ASUS Zenbook UX31E-DH72 13.3-Inch Thin and Light Ultrabook (Silver Aluminum)

by Asus

• Intel Core i7-2677M Processor 1.8GHz
• 4GB DIMM RAM
• 256GB Solid State Drive
• 13.3-Inch Screen, Intel UMA
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 8.9 x 0.8 inches ; 2.9 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B005USC9LA
• Item model number: UX31E-DH72
• Batteries 1 Lithium ion batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (125 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #34,612 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 12, 2011

Product Description

Color: Silver Aluminum

Amazon.com

Design. Love. Zen
It looks like nothing you've ever seen. It feels like nothing you've ever felt. It's breathtakingly beautiful. It's ultra-thin – with a minimum thickness of only .12". It's ultra-light – the brushed aluminum alloy body weighs only 2.87lbs. It's ultra-fast – powerful 2nd Generation Intel^® Core^™ i7 processor, SATA 3.0 SSD and USB 3.0. It resumes active mode in just 2 seconds, and the SonicMaster Audio delivers astounding sound. Introduce yourself to the most incredible Ultrabook^™, the ASUS ZENBOOK^™ – it will be love at first sight.

Key Features

• Spun metal and hairline aluminum finish throughout the entire chassis that only measures a minimum thickness of .12" and weighs only 2.87lbs (Learn more)
• 2nd Generation Intel^® Core^™ i7-2677M processor with Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 Technology for smart multitasking that automatically senses what you're doing and boosts performance
• ASUS exclusive Super Hybrid Engine II with Instant On 2-second resume, double the standby time, automatic data backup and recovery, and 25% longer battery life (Learn more)
• SATA 256GB solid state drive for an amazingly smooth and fast computing experience (Learn more)
• SuperSpeed USB 3.0 for quicker device charging and up to 10x faster transfers than USB 2.0¹ (Learn more)
• ASUS SonicMaster Technology co-developed by world-renowned audio experts at Bang & Olufsen ICEpower^® increases audio performance with lifelike surround impact (Learn more)




Learn More

Incredible Beauty

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The ASUS ZENBOOK™ UX31E-DH72 is meticulously designed and engineered to achieve the thinnest profile and lightest form factor of any ultrabook, all while accommodating the latest technology in a harmonious marriage of power and art. Elegant and durable aluminum with a hairline spun finish reflects a cool, infinite look of limitless depth. The ASUS ZENBOOK™ UX31E-DH72 measures a minimum thickness of only .12" and weighs only 2.87lbs.

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Incredible Responsiveness

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Exclusive ASUS Super Hybrid Engine II with Instant On enables 2-second resume of the notebook from sleep, with up to two weeks of standby time with open files and other pending data kept safe in memory. Plus, automatic data backup when the battery reaches 5% charge further helps secure your work. The ASUS ZENBOOK™ UX31E-DH72 keeps energy saving front and center with a dedicated Battery Saving Mode, which conserves power whenever possible to increase battery life by as much as 25%. You're also always in the know when it comes to the battery thanks to ASUS PowerWiz, a utility that shows exactly how much charge is left per application – web browsing, gaming, movie watching and more. The ASUS ZENBOOK™ UX31E-DH72 combines power, efficiency, smooth usage and user empowerment, all on in one sleek package.

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	Incredible Performance
View Large	ASUS is proud to deliver the world's first ultrabook with SATA 256GB solid state storage, making for an amazingly smooth and fast computing experience. Additionally, the ASUS ZENBOOK™ UX31E-DH72 ships with SuperSpeed USB 3.0 as standard, multiplying the transfer rates of current USB 2.0 by as much as a factor of ten!1

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	Incredible Audio
View Large	Another ASUS exclusive, SonicMaster technology was co-developed with Bang & Olufsen ICEpower® to deliver breathtaking, lifelike audio that far exceeds the limitations of conventional notebook PC sound performance. Deeper, more impactful and wider in range, SonicMaster delivers four times the sound output of other ultrabooks without increasing the size or weight of the form factor.

