Ivy Bridge Zenbook with FHD IPS screen UX21A UX31A UX32A UX32VD

actually they had them recently on amazon for $180, brand new. seems like prices rose, maybe quantity is small.

 

The DB51 comes with a cloth. The Best Buy Version doesnt.

 

Anyone else notice that the sandisk 128gb ssd is actually a 124gb ssd. lol.

 

As far as I know that is true..every 256 I have seen has been sandisk.

 

Where was the cloth? I never opened the sleeve, is it in there?

 

Don't let's start down that road..in a nutshell, gigabytes are not gigabytes even though they call them gigabytes..they are billions of bytes..this is the oldest ruse in the storage business (my field)..started by IBM in 1990 when they stopped selling GBs and started selling billions..and put it in fine print at the bottom of all their contracts..of course everybody else started doing the same thing.

 

Yeah its like the Iphone, how 32gb only is 28gb.

 

My "Asus ZENBOOK UX31A-DB71" Just shipped from circuit city (tigerdirect) through buy.com.
They had it listed for $1,099.99 so I couldn't pass up on it. I think they had issues with their inventory or something because that's the price for the DB51. Either way I have it all in the receipt that it should be the UX31A-DB71, but part of me knows they probably shipped me the DB51, which will lead to me calling in and having to complain...

 

II know all that... they basically drop the 24s as in 1024 bytes is one k and so on. But im not talking available space. This drive identifies itself as 124gb. I believe the adata drives identified at 128. In both cases a stock system only had 67gb free on first boot though.

 

It should be 119 GB...

 

They are probably sending you the DB71 and eating their error. It would be far worse for them to send you the DB51.

 

Haha I sure hope so, but given the way these companies handle drop shipping of some items, I wouldn't be surprised if I get the DB51... extremely disappointed but not surprised.

 

My UX31A has a 256 GB ADATA SSD.

 

You could take to every blog on the planet and let the world know they sold you one thing and then tried to switch it with another. That kind of publicity is far worse then the 100 bucks or so (wholesale) it is costing them now to just give you what you ordered.

 

Hmm, maybe it's about 3-4 days since I last run that "test" so I tried it again tonight. Same conditions, same movie and I would probably say that it's less pronounced now than for a few days ago.

It's still visible, but not as visible as the last time. I don't know if it's actually different but it appears so.

 

hey how much battery are you guys getting out of your ux31a's?

 

I just called the Microsoft Store, I confirm they have the sale, the associate told me at my local store which is about an hour and half drive away at the South Coast Plaza, California they got two variants, the i5 an i7 UX31A's in stock. The i5 is $999 and the i7 is $1499. So its a simple choice to buy the $999, but the thing is it isn't over $1000, so I asked him if I could also add a $10 item, and he said yeah as long as the receipt is over $1000 before tax which you will receive 20% off.

 

Do you mind posting the sticker info from your boxes? You can black out the serial no. if you wish. This will be a huge favor!

Thank you!

 

Hi, just bought a UX31A-DB51-CBIL (french canadian version with a multilingual keyboard) at Future Shop and it suffers from the same backlight bleeding problem that many have reported. 8 spotlights at the bottom! My screen also have 1 bright pixel and seems to be scratched a little bit in the top left corner. It's easy to see when the screen is all white or all black. Other than that, the screen really amazing! I think 1080p might be a little too much and is straining my eyes a little bit (especially in the dark), but I must say that so far this is the best screen I've seen on a laptop! It's super bright and the colors are popping out of the screen!

Another annoying thing is the trackpad. It's pretty much impossible for me to scroll in Firefox with 2 fingers swipe. It just scroll way too fast. 10 min after my first book, Asus Update started and changed the driver of the trackpad. I was hoping it would get better... but damn, if anything, it's worst than it was. Overall I think the gestures are pretty poor. I tried a Macbook Air for 1 week before buying this ultrabook and I must admit that the Mac totally smoke the Zenbook in terms of keyboard and trackpad. The keyboard is not bad, probably one of the best of any ultrabooks, but when typing fast, some keys just fail to register. Same thing with the webcam. It's not bad, but the Macbook Air is just that amazing in comparison. Even the speakers are better on the Mac.

Another "issue" I have is as soon as I start doing something (other than typing), the fan start to spin and can get loud enough to hear it while my desktop PC is on (and it's not silent either). Didn't try running benchmark to see how loud it gets, but just watching a 1080p movie seemed to be painful for this Zenbook.

