ASUS Zenbook Prime (UX21A) Review: The First of the 2nd Gen Ultrabooks
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 22, 2012 2:46 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- CPUs
- Asus
- Ivy Bridge
- Zenbook
- Zenbook Prime
- Ultrabook
- Notebooks
The Test
To keep the charts clean and simple I omitted a lot of the config details of each of the notebooks. For your reference, here's the configuration of each of the notebooks in our tests:
Dell Inspiron 11z (SU4100 + GMA4500 + HDD + 56Wh)
Performance
As I mentioned earlier in this review/preview, the deal ASUS worked out with Intel prevents us for discussing clock speeds or specifications of the ULV Ivy Bridge silicon in the Zenbook Prime. Obviously the silicon is going to fit within the same 17W TDP as its predecessor so don't expect huge differences in clock speeds.
If you take into account Quick Sync and its SSD, the Zenbook Prime is an extremely quick solution. Looking at the breakdown of PCMark scores you get a much more realistic look at where the ULV IVB fits into things.
In some areas the Sandisk U100 holds the Zenbook prime back, here it's actually slower than its predecessor. Despite all of its issues throughout most of last year, SandForce was always fast.
I threw in a PCMark Vantage graph as we have a lot of older data in that benchmark that can help put things in perspective:
It's amazing the sort of performance gains we're able to show over the older Core 2 based ultra portables like the Dell Inspiron 11z and Adamo 13. Again we see a slight performance deficit versus the SandForce based UX21E.
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joe898 - Wednesday, May 23, 2012 - link
I guess you don't care about the annoyingly large bezel.Sunburn74 - Wednesday, May 23, 2012 - link
You're looking at the 11inch model and so the bezel seems amplified. A larger screen size makes that bezel seem more appropiate.That withstanding, the machine still looks phenomenal bezel and all.
joe898 - Wednesday, May 23, 2012 - link
Yes, I'm specifically looking for an 11.6" ultrabook. I'd actually sacrifice thinness to get the bezel and hence, the foot print smaller. The bezel on the 11.6" Asus makes the notebook look very cheap too.Bolas - Wednesday, May 23, 2012 - link
So when and where can I buy one of these?Sunburn74 - Wednesday, May 23, 2012 - link
Agreed. If I could pre-order, I would.cwcwfpfp - Friday, May 25, 2012 - link
No official release date yet. A reasonable guess is that it will be available shortly after Computex though, which takes place June 5-9.DaveStall - Thursday, May 24, 2012 - link
I am a little bit curious about this comment in the review in resepect to noise:" I suspect much of this boils down to how aggressive Apple is about keeping fan speed/noise down". My wife has a current model 13" MBA and that thing sounds like a cross between a hair dryer and a leaf blower if she is doing anything remotely intense (which for her tends be be playing Flash based Facebook games). We are honestly ready to sell the MBA because of noise issues. If the Zenbook is louder than the MBA then the noise must be almost unbearable. That's too bad beuase I was hoping this would be something I could replace her MBA with.Malih - Saturday, May 26, 2012 - link
wondering how does Apple go from high-priced laptop to providing better value,but with good display, SSD, and Thunderbolt they have a competitive advantage compared to UX32A-DB51,
or is there a catch with Apple?
Enigmat - Saturday, May 26, 2012 - link
Is the HDD changeable? like changeable to a 7mm ssd ??Mhefnawy - Sunday, May 27, 2012 - link
can we Connect External Monitor to Asus Ultrabook and turn it's own off to check battery life with external screen while the internal is almost off to remove internal display backlight power from battery to identify how longer it will stay with its internal screen compare to external display then we do the same with the previouse model to check the value added by ivy bridge in battery life terms???