Intel Core M Enables Lower Cost Ultrabooks; Asus UX305 Tested 70
MojoKid (1002251) writes Asus announced their super-slim Zenbook UX305 during the IFA trade show in Berlin in September. The machine will be available in two models, one with a 1920x1080 IPS display and one with a QHD+ display that boasts a native resolution of 3200x1800. They're both built around Intel's more power-efficient Core M processor, which was designed for ultra-thin and "fanless" form factors. Intel's Core M does seem to offer significant advances both in terms of power consumption and performance, which enables many of the design features found on the 12.3mm thin UX305. The Core M 5Y10 in the Asus Zenbook UX305 is complemented by 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and this is one of the few ultrabooks to feature a matte display. All told, the machine put up some decent numbers in the benchmarks and battery life was excellent, but what's perhaps most interesting is that this is an "ultrabook" class machine that weighs in at a much more palatable $700 price tag.
Oomph. (Score:4, Informative)
this is an "ultrabook" class machine that weighs in at much more palatable $700 price tag.
(1) Editing error. English requires an indefinite article between "at" and "much."
(2) Palatable to some. $700 isn't much to spend on a computer by the standards of the upper middle class, but it's still a pretty big chunk of change.
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The ~$2000 Clevo laptop would be great for gaming or as a desktop replacement system. It will, however, not be an ultra-portable. What with weighing roughly 4kg and a battery life of around 3 hours when surfing the n
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For what it is, absolutely. You can go to an OEM and buy a base system, sans SSD and RAM, for $1000 that would massively outperform this.
You are leaving out two of the most important specs for people who are in the market for this type of machine:
Dimensions: 12.8 x 8.9 x 0.5 inches
Weight 2.6 pounds
Will the OEM system be at or below those numbers? If you are in the market for a 13" laptop instead of a tablet, it's because you want the extra screen size and a keyboard.
Re:Oomph. (Score:5, Insightful)
$700 isn't much to spend on a computer by the standards of the upper middle class, but it's still a pretty big chunk of change.
Ultrathin, latest Core M proc, 8 G memory, 256 G SSD... $700. That's sound a fair price (and it's ASUS-grade quality).
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Ultrathin, latest Core M proc, 8 G memory, 256 G SSD... $700. That's sound a fair price (and it's ASUS-grade quality).
reasonably thin .. intel atom dual core (@1.6ghz) 2G memory , 250 G HDD $250 . Thats sounds like a fair price .. an its disposable ! ;)
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I have it and it works great, It can play Portal 1 and 2 flawlessly and manages to even run Bioshock infinite.
This thing is an awesome computer and far more useful than an Android tablet.
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...it’s targeting users who want a very portable machine for everyday computing tasks such as browsing the web, editing documents, listening to music, etc, that also crave long battery life and a sleek form factor.
Golly Gee Willikers, that's exactly why I bought the eeepc. And it still worked for those purposes in 2014. And I'd still be using it in 2015 too if WinXP got updates or there weren't Linux driver issues. (This model did not ship with Linux.) Hell, I did more than web surfing on it - it made a sweet portable SNES emulator, as w
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8 GB and 1920x1080 for web surfing and document editing? My gaming rig runs on 4 GB and 1440x900.
I wouldn't be surprised if you want a higher resolution for document editing and web surfing than for gaming. Having a good (and, importantly, consistent) frame rate for games matters a lot, but resolution quickly hits diminishing returns. The thing I notice most with the retina display on my laptop and the 4K display on my desk at work is that text is a lot crisper. When you're spending a lot of time reading text, the higher resolution make a big difference. For games, I usually set the resolution to a
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I wouldn't be surprised if you want a higher resolution for document editing and web surfing than for gaming. Having a good (and, importantly, consistent) frame rate for games matters a lot, but resolution quickly hits diminishing returns.
