ASUS Zenbook UX301LA: A Nice Intel Ultrabook For Linux Users
After using the ASUS Zenbook UX301LA for most of March, I'm quite happy with this Intel Haswell ultrabook but it's not the perfect system.
Build Quality - The build quality of the UX301LA is good and I feel comfortable in taking it around the world with me in frequently traveling, but it doesn't feel as nice as an Apple MacBook Pro/Air in terms of quality. The Gorilla Glass 3 lid is nice and for the 12~18 months I'll likely use this ultrabook as my main system, I'm fairly confident the UX301LA should be able to last, but wish it would have felt a bit stronger for being a $1800 USD system.
Connectivity - It would have been nice to see a third USB 3.0 port on the ultrabook, especially as for some micro-HDMI to HDMI adapters the USB port next to it will be blocked, as is the case of when I'm using this ultrabook in my office.
Linux Compatibility - Ubuntu 14.04 LTS x86_64 with the Linux 3.13 kernel installed with ease to the Zenbook UX301LA. All functionality seems to be there and in the few weeks of using it I haven't run into any Linux issues. Besides Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, most other major Linux desktops shipping recent versions of the Linux kernel, Mesa, etc should work out just fine. Of course, the newer the better in terms of the kernel and such for offering the best Iris Graphics performance and other functionality.
Linux Performance - The performance of the Core i7 4558U CPU with Iris Graphics 5100, 8GB of RAM, and dual SSDs was great. I'm happy with the performance though seeing the CPU temperature frequently run 80 to 90 Celsius when experiencing any kind of load is a bit concerning.
Battery Life - ASUS advertises this Zenbook as having up to an eight hour battery life, but when running Linux without extensive tweaking the actual battery life will fall well short. In my use of the UX301LA while traveling, I was just averaging three to four hours of battery life -- running Thunderbird, Firefox, LibreOffice, gedit, GNOME Terminal, etc, and not any video playback or gaming. This poor showing is due in part to Ubuntu and the Linux kernel in general. As I've said before, back when I was running a MacBook Pro I would see better power usage results by running OS X and then virtualizing Ubuntu Linux with VMware Fusion rather than running Linux bare-metal on the hardware.
Overall - I'm happy with my purchase and will continue using the UX301LA as my main system. The build quality is good enough, the performance is good with an Intel Core i7 Haswell CPU, the Intel Iris Graphics with HiDPI 2560 x 1440 panel are wonderful and don't need to bother with any dual graphics solutions on Linux, having two high-performance SATA SSDs is great for back-up purposes, and all hardware was working under Linux. I just hope by the time I'm shopping for a Broadwell ultrabook around early 2015 to replace this Zenbook that ASUS will have improved upon the few shortcomings of this device.
When I'm in my office and using a desktop setup, I have the ASUS Zenbook UX301LA connected to a ASUS PB278Q WQHD LED PLS Professional Graphics Monitor and it's working quite well. The UX301LA can be found at major Internet retailers for just over $1800 USD.
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