Asus Zenbook UX31 Preview

Asus Zenbook UX31 Preview | Ubergizmo window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId : '139683546053659', status : true, // check login status cookie : true, // enable cookies to allow the server to access the session xfbml : true // parse XFBML }); }; (function() { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }()); Network:Ubergizmo English, French, SpanishUberphones Subscribe to RSS Ubergizmo ReviewsMobileGamingAndroidAppleComputersGadgetsConceptsPhoto/VideoEvents |  Jobs Home > Computers > Asus Zenbook UX31 Preview Asus Zenbook UX31 Preview Raymond Wong 10/11/2011 14:01 PDT

The Asus UX31 is virtually exactly the same as the 11.6-inch UX21 Zenbook. The only major difference is obviously going to be a the larger 13.3-inch display with higher 1600×900 resolution, SD card slot, larger battery for longer hours slightly heavier body.

Other than those differences, the Zenbook UX31 is very much the bigger brother to the UX21, much like how the 13.3-inch MacBook Air is to its smaller 11.6-inch model.

Design

Sorry friends. Thin is in. If you don’t like it, then you’d best be looking elsewhere. Just like the smaller UX21, the UX31 has a metallic spun finish lid and brushed metal palm wrests. It’s slightly thicker at it’s rear, tapering from 0.71-inches to 0.11-inches. The entire chassis is extremely sturdy – really, really rock solid. There’s no bend to the screen and it doesn’t feel too heavy even though it weighs 2.86 pounds.

In fact, if there’s any real fault to Asus’ Zenbook design, it’s the corners. They’re sort of sharp.

PerformanceStorage I/O Performance Comparison

There are three options for the UX31. Each model comes with 4GB of DDR3 RAM and can last 7 hours on a single charge and has 10 days of standby. Asus lists the UX31E4-DH52 and UX31E4-DH53 models as packing Intel Core i5-42557 processors. The former with 128GB SSD and the latter with 256GB. The top of the line UX31E4-DH72 comes with a beefier Intel Core i7-42677 processor and of course the 256GB SSD option.

USB 3.0 port performance comparison

As with the UX21, the beauty of the Zenbook is its “true instant on” feature that resumes from temporary sleep in two seconds.

DisplayReading everybody's favorite tech blog!

As mentioned above, the display is larger one 13.3-inch one. It’s glossy and viewing angles are decent. Don’t expect IPS-quality screens here. You do get a really nice 1600×900 resolution, though. It’s maybe a little too high for a 13-inch notebook, but HD video playback did look brilliantly sharp!

Keyboard & TrackpadKeyboard is a little "mushy"

There isn’t much that can be said about the keyboard on the UX31. It’s pretty much exactly the same as the keyboard on the UX21. It’s mushy and wasn’t all that easy to type on. Whereas a missing backlight for the keyboard would have been acceptable on the smaller chassis of the UX21, it’s completely unforgivable on the larger UX31. There’s no reason why it couldn’t be included. Another missed opportunity, indeed.

UX31's trackpad is average and laggy.

Again, the trackpad on the larger UX31 is also another miss. It’s every bit as laggy and slow as the smaller version.

SoundBang & Olufsen acoustics

When you think Bang & Olfusen, most people will think quality. We’re happy to report that the sound on the UX31 impressed. We’re not sure what’s what, but based on our quick ears-on, the UX31 did sound a little stronger and louder than the smaller UX21. Asus’ Sonicmaster sound is easily one of the best sounding ultra thin and light notebooks we’ve ever had the pleasure of toying with.

ConclusionThe Zenbook UX31 has an SD card slot. The UX21 does not.

Asus is launching the UX31 on October 12 alongside the UX21. It starts at 1,099 and goes up to $1,449. And just like the smaller Zenbook, it comes with all the bells and whistles in the box: USB to LAN and mini VGA to VGA adapters and a sleeve.

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Asus Zenbook UX21 Preview

Asus Zenbook UX21 Preview | Ubergizmo window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId : '139683546053659', status : true, // check login status cookie : true, // enable cookies to allow the server to access the session xfbml : true // parse XFBML }); }; (function() { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }()); Network:Ubergizmo English, French, SpanishUberphones Subscribe to RSS Ubergizmo ReviewsMobileGamingAndroidAppleComputersGadgetsConceptsPhoto/VideoEvents |  Jobs Home > Breaking > Asus Zenbook UX21 Preview Asus Zenbook UX21 Preview Raymond Wong 10/11/2011 13:20 PDT

“Beauty and strength creates harmony,” is how Asus’ Chairman Jonney Shih described his company’s first Ultraooks – officially christened “Zenbook.” The philosophy in crafting the 11.6-inch UX21 and 13-inch UX31 Zenbooks was to find balance between power and style. It’s without any doubt that Asus has its gun aimed at Apple’s 11 and 13-inch MacBook Air notebooks. The Ultrabook vs. MacBook Air war begins.

The smaller of the two Ultrabooks in the Zenbook family, the UX21 is like a suped up netbook – only it’s not one. Like all Ultrabooks, it lacks an optical drive. It’s wafer thin and weighs only 2.43 pounds.

Design

Thin. Light. Gorgeous. Strong. These are all words that are fit to use to describe the UX21. Like the MacBook Air, Asus’ Zenbooks are built out of aluminum. Unlike the MacBook Air, the Zenbooks have a “metallic spun finish” on its lid and its inside palm wrest surface has a nice feeling brushed metal look.

"Metallic spun finish"

At its thickest point the UX21 is 0.67-inches thick and at its thinnest it’s 0.11-inches. Remember those ugly little fat netbooks from the last few years? Yeah, the Zenbooks are lightyears ahead of those. We’re tempted to even crown the Zenbooks the most beautiful PC notebooks we’ve ever seen.

Super thin profile

Port-wise, there’s a USB 2.0 and 3.0 port, mini HDMI, mini VGA and an audio jack. It’s disappointing that there’s no memory card reader. Shame, but then again, the 11.6-inch MacBook Air doesn’t have one either.

Performance

A thin a light notebook is nothing more than a netbook if it can’t rumble with the best full-fledged notebook computers. Although our hands-on with the UX21 doesn’t compare to proper benchmark testings, the UX21 did feel very responsive. Asus is touting its Zenbooks on its “worry-free, always on” tactic – a combination of SATA III (capable of 6Gbps) USB 3.0 ports and second generation Core i7 processors.

Some numbers Asus talked up was its two second instant-on feature – a feature it claims is the fastest on any notebook ever. You’ll get two weeks of standby time. Shih called its instant on “true instant on” and not like any competitors are claiming. We tested the instant on ourselves and can say from lid open, it resumes in two seconds or even less. The caveat is that you have to manually toggle the “instant on” feature via a desktop widget. If not, you’ll put the UX21 into a “deep sleep” mode and then it won’t resume in two seconds. Kind of lame that you also have to wait for a light indicator on the right side to signal that the computer is in sleep mode, but we’ll take what we can get for this type of speed.

With speedy Core i5 and i7 processors, opening apps and browsing lots of tabs on Chrome didn’t feel like a problem. Every Asus Zenbook comes with 4GB of RAM – it helps.

Display

For an 11.6-inch, the UX21 has a whopping 1366×768 resolution screen. If you’ve ever seen this type of pixel density on an 11.6-inch MacBook Air, then you’ll know how happy your eyeballs will be. Text is sharp from a foot away and brightness is more than enough. The environment we handled the UX21 wasn’t ideal, so we’ll reserve long term judgment on the screen for later.

Keyboard & Trackpad

Practically every notebook computer now comes with “chiclet-style” keyboards – you either love it or you hate it. While typing on the MacBook Air’s separated keys is a delight (for the most part), the same can’t be said for the UX21. The key don’t have much travel depth, which ultimately leads to the keys feeling a little stiff or “mushy” as what some other reporters said.

Add the fact that the neither the UX21 and UX31 have a back-lit keyboard and it feels a little behind the curve. Touch typers won’t mind, but those of us who rely on it will probably a little annoyed.

Glass trackpad is kind of iffy and laggy.

On to the trackpad. Where to begin. It’s a glass trackpad, but it’s actually kind of poor. There is very noticeable lag during mousing and while it’s likely tweaking the tracking speed can fix this issue, it’s telling that Asus didn’t even bother to tweak it on their demo machines, which leads us to believe it might not be fixable. Two finger scrolling on websites is however quite snappy.

SoundBang & Olfusen sound

Thin and light notebooks usually compromise on sound. The original MacBook Air was notorious for its mono speaker. It wasn’t until last year’s redesign that Apple figured out how to squeeze in stereo speakers into the Air. Well, Asus did not skimp out on the sound department. The UX21 has Asus’ “Sonicmaster technology” powered by Bang & Olufsen’s ICEpower. The result is sound that is loud and clear. We’re sure the audiophile will always find a way to dig at the sound from a consumer notebook, but for most people, any reduction in “tinniness” is welcome.

We were treated to a sample of classical music and even piped through speakers the audio appeared rich and deep.

Conclusion

Asus is launching the UX21 on October 12. That’s tomorrow. Depending on configuration, it’ll start at $999 and run up to $1,199. Asus is claiming 5 hours of battery life per charge (in line with competitors) and it comes with a USB to LAN and mini VGA to VGA adapters and a sleeve. If you’re looking for a great alternative to the Air that runs Windows 7, the UX21 is the perfect little travel companion.