That depends on what kind of game you're playing, and how much view distance it permits. If it's a flight sim, and it permits very long view distances, then you can basically use as many pixels as you can get. If it's a driving sim, you would like to have quite a lot of pixels, but you don't need quite as many since you're not expecting to see as far. If it's an FPS, you want as many pixels as possible, period, end of story. So unless you're playing strategy games, which artificially fail to make use of the
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The difference is that the netbooks was "cheap and crappy"-laptops whereas ultrabooks is premium ones.
You can get a laptop for $250 now too.
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I've been pretty unhappy with most of those $250 laptops. I eventually end up wanting to replace it after a year. I got a lot more mileage out of a $650 laptop than I ever did out of any of the cheaper laptops I've bought.
I don't need a lot of processing power, while I'd like to play the latest games on a $250 laptop, I accept that I can't. Mostly I need a command-line, compiler (I'm patient), and text editor. What usually bugs me is I want a web browser that works smoothly and can play videos reliably. I h
Re:Oomph. (Score:4, Insightful)
I bought an Asus X200CA (12" touchscreen, slow CPU, 4 GB RAM) for about $260 back in October. They do make computers that serve the same purpose for the same amount of money (or less money); it's just that the computer in TFA isn't it.
Re: Oomph. (Score:2, Insightful)
My dad has a saying that's stuck with me over the decades: "I am way too poor to be buying cheap shit". This doesn't apply just to clothes - I own 2 jackets that are EXPENSIVE, except one of them is literally older than me and the other is 16 years old, so the total cost of ownership is way less than buying and replacing every few years. Even though computer values depreciates faster, same rules do apply: if you live in a western country (poor is a relative concept), if you buy a 400$ computer, you are not
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buy quality
buy cheap
and she and your father are spot on.
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That's assuming you can even buy quality any more. Try buying a jacket or sweater where the zipper isn't a total piece of failing crap. Sure the jacket's still in great shape, but you can't do it up because the zipper broke. You can replace a zipper, but unless you go to a value store to harvest a really old jacket for the good zipper, you're just going to get another lousy one.
Re: Oomph. (Score:2)
Err, this is an imaginary problem. The zipper on my 16 year old jacket broke a year ago. I took it to a repairman who replaced it. It was his problem to source the zipper, not mine. The materials and the job cost me 20â and it was the first time in 16 years I had to spend money on renovating this jacket.
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I fully expect my "$400" laptop to last at least 4-5 years. Will soon remove the optical-drive for a SSD, and add an 8GB ram-stick (for 16).
Of course it's AMD across the board; maybe the OP is referring to $400 Intel machines... they're not worth much beyond decent battery life --- I only get 2-3 hrs, but its pretty rare (for me, at least) to be away from any kind of
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Wise enough, but does not apply to computers.
Using the same computer in 6, much less 16 years, is idiotic.
Clothes are not subject to moores law.
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My desktop is just about right there. I purchased the "core" of the system in 2009 / 2010. I've since upgraded the case, PSU, and have maxed out the RAM.
This machine still remains more than capable. I don't anticipate buying a new desktop for another couple years.
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If the software on my laptop does what I need it to do today, then why can't it continue to operate for 6 years? (I have a desktop for gaming, because laptops usually kind of suck for gaming. But I'm not really that into gaming)
My laptop (Acer 1410) is a little over 5 years old now, I use it every day. I tried to replace it once but I was unhappy with the replacement. My little laptop is now on it's third charger, I keep replacing parts that wear out or break. Now I believe the only reason for me to replace
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Why replace it if works for what I need it for? My laptop is 8 years old, but really I only use a laptop for when I need something I can take with me, otherwise I use my desktop for everything else. Though the desktop itself is three years old, though being easily upgraded, not all the components date back that far (and a few are older than that too, but 3 years ago was the new CPU/mobo/RAM combo).
Error in editing error. (Score:2)
Actually "the" indefinite article is not required. "The" definite article is also acceptable.
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(1) Editing error. English requires an indefinite article between "at" and "much."
Or you can change one letter and make "at" into "as". The arrogant display of your knowledge of English is unnecessary for a common typo.