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Relax, ASUS Has You Covered

Ranked as the #1 most reliable PC brand by 3 independent sources,² readers and editors alike choose ASUS as their trusted notebook and netbook. ASUS tirelessly strives to exceed expectations of quality to ensure you an unmatched peace of mind every time you start your PC.

This notebook also comes with the industry's most comprehensive warranty.

1 Year ASUS Global Warranty³

Offers a level of coverage that would add hundreds of dollars to the price of competing laptops:


• 1 year global warranty
• 30 flawless display guarantee
• 2-way free standard shipping
• 24/7 tech support



1 Year Accidental Damage Protection (ADP)³

Whether your notebook is damaged by accidental spills, drops, electrical surges, or fire, ASUS will fix it or replace it for you during the first year after purchase.


• Covers accidental drops, spills, power surges, and fire damage
• Target 3 business day turnaround time for repair / replacement; not including receiving and shipping time
• 1-way shipping (from ASUS to the user) at no additional cost
• 24-hour toll-free phone support




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What's in the Box

• ZENBOOK^™ UX31E-DH72
• Notebook Carrying Bag
• AC Adapter
• 6 cell Battery Pack
• Warranty Information Card

Specifications

• Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
• Display: 13.3-inch HD display (1600 x 900)
• CPU: 2^nd Generation Intel Core i7-2677M Processor (Turbo Boost up to 2.9Ghz)
• Graphics: Intel UMA
• Wireless: 802.11 b/g/n (@ 2.4GHz)
• Bluetooth: BT 4.0
• Memory: 4GB DDR3
• Storage: 256GB Solid State Drive
• Camera: 0.3 megapixel
• Speakers: Stereo Speakers powered by Bang & Olufsen ICEPower^®
• Microphone: Microphone
• Card Reader: SD Card reader
• Input / Output:1 x Mic-in/ Headphone-out, 1 x mini VGA port1x USB 2.0 ports, 1 x USB 3.0 1x micro HDMI
• Battery: 6 cell
• Dimensions: 12.8 x 8.78 x 0.12 ~ 0.71" (W x D x H)
• Weight: 2.87lbs (with 6 cell battery)
• Color: Silver

© 2011 ASUS Computer International. All Rights Reserved. ASUS is a registered trademark of ASUSTeK Computer. All specifications and terms are subject to change without notice. Please check with your supplier for exact offers on selected models. Products may not be available in all markets. Product may not be exactly as shown in photos.

¹ All figures theoretical values compared to USB 2.0 benchmarks for reference purposes. Actual speed depends on device and system status.
² Rated number 1 PC brand according to SquareTrade, the leading direct-to-consumer warranty company (for more information visit http://www.squaretrade.com/pages/laptop-reliability-1109/ ). Rated number 1 reliable PC maker in Q2 2010's RESCUECOM report http://www.rescuecom.com/2010-2nd-Quarter-Computer-Reliability-Report.html
³ ASUS reserves the right to exclude certain SKUs; check with your retailer to confirm coverage of specific models. Valid for notebooks purchased in the US and Canada only. Certain retailers do not participate in ADP coverage. For complete details, please visit: http://completewarranty.asus.com/.




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Product Description

13.3" (1600x900) LED / i-7 2677M Dual Core (1.8GHz) / 4GB DDR3 RAM / 256GB SSD / Windows 7 Home Premium (64bit) / 802.11BGN / 0.3M Pixel / Bluetooth 4.0 / 1 USB 3.0 Port / 1 USB 2.0 Port / Micro HDMI Port / .78" Thin and Only 2.86lbs / 1YR Global Warranty / 1YR Accidental Damage Protection / 30-Day Zero Bright Dot / 24-7 Tech Support

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

288 of 294 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A nice, solid machine October 29, 2011

By Yippy Effin Skippy

Color Name:Silver Aluminum

June 7, 2012 Update: As one person pointed out, Asus is about the release the Zen Prime, or the second generation of the Zen Book. The following review pertains ONLY to the first generation. Some of it may still apply (I'm pretty certain Asus will still include a bucket load of crap bloatware) but as I haven't seen one I feel it's important to note it so I don't confuse people.

