Reviews of ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A

Customer Ratings:

Very pleased with the design (probably an intellectual property violation of Apple's Macbook Air design!). Performance with 256GB SSD is blazing. The screen is amazingly bright and sharp. I compared it to my business partner's MacBook Air, and the Asus is MUCH brighter. Great for my aging eyes! The speaker sound is a bit low on volume. The most significant issue I have is the sensitivity of the touch pad. I noted that others identified this issue with other UX31s. I have never experienced this with any previous notebook computer. If you so much as touch in the slightest way the large touchpad while typing, large swathes of text will be highlighted and, upon the next key stroke, erased. I have used my undo key to correct this more times than I like to remember. Hopefully, there is a software update that corrects the problem. Other than this, I am pleased. Best notebook I have ever had, even with the concerns I expressed.

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Pros:

Almost everything, this is by far the best laptop I have yet to encounter. Its resolution and blazing speed (with the i7 Ivybridge processor and Solid State Hard Drive) excede any needs I have (word processing, watching videos, and Adobe Photoshop CS6). It's battery life is fairly good for an Ultrabook, especially with the excellent (and even) screen brightness. The USB 3.0 Ports are great to have, though on rare occasions more than two would be preferred.

Cons:

My only minor criticisms are its non-upgradable RAM and some keyboard issues.

In regards to its 4GB of RAM, 4GB is decent but isn't as much as I would prefer these days(though with its size, up-gradable components might just not be feasible).

Unfortunately, the first laptop I received had a malfunctioning On/Off button (which is part of the keyboard), that stopped working after about a week. The computer was promptly exchanged though, and this computer has not had that particular issue. Though, it should be noted that on occasion certain keys stop working (especially the backspace key) and I find lifting the computer, and sometimes lightly shaking it seems to help. This suggests to me that the keyboard attachment to the logic board occasionally comes slightly unseated. Based on a past Asus laptop I've owned, and these two additional Asus computers having this issue, it appears to me that Asus computers might be prone to such keyboard issues, but the pros far outweigh this minor inconvenience, to me. Further, I'm sure I could exchange it for a third computer, but it isn't worth the hassle.

UPDATE: The keyboard issue has gotten frustrating enough that I'm going to try sending it in again... apparently this is a common problem: