Zenbook U500 Announced: 15.6" HD IPS, GT650M, Quad-Core i7...

And now, the specifications for the UX51 touchscreen:
UX51 touchscreen

This is the new model which is in production right now.

 

I think the people that frequent this thread are either super excited about this PC, or like Feciar #1384 and moda #1382 and myself, in the market for a MPB(r) equivalent.

I have been looking around and at first I was skeptical about the "big tech" laptops, Sony, HP, etc. and only trusted Dell, Apple and IBM/Lenovo. I since have changed my mind and the Sony S15 looks good as well as the HP Envy - but to no avail, they are not available for purchase in Denmark, my current place of residence, with the config I would like.

The things I would like to do on them:

For me the question remains, "Why should I spend 700$ more on MBP, when I would change the OS and possibly have a worse experience than on a laptop that is built for Windows?" (yes, the price difference on the U500 and similarly specced rMBP is 700 USD). If someone gives me good reasons I might shell out for the rMBP - but it is just so expensive, for not a necessarily better laptop (for my needs).

Then a second question arises. And this comes due to Asus' failure to launch, and the timidness of this launch. "What alternative is living up to these requirements, in case the U500 is another L521 Dell XPS 15?" ... Any thoughts ?

 

At a price of "USD$599", this will be a big seller. Haha. My guess is that there was a 2 left out.

 

Great news. I would guess since this is the 512GB version, that they will switch screens on the already produced 512GB versions and put the new touch screen on that. Then sell two different SKU's, non-touch with 256GB and touch with 512GB. I don't think they will release a SSD+HDD at this point.

Does anyone want to make assumption about the price at the end of the header description line

Focus on those last numbers USD$599. Typo ?

But I must say, the 3632QM 3.1 GHZ + 512GB looks nice. Here is hoping for no overheating or throttling

 

More like 7 years. In 2005 I bought a Toshiba Satellite Pro in 2005 (Pentium M) and about a month ago I helped a friend choose an Asus X53 (2nd gen i5, GT540). The Asus's specs are better but in form factor and screen quality/resolution the laptops are almost identical - in fact the Asus is slightly bigger and heavier and the screen more faded-looking if anything. I ordered it online and when it arrived I was amazed that laptops have not changed externally in 7 years.

 

If that were in stores I would buy it. The touchscreen will set it apart from the rMBP and will be handy for Windows development.

 

^

The main issue is that no store in my country has it listed/knows about it, and the Asus sales guys have told me and another that it probably won't be on sale this year

Hence why i'm chasing alternatives (unless Asus Australia decide to start selling it in the next 3 weeks)

:\

 

Yes, very poor timing if Asus don't manage to get this selling before Christmas.

 

not only is the screen flimsy, the Vaio also has slower RAM and much much weaker speakers.

 

timing isn't the only issue, but when it does come out at first, it will have a much older processor and will be much closer to the Haswell products, so double fail on their part

 

It is not flimsy ... or more exactly, it is by design.

You guys have to stop thinking that because something is rigid, it's necessarily better.
Rigid breaks, flexible, less so.
Of course, you have 2 types of flexibility : 1 which is because you use cheap materials, the other one is when it is designed in such a way.

 

that's the most intriguing of the bunch...same specs but with a touch screen and the newer processor

I love using WIndows 8 on my laptop with the gestures and probably won't use the touch screen, but at least it justifies the price

 

that's what I thought until I bought the S15...the screen isn't even held on tightly, like i can take my finger nail and pry open the case and the screen... you can mask it how you like, but say after 3 years of the screen flexing whenever you open and close it, not sure how it will hold up

 

ExcaliberPC has the 256GB model in stock. It's listed with no touch screen and 650M DDR3.

ASUS Zenbook UX51Vz-DH71 15.6" Ultrabook. ASUS UX51Vz-DH71

 

Forget these Zhuha guys from cn. I do have very good business contacts to Shenzhen China and they offer the U500 (different versions) for pre-paid shipment to other countries only but as soon as they understood that a colleague would pick up the notebook locally from them they refused to send any other response Looks like they are not that "reputable" and I would not even believer their specs. They offered me an UX51 for 630$ as long as they thought that they could get direct money transfer before shipment

 

I mean it's clear that these guys are outright frauds (USD 500 for the laptop?!).
However, this is exactly the reason I believe they have collected the right specs just to look legitimate. It's the least one could do.

Also the other known specs are accurate, so let's see.

