Breaking: Asus Zenbook Ultrabook launching today!

Abe Olandres November 3, 2011 · 1 min read

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We’re here today at Miniloc Island in El Nido for the launching of the Asus Zenbook in the Philippines. The official program will start this evening but we got some early whispers about the retail price.

Both the Asus UX21 and the UX31 will be revealed to the media later today and, so far, all we got are the suggested retail prices for the two.

The Asus Zenbook UX21 will come with an Intel Core i5 2467M 1.6GHz, 4GB DDR3 RAM and 128GB SSD while the Asus Zenbook UX31 will come with an Intel Core i5 2557M 1.7GHz, 4GB DDR3 RAM and 128GB SSD.

Suggested retail price:
Asus UX21: Php53,995
Asus UX31: Php59,995

Will follow-up with complete specs (there are a number of variants but I am told only one specs per size will be shipped in) as well as release dates in a while.

I brought with me my Macbook Air and Aspire S3 so we can do a side-by-side comparison.

Asus is set to release the units in local stores by end of November.

Updated: Here are more hands-on and photo comparisons.

Asus Zenbook UX31 vs. Acer Aspire S3

Asus Zenbook UX21 vs. Macbook Air 11.6â€³

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asus ultrabook asus ux21 asus ux31 asus zenbook asus zenbook philippines

Abe Olandres

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Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

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76 Comments

balasubas · 15 years ago

puro kau reklamo me pambili ba kayo.kung mahal di wag kau bumili hahaha

gilbert · 15 years ago

lol. lame attempt at humor. people want the best bang for their buck. and this is a tech blog/forum where comparing price vs. value/specs is the norm.

go home and plant kamote! harharhar!

gilbert · 15 years ago

Asus should offer the same machine with slight specs variation – use of 320/500 GB HDD as primary storage and 20GB SSD as cache drive (similar to Acer offering). Bigger storage at a lower price, and it should be no higher than 50K.

SpiderWak · 15 years ago

I saw sellers at TPC for these ultrabooks and I say it’s pretty steep. A price tag between 64k – 69k, I’d rather get a MBA. I just hope the drop will drop before the year ends.

el toro bumingo · 15 years ago

Ang nipis! Nakikipag-kumpetensya ba ‘to sa Mac Book? :)

Marlon Rey Anacleto · 15 years ago

For me Acer products are garbage! lackadaisical tech design! take for instance the first Iconia laptop with a swivel double touch screen which serves no purpose and reflects the engineering flaws in the design itelf. and almost Acer products end up in repair shops in less than a year. Poor quality products. That includes the E-machines and their Gateway products. And now here comes this..ultrabook, its a risk 10 times if but this product.

SpiderWak · 15 years ago

Yeah Acer is crap but this one’s Asus

Cocolumboy · 15 years ago

Naku tama ka,

beef · 15 years ago

You must have had a bad experience with Acer products to have so sweeping an opinion.. personally though I have had three Acer laptops and the only major problem on one machine was to have the battery replaced under warranty, other than that, I’ve had zero problems, not even a dead pixel. The rest outlived their usefulness because well, technology does that.. all in all, they average at about 3-4 years of usage. That’s actually a long time for laptops.. oh, two of them are still alive (running Ubuntu and donated to relatives with simpler requirements), one I took apart for spare parts.. sold the TFT.

SpiderWak · 15 years ago

I’m not sure if it’s reasonable because the price for that specs online is $1099.. that’s around Php48k

mackygoof · 15 years ago

Wow, Miniloc, its a nice resort. Enjoy.

back to topic…Nice Specs of Asus.

gilbert · 15 years ago

expensive. with that small price difference, tanga lang ang bibili ng Asus over Mac Book Air. they should’ve put this in the 45K price range for it to be more competitive.

rene · 15 years ago

acer S3 nalang… the difference is only in the thinness… but the price are wide apart…

UNIXnote · 15 years ago

hmmm…at this price stand point i think this will not be a big hit – in terms of sales (or until after some discounts). or i may be wrong…:)

Epstein · 15 years ago

WOW! I miss El Nido :-(

rich · 15 years ago

SANA MAY 15-INCH VERSION NITO NA CORE i7

Jethro · 15 years ago

At least yung G74SX-3DE nila bang for the buck compared to the Macbook Pro with the 6770 Mobility……….

Got mine for 89K while the price for the Pro with the 6770 Mobility is floating around 126K………

mondeq · 15 years ago

ilang gig kaya ang capacity ng HDD?

