After showing off its super-thin Zenbook UX305 at Intel’s
Developer Forum in San Francisco last September, ASUS has the system for sale in the U.S. The laptop owes its slim profile to the Intel
Core M processor, which doesn’t require fans. The CPU is usually found in tablets and such, but it’s hard to resist for laptop builders that want to shave some millimeters off the height of their ultrabooks.
Right now, ASUS is touting its $699 Zenbook UX305FA, which has an Intel Core M 5Y10 CPU, Intel HD Graphics 5300, 8GB of memory, and a 256GB SSD for storage. The ultrabook has a 13.3-inch display with IPS and a resolution of 1920x1080. It comes in at just 12.3 mm, which is about 0.48 inches thick. And it weighs about 2.5 pounds, making it the sort of truly thin-and-light laptop Intel envisioned when it launched the ultrabook standard.
But if you have an extra $300 to spare, you may want to hold out for the model Asus plans to launch in April. Engadget is reporting that ASUS will be beefing up its ultrabook with a 3200x1800 touch display. There’s no doubt that plenty of buyers will find the $699 price tag hard to resist, but we think it’s worth the wait and extra cash to land a Core M laptop with a hi-res touchscreen.
Joshua Gulick
Josh cut his teeth (and hands) on his first PC upgrade in 2000 and was instantly hooked on all things tech. He took a degree in English and tech writing with him to
Computer Power User Magazine and spent years reviewing high-end workstations and gaming systems, processors, motherboards, memory and video cards. His enthusiasm for PC hardware also made him a natural fit for covering the burgeoning modding community, and he wrote
CPU’s “Mad Reader Mod” cover stories from the series’ inception until becoming the publication editor for
Smart Computing Magazine. A few years ago, he returned to his first love, reviewing smoking-hot PCs and components, for
HotHardware. When he’s not agonizing over benchmark scores, Josh is either running (very slowly) or spending time with family.