Also, as part of this update I'd like to say that I still have the Zen Book and I still like it. I've found that the keyboard is a bit touchy but works MUCH better if you put the thing on a hard, flat surface like a desk. Typing in your lap you may miss more keys than typing on a table or desk. In the time since this review first showed up, I've managed to put a couple of scratches in the spun aluminum lid of the machine as well. Obviously scratches make no real impact but they certainly do stand out. Everything else... pretty much still awesome!

Oh yeah, you can see the screen outside on a sunny day!

And now, back to my regularly scheduled (and unedited) review:

By now there are quite a few people reviewing these machines and there are some common themes. But before I get into it, for those that haven't really paid attention there are a number of models and you may wonder "Does THIS review for this model really apply to the one I'm looking at?"

The short answer is pretty much yes. There are really only a few variations and the biggest is how big the screen is. There's an 11 inch and a 13 inch. The other two variables are which processor you have and which hard drive you have. That's it. So for the most part a review for one model of Zenbook applies fairly well to all other models.

So, the common themes you may have seen in order:

1. The track pad sucks. No it doesn't. Per the recommendations I upgraded the driver and it works just fine. By default the cursor speed is slow but that is a simple setting in Windows. Once that was changed I've had no problems other than getting used to it. My old Toshiba had separate buttons so I got used to driving with one hand and clicking with the other. Because the buttons and pad are all one piece, when I try that it confuses the pad. Don't do that and it's fine. Two finger tap works great for a right click. So it does not suck. It's just different. People who are complaining about it either want it to be exactly like what they had or haven't even bothered to use it.

2. The keyboard is hard to type on/uncomfortable. It has taken me some getting used to. I'm a touch typist and can usually hit about 70 words a minute pretty regularly. The keys on this keyboard do take more force than on the Toshiba I'm replacing. But I'm not a featherweight typist so I haven't had much trouble. I do miss keys once in a while but it's not a problem for me. Mostly I miss the keys on the bottom row near the home keys. So cvb and nm, Also the keys are not back lit. Would be nice if they were but the screen is bright enough to see them without.

3. It comes with lots of junk pre-installed. Yes. It does. But so does every other factory computer I've ever purchased. Most I just uninstalled. Honestly there were more programs than I care for and it's a bit of a hassle to remove them but it's not a deal breaker for me. Just make sure you know what you're uninstalling as some are kind of necessary. For the record: HP's come with more junk thank this did.

4. Its wireless doesn't work. I have had ZERO problems. Missed the m) I took it out of the box and it connected to Boise State's wireless network immediately. Granted my office is less than 20 feet from the WAP. I updated the drivers and brought it home to my craptastic Lynksys G band router. It saw that and picked it up right away. It's got about the same signal strength as my Samsung Focus and my old Toshiba laptop. It's picked up every wireless signal I've tried to attach to without a single problem.

5. The edges are kind of sharp. Yes they are. It's not completely uncomfortable but it would be nice if they were rounded over. At least along the front edge where your wrists tend to be. They're not going to cut you but they can dig in a little (missed the l) bit.

Over all it's a great machine. It comes with a nice nylon bag/case to carry it in so before you buy the machine and a case check out what (missed the a) comes along with it.

The screen is nice. BRIGHT. Very bright I found myself turning that down a little as it's brighter than I like. But that's a nice change. Usually you turn screens up full to 10 and wish there was an 11. The fact that I'm down around 2 or 3 in a dark room and 5 or 6 in a lighter (missed the t) bodes well for use outside.

The audio is far nicer than a machine this size deserves. It's a little on the quiet side from what I came (missed the m) from but the sound is great. The Toshiba had larger speakers by Harmon/Kardon. By comparison this is a little quieter and has a slightly hollow sound but is not at all "tinny". The volume isn't as loud as the last laptop but the actual quality is great.

My actual biggest gripe is that on the 256 gig hard drive Asus actually partitioned the into a C: and a D: drive. It's an old school way of thinking which says software gets installed to C: and data gets saved to D:. In practice it doesn't work as well since Windows just likes to save stuff to your user library which by default is located in C:\Users. You can extend that library if you want but I chose to delete the D: partition and extend C: to the whole drive. I find that a better way of working. That's a personal preference and it took all of a minute to fix it.

