ASUS Zenbook Infinity UX301LA - just announced at Computex

I'm trying to find a proper "user made" review (not the advertisements from the "casual" reviewers) OR a brick& mortar shop that lets you test it. But it appears my Google-fu fails me. Any pointers?
Mainly, I come from a vaio z21 and I'm looking for the UX301LA (under Linux, work stuff) - wondering how well it works in comparison (yeah, its faster, yeah its a little heavier, yeah the keyboard/trackpad are expected to be better too, yeah, the power brick looks terrible)

 

I'm not sure how you personally differentiate between a proper review and a casual review.

As for me, I find mobiletechreview to be the best and most thorough of all the review sites.

UX301LA video review (27 minutes):



The written review:

Asus Zenbook UX301 Review - Laptop Reviews by MobileTechReview


Comparison between UX301LA and the Samsung Ativ Book 9 (18 minutes):




Other reviews of the Zenbook that were helpful:

Review Asus Zenbook Infinity UX301LA Ultrabook - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

Asus Zenbook UX301LA / UX301 review - not just a regular Haswell ultrabook

 

A review without a "mobile" or "ultrabook/notebook" name in the URL in the name is a good start
Those are all good reviews, but they're not end-user reviews. They're reviews from people who get a bunch of laptops/devices to review every month and do a quick few-hours or few-days test then write it down.

I like reviews from people like you and me, who buy their laptops with their own money and gain absolutely zero by publishing the review, because they'll mention all the quirks. For example, i read more than once about the USB port issue when the screen is also plugged in. Not one of the above review mentioned it. I don't think it's because they had more luck. I think it's because none of them tried to plug a screen + USB device at the same time, or even any screen or USB device *at all*. That's because they don't really *use* the devices day-to-day.

 

There are plenty of end user reviews here on the board, but (1) you'll have to search for them, and (2) they tend to be a few paragraphs long, at most. You're unlikely to find a review of the length and extent you're looking for that isn't from one of the commercial review sites. End users tend not to have the time, incentive, nor experience to do a full-blown in-depth review.

Your best bet is to read through the entire thread and gather a consensus of opinions and/or issues, as everyone else does. There is no single page/post to go to in order to get a "snapshot" of all known issues.

Good luck.

 

US; ~$2052 from Amazon for the best model (UX301LA- XH72T I think it was).

 

Ok so I've had this notebook for a few months now and I'll probably make a separate thread for this too...

All in all, I am extremely unhappy with the UX301LA-72T and I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same issues that I am...

Ive noticed that I am constantly running out of RAM with this computer. On a regular basis, I am running about 5-10 Chrome tabs, 6 Firefox tabs, my Etrade Java Platform, Skype, and Outlook. Altogether, the computer runs painfully slow - especially when it comes to loading simple tasks like "Save As..", "Open", displaying a Windows Explorer folder, etc.

In fact, when I run Photoshop CS3 or CC, it wont even open large PSD files due to there not being enough RAM. When I do get a file to open, its painfully slow. The odd thing is my 3 year old Samsung with 4 gigs of RAM on Windows 7 ran all these apps simultaneously without any issues.

It gets even stranger when Im copying or moving a large file. While transferring, the OS becomes completely paralyzed to the point where I can't even move my mouse until it's finished.

Looking at my Task Manager (which oddly takes at least 20 seconds to load), it appears Im using 65-70% of the memory capacity. I had a friend who runs an IT company come by and check it out and he ran CC cleaner to get rid of some inconsequential startup and background programs but that did not make a dent.

He too found it odd that a notebook with these specs (SSD, 8gigs of ram, etc) should be running faster and better.

Anyone else running into these issues? Anyone have any ideas what could be wrong? As far as I know, I can't add anymore RAM to this computer - but is that really even the issue?

Honestly, I would not recommend this notebook to my worst enemy...

HELP

 

Let me know if you want to sell it.

 

One potential problem there is Firefox. I routinely run with 4-8 Firefox windows open and usually once a day I have to shut them all down and start FF clean due to all the memory leaks. It's been a problem for years that they just can't seem to fix (and that the powers that be on the mozilla support forums adamantly refuse to acknowledge as a problem). Any time I feel my system bogging down a bit, I check the task manager, and sure enough, FF is using 2-4GB of RAM.

The other problems you report sound like there may be something wrong with the RAID.

 

MSG me privately

 

It would be great to say Firefox is the main problem but the fact is, it ran perfectly fine with all my other apps on my older Samsung computer. If that computer with much older specs can handle it, why can't this?

Im not sure how to check if there is something wrong with the RAID. Overall I think the issue is that too much RAM is being used or its not being used well. I cant believe this system can barely run a 6 year old version of Photoshop!

 

Quick question! So I'm editing pictures in Photoshop and Lightroom and was wondering if the Zenbook UX301LA's screen is already calibrated? I have not touched any settings regarding the screen when it comes to color reporoduction, contrast, etc. So I'm just using the default settings that came with it when I first got this ultrabook. Do I need to calibrate it or no?

 

I would never assume that ANY laptop from the factory has a calibrated screen. If color accuracy is critical, you should always calibrate a new device.

 

No, none will, only professional external ones would be an even then panels will shift over time and should be recalibrated regularly if it matters.

