Asus Shooting for Sub-$1,000 Price Point for UX21 Ultrathin

Posted 06/06/2011 at 7:24am | by Paul Lilly

5

Comments

Print

Asus turned a few heads at the Computex trade show in Taiwan last week with its UX21 ultrathin notebook. Sporting a sleek and sexy chassis that measures 17mm at its thickest point and weighing just 2.4 pounds, the real beauty was arguably on the inside where Asus managed to stuff a second generation Core i7 processor. Talk about a slap in the face to Apple's MacBook Air with its dated Core 2 Duo foundation, followed by a gut punch to the MacBook Air's price tag.

According to a report in the Chinese Commercial Times, Asus doesn't want to just match the price of Apple's MacBook Air, it wants to trump it by 10 to 20 percent. Game on.

With what we know so far about the UX21 -- Core i5 and i7 processor options, SATA 6Gb/s SSD drives, oversized keyboard, smartphone-like touchpad, USB 3.0 connectivity, light aluminum alloy shell with a unique 'spun' finish on polished surfaces -- all Asus would have to do is match the MacBook Air's prices (which starts at $1,000) to ensure buyer interest. But pricing it at $800 to $900 to start? That's just rad; let's hope it pans out.

Image Credit: Asus