Hands-on with the Asus Zenbook UX Ultrabook

Asus Zenbook UX Ultrabook

The first wave of Ultrabooks has arrived.

At a press event in New York today, Asus Chairman Jonney Shih presented the final version of the UX Zenbook, the company's entry into the growing Ultrabook field. The two models are the 11.6-inch UX21 and the 13.3-inch UX31.

If these two slim laptops look familiar, it's because they, like other Ultrabooks from Acer, Toshiba, and Lenovo, are essentially Windows versions of the popular MacBook Air. Some, like the Acer Aspire S3, are pitched as MacBook Air-style devices that cost a few hundred dollars less, while the Asus (and Lenovo) versions are around the same price as an Air, but offer more features and options.

(Credit:
Scott Stein/CNET)

The 11-inch UX21 ranges in thickness from 0.11 inch at the front to 0.67 inch at the rear; the 13-inch UX31 is 0.11 inch at the front and 0.71 inch at the rear. Both have an instant-on feature that Asus says will cause the system to resume from sleep in about 2 seconds... [Read more]