ASUS still trendy (Score:2)
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For the last 10 years, I've mainly only purchased ASUS motherboards, netbooks, monitors, and the occasional router. ASUS is truly massive and makes a lot of good stuff for a long time already. During the netbook era it looked like they were gonna hedge heavily on Linux, then Microsoft leaned on them heavily and they reversed course.
http://www.computerworld.com/a... [computerworld.com]
My ASUS EEE 10" netbook is fantastic with Ubuntu & Kodi, still, and I paid about $250 for it ages ago.
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Really sad that they don't offer Linux, I just will not pay money for Windows - especially 8.1.
I like the hardware on this thing, but don't understand why they don't have DisplayPort. With a notebook of this size, I like to hook up to a high quality monitor when home. Can HDMI go over 1920x1080???
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FWIW, Mavericks runs reasonably well (with glitchy sound but I could care less) using VMware on my ASUS motherboards, but Yosemite really eats up resources and is unusable. I wouldn't think about doing this on VirtualBox though, not worth the effort or instability.
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they're decent.
my workhorse coding and gaming computers have been asus rog 15"'s for some 5+ years now. some say it's a bit big, but i get two harddrive bays and it fits in backpack ok and in 1100$ range it has decent power.. beats paying double for a dell anyways.
and a keyboard with numpad and the power bricks work between models and seem to have been standard for 9+ years from what I can tell.
it's decent for the price. but it's the keyboard really, decent palm rest area - no metal touching your wrists and
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if you live in thailand you really don't fucking want a metal chassis touching you, using a macbook gets you a sizzling sensation when using most power sockets.. sure it's easy to say to not use those sockets but that's like 90% of sockets in the country!
APC used to make a cute little surge suppressor/isolator that went in between your laptop supply and the wall...
IPS screen (Score:2)
Nice to see an IPS screen. Still to few laptops with them (and not always easy to tell from spec sheets).
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to != too
Daily Slashvertisement (Score:2)
Yey! the new model is better than the old model buy it now!
Sigh
Not exactly cheap (Score:4, Insightful)
At $281 for 1K tray pricing, they're not exactly delivering the most bang for the buck. Intel's basically setting their own prices now and has had record quarters lately.
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Yes, this is the world Intel fanboys have been awaiting when they crow about the imminent demise of AMD in every benchmark suite I've seen.
I buy all AMD no matter what, just to keep the CPU market a market, not a monopoly. Sadly, since their fab spin-off and the downsizing of their R&D department, they probably are in a death spiral now...
Sam
oooh, new and improved (Score:1)
backdoors.
Ultrabook isn't a "class" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a spec. Designed by intel's marketing group. Which is constantly in flux. Their long term goal is to push affordable yet quality laptop design, but at the same time I wouldn't all $700 "palatable" for an Ultrabook. $570-$640 is palatable for an ultrabook. $700 is just a regular laptop price.
And really, should we be praising laptop manufacturers for putting a 1080p screen in a $700 laptop? In 2015? How many pixels does your phone have? How much does it cost off contract. Extrapolate.
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And really, should we be praising laptop manufacturers for putting a 1080p screen in a $700 laptop? In 2015?
It is a bit surprising. I have an ASUS TransformerPad TF700, which is pretty close to the ultrabook market segment and came with a 1080p screen. I've had it for a few years and the newer model comes with an even better screen.
How many pixels does your phone have? How much does it cost off contract. Extrapolate.
Be a bit careful about that. The process for manufacturing TFTs is subject to the same rules as other semiconductor fabrication processes. If you double the area then you double the probability of an impurity resulting in a stuck pixel (and, these days, consumers don't accept even
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(and, these days, consumers don't accept even a small number of stuck pixels).
When have they? This assertion has always puzzled me. I've literally never had a display with ANY stuck pixels when I got it, and the only ones I've ever had stick on me could trivially be cleared up with a pencil.
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Thank you, drinkypoo. As the elected representative of all of consumers I thank you for raising your voice in this thorny discussion.
No problem, I'm always glad to help. If you want me to help you understand the terrible feelings of inadequacy which lead you to leave comments like the one above, I'll take a stab at that, too.
