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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Aikouka - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
I got the Elantech drivers ( Version V10.5.10.0 ) that I'm using from ASUS's website:http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en...
They're only about a month old, which isn't too bad. Finding that link can be a pain though... I had to go back to the forums where someone posted it ( http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=3372897... ) just to find it!
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Interesting... I actually was probably at that page before but didn't notice the "Elantech" option about three down. That said: WTF REQUIRES 146MB!? A touchpad driver should be about 1/10 that at most. :-\Aikouka - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Haha! That was my reaction when I saw the download size as well! I get the feeling that it's some monstrous package that is capable of servicing a lot of different products... kind of like graphics drivers?Although, I don't know how many products Elantech has.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Okay, so I've downloaded the actual Elantec drivers from ASUS' site now to see if they're any better. One thing they do have that the ASUS drivers lack is a "Smart detector" option that you can customize to help avoid accidental activation of the touchpad while you're typing. The default setting is too small for my liking, but if you set it to use a "large" area you can get it so that it mostly rejects input while you type. I'm not sure how good it is because this is the first I've tried it, but the above paragraph was typed with me basically resting my thumb near the palm on the touchpad and I didn't get any activations where my text got screwed up. I'm going to go update that page of the article just for completeness' sake, though I still feel like it's not quite at the same level as a good Synaptics touchpad.amrs - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Samsung's Ivy Bridge Ultrabook needs some more quality reviews, like Anandtech's... Is this planned?Personally I think the RAM issue is something of a concern. Hopefully someone puts out a model with 8 GB.
Toshio - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
+1 on a review in this one, many sites consider it the best thin+light windows notebook.RetroEvolute - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
I actually would have bought this ultrabook, but when I saw that it used a proprietary connector for its SSD, and soldered the RAM in (and at only 4GB), I really can't justify it. Everything else about it seems so great.On goes the wait for the perfect ultrabook.
Beenthere - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
There is a good reason why Ultrabooks don't sell even with lots of Intel bribe money.The reality is that there is nothing Ultra about these toys other than the high price. Most folks can see that there are many better, cheaper options for 99% of the world. If you're one of those who must own an Ultrabook, jump in. Otherwise your money is better spent elsewhere.
roc1 - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
Jarred, could you tell me if the audio jack can also be used as a line-in? It is important for me to record sound from my synthesizer on the go.Thanks! Great review :)
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link
As far as I can tell, and going by the specs as well, it only works for speakers/headphones -- no mic or line-in support. So if you need that and you don't want a USB adapter, you'll need to look elsewhere.