Following our report that ASUS will be updating the UX Zenbook series and are tentatively planning a launch in May we now have an official statement that new ASUS Ultrabooks will indeed come in May. Prices will be attractive too.
At an investor conference Executive Officer Jerry Shen said there would be ‘a number’ of new models to cover each price segment with price possible starting at US$699
Investors were told that ASUS expects the Zenbook (Ultrabook) range to cover 15-20% of ASUS shipments in 2012. Asus expects to ship around 18 million laptops in 2012 making a target of 3-4 million Ultrabooks
Thats probably a good thing. Allthough the laptop will probably get a sloppy SSD-harddisk and i3 core.
The acer aspire outsold all the other ultrabooks here in the Netherlands, but I think the acer doesn’t really lives up to the new standards Intel wanted to give the new ultrabooks, in terms of really innovation to become as user-friendly as Apple.
But Acer did get more advertised by big retailers because they brag with the fact they can sell a ultrathin laptop at such a price-level.
The asus does live up to the intel standards. And thats why I hope they will replace Acers spot in the commercials.
May? Seems like Ivy Bridge won’t be on board then.
May is what they say. We know what means in reality ;-)
It makes absolutely no sense to introduce a “2nd generation” product featuring the same CPU, when next generation CPU is less than a month away.
Actually, May can mean anywhere from May 1, to May 31. I still expect them to fit Ivy Bridge in the next gen Zenbook. It isn’t like Asus is an obscure manufacturer, and can’t get it earlier.
Depends on whether they are improving the rest of the system.
Better keyboard, better screen, better port options… All while they want to clear stock on the Sandy Bridge could mean they might do it and get away with it if coupled with lower pricing.
Man, I hope they don’t do that. They should just wait one month and go with Ivy Bridge. Besides, there are some nice changes, even though not radical.
In the case Asus decides to go Sandy Bridge again, you can forget about Ivy Bridge models until much later. I don’t have to tell you guys how stupid it is to release both Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge top lines within a month of each other.
It looks like on the power usage side, we might be able to expect 5-10% improvements in usage scenarios that fit between idle and full load.
Maybe Asus will bee able to lower the price thanks to the “old” cpu tecnology…
I mean when Ivy bridge will be on the market the price of Sandy Bridge will probably go down..
My 4 year old Acer has some strange problems, the wife took my Acer net book, so after Christmas I opted for. Toshiba tablet (love it) but still need a travelling PC. Almost went with Acer again but I’m mad at them. Almost got the Asus zenbook but they botched the design. Why couldn’t they get the keyboard right, have a back-lit keyboard, and have a ‘real’ web-cam. If they had done that, I’d typing on one now. I think I’ll keep waiting or get the Samsung with a 500gb HDD, 32gb SSD. Asus had the best resolution and other options but blew it big time on minor things.