 

Anyone noticed issues with the touchpad?

Mine isn't uniformly responsive. For example, it does not always respond when I am trying to use two fingers to scroll a page when my fingers are near the top edge of the touchpad. It responds fine to one finger.

I'm hoping it is a software issue with the gestures driver...

 

After 6 months of constant troubles with my ux301LA i7 4558U (see my previous mails) it finally crashed completely. Sent it to Asus for repair, they had to change the motherboard and the SSD drives etc. After more than 2 weeks they still can not tell me when I will get the laptop, they claim to be waiting for Asus technical support. for a 1800.- Euro laptop this is pretty bad...
hope you have a better experience with your laptops. concerned about Asus quality control.

 

Hi everybody. I've just bought this notebook and have some questions.
1. I cant achieve results in benchmarks ive read about.
Cinebench r11.5 - 3.10-3.20. In reviews - 3.41-3.47
3dmark06 - 7000-7100. In reviews 7400
3dmark11 - 1140. In reviews 1240.
2. When i running aida64 stess test with only cpu stressing i get 90 degrees.
When i include memory - near 100 degrees
Fpu - near 100 degrees

Is it normal?
My bios version is 2.6

 

question for you all,
was eager to buy a UX301LA-XH72T for a little after effects and ableton work on the go, but i noticed the price hasn't really dropped since it's release which i gather was sep 2013. cheapest I can find is newegg at $2100 (us).

should i hold off until the fall and wait for a new laptop to come out or this to be more heavily discounted?
the ativ 9 is more modestly priced but I'm a big fan of asus' customer care and warranty.

 

update of my 17 April post
late April I finally got my laptop back from Asus service in Germany. they changed both SSDs and some other things on the mainboard. all data lost, a new install (they only installed win 8.0 plus bloatware! had to do the time consuming win 8.1 myself)

ran fine for 2 weeks. Yesterday in the Uk about to give a lecture, one SSD crashed. laptop only boots into bios. no access to any data! so much for Raid 0. I have now twice lost all data on the drives. Without Raid you can always boot with Ubuntu and rescue the data on the second drive.

Have to send it again for repair. This is a major annoyance. I am dependent on a well functioning laptop in my professional life. Not sure what to do. Forced to consider an alternative laptop. New Lenovo x1 carbon looks great.

 

Does anyone know if there are any UK models besides this one on Amazon which has an i7-4500U, 8GB ram and 256gb ssd with 1080p screen (UX301LA-C4006H)?
I don't care about the cpu, ram or storage but I would like the 2560x1440 screen if it is available on a UK model (I need a UK keyboard with the L-shape enter key and £ sign).

 

has anyone noticed a high battery drain when off? I shut down my notebook and leave it for a couple of days and next time i turn it on i see that it lost about 10%, i cant understand why it loses so much battery when off

 

The electronics will still drain power when it's shut off.
This symptom exists not only with ASUS but other manufacturers as well.

 

Has anyone found a skin or case to protect (the aluminum parts on) their UX301/UX302 from scratches?

I have a Phantom Skinz kit on my UX31A, and am looking for something similar for the UX301:

Zenbook - Imgur

I couldn't find anything online, but I did contact Phantom Skinz and Ghost Armor. They both said they can design a kit if someone sends in their laptop to do the design process with, would anyone on here be willing to do that?

The only other option I found is this vinyl decal on Amazon, but I would prefer a clear skin if possible:

Amazon.com: Decalrus - ASUS Zenbook UX301LA with 13.3" Touchscreen FULL BODY BLUE Texture Brushed Aluminum skin skins decal for case cover wrap BAFBzenbkUX301LABlue: Cell Phones & Accessories

 

I bought the 301la a couple weeks ago and I'm finding the scaling issues are insane. Chrome and Ableton in particular are blurry as hell. I've tried the disable auto scaling, but then the content is normal size but the menus are all miniature. Have tried adjusting the display settings with 'let me choose one size for all..'

in ableton i can disable auto scaling and bump up the size to 250% but then the vst plugins are all miniature. does anyone know what the solution is? running 8.1 with all current updates.

 

Hi, I got my 302LA a couple of days ago, really struggling to consistently access the BIOS press & hold F2, 1 in 10 tries I might get into the bios settings!, whats the deal with this!.

Also has anyone successfully managed dual boot Win8 & any Linux distro on this machine yet?. I have switched off secure boot bit still can't get a reliable install.

 

Does this notebook come with any pre-installed antivirus software??? Much bloatware???
thanks
tom

 

It comes preinstalled with Mcafee internet security ( 1 yr )

 

I'm thinking about getting it but I have a question about the RAID, seems like it fails a lot. Anyone experienced it?

 

I am on my 3rd repair in 12 months. Always a Raid Ssd problem. Asus Germany service has no quality control and are unable to fix it. Had to buy another laptop.

 

update on my May 20 post. Laptop was returned from repair in June. I was traveling and just picked it up in my office 2 weeks ago. laptop came with a statement " final quality control and performance tests OK". When I started it up off course again only win 8.0 was installed. More importantly, only one of the SSDs worked, so I had only 125 gb. Had to send it back to repair - now for the third time. I am done with Asus.