Encased in brushed steel, the Zenbook feels solid, yet light. As Shih noted, the super-thin laptop’s $999 configuration, which includes 4 GB of 133MHz DDR 3 RAM, a 128 GB SATA Solid State Drive (SSD) and USB 3.0 ports (I counted two), is $200 cheaper than a similarly configured “competitor” (read: MacBook Air). You can by a MacBook Air for $999 with the same Intel Core i5 CPU — but with only half the memory and storage space.

First out of the block with the lightest and smallest of all the Ultrabooks is the UX21. A 45Wh battery may not bring worry-free battery life but USB3.0 and a generous 128GB SSD is included. Glossy screen may put some off but the styling and build quality seems excellent.

The Zenbook is known more generically as an “Ultrabook”. This is Inte’s label for the latest generation of super thin and light laptops built around its second generation Core mobile CPUs.

The Zenbook should get 7 hours of battery life (roughly 3.4 hours of streaming video and 3.25 hours of gameplay) and could remain in standby for up to two weeks. The Zenbook is designed to back up user data if battery power falls to 1%. Shih was also quite proud of the Zenbook’s two-second resume time. Like the MacBook Air, the Zenbook offers two USB ports — though Apple doesn’t employ the speedier USB 3.0 like Asus does. The Zenbook also has a mini HDMI port, and adds an SD card slot — something notably missing from the Air.

Specifications (base version)
	Manufacturer	ASUS
	Model name	UX21
	CPU type	Intel Core i5 2467M
	CPU speed	1600 Mhz
	Graphics	Intel HD Graphics 3000
	OS	Windows 7
	Display Size	11.6" 1366 X 768
	RAM	4096 MB
	Flash	128 GB
	Keyboard	YES
	Mouse Pointer	YES
	Battery capacity	35 (Wh)

Physical Interfaces

• Line-out / Headphone (3.5mm)
• Micro HDMI
• VGA (Mini)
• USB2.0
• USB3.0 (x1)

Wireless Interfaces

• 802.11 b/g/n
• BT 3.0
• No Wireless WAN (e.g. 3G cellular)