ASUS Zenbook Infinity UX301LA - just announced at Computex

VAIO X Series Interview with LCD Screen Engineer - YouTube

A first gen edge lit LCD as proven by the video. It's always fun to go back and watch videos an stuff about older products. It's amazing how much tech has progressed in 4 years but even more amazing how far Sony products were ahead of their time. I wouldn't worry about brightness decrease on current edge lit models as that really isn't a concern on any set, including plalsmas and CCFL lit LCDs, in normal professional or home use. The only edge lit screens that I have seen dull have been aggressively used display models.

 

Found some updated info on p/n - looks like the 8GB is standard and the i7 will come with iris graphics.

UX301LA-DH51T
Processor: I5 - 4200U - 1.6 GHZ
RAM: 8 GB - 128 GB
Graphics: INTEL UMA
OS: MICROSOFT WINDOWS 8 64-BIT
MSRP: $1,971.12

UX301LA-DH71T
Processor: I7 - 4558U - 2.8 GHZ
RAM: 8 GB - 128 GB
Graphics: INTEL HDGRAPHICS 5100
OS: MICROSOFT WINDOWS 8 64-BIT
MSRP: $2,141.58

UX301LA-XH72T
Processor: I7 - 4558U - 2.8 GHZ
RAM: 8 GB - 256 GB
Graphics: INTEL HDGRAPHICS 5100
OS: MICROSOFT WINDOWS 8 Professional
MSRP: $2,355.85

 

If those prices are real, I'll probably wait 8 months for Buydig to sell them for $700

 

Those prices are unfathomable. They're so far off from what Sony and Acer are charging that they have to be wrong.

I sure hope the UX31LA is more reasonably priced.

 

Those prices are ludicrous. What a waste of R&D and marketing dollars. Good luck with that!

 

this is a version wit i7 and hd 4400, not iris. (prefer non-iris, as i don't need it and fear it will might produce heat/waste energy)
ASUS Zenbook Infinity UX301LA-C4006H, UK Preisvergleich | Geizhals EU

 

Iris will only kick in when needed, cache can be very effectively power managed.

 

Asus laptops usually retail for 10-30% less than MSRP - If they do the same with UX301, should put them within their competitors (albeit a bit higher).

The i7/256/8gb should retail less than 1800$ if they want to be competitive - the current MSRP prices are ridiculous.

 

That's absurd. Even at 30% off ($1400) it's more than Sony's Pro 13!

 

Thanks for your comment on Iris (power management). However, since, Iris is always bundled with the 28W 4558U (not 15W 4500U), the cpu will probably be the main problem in terms of heat/noise/battery. Disclaimer: I do NOT really know about the real life effect on heat/noise.
I think those who need Iris/4558U will care more about good performance anyway, rather than about noise/heat/battery.

 

Asus must be out of their minds.
The MSRP officially killed any interest I had in Zenbooks.

 

Actually ASUS made it easier for me to decide..... I am going with another manufacturer and I don't have to wait. Thanks ASUS!

 

indeed it is quite high.
I was particularly interested in the UX302 model (no pricing on that yet?)

what other haswell ultrabook alternatives under 14", 1080P screen, with gpu are there right now?

 

Interestingly you can't pair iris graphics with a dedicated GPU.

 

Why would you want to?

 

Why not? If you can run Iris Pro on battery and dedicated on mains, then you've got the best of all worlds. Although I'm not sure of power draw on Iris Pro though. I'm sure it will still be a major battery drain.

 

Yeah I'm sure it will be just as big a drain. I doubt Intel figured out what AMD and Nvidia have been trying to do for years. I just think that having both would be redundant. There's still no reliable data that iris will even be any good on battery and they can't work together

 

I feel like Asus is hitting the wrong market. With all the talk about Iris here, people here are more concerned about specs, not gorilla glass.

Clearly, the construction of the laptop is causing the price to be so high, since we can get a samsung with similar specs for much cheaper.

 

There are no lanes for a graphics card on the CPU, it simply can't be paired.

 

I felt the same way until I got my S7. Now I can't imagine ever having to get a plastic or aluminum laptop ever again. It's light, thin and easy to clean. Sure you get fingerprints, but you can wipe them away. If it's white, it's almost impossible to see them anyways. Unfortunately, you can't hide scratched aluminum, otherwise it would be perfect as it was. I think glass lids are going to be the future trend. I have a feeling Apple will adopt it soon, as well.

