ASUS Zenbook or HP Envy

Hey everyone,

I am in the market for a ultrabook, its due time to upgrade from my DELL Inspiron 13.3. I was just hoping people can provide some insight on which on of these two laptops are better: I have been looking at the ASUS Zenbook Prime 13.3 Ultrabook with Intel Core i3 (UX32A - DB32) from Best Buy and the HP Envy 4 14" 3rd Gen Intel Core i5 Ultrabook from FutureShop. Not quite sure which one is better. I am looking to spend no more than $800 before taxes. Anyone have any suggestions on which to purchase?

I've posted the links for both ultrabooks below.

HP:

HP Envy 4 14" 3rd Gen Intel Core i5-3317U Ultrabook (4-1050CA) - Black/ Red : Ultrabooks - Future Shop

ASUS:

ASUS ZENBOOK Prime 13.3" Ultrabook featuring Intel Core i3-2367 Processor (UX32A-DB32-CB) - Silver : Ultrabooks - Best Buy Canada

 

I would lean towards the Zenbook myself. They're fairly similar performance wise. Their screens aren't really that much different either, other than the extra 0.7" of space on the Envy. I would go with the Zenbook because the Envy's keyboard and touchpad are horrific. Whereas the Zenbooks keyboard is quite nice and the touchpad is ok. The Zenbook's build quality (at least in my opinion) is also far superior.

 

..if you have the hp site available in Canada, you could order a hp 6z in the same chassis as the first one you mentioned - but customize it and add an a10 quad-core, instead of the standard dual core. Will still be cooler than the i5, and will give you about twice the 3d performance. Media-playback will be effortless, at very low processor loads thanks to the apu - also externally to higher resolutions than the internal monitor. And.. it will be easy to slice approximately twice the battery life out of it, compared to either the zenbook or the i5 version of the envy.

If you can get hold of one, obviously.

 

I myself owned 2 of this laptops before.
I sold off the envy and bought the zenbook.

The zenbook feels alot better. The feel is jus amazing. Better then the envy. The build feels studier.

Hp envy4 keyboard is better. By about 15%.
Touchpad feels better on the envy also.
Express cache is much faster then zenbook.
Zenbook boots in about 30s. Hp envy4 boots in 20s.

Overall, build quality goes to zenbook.
Weight also goes to zenbook. (lighter)

Keyboards and performance, Envy wins the tittle.

 

thanks for the input, i went and played around with both ultrabooks and the Asus feels alot better, especially build quality. Im leaning towards the Asus at the moment

 

I'm in the same boat as you and really like the Zenbook, but I'm worried if something happens and it needs to go back to Asus...
I've been reading about the horror stories dealing with Asus RMA...
also, have you tried calling their sales support...their team knows nothing about the products...