*stab*
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When TFT monitors were new, having a couple of stuck pixels was normal and manufacturers said up-front the number that they considered normal. Typically it was under five, but for some of the cheap panels it was more. Apple had a fairly complex policy (it depended where on the screen they were and stuck-on counted as worse than stuck-off). They would refuse to accept returns for stuck pixels if you had fewer than this number (although, in the UK at least, you could return without giving a reason under co
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I would buy the low yield argument if one of two conditions were met; 1) the technology was developed this century, and 2) fewer than a billion (that's with a 'B' for those if you following along at home) were produced every year. 1080p ought to be the minimum standard in 2011, it's 2015, time for manufacturers to get with the program.
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It is a bit surprising. I have an ASUS TransformerPad TF700, which is pretty close to the ultrabook market segment and came with a 1080p screen. I've had it for a few years and the newer model comes with an even better screen.
And yet as soon as you get into their full-OS transformers the screen res becomes lousy - the TF100TA comes really really close to being all I need on the road (as long as I move dev to cloud based vms - but lugging around a laptop that can run vms is getting old and tiring), but biggest let down is the 1366x768 display. Since I would also like it slightly bigger, I was really looking forward to TF200TA with 11in screen - but they made it 1366x768 again. Really don't see why they think that they have to h
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Maybe, but that doesn't explain it. 768 is the _minimum_ vertical res for Windows, and Surface Pro runs at up to 2160 x 1440.
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Intel came up with the Ultrabook marketing campaign to convince manufacturers to make more expensive laptops with better features (higher resolution, SSD storage, better battery life, thinner, lighter). It makes n
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The thing that has pissed me off about the ultrabook push is that since the processors for them are cheaper than non-U processors manufacturers started putting them in almost all laptops, not just ultrabooks. The common consumer is not aware, they have no idea what the U designation on the processor means. For them though it can mean half the performance of a non-U spec'd proc.
I was attempting to buy a laptop during this transition a few years ago and eventually gave up when I could find only one out there
HD size (Score:2)
more power-efficient Core M processor? (Score:2)
pff... call me when you get serious and put an ARMv8 processor in there.
Re:more power-efficient Core M processor? (Score:4, Interesting)
Intel is improving faster with power reduction than ARM is improving with performance increases.
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...more would get you a quad core 13" Sager with a discrete gpu...
a several pounds heavier Sager with 1/3 or less of the battery life. Different market segment.
Anorexia rules..... (Score:3)
What is it with this rush to thinner and lighter?
There is a point for many of us where thin is thin enough
and durability and battery life and even a second disk rule.
I would love to see less drive to vanishingly thin and fragile
to a more middle ground of durable, capable and functional.
The 3200x1800 display does appear inviting.
But for any power user the keyboard often matters more.
I happen to have an HP laptop that is nearly 18 years old. ;)
It has a fine keyboard as laptop keyboards go and more importantly
the display has a lot of vertical pixels which makes it nice to read
text and code. Ubuntu keeps it ticking... I think it came with DOS
Sadly the BIOS has a hard wired white list for WiFi bits so I cannot
upgrade the WiFi. It is so old that a replacement battery costs
an arm and a leg and has much less life than I like. It is not silent 0db
it has a noisy fan, it has a spinning disk.... it weighs in at 6 or 7 lb.
Darn I just convinced myself to check this one out when it hits the
local stores.
Who greelights (Score:2)
Core M GPU (Score:2)
In benchmark testing of current devices, the Core M GPUIN is actually significantly slower than the iPad Air 2's GPU, at a much higher TDP. Its CPU is faster though.
(sadpanda) it only has micro HDMI (Score:1)
It's a nice laptop, it'd be better if it was sub 1kg and if it had a display-port for external video as opposed to a crappy micro HDMI; Especially given display-port to HDMI conversion is simple.
Let's be serious, in the world of 4k screens, who wants to buy an interface that won't last the lifetime of the laptop.
Granted it may be partly Intel's doing, but it's a shame as I won't buy this laptop given the interface. It'll be a Dell XPS 13 with it's mini DisplayPort, or the Apple Macbook Air - if they don't s