My New Linux Ultrabook: The ASUS Zenbook UX301LA-DH71T

[phoronix]

Phoronix: My New Linux Ultrabook: The ASUS Zenbook UX301LA-DH71T

The ASUS Zenbook UX301LA-DH71T is a Haswell-based Intel ultrabook that I have found to be quite interesting and will be carrying out a large number of Linux tests (and Windows 8.1 vs. Linux benchmarks) from this laptop that sports Intel Iris HD 5100 graphics, dual SSDs, and other impressive features...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTYyNTE

[andyprough]

Nice! I went with the an HP ultrabook to get a combined 11 hour battery life from the 2 batteries (one in the keyboard, one in the monitor) plus the low-power Haswell. But my specs aren't as powerful as yours. I've found the 13.3 inch display works quite well. I was surprised, as I've spent years on a series of 17" laptops, and never thought I would be able to fit all my needs onto the smaller screen. The widescreen really helps with that. Enabling legacy boot on this thing to allow booting into Linux is a breeze.

[birdie]

It's not a core i7.

Just saying.

[dffx]

Just saying.

"Just saying," indeed. In the vast, *vast* majority of use cases an i7 is not needed and provides no appreciable difference in performance over an i5. I'd say that's probably even more so the case in a laptop that's not being used for compiling or other CPU-intensive or 4+ core operations.

That being said, I'm curious: how does the Zenbook's trackpad compare to the Macbook's? I've yet to find a trackpad even close to the Macbook's -- my Acer Chromebook C720's trackpad is about as close as you can get.

[elapsed]

I'd be interested in seeing what kind of framerate this pulls for casual gameplay like TF2.

[ffiil]

I'd be interested in seeing what kind of framerate this pulls for casual gameplay like TF2.

most likely not great if he's only running linux within a VM.

[Michael]

most likely not great if he's only running linux within a VM.

that's only for MacBook Pros I use VMs on my main system...

[wizard69]

Interesting choice, I hope you report back In a month about how well it is working for you.

I often run my MBP in the same way, that is Linux in a VM. In this case running LinuxCNC though. If you where making heavy use of MacOS though I can see you struggling with these alternative machines. Just using the track pads on these "Windows" oriented computers is trying to say the least. I know this is a Linux users fan site to a certain extent but Apple does a hell of a job implementing its track pads.

[wizard69]

...
That being said, I'm curious: how does the Zenbook's trackpad compare to the Macbook's? I've yet to find a trackpad even close to the Macbook's -- my Acer Chromebook C720's trackpad is about as close as you can get.

This is the very first thing I thought about. Unfortunately I have to work with a range of laptops at work, all running some variant of Windows, every single one of them has a track pad that is basically worthless. Thus many of the machines have a mouse attached. With my MBP I have never found a need for a mouse doing the basics.

I will be most interested to see how this machine works out for Michael in both the short term and the long term. I still see beating Apple in the laptop domain as difficult.

[wizard69]

that's only for MacBook Pros I use VMs on my main system...

You mentioned "clock skew" problems, what exactly are you talking about here and how is it that you can see the issue?