The Macbook heir? Tom Morgan

Spends 21 long, geeky days finding out if Asus’s latest lightweight stunner is ready to be crowned the new king of sub-£1000 Ultrabooks

£800 as reviewed / stuff.tv/ux310ua Opt for an HD screen, an i3 processor and less memory to slash the asking price. of spongy – but you still get enough travel in each key to type comfortably without filling your files with typos. There’s also a full keyboard backlight, so I can still see which keys I’m hitting once the sun’s gone down.

The touchpad has two built-in buttons and a huge glass surface that lets your fingers glide across with the smallest hint of friction. I’ve had to up the sensitivity to make it feel properly responsive, but with a bit of tweaking it’s perfectly usable – even the multi-touch gestures work after some practice, with no anguished hair-tearing required.