SpiderWak · 15 years ago

No HDD. It’s using a 128GB SSD

yumax · 15 years ago

too expensive. MBA na lang kung ganun. Considering na na perfect na ng Apple ang Trackpad, ang UX 21 and 31, based sa mga reviews, nasira ang lahat ng plus points nito sa trackpad. Again, too expensive. It’s most likely going to end up like the series 9 ng Samsung, di pa rin ubos until now ang stocks ng first gen na core i series.

Anandtech · 15 years ago

Anand pointed this out too when they are reviewing UX21 after ma-i-report ni Anand yung trackpad problems Asus promise to roll out updates for the trackpad. Considering asus is really good in updating their products the trackpad flaw will be solved in the future.

daddyjoey · 15 years ago

was expecting this to be at the 40K price range

ultrasu · 15 years ago

tanga ka Edsar. wag ka ng magcomment nasusunog yun brain cells ko sa yo – manood ka na lang ng gma telenovela.

trollka · 15 years ago

Ganito ang ugali ng typical Kapamilya. Kaya sira ang image ng network nila at ng mga followers nila. Magbago na kayo para gumanda ang tingin sa inyo ng tao at ng makabangon na network nyo uli.

sylv3rblade · 15 years ago

Hopefully the next iterations will fare a bit better. The trackpad on the zenbook is abysmal according to reviews.

zenny · 15 years ago

aus lng sia for that price u get 128 ssd sata III which is significantly faster(windows 7 boots in just 25 sec), 1600 x 900 screen, 1.7 ghz core i5, great build quality, 2 adapters which cost 1000 each if you have a mb air, 4gb ram, and same batt life though no backlit keyboard and mac os x..

Ram Jof · 15 years ago

If Acer’s S3 could have a pure SSD option or if the 320 G hd can be upgraded to SSD, I think the price would still be less than the UX31 nearly P60,000 price vs the current S3 price of P45,000. Until ASUS realizes that the Mac Air can do both Windows 7 and OSX Lion with just 128 GB SSD and a lighted keyboard as well, the difference of as low as P2,500-3,500 is well worth it. Hardly any bad reviews and experience with the Mac Air based on user reviews and internet website reviews especially now that the Mac Air has garnered so many editor’s choice as well and laptop/ultrabook to beat.

beef · 15 years ago

much as I like SSDs and want to have one, it’s still too expensive.. a 60GB SSD goes for above 6k while 128GB versions costs above 11k so adding that to an Acer S3 brings it near the price levels of the UX31 maybe only a bit cheaper.

and oh, as good as the reviews are on the Mac book air, three of the six units we deployed to our VPs at the office are constantly having problems, the rest the only complaint is that they wish it were faster (well aside from stuff you usually hear from people used to using windows).. they love the battery life though.. executives hate power cords..

puhgeh · 15 years ago

hindi ganun kamura kesa sa inaasahan na presyo… medyo malakas pa din ang batak ng MBA kung ganyan na nga…

Ram Jof · 15 years ago

Seems that Asus is trying to gouge out 4T – 5T more if we’re trying to base its claim of being $200 cheaper (8,500 – 9,000 pesos cheaper) than Mac Air. With very little price difference ( as low as 2,500 pesos difference) I’ll pick the reliable Mac Air instead especially with great keyboard and touchpad experience. I’m an ASUS fan but this is too much.

SpiderWak · 15 years ago

Not really. If you base it on a spec to price ratio the difference is around 6k for both UX21 and UX31 against MBA 11″ and 13″ but still below the $200 mark

Jimmy · 15 years ago

Whew!

I’ve been waiting several months for this. But was shocked by the very steep price! I expected it to be around 35-45k. But at 50k+? Nevermind. I’ll stick to my good ol’ ASUS UL80 which has served me faithfully (without problems) for almost 2 years now.

ASUS should have offered a more competitive price against the Macbook Air.

Bern · 15 years ago

Asus UX31: Php59,995 – what is the processor – intel i7 or i3 ?

How much UX31 with intel i5?

mattscradle · 15 years ago

I’ll buy mba than this.

TB · 15 years ago

Too bad Asus. I was waiting for you to price this aggresively vs the MBA, but based on the SRP above, I will never buy this machine.

watrboy · 15 years ago

Expensive :) they should be lower than macbook air to beat them.. like acer do…

Edsar · 15 years ago

tama ka price talaga ang pang tapat sa macbook air hindi specs or appearance

Jim Lim · 15 years ago

@Edsar – mali ka dahil dapat price, specs at appearance ang itapat sa macbook air. Sumikat ang macbook air sa appearance nya at ngayon sa gumaganda ng specs, so alangan na hindi mo iconsider ang mga bagay na yun.