Dell M1330, perfect, except for its overheating problems 
Oh hey cool! Youāre switching to a Macbook Air. Oh, nevermindā¦
I REALLY want to get one of these ā¦ have looked into the RV model as well, but every time Iāve touched on of them, I realize that moving away from my beloved Thinkpad keyboard will make my typing productivity take a nosedive ā¦ Or at least that what I think. Have anyone happily taken the switch from a Thinkpad to typing on one of the Asus Zen machines?
And agreed with Chris on the 16:10 vs 16:9 ā¦ that drives me nuts as well. Work laptops should keep the 16:10 or even consider going further back. I can see a future where the coolest thing you log around is not the Asus Zenbook / Macbook Air / Thinkpad X1, but anything with a 4:3 screen looking like the Commodore 64 Breadbox 
Jeff,
Would you mind sharing which 8GB DIMM you bought? Iām trying to spec out what the final price would be given your SSD & RAM modifications.
Thanks!
I own a UX31A and while I agree with Jeff about the impressive list of positive features on this machine, there is one significant drawback at least in my experience. The keyboard.
The main issue is that the keys are very unresponsive. They do slide down nicely, but they do not trigger the key event with 100% success. Every key has some dead corners that are more susceptible to this, and if you do any programming, the shift/ctrl -combinations compound the amount of mistakes. A few missed letters may not sound like much but the overall effect of having to second guess your typed input is more draining than you can imagine.
This is a significant issue with the Asus Zenbook series, you can google up plenty of articles and discussion threads that note it. Since the keyboard is THE main interface in using a computer - especially for a tech-oriented audience such as this blogās readership - I urge anyone considering a Zenbook to test write a few paragraphs or a few blocks of code to see whether your typing manners will be compatible with the keyboard.
I think youāre too early. That machine is a Windows 7-based design. Many of your complaints will likely disappear over the next 6 to 12 months with Intel SoC designs that will feature an always-on, instant-on behavior (via Connected Standby) that is identical to tablets.
Also, lack of touch isā¦ meh.
Surface Pro FTW.
I bought an Asus UL30Vt about two years ago. It claims 12 hours of battery life. I replaced hard drive with an SSD and, working with wifi on, I still get about 11 actual real hours of work with it. I mostly take it to meetings, so I bring it to work on Monday and bring it home Friday. I donāt even keep a charger at work.
I donāt understand why its battery life is so good, or why no one else seems to have heard of it, but itās a bloody amazing laptop. The hardware is almost three years old, but the specs are still decent: 1.3 GHz Core2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 3.7 pounds, and both an Intel AND Nvidia graphics card.
It really makes you wonder though - why is the battery so mysteriously good on this laptop, and so terrible on the rest? I mean, the UX31 is clearly the UL30Vtās replacement, but the old version still gets almost twice the battery life of the UX31 here.
Iāve been using the ASUS Ep121 for a year and a half now. Nothing beats it for portability. Why? (1) Same power as the Zenbook Prime. (2) WACOM digitizer pen which, if you havenāt used a WACOM, I donāt blame you for thinking pen-based computing sucks; it rocks for notes. (3) Bluetooth keyboard is light, slim, NOT chiclet, and OPTIONAL. (4) Really good battery life. (5) Full HDMI video output.
So it is very much a slate and a laptop. The only drawback is that, about once a week, it freezesā¦but the reboot off the SSD is only 20 seconds, so who cares?
I keep waiting for something to surpass it, but so far, nothing does. My next move will be to install Windows 8 onto it.
I had a good laugh at āuseless craplets and pointless bloatwareā. Isnāt that what lots of telco operators are doing to Android? Compare the clean startup experience of the Nexus 7 to any Samsung tablet.
When will the corporates learn that good user experiences = profit?
Nice laptop, now Iām drooling, and Iām thinking about ordering one - does it run Ubuntu or Linux mint 12.x nice anyone?
About keyboards, Iām more convinced now then earlier that i will stay with my laptop - I noticed that my ipad just lies gathering dust. Either I donāt need a keyboard, and then I bring my Samsung S3. Or I need a good keyboard - and then I bring my laptop.