So, is it a good machine? Absolutely. I got mine from BB because they were in stock. Does it have some faults? Yeah but what machine doesn't? The perfect machine for me may not be the perfect machine for you. Is it better than a MacBook Air? Depends on your preference. That's like asking if Ford is better than Chevy. From a purely objective point of view I'd have to argue that they're pretty much (missed the m) on par with each other. The ZenBook is a little cheaper, has a higher resolution screen and comes with a few extras the Mac doesn't. The Mac is... well it's a Mac and I have no idea why you'd spend extra because of that. I'm not a Mac guy. I can tell you that the two compared side by side have very similar stats so that's simply a matter of preference.

Over all, it's a good, well built machine with a lot of features, a good price point and a few flaws that I consider pretty small. For the record, I do IT work for Boise State so I see a LOT of laptops on my desk ranging from ultra cheap netbooks to the super high end MacBook Pro.

My personal choice said this was the best machine (missed the m) for me. It may not be for you but it's a great machine and I have no problems with 4.5 out of 5 stars. Fix the edges, reduce the needless software and maybe tweak the keyboard a bit and I'd give it a 5.

103 of 109 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars One flaw overshadows what could have been a great ultrabook January 21, 2012

By Mark

Color Name:Silver Aluminum

I have purchased a UX31E and UX21E for my office with high hopes. If they were good enough, I was going to purchase several more for my staff. I very much wanted to like these ultrabooks. They look nice, the shell has a very solid feel and they were very light (which was very important to me, since I am usually out of my office a lot). The screen is very crisp and bright. I love the fast start-up times from boot and hibernate. I have read many reviews talking about how bad the touchpads were, but I figured it would eventually be fixed with driver updates, so I purchased these laptops anyway. There are two types of touchpads out their for these ultrabooks. Luckily both of the ones I ordered came with Elantech, which everyone seems to say is the better of the two. The first thing I did was go to Asus's web site and download the latest drivers. I had no problems with the touchpad or network connectivity that some have reported - but that is probably because I updated the drivers first thing, which is supposed to solve those problems.

The performance of both machines were better than I expected, but I will say the UX21E had the faster hard drive. It came with 128GB SSD and after running some benchmarks, it showed it was much faster than the 256GB SSD in the UX31E. They probably were made by different manufactures, but I did not try to verify that. Battery life wasn't as good as I hoped, but certainly seemed to do a respectable 4-6 hours under constant use and much longer on standby. The variance in how long the battery lasted just dependied on how much of a workload I put on it. For instance, if I was just checking email and editing Office, Powerpoint & Excel files, then it would be closer to 6. But if used it for more intense workloads, then it would last closer to 4 hours.

After my initial testing, I wiped windows off of one of the machines and re-installed it from scratch to get rid of all the bloatware (extra programs that just take up space and slow performance of you machine. You probably don't even want to use most of those programs anyway). By doing so, I certainly saved a lot of hard drive space, which I needed on the 128GB SSD, but did not need on the 256GB SSD. The newly installed Windows 7 also seemed to run faster than the factory install, which I expected from what I said above. If you do reinstall windows, please go to Asus web site and download all the drivers for these laptops first and put them on some type of USB drive or memory stick for later install. Your ultrabook will not work well without installing a few of these Asus drivers (such as touchpad drivers, chipset drivers, USB drivers, wireless and USB ethernet drivers)

With all of that you are probably thinking this is a great laptop. I wish that were the case - I wanted it to be so. But it has one major flaw that can not be fixed with a driver update. The keyboard is very sub-par. A keyboard is such a key part of any computer, it just has to work and work well, but this one doesn't - which is unacceptable. While typing, I kept noticing that keys that I pressed were not registering. I kept having to back up and re-press the appropriate key. I am a fast typist and this was slowing me down tremendously. I found it very frustrating.