 

Pack your tents and chairs guys, we are going to camp it out in South Africa. The touch version of the UX51 is available for pre-order (shipping by 20 Nov) now (and might I say, the same specs as our 'friendly' vendors from china):
UX51 CM039P

PS: This one does look like a legitimate online shop. And for the low low price of only R 20,999.95 (including VAT)

 

And what have that to do with flexibility? There's no reason for the screen to have overly strong hinges other than making it harder to use. As I use my SA (which AFAIK have exactly the same hinges as the S13A/S15) in a way that requires the screen to be opened and closed more times a day than I can imagine any other uses I can't see how 3 years of normal use would be any problem.

 

If it have DDR3 memory the Vaio S15 is a much better deal (unless one have an aluminium fetish).

 

Tbh, we've had 3 sony vaio's 2 years back at work. One arrived with one screw too little to hold the harddrive, the other's screen broke down after 2 months. After 2 years time I could keep one running with the parts collected from the other 2..

It will of course be model related, but that day my trust in sony products shattered.

Asus, in my opinion, has always been a trustworthy brand. Sony, Dell and LG are all on my sh*tlist.

 

Not sure if intentionally ironic lol... NAND flash does rely on quantum tunneling of electrons to work.

 

Quack, this totally throws my plans back into the air again. I had decided to only get a laptop with DisplayPort and was about to get a Thinkpad W530 but this puts the Asus of many names and the Vaio S15 back in consideration.

 

Newegg is now showing ETA of 11/5/2012, w/ free Everki bag.

 

Well, if it's true it will have to come out in the Asus Website today or tomorrow I guess..

 

In Germany it is shipped since Wednesday but I do not know about anybody who ordered already. Hope to read/hear something soon. I would be happy to do it myself but after my S15 purchase and refund process I am a bit out of motivation to go through all that again. Especially because I do wait for some news about the touch version. If that would be listed also I would be one of the guys to report early impressions to you.

I even thought about ordering the "normal" version to test it a bit and to be able to give you impressions about the screen, battery life, cooling (noise in idle) and possible throttling or uncomfortable heat but I still hope that anyone can do it who does plan to keep it. *hoping*

 

Asus 15.6" Notebook Computer Silver Aluminum, Intel Core i7-3612QM (2.1GHz), 8GB DDR3, 128GB SSD + 128GB SSD, Windows 8 Home Premium

That price is a lot more palatable.

If Asus Australia imported it at that price, i'd get one.

 

In Switzerland (CH) there will appear (according to the local reseller) a new model not listed here:
ASUS Zenbook UX51VZ-CN023H
But according to the local reseller the specs should be identical to "Asus Zenbook UX51VZ-CN035H"
216740 ASUS Zenbook UX51VZ-CN023H, i7-3612QM, 8GB, 2x128GB SSD Raid 0, 15.6" WUXGA 1920x1080, Win8, NVIDIA GeForce GT650M 2048MB DDR3, USB 3.0, Giga-LAN, WLAN (300 Mbps), Bluetooth, Webcam, 2 Jahre Garantie, inkl. Tasche & externer DVD-Brenner
CHF 1999.00 inkl. MwSt.

I really don't get the differences between the different models is it only the harddisk or are there as well other differences? Do all of them have the same IPS Panel with the same quality?

 

Anybody have a laptop with 1.4 HDMI and test our the new HD 3000/4000 drivers to see usability with a 2560x1600 or similar display? Or anybody find any videos/mentions of it? Seems like the drivers will be able to handle it now, would love to get absolute confirmation and then I'm basically ready to pull the trigger here.

 

Are you so sure that HDMI is connected to HD4000 instead of Nvidia card?

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 con Tapatalk 2

 

Nope, I didn't think that the Nvidia card would have an issue, but I guess it might. Clearly I have no idea what it's connected to. Not sure that I ever see many reviews mention which card a specific port is connected to. In the end, someone will have to be a guinea pig. If I can be 80% sure it will work I'm not that afraid of taking the leap.

 

Any word on if this the XH71 variant has touchscreen? I want to pre-order, but I don't want to buy a version that I regret buying later.

 

Neither the XH71 nor the DH71 seem to have touchscreens. Touch models will come to North America later, presumably.

 

Including Canada? I've looked online, and I can't find a single Canadian store/website with pre-order. Very upsetting since this has been on my radar for quite a while now... are we Canadians left out this time around?

 

Can you tell me, who's the reseller here in Switzerland? Digitec? Brack?
Thanks in advance!

 

I'm in Canada too, and as far as I can tell no Canadian retailer is selling any version of this computer yet. But I take some encouragement from the fact that the page ASUS and You. Incredible Together. has a space for Canadian retailers at the bottom. If they weren't planning to sell it in Canada they presumably wouldn't have made this space.

