By 

Eric Yen (California) –

  

Customer Video Review Length:: 3:13 Mins

First of all, there's have been a lot of dispute regarding this laptop. Many have said that this laptop is a pure copy of the Macbook Air. I personally think not. Just because Apple was the first company to make something so small and so thin like the MBA, it doesn't mean that any other company who does something similar is a copy. The build quality on the chassis seems much stronger and of much more quality when compared to MBA. And, I must claim that this is the best looking notebook on the block. Much better looking than any computer with the Apple logo on it.

Touchpad – Update the driver (downloading it from the Asus website). Before doing anything, do updates on the computer first. Some may say that this is absurd and that it should work out of the box. But, I think it's correct to say that you need to update the driver! Same goes for keeping your virus definitions updated for your anti-virus program! After the update, almost flawless trackpad. It's just as good as any Windows trackpad. Obviously not as good as a Macbook with it comes to smoothness (but Mac trackpad doesn't work well in Windows either since it doesn't have the drivers).

Sound – Very very good sound for the form factor. For something so thin, I don't think you can find anything that matches the quality of these speakers!

Screen – I personally did not have any viewing angle problems. The screen is very bright and high resolution, but I did have a dead pixel on the top left edge of the screen. This can be verify by the video I made for it! Also, there's a small quirk… The screen hinge is a little loose and when typing on your lap at a wider angle, you might experience the screen to fall backward. I also made a video of this.

Now, the worst of all! Keyboard! What were they doing with the keyboard? There's very little travel on the keyboard and absolutely zero support on the side of the keys. Longer keys like "Enter", "Shift", and "Spacebar" would experience problems where the key is pressed but it doesn't registered. This happens on other keys as well, but less occasionally. I made 2 videos of this problem and posted it on Youtube as well. You can see a few examples where FN + F11 (volume), I should be able to adjust the volume. But, when the FN key is pressed on the side and not in the dead center, it won't register. Therefore instead of changing volume, I get full screen! This goes the same for the enter Key where pressing it on the side or edge it doesn't move the words to the next line. Yes, you can argue that I just need to adjust my typing, but how hard is it to make a keyboard that works? Other manufacturers who use chiclet keyboard don't have this problem (Sony, Apple, HP). Also, how are you to guarantee that while typing 50-75 words a minute, your hitting dead center of every key including enter or shift.

Realistically, if keyboard is 100% registering every key, dead pixel wasn't there, and tigher hinge… I would recommend this as the Number 1 laptop in it's form factor (including price). I will be returning the laptop because of the problems above as I think it's pretty annoying correcting my typing as the keys don't register!…

~~ If you want to check out my video of the problems I listed above. Go to youtube website and int he search bar, look for "twkidM3". You should be able to pull up my username and it will have 5 videos of the problems. Enjoy!

EDIT~~~~~*****
11/23/11

Need to write an update. I ended up sending this thing back because the keyboard and a dead pixel problem. I did not have WIFI issues or other issues such as the computer shocking you when plugging in the power. But those two reason I listed which I did not like ended up to be a real pain in the butt. Key registering problem was huge and I would miss enter key or shift key left and right. Even FN+F9 sometimes did not register volume buttons.

Now many of you may ask, "Why don't you contact ASUS before returning it to Amazon? Get them to RMA the system because of DEAD Pixel Guarantee!" Truth be told, I did all that. I submitted a query to ASUS 2 days after I bought the system and made the videos. I posted all the videos on all the ASUS fanpages that you can find on facebook. I've also contacted Asus Corporate in Taiwan. They called me at midnight and told me that they will resolve the issue and have someone from Fremont, CA contact me regarding my issues. 3 days later, no response and no contact. So technically I was expecting someone to talk to me around the 9th of Nov. No response so I send it back to Amazon. Customer service? yes or no? you decide! Dropping from 3 stars to 2 stars… Still a beautiful unit with a lot of flaws and lack of customer service!

I decided to give Asus another chance on November 17, 2011 and bought another version of the Zenbook line called UX31-DH72. See my review there, it get's…

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