Hoping to shatter the dominance of the MacBook Air in the ultraportable laptop market, ASUS officially launched its slick brushed aluminum ZenBooks yesterday.
The notebooks are available in 11.6-inch and 13.3-inch models, and the 11-incher, the UX21, starts at just under $1,000. It comes standard with a 128 GB hybrid solid state drive, and base models feature an Intel i5 processor (i7 upgrades are available). The ZenBook runs Windows 7 and is part of Intel's “Ultrabook” line, which includes notebooks that are less than one-inch thick and in the sub-$1,000 price range.
The ZenBook is super thin: 0.11 inches at its thinnest point and 0.35 inches at its thickest, validating claims that it's the thinnest notebook available (the MacBook Air is slightly thicker at its largest point, .68 inches). The UX21 weighs in at just under two and a half pounds (2.43 lbs), while the 13-inch model, the UX31, tips the scales at 2.84 lbs. Compared to respective MacBook Air models, the UX21 is slightly heavier and the UX31 is slightly lighter.
When the super-thin MacBook Air debuted in 2008, it carved a niche out of the notebook market. Super light and 11- to 13-inches in size, it was perfect for toting in the wild, and more powerful than similarly small but lower-speced netbooks (and, in the case of the 2011 MacBook Air, just as powerful as the larger 2010 MacBook Pros). The MacBook Air proved thin is in, and now there are several lookalikes — er, competitors — available, such as the Acer Aspire and the ZenBook, which we first previewed in May.
The ZenBook features an “Instant On” capability that allows it to boot from standby mode in only two seconds, and can last for up to two weeks on a single battery charge in standby.
The ASUS ZenBook is available now, starting at $999 for the UX21 and $1,099 for the UX31.
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