Best ASUS Zenbook UX32A-DB51 13.3-Inch HD LED Ultrabook Deals

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $1,019.00
Sale Price: $969.00
Today's Bonus: 5% Off

I bought 2 Ultrabooks when they were on sale. The ASUS Zenbook and the Samsung Series 9.

Pros: I love the black lit keyboard on this ultrabook. It feels very good to type on.

It has the Ivy Bridge Core i5-3317U which has HD4000 graphics.

It also have 3 USB 3.0 and a regular hdmi port and SD card reader. Which is all better than what the Samsung Series 9 had.

I love the weight of this ultrabook. Its not too light nor too heavy. It feels a lot sturdier than the Series 9.

The overall build quality is really nice. I think ASUS did a really good job.

Cons: This Ultrabook does not have a SSD.

Other Thoughts: The only thing that this ultrabook can improve on is maybe an SSD. but the 500gb of HHD and 24gb of ssd cache is good enough. The current HD with ssd cache isnt slow a all but if we want this ultrabook to be the fastest, its need a SSD. But I can complain on what it already has for the price.

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Extremely fast..core i5, 500gb hybrid hard drive, upgradeable ram, backlit keyboard, amazingly thin, Windows 7 (not 8!).

I was concerned as I wanted more ram and some websites had this model listed as having a max of 4GB.. not really true.. I just installed an 8gb stick into it and it now runs with 10gb perfectly (2gb fixed, 8gb removable)!

Best Deals for ASUS Zenbook UX32A-DB51 13.3-Inch HD LED Ultrabook

I've used this for about 6 months now. It does everything as advertised. Tight, looks great, well made and functions well. Battery life is good. Screen is perfect. Back lit keyboard helps on long flights.

The one big issue is the trackpad. It's placed too far to the right. I'm an older guy who took typing class in middle school. Index fingers on "F" and "H" at all times and use every finger for typing. My right hand below my thumb kept touching the pad as I typed. This caused my cursor to jump around while typing. After about a month of trying to adjust my hand position, I just disabled my track pad and use an external mouse. Turn on, Function F2 and disable internal pointing device.

Maybe younger users type differently and don't have this problem. But for me, this was a real pain. I have to carry a mouse around at all times. Other than that, this is a great laptop.

Honest reviews on ASUS Zenbook UX32A-DB51 13.3-Inch HD LED Ultrabook

Overall, I really like this laptop! Now, to the details:

Appearance: Sleek, light, comes with a brown envelope case (pretty stylish!), the aluminum body feels pretty smooth compared to the earlier model; easy to clean and to carry. There was also another small pouch in the bag, with a mini-HDMI adapter and an Ethernet-to-USB adapter! Pretty handy and saves about $50. Mine has 3 USB ports (as it should be), unlike some pics that show only 2 ports so you might want to write to write to the seller to make sure that you are getting the right model

Sound: I would rate the sound quality as 4,5 out of 5 for an ultrabook; not super-clear, but pretty good for such a small laptop

Keyboard: The black keys on this model are much better (in my opinion) than the aluminum keys on some models; they are comfortable and not slippery. Oh, it also has a back-lit keyboard with an adjustable brightness. NOTE: the power button is right next to the delete button! Not the best placement, but it is adjusted not to do anything, unless you hold it for a few seconds. So it's all thought through! :)

Mouse pad: pretty big, smooth, responsive, allows multi-finger actions, BUT you keep touching it wile typing. My hands are not big, or it does not cause a huge problem for me, but you might want to try it out first. Possible SOLUTION: get a wireless mouse and disable the mouse-pad.

Screen: vivid colors, but more to the colder tones (I didn't mess with the colors yet), anti-glare; GOOD thing: you can turn off the screen to save battery life, just like on a Mac!

Performance: I'm not an expert in this, so you might want to look into other reviews, but so far, it worked pretty well, and the battery life is decent: it says 4 hours in battery-saving mode, but i keep switching to full-power mode, and it lasts for about 2 hours. I decided to have Windows 7, because I'm just too lazy to adjust to Win8, and I haven't heard many positive reviews about it either.

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I purchased this Zenbook for my wife as a gift. I've been swept up into the ultrabook hype and definitely like the thinner sizes associated with this. However, I would caution people with regards to upgrades and specs. It's very very difficult to find the exact specs for expansion. I had read somewhere that there was 2GB of memory onboard (true) and 2 memory slots to upgrade your memory (false). This particular model contains the 2GB on outboard and 1 slot which already has a 4GB module installed. You can upgrade to 8GB, but make sure you are buying just 1 module. This, of course, means that you have to chuck this 4GB or use it in another laptop. It's also possible to change the HDD from a standard spinning disc to an SSD, but here is where I find issues with this.

First off, you need to have a Hex screwdrive (I believe size 5) which is basically 1 size below nearly every hex set out there. After you secure the correct tool, there are 12 hex screws to get to access the system. After that, there are another 15 or so screws (standard phillips) where you have to remove the heatsink to access both the memory and ssd. So I go through the process and boot up the system and began to go through the process of cloning my drive, which I've done with the other 5 SSD upgrades I've done previously. Here's the kicker, perhaps I didn't use a program that worked, but in my research, no software is able to detect your new drive as a boot drive because there is a 32GB flash embedded into your notebook that is used for caching. Fortunately, because I have some contacts in the tech industry, I reached out to Asus and asked them how to upgrade my notebook with an SSD drive. They replied you would have to install the drive and then run the restore CD so you would have your system back to factory settings. Because there is only 1 additional hard drive attached, the restore CD would install the OS to the SSD. So note this is an ultrabook, which basically means no optical drive. Note that you need a restore CD. So for that, you would need some external optical drive or configure a USB drive to run the image of the CD. Which leads to the fact that you need the restore CD.. Which is NOT included! You have to buy this separately! Ok, I've seen this before as more companies, Microsoft include, allow you just to download software and pay anywhere from $5-10 for the media if needed. So what does Asus charge? $50!!!!

In summary, I like their product and design but there are some very annoying aspects to being an owner of this system. Note that if you do not tinker or upgrade your system at all, this is probably fine. However, even in that case, you would be SOL in case you needed to restore factory settings.

Also note, I'm sure that opening the system and changing out the components would void the warranty, so please do not do so unless you have a good working knowledge of computers and components.