 

I just received my AB9+ yesterday and it is one of the most exquisitely constructed machines I have ever laid eyes on. It absolutely exudes high end. So, what construction would you be referring to? The Gorilla glass?

 

Looks like the UX301LA is already available in Germany: ASUS UX301LA-DE022H i7-4558U/8GB/256GB Ultrabooks online kaufen bei Media Markt

But the price is 1799€.

 

Hopefully that means it will release in the US at $1799 within a month or so. They better not do what CNet has reported. CNet is usually wrong about a lot of their initial reports so I have hope.

 

What. They actually have it in stock?

 

They did that with the Transformer Book too. They released it to Germany 3 months before everywhere else. I would hate to use a 13" 1440p screen without Windows 8.1 though. 13" 1080p is bad enough. I don't know how people with 1080p 11" laptops can even read anything...

 

Preorder EUR 1599 with 8GB/256GB/i7 4500U @ ASUS UX301LA-C4006H, 13.3" notebook (Netherlands)

 

This is true for the Iris 5100?
Or just the Iris Pro 5200?

Neither seems to be catching on with Intel's partners, in any event.

 

I'm hoping this will be more in line with the US-pricing, ~$1600 USD

 

As cool as these are, I wish that there was something at a lower price point that didn't have a glass lid but kept the Iris graphics

 

I'm sure they'll come up with something else later on. Maybe in their Vivobook line. The bulk of the cost isn't from the glass though, it's the CPU. The i5-4558U alone is $454. I think no matter what, Asus is going to charge over $1300 for the Iris models. Sager/Clevo was just barely over $1000 with their model and they are usually as cheap as it gets. But their model has a spinning HDD instead of a SSD and lacks a touchscreen and an OS so that's where some of the cost went. Sager's laptop is a nice alternative though, if you don't care for a touchscreen and insist on having matte. It also has HDD+msata SSD support. I personally prefer ultra-portable and happen to like the touchscreen.

 

What about UX32?

Will it retain the same level of build quality across the keyboard, trackpad, ruggedness. Besides these Zenbooks, the only other laptop I have seen with Macbook unibody level build quality is Samsung Series 9(Samsung ATIV 9 Plus).


UX32 apparently is thicker, has a 730m which they say is roughly the performance of a 650m, but that is hard to imagine, as it uses DDR3 instead of the GDDR5 model 650ms that were the cause of its good performance. But what can you expect in an ultrabook?

I just wonder if the price will be lower because you can do aftermarked SSD upgrades and it wont have the fabled i7 28 TDP chip nor iris.

 

Test Asus Zenbook Infinity UX301LA Ultrabook - Notebookcheck.com Tests

 

hey thanks for that site! i am eager to see more content about the ux301.

 

Love seeing reviews pop up, too bad they're all in Europe. Looking forward to a US release. I just love how Asus is pushing the design envelope and also leading in the spec wars. this is almost a 13 retina macbook pro in an air body.

 

the first swiss stores have listed the models and prices ( 1 US$ is like 0.95 Swiss Francs ):

UX301LA-DE022H (QHD and Iris and 2x128GB) for 2'199.-
UX301LA-DE002H (QHD and Iris and 2x256 SSD) for 2'499.-
UX301LA-C4006H (FullHD and Intel 4400) for 2'099.-
UX301LA-C4003H (i5-Version) for 1'749.-

all available at the end of november

 

This device has very little in common with the Pro though. The Pro is pretty much a mainstream ho-hum ultrabook, this device is actually pretty similar to the Z, in spirit at least. TDP almost twice as high, 1ghz faster (base) than the 4500 chip that everyone else is using, RAID SSD drives for extra speed, ultra high quality display, you will pay a premium for all of these things. If you recall, the Z cost $2k-3k, and while this device is not quite at that same level of engineering it's certainly getting into that ultra-premium range, where even Apple didn't compete until they released the Retina MBs. There isn't really another device to compare this to, so it makes sense that the price will be high.