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Aakash tablet gets a hands-on preview

Aakash tablet gets a hands-on preview | Ubergizmo window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId : '139683546053659', status : true, // check login status cookie : true, // enable cookies to allow the server to access the session xfbml : true // parse XFBML }); }; (function() { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }()); Network:Ubergizmo English, French, SpanishUberphones Subscribe to RSS Ubergizmo ReviewsMobileGamingAndroidAppleComputersGadgetsConceptsPhoto/VideoEvents |  Jobs Home > Tablets > Aakash tablet gets a hands-on preview Aakash tablet gets a hands-on preview George Wong 10/06/2011 11:51 PDT

Remember the $35 tablet that we covered yesterday? Well, the folks over at Hungry N Foolish were one of the selected people chosen to test the tablet and they have written up their hands-on impression of the device. Judging by their report, they seem pretty impressed with the tablet.

The specs of the Aakash tablet are: a Conexant 366MHz processor with graphics accelerator and HD video processor, 256MB of RAM, 2GB of internal storage, a 7? resistive (800 x 480) display, and Android 2.2. The tablet also features two USB ports, only one physical button on the side of the device (used to deactivate sleep/return to the homescreen and displaying options), a microSD card slot (supports up to 32GB), 3.5mm stereo earphone jack and a built-in microphone.

The resistive touchscreen is said to be dull – but it’s also one of the main reasons why the tablet can be so cheap, so I guess it was a worthy trade off. Consumers used to capacitive touchscreens will need to get used to operating a resistive touchscreen though. The tablet supports WiFi and Bluetooth (though the latter was said to be not functioning on the review unit) and it doesn’t sport a camera or an accelerator. Future versions of the tablet might include support for a 3G SIM card though.

Overall it seems to be a functional Android tablet for a very low price tag, so it isn’t going to be setting any standards or be an “iPad killer” – but hey, you get what you pay for. Perhaps in the future as parts get cheaper, the tablet can increase in functionality while staying at the same price point. For now, it’s going to serve its purpose as an entry-level device designed to encourage for students and consumers to get online. Check out the full review of the tablet at the source link.

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Google Maps now lets you preview your route in 3D

Google Maps now lets you preview your route in 3D | Ubergizmo window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId : '139683546053659', status : true, // check login status cookie : true, // enable cookies to allow the server to access the session xfbml : true // parse XFBML }); }; (function() { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }()); Network:Ubergizmo English, French, SpanishUberphones Subscribe to RSS Ubergizmo ReviewsMobileGamingAndroidAppleComputersGadgetsConceptsPhoto/VideoEvents |  Jobs Home > Web > Google Maps now lets you preview your route in 3D Google Maps now lets you preview your route in 3D George Wong 09/30/2011 18:00 PDT

While Google Maps’ regular 2D view is usually more than enough for you to find your way to your destination, sometimes it’s not – especially when you’re unfamiliar with the territory, and have no idea what the buildings on the map look like. Well, it seems that folks at Google recognized this problem as an issue and has taken it upon themselves to fix it.

Google announced on its official Google Maps blog today the launch of its 3D route preview. Available on Google Maps for the web, users now have the option to see how a route looks like in 3D by clicking the 3D play button. The map will switch to Earth view and automatically start flying you along your recommended route. You can pause the flight at anytime to explore the surrounding area in 3D and you can even skip ahead or backwards in case you miss out something or you’re in a hurry. Once you’re done with the 3D view, you can simply click 2D to go back to the regular view.

Talk about innovative – now you’ll be able to recognize the roads and streets of a place you’ve never even been to before. Google Maps: helping folks find their way since 2005. Check out 3D view at the Google Maps website now.

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Windows 8 Developer Preview available for download

Windows 8 Developer Preview available for download | Ubergizmo window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId : '139683546053659', status : true, // check login status cookie : true, // enable cookies to allow the server to access the session xfbml : true // parse XFBML }); }; (function() { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }()); Network:Ubergizmo English, French, SpanishUberphones Subscribe to RSS Ubergizmo ReviewsMobileGamingAndroidAppleComputersGadgetsConceptsPhoto/VideoEvents |  Jobs Home > Computers > Windows 8 Developer Preview available for download Windows 8 Developer Preview available for download George Wong 09/14/2011 05:43 PDT

If you’re keen on checking out how Windows 8 works and you’re not too keen about watching yet another video – you’re in luck. Microsoft has released the official Windows 8 Developer Preview to the public. Now anybody can install Windows 8 on their computers and give the Metro user interface a spin. You can even install this on a Windows 7 tablet and give yourself a free upgrade – however there are some things you should know about this build.

It is a developer preview, so expect it to crash, operate incorrectly, and have no support for some of your hardware. And also, you won’t be able to uninstall it once you install it – so you should have a spare computer/drive to test it on, or know how to format your PC to restore your previous operating system. If none of that deters you from trying it out, head over to the Microsoft website to download the Windows 8 Developer Preview.

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