ZNet’s Ed Burnette says that the Asus ZenBook Prime UX31 Ultrabook had sexy specs and good reviews, but when push came to shove, a temperamental trackpad led to its downfall.
Burnette bought a brand new UX31 to take to the Google I/O 2012 conference this week, but after two days he decided to scrap it in favor of a MacBook Air, and explains why.
He notes that the two machines share almost identical specs. and price, and the ZenBook frankly flatters the MacBook Air in looks. He initially chose the ZenBook because he normally uses Windows and because the ZenBook has a much better display (1920 x 1080 vs. the MacBook Pro’s 1440 x 900 resolutions), but says that the higher res. panel turned out to be both a blessing and a curse.
He found the Asus Ultrabook to be a somewhat flaky performer stability wise, and spent several hours applying dozens and dozens of Windows Update patches, plus another bad sign was wrist pain he experienced when using the unit for the first half hour – the thin computer’s metal edges being so sharp that it was actually painful to rest his arms on it. However, input was where the Asus totally let him down, noting that he finds having the cursor jumping randomly around the screen, causing text to be inserted in the wrong place or selected willy-nilly so that the next key he hits erases it tiresome, with the culprit being the trackpad.
As soon as the conference sessions were over for the day Burnette says he walked over to the Apple store determined to purchase a MacBook Air and is now a proud MacBook Air owner, who reports that in typing his story, he didnt experience a single glitch or cursor malfunction – the Air’s trackpad being light years ahead of what the ZenBook has to offer, and the keyboard feeling rock solid.
