ASUS Zenbook UX21 Teardown
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 18, 2011 6:00 PM ESTSince it is a new product line for ASUS we were eager to get a look inside the 11-inch Zenbook as we progressed through our review process. Similar to taking apart a MacBook Air, there are 10 torx screws around the perimeter of the bottom panel of the Zenbook.
With the bottom panel off, the UX21 looks a lot like an 11-inch MacBook Air with some notable differences. The ultra slim cooling solution actually covers both the Intel Core i7-2677M and its accompanying QS67 chipset, whereas Apple only directly cools the CPU in the MBA. ASUS uses the same two-PCB approach that Apple does, using a slightly stiffer (and conveniently labeled) ribbon cable to connect the two boards.
ASUS uses a familiar stick form factor for its SSD. The 128GB UX21/31 models come with a SandForce SF-2281 based drive from ADATA while the 256GB models use a SanDisk U100 solution. The WiFi card in the UX21 is also a unique form factor:
Other interesting tidbits:
1) The ASUS power adapter is very MBA-inspired - I like it. Cable management is handled via a strip of velcro. ASUS also found a great place to put the Microsoft COA: on the power brick itself.
2) All Zenbooks ship with a USB Ethernet adapter, VGA adapter and two carrying sleeves: one for the adapters and one for the Zenbook itself.
Check out more in the gallery below and expect our review in the coming days!
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
21 Comments
View All Comments
PeterAhlstrom - Monday, December 5, 2011 - link
This is the only Zenbook teardown I could find online, and since it said a torx T2 was used, I spent all day Friday trying to get one locally. The smallest size Home Depot and other hardware stores had was T4. I finally found someone who had a T3 and borrowed it from him. The T3 was too small; it just spun around in the screwhead and did nothing.His next size up in the kit was a T5 and it worked fine on the Zenbook's screws. Due to the small amount of play with the T5, I'm guessing a T6 will work fine (but I don't have one to test with). T6 is the same size Macbook Pros used to use.
I'm glad I didn't just order a T2 online and wait for it to arrive, because it wouldn't have worked at all.