Ivy Bridge Zenbook with FHD IPS screen UX21A UX31A UX32A UX32VD

Anyone have any further details on this model vs DB71? The BB models don't specificaly mention the IPS Display.

 

They don't mention it with the UX31As either and they have the same displays. I am sure they do those too.

 

And of course as soon as I post this, the problem comes back. I put it to sleep and then unplugged it this morning for the commute to work, then when I woke it up (on battery) it did the fan thing again - though just once. No idea if it being plugged in or not has anything to do with it. Anyway, after the fan spun down I put it to sleep and woke it up again to see if it would happen again, there was no fan spin-up. It seems that I sometimes get the issue and sometimes I don't ever since the ATKACPI update.

 

I went ahead and picked up a UX32VD on friday in Canada. When I first booted it, I noticed very minimal backlight bleed. After 2 days of use, this has all gone. I went ahead and turned the brightness all the way up and put on movies/black screens/etc. I have zero bleed now. Even when it bled in the first day, it was extremely minimal and only noticeable really on extreme angles.

Last, I have an annoying problem that I haven't seen anyone post about on the forum here. When I use the keyboard shortcut to turn off all wireless devices, the bluetooth turns off but WIFI stays on. If I set the button to all devices off, put the PC to sleep and bring it back, the WIFI will then shut off. The wifi has no problem re-waking with the button from any state.

It just seems like it never puts the WIFI to disabled mode unless I sleep the PC and bring it back...

Any idea how to fix it? Sometimes I want both bluetooth and wifi off to conserve battery. Heck, I don't even mind permanently disabling the bluetooth as it is a feature I will not be using.

 

I wish it did, but I think our SD card sticks out too far:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/30288505/2012-07-07%2017.09.09.jpg

The pictures I've seen of the Air and Pro with SDs sticking out don't protrude nearly as bad as ours.

Edit: Macs protrude 7/16" according to this: http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/sd-card.jpg

 

Did I read somewhere earlier than a BB version you got had a Sandisk SSD? That's odd.

 

Is it the same on the UX31A?
Because i plan to but that one..
It is not possible to cut the card?
Or maybe put another type of card which fits?

 

Yea. SD cards stick out MORE than half way on the UX31A. It's ridiculous. Luckily I don't use SD cards all that much.

 

not me but a lot of them from BB and others now are coming with Sandisk..exactly what happened with the original UX31 a year ago..they all originally came with Adata and by the time they switched over to UX31Es they were all Sandisk..I returned two UX31s to BB because their demo had a 1.7Ghz processor and Adata SSD and both I took home had 1.6Ghz processors and Sandisk SSDs. I don't really blame BB because they have no idea what garbage ASUS is sending t5hem and the same is starting to happen with these new ones.

 

Did you happen to get the actual model on the CPU instead of just the speed you saw?

It wasn't an i5-3317U?

 

No no..I'm talking about the original UX31..a year ago..not the UX31E or the UX31A but the UX31..they were using 2nd generation chips then. NOW the same issue with the SSD that happened then is happening again but so far I* haven't heard anything about the processor changing too.

 

Mine was also a Sandisk from Best Buy. I honestly have no opinion about this. Sure ADATA is faster ~ but in the end, they didn't advertise minimum speeds or average speeds with their ultrabook. As long as it works well/reliably - and is faster than a standard HDD - I'll take it. Even Samsung's S9 come with SanDisks.

All I care about is the screen.

 

I experience the same (fan on/fan off) after resume from sleep/standby.

I'm fairly positive this has got to be a power/drivers issue.

 

Technically you are right but you should care..next they will be putting AMD chips in instead of Intel and making the same argument you are making now.

And I don't think anybody is claiming the Samsung 3rd generation s9 to be the model that everything else is compared to. Maybe the second generation was but they have cheapened the new one.

 

Oh sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the S9 was the model to be compared to. I was aiming towards the idea that Samsung have their own SSD line - yet uses SanDisk. One would have rightfully assumed that a Samsung ultrabook would include a Samsung SSD.

AMD will come out with their own lines called Ultra-thins. A good example would probably be manufactures saying, "comes with a 1.7GHz processor!", and use sandy bridge and ivy bridge 1.7GHz processor interchangeably. Yes, if they did do that, it would be lame - and I wouldn't buy it.

