In had a user who's not supposed to lift heavy things, and was shlepping around a Dell Latitude that was ~7lbs or so, not counting the laughably large power supply, and it was not working out well. There is a Microsoft Store in the area, so I figured I could go there and see a variety of Ultrabooks from various makers and compare build quality. I got there and found that the Microsoft stores now only carry systems with Windows 8 (barf) and are all touchscreens (because of the Windows 8 requirement no doubt). I am amazed that there is nothing at all in the Microsoft Store that was even a little bit "business friendly." Being the only non-employee in the place, I was free to ask the idle employees about this development, and they agreed that it was dumb. They previously HAD been carrying Windows 7/non-touchscreen systems, but had to pull them. One fellow told me that the Asus Zenbook had the best build quality of those they carried. At that point I left and came to Amazon and bought one sight-unseen. Additionally, it was pre-loaded with Windows 8, so I had to make sure there were Windows 7 drivers available (there are), because no way am I asking anyone to live with that mess.There are three things I was looking for specifically, and none were related to performance. The first is a decent hinge. Macbooks have this one nailedyou can lift the lid of a Macbook and the bottom doesn't lift up off the desk/your lap. That is, the hinge doesn't require more force to open than the weight of the bottom part. PC makers regularly fail on this point, but this Asus was pretty good. Not Macbook good, but better than most. The next is screen/lid integrity. When the laptop is open grab the top corners of the lid and push on and pull the other a little, in such a way that the screen is twisted (GENTLYdon't snap your screen and yell at me) I look for as little wobble as possible, and usually this is a deal-breaker too, but the Asus was better than most. The last item is a good touchpad. The Macbooks have some kind of glass surface that wears like nails, but most PC makers use something that feels like a shower curtain liner in short order. I don't know how the Asus will fare on this point, but the initial tactile experience was decent.
The Zenbook has two disksone 24GB SSD and one ~500GB SATA. They have a utility that is meant to use the 24GB SSD as a cache, and I struggled to decide how to handle the reloading. Did I want to recreate this shared arrangement or what? 24GB isn't quite enough to load Win 7, Office, and other sundry things a user needs, and given that the intended recipient is a remote worker, I decided to just load everything on the 500GB and ignore the small SSD. What? You now think I'm nuts? Okay, but here's my angleif I'd setup the sharing arrangement and something went sideways, what are the odds that I could support it well? In my mind, it's negligible. Beyond that, there is the matter of default disk formatting. The Windows 8 models (not sure about the others) have the disks formatted in GUID mode, not the conventional MBR formatting. Does it matter? Not a ton, but if you want to do whole disk encryption (as I do), Truecrypt won't fly. It needs MBR disks, as do most other encryption utilities. If you use Windows 7 Ultimate, you can use BitLocker, and that's what I did. Yes, that's a performance hit, but in this case the user who'll have it is not power hungry. In the configuration I'm describing, the performance is ordinary.
As for the dimensions/weight, it's a close approximation of a 13" Macbook Air. The screen is slightly different geometry, but you'll need to set it next to a Macbook Air to notice. In other respects, it's Air-like. The closed profile is about the same, the materials are similar, but the Zenbook feels a little bit heavier. Don't get me wrongmy lift-limited user is delighted with the change. It's around three pounds, and the power cord is a small block much like the Macbook Air one. It doesn't come with a USB to Ethernet adapter, which I thought was a rotten of Asus to exclude. Hell, even Apple gives you a Thuderbolt to Ethernet adapter when you buy a Macbook Air. As long as I keep comparing this to the Macbook Air, I'll mention that the battery life on the Zenbook is maybe a bit less, but certainly in league. In my usage, it would get close to 5 hours on a charge.
Verdict? If you really want Windows (over say Linux, Mac OS X, etc.) and don't want Apple hardware, this is a good choice. I suppose the cost is another significant factor. As of this writing, the Zenbook is $768 and a Macbook Air is $1200not twice as much, but close. My preference would have been to get the Macbook Air, and load Windows natively. I find the Air to be a better made item (and I'm betting the trackpad on the Zenbook won't stand the test of time well), but the user in this case didn't want any more changes than necessary, and I'm not upset by saving money. I didn't have time to try making a "hackbook" with this, and have no idea if OS X will run well on this model.
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