with a portable that has a different os than my workstation?
you dont have to hate apple to like this thing...
pdjblum - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
It seems the vast majority of folks responding have a hard-on for apple and believe they are superior because of it. Jobs certainly did, the arrogant bastard. Some of us are still tech enthusiasts and still prefer using Windows and the freedom it affords. This site has become apple-centric, no doubt.lukarak - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
Is Apple forcing you to use their OS?pdjblum - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
How twisted are you man? This is a review of a windows laptop. How has it turned into a discussion by a bunch of apple fanboys about how great macs are? No one is forcing you to be a total dick.jconan - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
But then you would have to partition the drive and give away that precious space to Win7 and 64gigs the bare minimum on a MBA is a bit already stranded.Shadowmaster625 - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
I dont understand why so much memory is used in standby. Why not swap most out and then have one single low power DRAM chip powered up to store the ~256MB~512MB that cant be swapped out? Then you can sleep a long time and still have fast resume.pdjblum - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
Some of us who frequent AnandTech still prefer windows. Obviously Anand prefers apple and so do many, if not most, of his readers, or at least his more vocal ones. Comparing a windows machine to an apple machine is like comparing apples to oranges. Apple's control over hardware and software makes it much easier to insure things work just right; however that control is limiting as far as windows users are concerned.Of course, many of your apple users will react badly to my sentiment, which is odd since I don't see how I could have offended. You, and your readers, can make out of that sort of reaction what you will, but why be defensive if you have such a great thing, which I am sure it is, at least to you, and your readers.
lukarak - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
It will not be a bad reaction. However, buying a mac is not limiting, as you are free to use any operating system you wish. Buying any other pc is, because you are generally left without OSX.I have been using windows my whole life. And i still use them every day. But they run inside VMs on my Macs and other PCs i have 'equipped' with Mac OS X.
Sunburn74 - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
Not pcs fault that OSX can't run.lukarak - Sunday, October 23, 2011 - link
So? It's a fact, i don't care whose fault it is. It is not even a subject of fault. The clear fact is that with a mac i'm not limited in OS selection, either through VMs or 'native', and with a PC i am. So how is buying a mac limiting?