 

Checked out the 15" Series 9 today. I am interested in the 13" but no stores around here have it in stock. Honestly, the keyboard felt awful compared to the UX31A. Almost no travel on the keys. Seemed comparable to a Sony Z. Not sure if the 13" model has the same keyboard, but I would assume it is very similar as the 13" is even thinner than the 15".

 

UX32, new driver Beta for the TouchPad: Beta Version V1.0.26

http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Supe [...] /#download

ASUS Smart Gesture (Touchpad Driver) << Please update ATK Package V1.0.0020 or later in advance >

 

About to try it out on my UX31A

I also tried the Samsung ELAN driver the other day. But 2 finger tap for right click wouldn't work. I set up a 3 finger tap for right click and that worked. Not sure why 2 fingers wouldn't. Similarly, 2 finger tap did not work on the 15" Series 9 I tried today. It should have based on the settings I put in, but it just didn't. Is that just how the Samsung drivers are?

 

I gave it a try and am back to the Elantech driver. Didn't really notice anything different from the previous Smart Gesture iterations.

 

Yes they have be taking a lot of heat about that. Their own drives are really good and really fast so there is no reason they would switch.

 

Scrolling on the ASUS driver is still garbage compared to the ELAN driver, but I am going to stick with the ASUS driver for a bit because of the infinitely better smart detection while typing.

$$$

 

If you have a Microsoft store nearby they have them on display. The reviews I have read actually give their keyboards pretty good ratings.

 

Unfortunately the Boston Microsoft Store won't be open until next month, I believe.

What else is worse in the ASUS driver besides the ty scrolling? Haven't noticed anything in the past 5 minutes but am certainly always looking. It's a tough trade off right now. Terrible scrolling or terrible smart detection while typing.

 

They just opened ours here in NJ a few weeks ago. They are finally getting an east coast presence.

 

Excuse my ignorance but what is the benefit to the Elantech driver? I have been using the Asus Smartgesture driver with what I feel is no problems but maybe I am missing something?

 

ASUS driver has horrible scrolling. Seemingly the inputs don't always register as well as with the ELAN driver. But the one advantage to the ASUS driver is the much much much better smart detection while typing. Probably because the driver makes the trackpad much less sensitive in general.

I switched back to the ELAN driver as well. Meh.

 

For me I couldn't find a way to enable 3-finger tap in the Asus driver. That was a big omission for me, since I like to map it to the middle-button to open up links in a new tab, and I use it quite a bit. I didn't look around the registry settings for this latest beta version of the Asus driver though, so maybe it was added as a "hidden" registry feature and I missed it. Regardless it would be nice if it were added to the main menu.

I agree that it's a difficult trade-off, because the lack of smart detection really does get quite annoying for someone like me who does a lot of writing/coding. For me I preferred to deal with the broken smart detection rather than broken 3-finger tap AND poor 2-finger scroll.

 

Ok so I dinked around with it some more and you're right, the scrolling is awful. It's moreso worse in VLC when trying to adjust volume. It plain sucks. However, I use something called Touchfreeze and I never get a problem with typing and activation of the touchpad ( touchfreeze - Utility for Windows that disables touchpad automatically while you are typing text - Google Project Hosting).

Maybe I should give that elantech driver a go. I sure would like better scrolling.

 

I also installed touchfreeze, hoping that touchfreeze + Elantech driver would be a way to fix the broken smart detection, but for whatever reason it still does not seem to work as well as whatever is built into the Asus Smart Gesture driver. As has been mentioned before - I think the perfect driver would be to start with the Elantech driver and then tack on the touchpad-disabling function from the Asus Smart Gesture driver. Now if only Asus would just find a way to do that...

 

I think what scares me more than anything else with regards to reying another one of these are the people and there are a few of them now who say their back bleed issue wasn't bad when they first got it a few days ago but is terrible now. If this is something that can go from ok to bad in a few days what will it be like in a few months or 1 day after the warranty runs out?

Again, none of these are perfect..just look at the first customer review of the 3rd generation samsung series 9 here.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-NP900...dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

 

Well I must say I like the elantech driver a lot better then the asus one. The scrolling is incredibly superior and everything else just seems much more crisp and precise. I dont have a problem with the touchpad getting activated while typing.

I must say, a definite improvement.

