Ivy Bridge Zenbook with FHD IPS screen UX21A UX31A UX32A UX32VD

I hear ya, if my UX31A had fan issues or random shut offs believe me I'd be screaming at them too. I do have a little light bleed at the bottom left corner but I don't think it's worth returning and playing the lottery at this point. I agree with you that a $1000 laptop shouldn't have these issues but maybe we should have waited a month or so before buying one so ASUS can work out the kinks. I almost always wait a little while after initial release to purchase but this Zenbook PRime looked so awesome I had to pre-order.

For people who are constantly returning the unit why not return for a refund and try a completely different vendor?

 

And unicorns do exist. Its not that there are a vocal minority here (im one) that have had problems its that they have problems with exchange after exchange showing that the problems are fairly widespread.

 

Hello,

I would like to know if someone have found a solution to calibrate the color of this IPS panel (ux32vd) which are really too green !! ??

 

Yea, the early adopter thing isn't working out so well this time out. I also can't help but wonder why all the initially available zenbook primes are on sale for $100 off most places as a new releasee. Maybe asus is dumping their first production run.

I actually did return an go with another vendor. My first two were db51s from microcenter and my last two were best buy models. In my case it was a matter of who had it in stock.

 

Anyone order from Amazon while they list as out of stock? Just wondering how long it took for them to ship?

 

Has anyone compared this to a Sony S 13 series? (2012)? Can't see any comparison on the web. The gigabyte ultrabook also looks interesting.

 

Ok so i ordered the asus ux32a i7 model online but after looking around some more i cant seem to find another i7 model can u even get the asus ux32a with i7 thanks in advance

 

guys should i get a screen protector for my ux31a since it has a matt screen & i am scared that the screen gets damaged.

 

IMO the only reasons to put a screen protector on a screen or if it is going to be touched (aka touchscreen) or a 3m privacy screen if your concerned about prying eyes.

 

I did a couple of times on DB51s and they ended up shipping in two days even though it was talking about weeks.

 

What is the S13? Oh..I see..I don't think this compares to a S. That is probably why you don't see comparison studies. The S does not have a SSD, it does have a DVD burner and doesn't qualify as an ultrabook in either size or weight. You might find comparisons to the Z.

 

the screen gets accidentally touched a few times by my sister when i borrow her the ultrabook even after telling her not to touch the screen. So if i were to get a screen protector will there be any side effect? Also which type should i get?

Thanks

 

And even more surprising, the old UX31E with the crappy keyboard, the crappy screen (relatively) and the crappy old 2nd generation processor is STILL selling for MORE that the brand spanking new UX31A...now if that doesn't tell us something....

Even the old Samsung S9 with the 10x better Samsung SSD is selling for from 300-400 less than the new one .

 

It doesn't tell us anything, stop winding up the masses with nonsense. It is much more likely that the retailers are lazy and/or incompetent. That being said, I haven't bothered to check multiple retailers and their multiple models to verify such a claim.

 

Source with numbers?

 

Are you seriously saying that its not possible for him to have received a functioning unit? I too have a DB51 with no fan issues, no shutdowns, and truly *miniscule* light bleed - surely not of the kind to warrant it ever being a bother or distracting. Why is that so hard for you to accept?

 

He's just upset that he has had to get replacements several times. Honestly, I would be too, but he's gotten progressively worse with the doomsday comments in the last several pages of the thread. If I had bad luck with a product, I'd just move on to something else, I'm not sure why he's even in this thread anymore to be honest :-/

I'm typing from my UX31A and am extremely pleased with it I'm not sure why people are thinking that a $1000 laptop is a premium laptop because it isn't. It's a mid to high end at best, but very very far from premium. My work laptop cost $2500+. I don't compare the UX31A to that because it is a completely different league. I got mine for $999+tax-the sale of an xbox. Dirt cheap as far as I am concerned for a great device that suits the needs of its primary user (my wife). Loving the portability of it though. At a lakehouse with family and have been off and on all weekend with it and still have 38% battery life left. Just stellar.

But regardless, if you are unhappy, move on. That's why we have choices.

 

haha..look at bestbuy, amazon, microsoft store..it's not rocket science. In all three the UX31E sells for 1099 and the UX31A for 999. I'm sure you check others and it would be the same.

 

Best buy has the UX31a for $999, The UX31e for $899 and the UX31e (refurb) for $799. Honestly I think the differences between the E and A warrant more than $100 difference but they are selling the old model for less.

They are also selling some special edition UX31e models like the rose colored one for $1199 which may be what you are seeing.

Some of the other stores are still listing the E at its old list price which is more than the A series but its a matter of they only have a few left and haven't moved them to their wholesale / clearance prices yet.

