 This is Joanna for The Verge and this is the ASUS ZenBook UX31, which really means this is ASUS's first Ultrabook. And the first thing you're going to notice about this system is obviously how strikingly similar it looks to the MacBook Air, at least from its profile. This is a very thin system, but it also tapers down just like the Air to 0.11 inches. It weighs 2.8 pounds. It actually feels a little heftier than that in hand. The other thing that I've really been impressed with having reviewed the Acer last week is how solid the hardware feels. It's made out of aluminum and the top has this concentric circle pattern as they're calling it. You get a nice aluminum palm rest and also a really nice and solid keyboard deck. There's no flex to the keyboard, but the keys are a little bit shallow. The biggest problem with the hardware here is the touchpad. It can become really, really flaky. The cursor can jump all over the screen and sometimes it will actually launch applications on its own. I'm not really sure how it does that. It boots really quickly thanks to the 128 gigabyte SSD, which allows the system to not only boot in under 15 seconds, but resume from sleep in two seconds as well. On top of that, the battery life is really good. I got about five hours and 30 minutes on my battery rundown test, but I also in real life have gotten closer to six or six and a half. Overall, for $1,100, ASUS has done a really nice job with the ZenBook. The hardware is beautiful. It performs really great. And the battery life is really good. And unfortunately, that touchpad issue is a pretty big issue. If you can live with that, the ZenBook is actually a really good laptop. But if you can, the Air is still the best choice.