[Apologies for how rushed this is, just putting it up as reference point for others in the current situation]
After lots of research I purchased an ASUS Zenbook UX31 from PC World on Saturday.
My only initial concern was the keyboard / track pad which I had read some issues about, but wasn't too phased when I tried in store.
After booting up the laptop, I was impressed with the high-resolution screen. It was a little washed out, but still pretty good. The build quality of the machine was first class, and for the size of it it truly is a masterpiece of engineering.
After setting up my machine for web development, i started to use it properly. I noticed that build times were not as good as I had hoped. The CPU was only at 45% when building so this wasn't the bottle neck.
I went to Windows performance index and noticed the HDD was only 5.9. The one in the store was 7.9. This got me worried.
After doing some research it appears ASUS used two different types of SSD. SanDisk and AData. The Adata one out performs the Sandisk by a long way.
There are some arguments that the difference isn't that appreciable in real life, however I think there is for heavy users (I.E me) there is.
PC World wouldn't give me a refund because it wasn't 'faulty' even though I pointed out the one on the shelf score a whole 2 extra points in WEI and I even saved some benchmark results from AS SSD / Atto etc. They did however put the money back on to my account which I will use at a later point (business customer).
The other concerns was the keyboard and trackpad. The keyboard was poor at registering keypress especially for the control key. I am sure I could have got used to it with more use, but I kind of feel why should I have to get used to it?
The trackpad was also average. Sometimes there was a little lag waking backup again after typing something. I am sure driver updates in the future would correct this.
Finally I here that ASUS are releasing a new Zenbook in May with 1080p screen, the new ivy cpus, new keyboard and trackpad.
TL;DR - The ASUS Zenbook is a great machine, but you could be left feeling gipped if you get one with a Sandisk SSD.
After lots of research I purchased an ASUS Zenbook UX31 from PC World on Saturday.
My only initial concern was the keyboard / track pad which I had read some issues about, but wasn't too phased when I tried in store.
After booting up the laptop, I was impressed with the high-resolution screen. It was a little washed out, but still pretty good. The build quality of the machine was first class, and for the size of it it truly is a masterpiece of engineering.
After setting up my machine for web development, i started to use it properly. I noticed that build times were not as good as I had hoped. The CPU was only at 45% when building so this wasn't the bottle neck.
I went to Windows performance index and noticed the HDD was only 5.9. The one in the store was 7.9. This got me worried.
After doing some research it appears ASUS used two different types of SSD. SanDisk and AData. The Adata one out performs the Sandisk by a long way.
There are some arguments that the difference isn't that appreciable in real life, however I think there is for heavy users (I.E me) there is.
PC World wouldn't give me a refund because it wasn't 'faulty' even though I pointed out the one on the shelf score a whole 2 extra points in WEI and I even saved some benchmark results from AS SSD / Atto etc. They did however put the money back on to my account which I will use at a later point (business customer).
The other concerns was the keyboard and trackpad. The keyboard was poor at registering keypress especially for the control key. I am sure I could have got used to it with more use, but I kind of feel why should I have to get used to it?
The trackpad was also average. Sometimes there was a little lag waking backup again after typing something. I am sure driver updates in the future would correct this.
Finally I here that ASUS are releasing a new Zenbook in May with 1080p screen, the new ivy cpus, new keyboard and trackpad.
TL;DR - The ASUS Zenbook is a great machine, but you could be left feeling gipped if you get one with a Sandisk SSD.