 

So on Best Buy when I look at the $1099 model that is their Rose Gold model? Clearly they feel the color has a premium and they bought the stock at a certain price and they want to sell it for a certain price. If the consumer is stupid enough not to notice that, it isn't Best Buy's problem. If they are forced to lower the price if it doesn't sell, than they will. Not to mention we've seen SEVERAL instances of poor pricing that doesn't make sense, that you and I discussed several weeks ago. Suddenly they know exactly what they are doing and pay attention to all of the different models of every PC they carry? Pick a side...

It doesn't mean that Best Buy suddenly thinks the UX31A is below the UX31E in some scale of equality.

You aren't being reasonable and thinking about the whole picture.

 

Part of me keeps thinking about returning the ux31 and getting something cheap until the touch books come out with windows 8. But I haven't found a really good cheap alternative... but this looks interesting, cant believe it another asus though.

Its the asus X401A-RBL4 from best buy. Its got a 2.3ghz intel pentium cpu (not i series though, basically a sandybridge cpu without turbo mode), 4gb ram, sata 3 320gb hd comes with asus instant on features, gets 4hrs battery life in review tests, 1366x768 display, not a bad keyboard, 4.1lbs. usb3, sd card reader, vga, hdmi, etc. The beauty is its $329. Throw in a $70 samsung 830 60g ssd in place of the hard drive and you will probably squeeze another hour out of the battery and give it ultrabook like booting. So for $400 you could have a pretty nice little rig, not an ultrabook, not sleek like a mac air. It will be just as outdated in 3 months when win8 and touch goes mainstream though.

 

Single core Pentium?

 

Does the UX31a have the same weird fan problem as the X32VD after waking up from sleep? My UX32VD runs at 6k rpm for a minute or two even though it is cool.

 

Returned my UX31A back to best buy. I had gotten a free xbox with it, and obviously returned that as well. I was half shocked by the support I received. The rep asked me what was wrong - I made comments about the screen and the fan, and the response was - "So there is nothing wrong with it then." The Xbox I returned was completely sealed, unopened. The rep proceeded to open it and take everything out. She checks the serial number on the xbox, then compares it to the letter with the receipt, followed by the box. While packing the xbox back, she drops it onto the counter while struggling with the box. The entire time, the attitude was negative and condescending. The ironic part is that I never thought Best Buy was very pleasant to deal with till the Zenbook - the staff had been great with the exchanges. I actually walked out each time thinking what a nice experience it was...not this time I guess.

 

Dual Core, 2.3ghz, Sandybridge CPU. No turbo so its 2.3 or less depending on load.

 

Yep, I had one that did that. ux31a best buy model. Exchanged it and the new one works fine.

 

Not bad at the price, and don't worry, touch isn't going mainstream for a long long while. Windows 8 so far has been largely a disappointment and it'll take a couple years at least for any sizable market share that makes touch input a worthwhile investment for development companies.

 

My UX32VD does not have this problem after sleeping. Didn't have this problem before I formatted and don't have this problem after.

 

Still have not been able to get my hands on a UX32VD...

 

Microsoft has been trying to make touch mainstream for a decade, they failed. Apple succeeded with the iPad. Alot of ipad tech like instant on, multi-touch input, etc. has moved from the fringe to front and center as a result.

Noone knows if windows 8 will be a disappointment or how it will be received. There really isn't any hardware available that yet that meets microsofts touch screen requirements, so until the OS and devices launch in October we won't know how its embraced.

I for one hope its successful. As a developer I want to develop touch applications but REALLY hate dealing with apple on that level. As a user I want touch enabled productivity apps, desktop publishing, art, etc. These are things the ipad doesn't excel at but PCs will.

 

The OS has been available for preview for months. I have previewed 2 different development versions myself. It is not something to write home about. If you want feedback from people that matter then here:

Gabe Newell: "Windows 8 Is Kind of a Catastrophe" - IGN
Blizzard and Valve Pan Windows 8 | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

I'm not making this up. It isn't being received well at all. Windows 8 is much more than just a couple pieces of hardware that doesn't exist yet.

 

Kind of a random question about my UX31A which doesn't have to deal with the usual backlight bleeding, touchpad driver issues. I am trying to remove the power plug adapter from the power brick, but it seems that it's stuck in there and won't come out. Are any of you able to remove it, and if so, does it remove easily for you?

 

Yes, it comes right out without issue. You didn't try and force it into the headphone jack did you?

 

That Valve guy is just mad because he doesn't want there to be a Metro store to rival Steam. He doesn't want people to be buying software through the Metro store because then they might not buy it through Steam. In reality, Windows is about as far away from a closed ecosystem as you can get. Do people really think Windows is going to suddenly change and stop you from installing any type of software you want? Do they think Windows 9 is suddenly going to stop supporting legacy applications that are used by millions and whose developers just aren't interested in making a Metro app for? That is absurd and laughable at best.

In reality, Windows 8 is actually a significantly improved piece if software. All I hear is people whining about Metro and it being terrible for a desktop, but I've yet to hear a single one of those whiners respond to me when I ask them why they can't just use desktop mode just like Windows 7. They just say how there is no Start Menu, which in itself is hilarious, because the Start Menu by Microsofts own data, is going out of use. People are pinning all their applications to the task bar and only using the start menu for searching for the occasional random application or file.

Honestly, I have a few applications pinned to the task bar and I probably access the start menu a few times per month. This is a growing trend, and that is according to real data by Microsoft. And it's not just consumers that are trending that way. If you look at how many developers use Macs, you'd also see that they have all their stuff pinned on that launch bar at the bottom of the screen. Macs don't have a Start Menu, yet no one is complaining about that.

Other than making a few small changes to your habits, like moving your cursor to the right side of the screen than the lower left corner, or clicking the Windows keys and then beginning to type your search in the Metro layout, everything is the same.

Desktop functions exactly the same as the desktop. You can create shortcuts. You can pin stuff. You can browse folders. I really can't see how it's any different in terms of use other than a few minor changes of habit.

It's also not a full release yet and it's very possible that a lot of loose ends will be tied off before the official release. The reality of the matter is, Windows 8 seems to be a significant improvement. It offers Metro if for touch interfaces or if you simply like it, and it still offers the same old desktop experience if you want that. I really doubt anyone will see a negative change in productivity with Windows 8 vs 7, in fact, I think you might see a positive change due to the underlying improvements in code.

 

If you are only using the start menu a couple times a month, you aren't doing enough on your PC Other than the older generations who open up MS Word and a browser and maybe a money managing program, I think you are severely generalizing.

I use mine several times an hour.

Regardless, your claim (Gabe Newell doesn't like it due to competition) is just as baseless as the claims of others you are denouncing. Games for Windows Live has been a disaster and they have a lot of ground to cover if they hope to break into that at all. Steam is a known commodity and it isn't going anywhere. I highly doubt he feels threatened in that arena.

Guess we will see what happens. I don't really care what happens to be honest, just reporting what people are saying. People that do matter. Additionally, my own experiences with it were entirely underwhelming and a bug fix here or there by release time isn't going to change that.

In either case, this thread isn't about Windows 8, it is about the current generation of Zenbooks. I was merely telling a fellow user that touch input is a long way from being mainstream. That will remain true, regardless if Windows 8 is a success or failure.

 

I'm not talking about the part that plugs into the laptop, I'm talking about the part that plugs into the wall -- aka the power brick.

 

Mine calibrated pretty well using my Xrite i1 display 2. I do a good amount of giclee printing using large format systems and while I typically won't print directly from my laptop, I often prepare and edit files on the go. Printed swatches and edited files in photoshop match my monitor quite well. I think I used 80 or 90 as my target luminance value and 5500k for my target white point (there is some debate on proper white point for prints). I found that four fn brightness button presses from the dimmest setting matched the target luminance value and I had to do some minor tweaking in the intel setting to match my white point exactly.

 

I just encountered the cycling fan issue when resuming from sleep....ehh. I really hope it's a software or BIOS issue. In any case, instead of restarting the computer, I just closed the lid again to put the computer to sleep and opened the lid to wake it up, and then the issue seemed to go away. Definitely annoying and shouldn't be something anyone should have to put up with. Hopefully Asus tech support can give me more insight into it....

 

It's ok if it's off-topic.

But really, why else would he consider Windows 8 a catastrophe? What is the logic if not because of its negative affect on his business? What does Windows 8 have to do with OEMs disappearing? What's the logic in that?

This guy doesn't want Metro because Metro is supposed to have such a deep connection to the Marketplace, a place where Microsoft will take a cut of purchases. That said, there is no requirement that people buy everything from the Marketplace and there never will be. Not only would that be absurd, but it would be a massive anti-trust issue. If MS have anti-trust issues by merely giving people something incredibly useful with their OS -- an Internet browser so people could download a different Internet browser if they wanted! -- you can only imagine the storm that would come by forcing Marketplace purchases.

If he has other reasons, he clearly isn't making them known.

Just out of curiosity, why do you use the start menu so much? The task bar probably has room to pin like 20+ things on 1366 x 768. Why deal with the start menu if you could have one-click access to them when pinned?