Overall, I'm a bit disappointed because I was expecting something at least as good as the Macbook Air I tried last week. To be honest, other than the screen (hard to beat...), the look (that dark aluminum lid is simply sexy) and the OS (personal preference), the Macbook Air is much more worth it in my opinion. It cost me 150$ more including all taxes and it's just a superior machine with a better quality control. For me it's hard to justify the price unless I really wanted a 1080p IPS screen.

 

Over-provisioning: every SSD sets aside a few GB to compensate when cells go bad.

 

I haven't seen any problems with the fan coming up that loud due to heat and/or load while watching a movie. If its going up and down at regular intervals it might be the fan cycling issue. If not, how are you playing the movie? external player? streaming?

 

I still might try one of these next month when I'm back in the states, even though the reviews seem overwhelmingly problem filled. We'll see. Amazon doesn't seem to have any 256GB models for some reason.

That said, can anyone tell me if the Elan touchpad has a circular scroll? I have a synaptics pad on my Vaio and the circular scroll is imo vastly superior to all other forms of scrolling due to how it doesn't require lifting your finger off the touchpad. (If you haven't ever tried it, it's a must try!)

 

You're lucky..ours only has the 1499 version and that is all they show online as well. They only got them in yesterday and they don't expect any other models.

 

You could always return it 10 times like others and pray that you eventually get a good one.

 

Actually you can't return it 10 times, at least not without a long drawn out fight. There is a watchdog group called The Retail Equation (TRE) that all of these big chains subscribe to that track your returns. If you go over a certain threshold in a certain amount of time (both classified of course) they ban you from returning for 90 days. Fortunately you get told on the last return they will accept. It happened to me with bestbuy but I was able to get it taken off because the returns were for that UX31 that didn't match the display.

 

Has anybody run Crystal Disk Mark against one of these Sandisk SSDs theat have a WEI score of 7.4? I was in the MS store yesterday and the Samsung still shows it as 5.9. They both use the same U100 and the same chipset so I am wondering how there can be such a big difference.

 

Streaming a 1080p video on Youtube. The fan was quite audible, I've been impressed (not in a good way). Maybe I was just tired and everything sounded louder to me, but if I was able to hear it over my desktop PC there's something wrong. Just for the sake of comparison, the only way I managed to get the Air that loud was playing GW2 in bootcamp.

 

I was just wondering, I'm thinking of carrying my laptop (UX32VD) around in the envelope that it came with, but do you also carry the charger in the same envelope? Or will that scratch the lid/bottom of the laptop?

And would you be confident having the laptop in the envelope in your backpack with a couple of books? I'm going to take this to school almost daily and it will be transported in a backpack without a separate pouch/compartment for laptops, with a couple of books (not very thick ones) will be lined up against the laptop.

Do you think that potentially can damage the PC or am I just worrying about a non-issue?

 

Screw that, I would rather buy from another manufacturer than playing this lottery!

But as an update, the backlight bleeding is much much better today. Maybe it's the fact that the bezel received a lot of hot air and it settled properly, but right now I can only see 2 small light hollows instead of 8 clearly defined spotlights.

Fan problem is still there though. Even at idle, you can hear it. My Air was dead silent. Sucks I don't like OS X. Oh well!

Seriously thinking about the Sony VAIO S 13P now. Mediocre screen, but at least they seems to have some sort of QC.

 

Well that's interesting, I know you said noone knows the exact numbers but how many returns did you make in how long of time where you saw it happen?

 

Had you resumed from suspend before trying that or was it from a full boot? There is a know problem with the fan going crazy after suspend.

 

That was the peculiar part of it..they say it's based on what you returned in the last 90 days yet I hadn't returned anything in 90 days but in the last 120 days I had returned about $4500 worth of stuff. They actually send you a printout of what you returned, to who and on what day and for how much..it's another one of this big brother things.

 

Maybe, I can't remember. I'll retest it later today. If it works well, maybe I'll consider keeping it since it might just be a software issue that can be fixed with an update.

 

Yes, try it from a boot..nobody seems to have any fan issues then but everybody does from suspend.

 

I had not had any fan issues until yesterday. I noticed the fan was running a lot - more than it should have been for what I was doing and certainly more than any time since I have had the laptop.

I did a reboot and no fan since then.

Have absolutely no clue what could have started it running amok but it has not been noticeable since the restart.

 

Try putting the computer to sleep (closing the lid), and then opening it back up and using it for a while. It is only after sleep/suspend that people are seeing the issues, not after a full reboot.

 

Have you updated to the latest drivers with asus live update? I had the fan issue on the last one i exchanged but after applying the latest drivers it got alot less predictible when it would start up.

