ASUS ZENBOOK UX21E Pro Reviews

The Asus Zenbook UX21E is thinner, lighter and much more fun to use than I thought possible for an 11in notebook. Built to last and to impress, it manages to look amazing and cute at the same time. If the viewing angle on the display had been a few degrees wider, I would have rated the computer 90 per cent: I liked it that much. Asus also deserves kudos for including a tough slipcase, a USB-to-Ethernet adapter and a mini VGA-to-VGA adapter in the box, rather than charging for these as optional extras.

Despite plenty of room for improvement, Asus' adorable Zenbook UX21 is an 11.6in Ultrabook with an obvious allure

A mix of ultrabook and ultraportable, the Asus Zenbook UX21E-DH52 is a formidable challenger to the 11-inch MacBook Air.

We’re inclined to affirm that we do believe in love at first sight. But since that initial look was of the laptop that launched this copy, our heart does stay with the MacBook Air. Make no mistake though, the Asus UX21E Zenbook is the best copy of any Apple portable we’ve seen to date, with fantastic all-metal build and signs of the kind of attention to detail that’s rarely seen outside the Mac maker’s design labs.

Currently the smallest ultrabook available, the Asus ZenBook UX21 isn't perfect, but it’s the only viable alternative to an 11in MacBook Air

It's worth pointing out this is ASUS' first Zenbook. With a long history of making notebooks that aren't like the Zenbook, I am impressed that ASUS came this close to perfection. The issues I've outlined here are easily fixable and something I would even encourage ASUS to do sooner rather than later, perhaps in an early-design component change on the display. Sure you'd upset early adopters but if you execute the change quickly enough you have the option to satisfy many more. The rest of the notebook is really quite excellent. Perhaps Zen was too great a target for the first generation.

As a piece of modern laptop engineering, the Asus Zenbook UX21 is sublime. Only Apple has previously been able to make something this sleek, light, powerful and desirable, and for those who want to stick with Windows, this moment could not have come soon enough. Any major faults are not with the Asus Zenbook UX21 itself, but with the merits of an 11.6-inch machine. If you need something for long trips away, £850 seems steep when excellent 13-inch ultrabooks are available that could arguably be used as a primary machine. The Acer Aspire S3 Intel Core i5 version retails for just £699. Up against a host of great tablets, including Asus' own Eee Pad Transformer Prime, it's hard to justify the outlay. Despite this, the stunning power and portable body make this a great buy. As netbooks continue their rapid decline, this ultrabook could replace them, and with it show the world that laptops are here to stay.

Lush to look at, the ZenBook just oozes class - which is why the price, while still placing these models into the premium bracket, came as a bit of a surprise. The 11.6in UX21 costs £849, while the 13.3in UX31 sells for £999 - coincidentally, the prices of Apple's two entry-level MacBook Air models. But spec for spec, the ZenBooks outclass their Apple competition by some margin, doubling the capacity of the SSD to 128GB and upping the processor in the £999 model to an Intel Core i7 against the Air's i5. Expensive they may be, but to those seeking the ultimate in PC style we reckon the new Asus ZenBooks are worth every penny. Check back on ITReviews soon, when we put the ZenBooks through their paces in a full lab-tested review.

From one point of view, the Asus Zenbook UX21's closest competitor would be the 11-inch Apple MacBook Air. Looking at specifications and features alone, the UX21 lines up quite nicely versus Apple's offering. In about the same price range (as our machine was configured), you get additional wired Ethernet connectivity and standard external display output, both of which aren't options for Apple's product. Sure, you can tap into a Thunderbolt-enabled display or storage array with the new MacBook Air, but you can be sure it'll be more expensive. Then again, you're only getting standard VGA output with the UX21, so this could be thought of as a trade-off. The bottom line is, Asus has delivered a very competitive product in the UX21 versus the latest update to the MacBook Air, and that's a watermark that's difficult to measure up to.

Considering the high level of complexity involved in designing a notebook as thin and light as the ZenBook UX21E, we have to give Asus credit for its first foray into the ultrabook category. Despite a few first-time-out quirks, such as a less-than-perfect keyboard, as well as a display that could use some tweaking, this is an impressive machine. For many notebook users, the sheer comfort of toting around a notebook as light and slim as this one is a huge selling point, and we don't consider any of the shortcomings discussed in this review to be deal-breakers.

Beautifully built and offering good usability, the all-metal, milled-aluminium XPS 14z gives you style and power in a relatively compact package, including enough grunt for light gaming. One of its standout features is that it manages to fit a 14in screen into the equivalent of a 13in chassis, but unfortunately the screen itself is distinctly average. This, combined with awkward rear-only connections and mediocre battery life, mean it’s worth considering for its strengths but not an automatic must-buy.

The Asus Zenbook UX21E-KX008V (RRP: 1099€) enters the stage with a bang. The application performance is very good thanks to a fast ADATA SSD. Except for the low gaming performance, users won't notice a difference to a conventional desktop or notebook. Quite the contrary, the UX21E is superior to HDD based devices or even many SSD laptops in the access times. The compact, solid and high quality workmanship of the aluminum body is in a class of its own and is virtually in no way inferior to Apple's MacBook Air. The big click pad is very comfortable to use, the keys are basically pleasant but have a short drop. The interfaces are minimalistic by design, but are expanded with practically relevant, included adapters (VGA, Ethernet). Can the Zenbook UX21E-KX008V beat the MacBook Air 11 (2011)? No, because the screen is too weak (low contrasts, narrow viewing angles) and the battery life is too short. The Air has a higher contrast and wider viewing angles. The enormous brightness of the HD display is hardly of any use for the UX21E because the screen isn't anti-reflective. The UX21E can beat Acer's inexpensive entry-level UltraBook S3 in any event. It reached poorer results with a battery life of 3:33 hours and a run of the mill screen with a low contrast and low brightness. The more so as the 800€ version is equipped with a HDD, which delivers a significantly lower system performance.