- Conclusion Get the lowdown
- Features How they compare
- Performance Real world benchmarks
- Differences Technical showdown
- Reviews Word on the street
- Competition Others to consider
- Discussion Answers and opinions
Compare with...
- SAMSUNG Series 7 Chronos
- Apple MacBook Air 4th Gen
- Dell XPS 15z
- Sony VAIO Z Series
- Sony VAIO E Series
- 15.5"
- Core i5 2.4 GHz Dual core
- 8 GB DDR3-1333
- 640 GB HDD
Released October, 2011
Rated 78% by by c|net (Jul, 2011)The 15.5-inch display has a native resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels, which is perfectly suited for Blu-ray and 1080p HD video.
Rated 20% by by Snap--zeroc (Dec, 2011)Thinness - Not only is it beautifully thin, it is also practically thin meaning that it won't take up very much space in my travel bag and it adds to the portability.
Conclusion Which is better for you?
Features Key features of the Sony VAIO S Series compared to the ASUS Zenbook UX31E
GHz2.4
Intel Core i5 2430M
by LaptopMag (Jul, 2012)Click to EnlargeAlthough the 1366 x 768-pixel resolution is standard fare for a 13-inch laptop, the VAIO S Series 13 plenty bright.
2.3 GHz
Intel Core i5 2557M
Rated 100% by by R.3759 (Dec, 2011)WOW this laptop so fast, so thin, and light....it even plays World Of Warcraft at half high graphic and half Ultra graphc with no lag.
screen size
15.5"
13.3"
VAIO S Series by Shawn-Corrill (Apr, 2012)Otherwise I love the backlight on the keyboard, the large screen.
Zenbook UX31E by JR (Nov, 2011)The display is very sharp and very small fonts are clear and readable.
screen resolution
VAIO S Series by c|net (Jul, 2011)Tew/CNET). The 13.3-inch matte display does a good job of keeping glare away in an office; the screen's 1,600x900-pixel resolution is a step up from the average 1,366x768-pixel resolution of most 13-inch laptops, and colors and text alike pop vividly.
Zenbook UX31E by Gabriel-Ordonez (Dec, 2011)The screen resolution is great: 1600x900, so it is exactly widescreen (16:9), and I've enjoyed seeing movies, pictures and working on it.
cpu speed
| 0 GHz | 2.4 GHz | 3 GHz |
VAIO S Series by LaptopMag (Jul, 2012)In addition to the $919 configuration we reviewed, which includes a 2.5-GHz Core i5-3210M CPU, 6GB of RAM and 640GB HDD, the S13 can be customized to include up to a 2.9-GHz Core i7-3520 CPU, an Nvidia GeForce GT 640M LE GPU with 1GB of VRAM, a 1TB 5,400-rpm hard drive, 12GB of RAM and a 4,400-mAh sheet battery.
Zenbook UX31E by mikeyforgets (Mar, 2012)The lightweight portability, performance & beauty is enough to make me want to buy another zenbook for my wife(or myself) when updates are added later this year(IPS screen, ivy bridge cpu, 512 ssd).
processor
VAIO S Series by c|net (Jul, 2011)It's not quite in the ultrabook category, but this is still a reasonably thin and light 15-inch laptop, especially considering the powerful components inside, such as the quad-core CPU and Nvidia GPU.
memory
| 0 GB | 8 GB | 8 GB |
VAIO S Series by M.-F.-Makala (Mar, 2011)I have owned a Vaio laptop before even though the RAM was only 2GB, and 6 years older its performance was a lot much better than this one.
Zenbook UX31E by Dan-S (Dec, 2011)I do wish it had more ram and wireless N, Overall I am thrilled with this laptop and my friends are jealous.
Performance Real world tests of Sony VAIO S Series vs ASUS Zenbook UX31E
3DMark06 CPU
VAIO S Series by LaptopMag (Mar, 2010)Armed with a 2.26-GHz Intel Core i5 i5-430M CPU, 4GB of RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), and a 5,400-rpm 500GB hard drive, the S series notched a score of 4,950 on PCMark Vantage, which measures overall performance.