 

My UX31A also has the fan problem, I will send it back to ASUS for repair (Belgium) , but my question is: how will they repair this? Since there is no BIOS update for it right now (and most probably not a hardware issue, since it works like it should after a reboot), will they just send me a new one? In that case, I'll have the chance of receiving one with bad backlight bleeding or a sandisk SSD. Would it be wise to wait a bit for a new BIOS update, or should I send it anyways?

 

I would wait..I opened a ticket on it 10 days ago and they never even replied to it. They don't have a fix right now.

 

This may have been the cause. I rarely sleep my unit. I usually leave it plugged in. I have turned off the sleep on closing the lid. I find that hugely annoying. If I want it to sleep I will put it into sleep myself. I have prevented sleep while plugged in but allow it on battery.

I can't recall for certain if I had slept it or not but I might have.

I have updated to the latest drivers as soon as the were released.

I would not be surprised it another BIOS update is coming if people continue to have fan issues.

 

Hey everyone, started following this thread when I began looking into the UX31. I just picked up the i7-3517U 256 GB from the microsoft store yesterday, they have it listed as UX31A-1AR4 for $1499, then with 20% off it wasn't a bad deal. It has the sandisk drive, but it's WEI score is 7.5 and it moves things around much faster than my older laptop so I'm happy with it. Trackpad is great for me. Minor backlight bleed on day 1 but I don't really mind, maybe it will even go away after a few days.

I did want to ask those of you having fan issues how annoying the fan actually becomes to you, because I can't tell if I'm having the issue or just being nit-picky. When I stay on one tab in chrome or in one low-intensive program, the fan usually stays off. But sometimes it seems like every minute or so it comes back on, not sure if I'm imagining that part. But as soon as I do something new, it kicks in at around 3100-3300 rpm, then it usually goes off after a bit if I don't switch around. When streaming a 1080p youtube video, the fan sits around 3200 rpm. I can pretty much only hear it in a silent room. If I have the TV on low, or washing machine going, or pretty much any sound in the background, I can't really hear it. I did all asus and windows updates.

It is only when I am in a quiet room were it kind of bugged me, but I think this may just be the way it is. Does this seem less than or about on par with the fan issues you guys have been seeing?

Other than that I'm very happy with the purchase, and with "microsoft signature" they uninstalled most of the bloatware before I got it.

 

No I do this often with the old UX31, it is safe, and charger doesn't fit in envelope.

 

Your fan sounds fine to me. You are probably getting a bit more fan use than I am due to the i7 processor, but fan speeds in the 3000-3500rpm range are the normal heat reduction speeds the fan usually works at when it needs to cool things down.

The fan cycling problem is a bit different... heres the particulars:
- Only happens after you have resumed from suspend or hibernate
- Hits may speed of 4500-5500rpms. sounds like its taking off compared to 3500rpms.
- Takes about 1 minute to cycle down to 3500rpms then maxes again back to 4500-5500rpms.

20% off hmm. Damn, I wish there was a microsoft store within driving distance.

 

I was wondering if you had heard anything back on your fan issue ticket. Guess they are still puzzling over it. I couldn't deal with it on mine so took it in for exchange.

So far so good on the new one, not a hint of the fan issue, minimal backlight bleed. It does have the sandisk drive but I think there might be two sandisk u100 drives floating around with different specs.

For example the u100 drive in pre-release test units had a windows experience index of 5.9 but the ones people are getting on shipping units are 7.5. Makes me think sandisk did some revision somewhere or asus found and fixed some issue they were having with maxing performance on that drive.

 

i would like to see some ssd benchmarks as well. i saw some on the first gen zenbooks and the results were terrible. im not gonna spend this much money on an ssd notebook if it performs no better than a hdd.

 

Even a terrible ssd will perform better than the best of the best 2.5" spinners. I can assure you of that, heh.

 

Haven't heard a word and I find that unlike them. I usually hear back within 48 hours..that's what makes me think they can reproduce the problem but so far have no answer on how to fix it.

And the u100 in the S9 still says 5.9.

 

For what it's worth, I have been able to reproduce the problem as well.

 

They may just be hoping it goes away. The batch number on my latest trade in was alot higher than my previous ones and ive noticed little changes (default to 60hz instead of 40hz, etc) that suggest they tweaked the software images for the later batches.

Yea, the SSD has me a little confused... its saying 7.5 on my latest exchange (not as good as 7.9 on the adata but not bad). But the same drive in E series units and in pre-production A series units was returning 5.9 and as you mentioned its still 5.9 in samsung series 9 units.

Ive done read tests on mine (cant do writes with the free version of the software i was using) and im getting 300-320mb/sec from the u100 on reads.

 

Were you using Crystal Disk Mark? That seems to be the app of choice here..I think that is just free period. You can get it here and it does both reads and writes.

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