 

Is there a place to provide Asus some feedback regarding the touchpad? I imagine that even though we're all majorly dissatisfied with the trackpad - unless they are aware of it, they couldn't fix it?

I am using the Asus drivers, but as everyone mentioned, scrolling sucks. If it doesn't get better, it may be a bullet towards a return.

 

A beta version of ASUS Smart Gesture is released as of today, July 23, 2012.

 

Any faster/cheaper alternatives to the Samsung 830 SSD for the UX32VD? Any site that has a good list of benchmarks?

 

Samsung 830 and Crucial m4 have really great stability and are almost guaranteed to work at great speeds reliably without problems. If you want to opt for pure performance and risk guaranteed stability, than you can try the Vertex 4.

 

Get the m4 its better than the Samsung one, and cheaper I believe about $20? (Comparing the 256gb model. Go big or go home.)

 

I am now experiencing the fan bug...goes 100% randomly...

Edit: The new Asus drivers definitely improve scrolling.

But during the restart (to install the drivers)...I notice the bleeding creep that people were talking about... It is definitely getting worse. !*@#(

 

Well the vertex 4 has a very nice warranty, but you have to remove the housing and will void the warranty. I will admit that I am a huge fan of OCZ so far I have only used their drives and have had no trouble at all.

I was thinking this might be a nice choice.

Newegg.com - OCZ Vertex 3 Low Profile 7mm Series VTX3LP-25SAT3-240G 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)


I really care about performance. They all come with 3 year warranties so I am not too worried about that. What do you guys think?

 

I'd go with the Samsung 830 (7mm) or Crucial M4 (if you get the 7mm version).

 

Crucial m4 man. You won't notice the difference in performance. And get 7mm, I am not sure about opening the casing, but since other parts are exposed in the laptop it should be fine.

 

Heh. The Samsung is better at sequential. It's a wash otherwise. The Samsung will have lower idle power consumption unless you get the 512GB version. Something to consider. But it uses more energy when in use. So if you just browse the web and do basic tasks the Samsung may gain you a few extra minutes of battery.

 

Omg I recall my statement of $20 more. Its $70 more!!! Forget the extra few minutes of battery life. Not worth it.

 

hey for those who did a clean install if windows 7, i'm trying to figure out if the usb drives will work after a fresh install otherwise i hear that i have to do something about slipstreaming usb3.0 drives to the bootable usb? Does anyone know how to slipstream the usb 3.0 drives to the windows 7 when installed?

 

i picked up my ux31a today from bestbuy!!!..and omg i feel lucky, the rep let me check inside the box and i found the sandforce sticker and decided to take it..ive been playing on it for about 2 hours and so far i have no problems..i checked device manager and found adata, all of my back light keys are working and i dont have any dead pixels, during boot there is minimal bleed though but im not picky, it stay up for what, 3 seconds, i can live with that...when i turned it on though the wireless capability was turned off so once that was working everything was fine..i paid 1059.99 for it and got the free xbox (which sold on amazon after only having it up for one hour)..so after everything i spend about $900 for this. Hopefully i don't run into any problem

 

USB drives worked right away for me after a fresh windows 7 install

 

Mine worked without a hitch. Downloaded Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 and put it on a USB 3 drive. Installed without an issue.

I did run into that issue on my desktop and there wasn't any slip streaming necessary. I simply made the windows USB and made my own folder, stuck the USB3.0 drivers in there. Windows prompted me for a location on my desktop, found that, and I was good to go.

 

ok thanks Inios and Canarka! I'm think i'm going to install tonight, though I heard something about MBR and GPT that i was confused about (I want to delete the 10 gb and maybe the 4gb and if i delete the 4gb, will it prevent the 2 second startup?)

1) I have to format the 4gb and the 10 gb drives
2) Give that space to the C drive
3) install windows 7 home premium

 

Can I ask what your selling price was and then what your actual profit was after Amazon fees and shipping? Just curious. Not really sure how much it costs to ship something like an Xbox. I know it comes out better than eBay and worse than Craigslist but Craigslist also comes with the potential murder.

 

Hey also how did you sell on Amazon? Are we for sure there will be no chargebacks?

 

I deleted the 4GB instant on partition and the recovery partition. Only takes about 10 seconds to boot up without instant on. Maybe even less if you disable GUI boot.

Then again, I never shut down anyway. Unless an update requires it.