Asus unveiled its newest laptop, the Asus UX which draws a lot of comparison to the MacBook Air. The 11-inch laptop has an aluminum alloy shell body and is only 17mm thick. It even has an instant-on resume feature. It's gotten increasingly obvious that this laptop was meant to be challenge the MacBook Air.

The UX21 also uses the "unibody" design, again another term thought up by Apple and used by Asus. The frame is entirely covered in aluminum metal and hardened for durability. It has a sloping design which starts at 7mm in the back and tapers to 3mm in the front, according to PCMagazine. The widescreen and resolution are all reminiscent of the MacBook Air. The Chiclet-style keyboard and glass touchpad are again similar with the Air.

The differences with the MacBook place the UX21 a shade better than the Apple laptop. The Asus UX21 runs on an Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs. This means that it will be more powerful than those found in the MacBook air. If the laptop will run on i7 then battery life will become a concern. The higher the processor the more voltage needed to power it. Given that the battery is sealed in then users could expect no more than five hours maximum on battery life.

The UX21 has two USB ports that houses USB 3.0 technology. There is a mini-HDMI port instead of the mini-DisplayPort in the Air. Asus' storage capabilities are limited to SSD either 64 GB or 128 GB. Asus also claims that the UX21 can resume from sleep in two seconds.

Asus hasn't given a definite price to the UX21 but it will be cheaper than the MacBook Air. If that's the case with its capabilities and price this could be Asus answer to Apple's MacBook.