Linux laptops. There is a dedicated site that helps you get Linux running on a laptop. Ludwig uses the ASUS Zenbook UX31XA although the later one looks like the UX32VD. Here are the choices by a quick skim for ultrabooks notebookcheck.net. Looking at this, they rated the Macbook Air 13 inch (mid 2012) as 89%
- ASUS Zenbook Prime UX21A. This is the 11″ version of the UX31A. It is 1920×1080 panel. The Zenbook UX21E uses the identical chassis. It has a 128GB SSD, 4GB Ram, IPS panel. 89% score.
- ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A. $1400 with Core i5 and 128GB SSD or $1500 with a 256GB SSD. (As a reminder the MacBook Air is 1440×900 vs 1920×1080). It is 20% faster than the older UX31because of the move to Ivy Bridge and faster SSDs. As an aside, you want an Adata MX11 but they will sometimes sue the Sandisk U100.
- ASUS Zenbook UX32VD. This is an side-date (I guess a sister). The UX31 is more expensive at $1100-1800 (how unintuitive is that) because it uses an aluminum unibody so is more durable, is fully SSD (the UX32VD uses a hybrid SSD+hard disk), but uses less powerful Intel HD 4000 embedded graphics (the UX32VD had dedicated nVidia graphics). The UX31 is 3.08 pounds while the UX32VD is 3.23 pounds.