Zenbook UX31E by Jo-AskaPerformance-Processing/read-write: It's an i7, performs at the level expected with a very fast SSD.
battery life
5.75 hour
7 hour
VAIO S Series by c|net (Jul, 2011)Sony has added a slot-loading drive and a larger touch pad; more RAM is included, and the hard drive is larger; there are a new, faster Intel CPU, better Nvidia graphics, and an integrated battery, which gives much improved battery life over the previous generation's $150 slice battery add-on, sold separately and practically a requirement for good battery life the last go-around.
Zenbook UX31E by J.-Moses (May, 2012)This ultra book Zenbook 31 is very good maybe even greatIt stays cool the battery life it great.
cinebench r10 32Bit
VAIO S Series by D.-Lao--Domin8r (Dec, 2011)This is the first time I've experienced the performance of an i7 and SSD together, and everything is just incredibly smooth and snappy.
Zenbook UX31E by Gabriel-Ordonez (Dec, 2011)From what I've read the difference in performance with the DH53, which has the core i5, is not really noticeable for the price difference, but I haven't used the DH53, so I really cannot make that assesment.
Differences What are the advantages of each
Advantages compared to the ASUS Zenbook UX31E
| Is full HD | Yes | vs | No |
|---|---|---|---|
| Somewhat common; the screen is large enough to display 1080p video without scaling | |||
| Much more RAM | 8 GB | vs | 4 GB |
| Twice as much RAM; run more applications and have more browser tabs open without slowing down the system | |||
| Much bigger screen | 15.5" | vs | 13.3" |
| Around 20% bigger screen | |||
| Much more storage capacity | 640 GB | vs | 256 GB |
| 2.5x more storage capacity | |||
| Has a memory card reader | MMC, Memory Stick Duo, SD | vs | None |
| Read and write data from a camera or phone memory card | |||
| Significantly higher resolution screen | 1920 x 1080 | vs | 1600 x 900 |
| More than 40% higher resolution screen | |||
| Faster turbo speed | 3 GHz | vs | 2.7 GHz (Intel Core i5 2557M) |
| More than 10% faster turbo speed; gain a temporary speed boost for computation-intensive applications | |||
| Better CPU benchmark score | 31.48 | vs | 26.17 |
| More than 20% better benchmark score; the CPU performs better in various benchmark tests and will likely perform better in real-world applications | |||
| Better cinebench r10 32Bit | 8,280 (Intel Core i5 2430M) | vs | 6,533.5 (Intel Core i5 2557M) |
| Around 30% better cinebench r10 32Bit | |||
Advantages compared to the Sony VAIO S Series
| Much faster internal storage | 0.1 ms (SSD) | vs | 10 ms (HDD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100x faster random access time; faster boot times and shorter application load times | |||
| Much thinner | 30 mm | vs | 114 mm |
| 3.8x thinner | |||
| Much faster Bluetooth | 24 Mbit/s (Bluetooth v4.0) | vs | 3 Mbit/s (Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR) |
| 8x faster Bluetooth | |||
| Longer battery life | 7 hour | vs | 5.75 hour |
| More than 20% longer battery life; surf the web longer without having to plug in | |||
Reviews Word on the street
Sony VAIO S Series | ASUS Zenbook UX31E | ||
 |    Rated by 108 users at amazon.com Rated 80% by by Real-Name™-╦⌠≥---æ¢ç╡ (Aug, 2012) Rated 80% by by rkent78 (Aug, 2012) Rated 80% by by Real-Name™-╦⌠≥---æ¢ç╡ (Aug, 2012) | Rated by 122 users at amazon.com Rated 80% by by Hakan-Kantas (Mar, 2012) Rated 100% by by q_rvuer (Mar, 2012) Rated 80% by by Bizzle (Apr, 2012) | |
|---|---|---|---|
Competition What else you should consider
 | 3 | Dell XPS 15z Good CPU benchmark score |
 | 7 | HP ProBook 4530s Many more USB ports |
 | 8 | Samsung Series 5 NP530U3B-A02US 5-way tie: Really fast internal storage |