Okay, but the i7-4500 which is on pretty much every ultrabook around (including the $1299.00 configuration of the Pro 13) is $398, ~50 less. That's not a big difference in terms of CPU pricing. The CPU is almost always a large chunk of the laptop's price but that extra $50 isn't going to cause much of the big price difference we are talking about.

 

https://twitter.com/AsusUK/statuses/384673029357191169

3rd/4th week in Oct From AsusUK. But that's UK release.

 

Is the SSD RAID0 really necessary? Since the price is probably the main problem with this I'm thinking the SSD system could be a cause. A cheaper single SSD configuration would really be attractive.

 

Ouch (though not really surprising to me). So, on CPU side, 4558U is about 2% faster than 4650U in single-threaded apps, whereas about 20% faster in multi-threaded apps. Much touted Iris 5100 is only about 20% faster than HD4400/HD5000. No wonder nobody else is using 4558U. Hopefully this will silence all these misinformed people who thought this 28W CPU was going to be something much more than it actually is -- honestly, I am so tempted to yell out "told you so" now.

Otherwise, it seems like a nice laptop (though tad expensive). Color reproduction of its QHD screen is bit disappointing, though.

 

It's probably a single msata with dual controllers like other manufacturers have been using. Not that much more expensive.

 

Hey guys, I have the Zenbook UX302 for a few days and I'm going to review it soon enough. Still, if there are any details you might be interested in particular, drop them here and I'll try to answer all your questions

Just a heads-up, it's a press review unit so i don't know if I can open it to have a peak at the hardware.

PS: I'll also have the UX301 next week

 

You may want to start two new spate threads for your review and answers.

 

Anyone know what's the difference between UX301LA-C4006H and UX301LA-C4005H (5 vs 6)?

 

I think just a slight region difference, nothing in spec.

 

- perhaps 4005 vs 4006 ist white/silver vs blue+black?

- new, in-depth test (German again): Test ASUS Zenbook UX301LA-DE022H - Die nächste Generation Ultrabook
*they say the display that will elevate the chassis causes flex while typing (another review said no, not the case) they say they'd prefer the old ux's flat sitting design.
*they say the lid does not close correctly when carrying the notebook (1-2 cm gap, they say perhaps due to ifa berlin "damage"). no magnets /..
*they say the touch screen has a problem, when touching one can see the foil under the glass being dented, which doesn't look nice and might be indicative of problems later on, they say.
* other than that there's a lot of praise also.
I hope there will be tests of the 4500U 1080p version soon.

 

awesome, I think I am more interested in UX302 anyways with discrete graphics, and potentially a little cheaper than the 301. Too bad you may not be able to open it, I like to know if the HDD and ram could be upgraded. It looks like that is impossible with UX301. I look forward to your review.
.

 

Notebookcheck review in English: Review Asus Zenbook Infinity UX301LA Ultrabook - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

 

Anyone know what the silver-white Version of the 301 looks like? is it partly black? I have not found any pictures of the display area. Also, what do you think of the silverwhite color? I don't like white, but a bright silver could look great. Am not too fond of the blue/navy.

 

I hate white too even though I have an Acer s7. One thing is for sure, the lighter the better. Scratches show up on darker surfaces a heck of a lot more than light surfaces. My laptop is almost a year old through two owners and there are no "visible" scratches on it

 

I found images of the silver version
ASUS UX301LA-C4005H I7-4500U/8GB/256GB Subnotebooks kaufen bei Saturn
click "zooomen", you will need flash.
To be honest I like the bright silver/aluminium quite a bit. Will be a tough decision between this and the black/blue version. As you can see, the silver version has a black bezel, and a completely silverwhite keyboard, with keys just slighlty less bright than surroundings. I like this design. Great thing is, I think Saturn markets will hold both color versions on display in just 3 week's time
I found the samsung series 9 X3D version, which is silver, also quite interesting, design-wise. I hate white, but silver can be nice IMHO.
Note that the white asus logo beneath the screen is bright BOTH on the black/blue AND the silverwhite version.
Also note that the Asus logo on the back of the notebook is ALSO bright silver on BOTH the silverwhite and the black/blue versions, making the logo far less obtrusive on the silver-white Infinity.
However, I see the word "white" too often.There is a chance the silver-white version is more white, than silver. One will have to check this out IRL.
Hmm.