Again very nice laptop. I am just hoping for an updated version with a retina-like screen.
The 1920x1080 13" screen is 166 PPI. Thatās not quite 200 PPI but it is definitely in the ballpark.
Any particular reason(s) why you choose the UX31A over the UX32VD
If you read the entire article you would know that I chose both.
Asus UX31E owner since April 2012. While it is a thin, sleek, well built laptop I donāt get along with the keyboard,
his is a significant issue with the Asus Zenbook series, you can google up plenty of articles and discussion threads that note it
The UX31A has a significantly improved keyboard and trackpad over the older models. I donāt recommend the older UX31E models at all.
Why not just get the MacBook Air and run it as a Windows machine?
Itās more expensive, I donāt need OS X, the screen is lower resolution and inferior TN, and the keyboard is incompatible with standard PC layouts. YMMV.
I bought an Asus UL30Vt about two years ago. It claims 12 hours of battery life. I replaced hard drive with an SSD and, working with wifi on, I still get about 11 actual real hours of work with it.
I also owned that one and gave it to my Dad. Great machine, but it is a bit on the heavy side, mostly because it has an absolutely enormous battery. Check the capacity on it and you will be shocked ā thatās why it gets 10+ hours in real world use.
How can you justify a recommendation for a notebook PC a month before Windows 8 is released with a bunch of new Windows 8-targetted devices?
I donāt like compromising at all when it comes to my ultra-portable, Linux on a 2012 11" macbook air blazes & the intel HD4000 video card has no troubles driving my external 1920x1200 24" LCD at the office.
Iām really interested to see where Ubuntu takes its dual boot Android phone project, that may well be the death of the ultra-portable.
Itās a Macbook Air with a different screen. Seriously, all this copyright/patent bs is infuriating - but this is a blatant rip off. Tapered aluminium body, the keyboardā¦ When a companyās competitive advantage is design, and that design is copied nearly identically, Iām not surprised at some of the lawsuits that come about.
Iphone 5? Ughā¦ that thing sucks. That is my professional opinion as someone who gets paid to sell them.
@Joshua Smeaton
Can you let me know where Apple got the exclusive rights to use aluminum and the colour black? Because Iād love to patent purple.
Iām on the same page as you regarding laptops, in many ways. I loved my Dell Inspiron 300M, as well!
Thanks for the info on this Zenbook. Iām going to be shopping for an Ultrabook soon. I love that this has full 1080p HD in a 13.3 inch sized IPS. Fantastic!
Its great to see PC manufacturers finally catching up to Apple in terms of hardware build quality. I recently switched to a MBA 13" ā having formally been a PC guy for 10+ years ā and have loved the hardware, although I spend a lot of time in Windows 8/bootcamp.
However, while these ultrabooks look great, can they match the heretofore unrivaled touchpad and keyboard of the Macbook Air?
A good machine, yes. But with just few Ā£ more from Amazon you get a Macbook Air or Pro, with better resolution, better graphic card, better battery life, more HD space, less weight and using Parallels you can run Windows 8 very fast.
The best choice for everything.
I use that and Iām a .Net developer.
Wonderful to see that some PC makers are finally making decent high end hardware and doing what they should have been doing for the past decade, copying appleās laptops.
Itās a shame that they also chose to copy appleās awful, awful laptop chiclet keyboards. And sad that based on Amazonās reviews, has a lot of reliability problems.
I do think itās great that they show that you can build an Apple-like small laptop that maintains expandability.
Rather weird that they insist on including a useless connector, mini-vga. If youāre going to need a dongle anyway, why not have a useful connectorāsupport for dual external monitors (as the current Macbook Air does) would be a killer feature for coders.
Come on guys, stop quibbling over priceāthis is our livelihood. Donāt be cheap with your tools of your profession; buy the best and the investment will more than pay off. Frankly, Iād prefer that Asus charge an extra $1000 and get this laptop to be perfect rather than have these cost-cutting flaws.