I then started testing to figure out why this was happening. I quickly noticed that if you hit the keys dead center, they all work. But if you press them on the corners, some work all the time and some work some of the time and some hardly ever work. I have never used a keyboard that would not work if you pressed the key off center - except for keyboards that were years and years old and were starting to fail. I had this experience on both ultrabooks I bought (UX21E and UX31E). It was more pronounced on the 21E, but that was probably because it isn't a full size keyboard, so I would be more prone to not hitting the exact center on a smaller keyboard.

If you have this laptop, you can test this yourself. Just open up notepad or some other editor; press every key in the center and then in the corners. You will find many don't register the key presses very well in the corners, with some worse than others. When I did this test, I found each of the ultrabooks I bought had a different set of keys that were worse than the others, but both had the problem. Now if you are not a typist and only finger peck, you will probably hit dead center on all of the keys the majority of the time, so this won't effect you as much. If you are a slow typist to where you the exact center of the key 99% of the time or just pound the heck out of the keys when you type, then it will work more often for you than for me. But if you are a moderately fast to very fast typist and your key presses are average in pressure to light, then the keyboard on these laptops are going to be very frustrating to you. Most of the fast typists I know, including myself, press moderate to light on the keys, which helps them move their fingers to the next key faster - and hence type faster. Everyone will sometimes not hit the direct center of the keys - especially when typing very fast and we shouldn't have to!

I have NEVER typed on any keyboard that so poorly registered keystrokes. And as I said previously, since a keyboard is such a vital part of any computer it just must work and work flawlessly. Unfortunately the keyboards on the UX21 and UX31 are not good, so it is a showstopper for me. It is really disappointing. I really liked these laptops otherwise.

For Linux users, new laptops sometimes take a while to get fully supported under Linux to where they work well and it seems that is the case with these laptops as well. Besides Windows 7, I did also install Linux on these laptops. I installed Linux Mint 12, with kernel 3.0.0.12. The touchpad worked fine for me - even two finger scrolling. I know most of the Ubuntu posts I read, said two finger scrolling doesn't work for them, which surprised me, since Mint uses Ubuntu repositories. But I am having no problem with the touchpad on Linux Mint. The only issues I have run into is that battery life is nowhere near as good on Linux Mint as it is on Windows 7 (with the Asus drivers installed) and I have had one sudden and unexplained shutdown on Linux Mint. When I installed the latest Ubuntu kernel, which is supposed to solve the poor battery life issue on Linux, the touchpad stopped working properly. So I decided to deal with the worse battery life and keep using the 3.0.0.12 kernel that came with Linux Mint, because a usable touchpad was more important to me that longer battery life. I know eventually (I expect this year) a new kernel will be released that enables both good touchpad use and long battery life, so I know my 2-3 hour battery life on Linux would improve later this year. I was willing to live with it until then.

Unfortunately, since the keyboard issue is not a driver issue, but just a poorly constructed keyboard, I also had a lot of missed key presses under Linux too. Because of the keyboard issue, I won't be using this laptop as my main laptop. It will go into the pool of laptops my office uses as floaters (a temporary use laptop that staff may borrow - usually when they forget their regular one at home or it breaks).

72 of 76 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, but take the time to do a bit of configuration out of the box November 8, 2011

By D. POOLE

Color Name:Silver Aluminum|Amazon Verified Purchase

I won't harp on the appearance of the materials, font's used, etc. Yes the weight may be different then Asus has advertised, there are alot of variants of the machines in each form factor (ux21 or ux31) and this may explain the discrepancy in the specs. Either way the design is impressive and it is a stunning notebook.

Other reviewers have been accurate regarding the poor performance of the atheros 9485 wireless card. I have had a similar experience with my unit running it in it's unboxed condition.

I flashed the BIOS from 204 to 206 (using winflash), updated drivers for the sentellic track-pad, the atheros 9485 WiFi, bluetooth, and etc, removed alot of Asus bloatware, specifically "Power4Gear" & "LiveUpdate".

Now this thing is starting to impress me. Network card is running as fast as the netgear card on my PC. Track-pad is working as it's designed (although I'll admit it takes some practice to get accustomed to it).

It's hard to believe that people overreacted and sent them back before even updating the software. Do realize that you are what's considered an "early adopter" if you purchase the first machines off of the production line. If you don't realize this then you are unworthy of this machine, go get an apple.