Following news that the Lenovo Ideapad U300s is nearing retail shelves is the first full review I’ve seen for the U300s. Acer UX31, you have some competition because Hardware Zone Singapore definitely have the green flag out for the Lenovo U300s although it has to be said that these guys haven’t done a review of the Asus UX31 yet. ‘As Good as It Gets’ is restricted to comparison with the Acer S3.

First though, a round-up of the differences between the Lenovo U300s and Acer UX31 which many of you will be choosing between right now.

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Taking a bit longer than I originally expected after the ASUS UX31 availability last week are the first 2 reviews of the ASUS UX31 ‘Zenbook’ Ultrabook.  Both reviews originate from Chinese sources.

[UX31 Specifications, Gallery and more information here]

Overall, the initial response seems to be very good. Much better than the first review of the Acer S3 that we saw last week although I am personally disappointed at the use of convertor adaptors to provide VGA and Ethernet. They add weight, take more power than built-in components and are likely to get lost or forgotten. With the case and adaptors added-in, the UX31 weighs a very non-ultrabook 1.8KG.

In both reviews we even get a teardown of the device showing the huge battery area compared to the motherboard. The battery is 50Wh which is a lot more than the 34Wh you get in the Acer S3. As expected, the battery life figures are higher.  Battery life ranges from 129 minutes (full-power test) to nearly 7 hours.

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The guys at Laptopmag, who generally do a respectable job of reviews, have not been impressed with the Acer Aspire S3. Their review gives it 2.5 out of 5.

You can read their full review here.

I want to pick up on a few things though. Firstly, keyboards. We’re going to see many people complain about key travel as Laptopmag have done. I’ve pondered over this myself and as I tested the Toshiba Z830 today I even mentioned it to Toshiba as a potential issue but after some extended typing tests I was actually starting to enjoy the short travel. It speeds up typing; If you can get used to the change. Laptopmag are reporting that keys had to be pressed harder though. That’s not how it should work so watch out for this in other reviews.

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