Notebook Hunter

The current Harvey Norman Ultrabook cashback offer is resulting in some pretty spectacular bargains across the board, but the most affordable is the ASUS Zenbook UX21E-KX007V. HN’s web site normally lists it for $998, which makes it a mere $698 after cashback; not bad for a 1.1kg all-metal Ultrabook with 4GB of RAM, a 64GB solid state drive and a low-voltage Intel Core i3! Ports are a bit limited due to the small size (USB 3.0, USB 2.0, Micro-HDMI, Mini-VGA and audio jack) but that’s to be expected.

You can see our story on this outstanding Harvey Norman sale here.

Here’s the product page on Harvey Norman’s web site.

See a summary of the specs below.

Processor
The UX21E features a low-voltage 2nd Gen Intel Core i3-2367M (1.4GHz), a decent low-end processor that can fluidly run productivity applications and some more intensive software.

Graphics
It comes with an integrated graphics solution called Intel HD Graphics 3000. It’s on par with a low-end dedicated graphics card, and is sufficient for modern games at the lowest settings.

RAM
4GB of RAM is enough to run several programs at once smoothly. It’s more than enough to ensure fluid overall system performance with Windows 7 Home Premium.

Storage
A 64GB solid state drive is really small, but it has fast response times for reading and writing data. It’ll require strong user discipline to avoid filling it up quickly.

Screen
It sports an 11.6in (1,366 x 768 resolution) gloss screen. The resolution is quite high for the screen size.

Portability
The UX21E has exceptional portability, because it weighs 1.1kg and is 17mm thick at the thickest point.  It’s more than light enough to be taken anywhere without any problems whatsoever.