Another concern is the habit that some computer manufacturers have (e.g. Sony, HP) of selling the current model in the USA and the older model in Canada (for more money). But I hope we will see these computers in Canada before too long.

 

It's not to be seen in Europe either. As I mentioned earlier the only place where I found the touchscreen for sale is an online shop from South Africa.
Kind of strange that it's not here in German yet. Usually we get such products early (and at a hefty premium )

 

Hopefully, since it's beginning to ship out in some markets, we'll get some review soon. I'm still twitchy from the XPS 15 fiasco. If this computer isn't absolutely fantastic I'm going to give up on the form factor and order something a little bigger like the Lenovo Ideapad Y500, I doubt that thing will have cooling problems with the size of the heatpipes on it.

Even if it's not available in Canada right away we can always duck across the border.

 

I contacted NCIX and MemoryExpress (they both are official Asus re-sellers).

Reply from MemoryExpress:

Nice... I kind of losing my faith in Asus. Time to consider Razer.

 

Wow. Perhaps time to sit tight until Haswell then and see what other manufacturers offer. I suppose I could import one and pay the taxes, but I don't know what the warranty coverage would be like and I am really kind of annoyed with Asus at this point.

 

Wow Asus, way to fail. I dunno what to do at this point, might have to consider a Dell Precision. (Which wouldn't be great for gaming!)

 

Razer should make a 15" model with an IPS screen. I'd buy it. Oh, and replace the silly little touchscreen thingy with a full touchscreen.

 

Razor makes gaming notebooks and IPS panel on a gaming notebook isn't a good choice.

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 con Tapatalk 2

 

Xotic is now showing that it is in stock. I called up to ask a few questions and they said they'll definitely know more next week on what the computer actually includes (external dvd drive, etc). There are no reports of touch screen models and that may be announced later on.

Adorama seems to be the cheapest so far, but Xotic wont price match any of the big names, only other boutique shops.

 

I've never seen such a stupid product launch in my life...they announced this laptop twice, and it's still not available, nor any kind of official and accurate information.

 

Yeah that kinda sucks. I was all set to order with Adorama until I realized they were in NY. I live in NY as well and the $150+ sales tax offsets the cheaper price. I'm gonna hold off until others get it it in stock.

 

I phoned Adorama and they told me that they wouldn't have the model until at least November 21. The guy said their computer is listed that date as "estimated" so he said "I can't guarantee that date, or how many they will actually send to us."

I need a laptop with an IPS screen (for photographic purposes), but I would also like to game on it. Does anyone know of alternatives besides purchasing an Apple product?

 

Sure actually your guess was almost perfect i.e. I asked Digitec and Brack and while Digitec was quite disappointing I got a positive answer from Brack
I would now just like to have a final confirmation/test/hands-on that everything is fine i.e. that the display is good (or at least better thant the one from sony) regarding sRGB & cd/m2, that the keyboard is good (good feedback), etc.

 

The new full of bugs and never stable windows release, windows 8, delayed the hole process of this machine. So Asus have no choice but to ship this machine with the "new windows 8". And of course, it takes time to install windows 8 on all those modells and also to make sure that everything works out of the box with the windows 8 (device-drivers etc).
Just wait and see, it will arive to stores before chris...

But this is just my theory, I do not know what the real cause is....

Regards ...

 

I am using Windows 8 for heavy development, gaming, media etc. since early August. Like it better than Win 7.

I would agree to the Scott's point that it is rather Windows 7.5 than Windows 8

Do you personally experienced Win 8 bugs and stability issues?

Somehow Windows 8 "issues" did not cause delays for Taichi and other Asus tablets.

 

That theory doesn't really hold water since Windows 8 has been around in preview versions for a long time now so that OEMs and developers could prepare software for it, and lots of other models with Windows 8 are already on the market. My theory is that Asus don't prioritize a machine that has no obvious gimmick and would sell only to power users, of whom there are relatively few. Like other PC manufacturers, Asus prioritize the lower-end models because they expect to sell more of them. Unfortunately their lack of confidence in their own high-end product will undermine its sales.

This model may also have been more difficult to get right because of the challenge of cramming powerful components into a slim case without overheating. But I agree that the launch has been very badly managed, particularly on the communications front (but also on the there-being-no-actual-laptops-yet front).

It's looking quite possible that this won't be widely available December or later and in some countries (e.g. Canada) later if ever. And if it goes into the new calendar year I have to agree that the laptop is dangerously close to being obsolete, or at least no longer cutting edge, at release. It depends when Haswell devices will realistically start to appear. At that point, if the laptop manufacturers have any sense, we should see a wider choice of lightweight but capable machines since Haswell CPUs should be easier to cool. (Though cooling the GPU could still be challenging.)