 

UP! Please answer if you know thé answer

 

Here in Finland you can get the UX31E i7 128gb ssd moidel now for 999 euros while the UX31A i7 128gb model costs 1299 euros, so a noticable difference there. I went for UX32VD i7 version as its 1099 euros and if you buy the ssd and ram for it, it will still be cheaper than the UX31A

 

Hi,

I'm a new owner of a UX32VD, i5, 500G HD, 32G SSD, 4G memory. I'm pretty sure it is 2G on MB + 2G SO-DIMM. I have removed the back cover and there is a removable SO-DIMM that has foil wrapped around it.

The reason I'm not 100% sure about the size of the SO-DIMM is when I run RAMMon from Passmark, it shows just Slot #1 occupied and #2, #3, #4 empty. Is does say that Slot #1 is filled with 2048 MB of memory which then would make sense because the total memory is 3979 MB (2048 MB), so I assume the other memory is the stuff soldered on the board, though I don't know why it doesn't show up as one of the slots for RAMMon.

Anyway, what is the largest SO-DIMM this UX32VD can support? Can I put an 8G stick in there and give the UX32VD 10GB total memory?

 

I'm only upset that ASUS hasn't been able to make a proper pc for about a year now. I am sure somebody must have gotten one that works as advertised and I am also sure that for everybody who did there were 100 who didn't.

 

An update... after 2 returns because of faulty keyboards, I finally got a working UX32vd with almost no bleed (!)

I also installed an 8gb 1600mhz CL10 stick I had lying around for a total of 10gb, that effectively turned the memory speed down from 1600mhz to 1333mhz

I only ran 3dmark2006 but this are the results:

4gb 1600mhz (default) : 7465 3dmarks
10gb 1333mhz: 7009 3dmarks

so it seems like the memory has some small impact on gaming, perhaps it's just the fact that dual channel is not that efficient anymore with mismatched memory sticks?

additionally, does somebody know how to turn off the wifi? FN+F2 doesn't seem to do the trick, it just turns on/off bluetooth?

 

I work with countless different applications at work. In some cases 4 or 5 simultaneous installations of the same product (different versions) in order to work with different development cycles of the product that our customers have. It would be silly to have 4 or 5 applications (with the same icon) pinned to the start menu. I also have a 1-2 dozen programs that only get one or two uses a month. I also don't want my entire menu cluttered with lower use programs. You have a valid argument for maybe an average user that maybe uses MS Word, a browser, and a financial managing suite and that's about it. However, for power users or business purposes, the start menu is still a vital thing. It is short-sighted to think that because you may not need it, that noone needs it and they are all "doing it wrong," so to speak.

60% of the time, this logic works every time.

It isn't that the dual channel isn't efficient. Dual channel gets disabled completely. You have to weigh which is more important to you, the speed of the memory or the amount of memory. For 99.9% of users, the bump to 10GB will by much more usful than the loss of a tiny bit of speed.

 

Well I ended up returning my Zenbook Prime to Amazon today. I ended up grabbing a Lenovo X301 from eBay ($409). It will serve my needs well until the Surface comes out. In the end, I will miss the HD screen on the Prime, but outside of that the X301 will suit me well (office/productivity needs are a priority). I also picked up a cheap X61 tablet with a 1440x1050 screen for wacom fun ($175). At that price, it's practically disposable.

At the end of the day, I'm a Lenovo fan at heart. I gave Asus a chance, but there were just too many compromises to keep it. Yes I'm aware the machines I got to replace it are C2D processors, which is totally fine for my needs. I don't need a spec war. I just need something that's totally reliable and the Prime just wasn't it. Nothing like it shutting down without warning when working on a huge spreadsheet. I won't miss that feature.

 

Just curious, as I've never seen a shutdown of this nature. Did you install a fresh copy of Windows 7 or was it the stock image from Asus?

I understand that it shouldn't matter, and either, assuming you didn't muck something up inadvertently on your own, probably means it is a hardware issue.

 

Stock image. Even did a stock factory restore after the first shutdown and it did it again. It seems there is a hardware flaw with the Prime. I've read of others having this issue, so it's not just one machine off the line. There is a defect somewhere, hardware or software; not sure.

It just didn't instill confidence for me. I constantly worried it would up and shut down when using it. Maybe it would have never done it again, maybe it would have gotten worse. I don't know, but it was worrisome. I didn't feel like playing the RMA game with Asus. There isn't a need to do that with all the choices out there, IMO.

 

Does anyone have images of minor backlight bleed on their UX31A?

 

A defect with the offending units, probably. A couple of instances doesn't scream manufacturing defect on all units to me though.