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The Asus Zenbook Prime UX21A is an ultrabook with an Ivy Bridge processor and an 11.6 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel display.

Now it looks like Asus also plans to offer an optional touchscreen display.

This doesn’t make the Zenbook Prime UX21A a tablet. It’s still a clamshell-style laptop. But when you open the lid you can either use the keyboard and mouse to navigate or tap on the touchscreen.

The notebook will be available with a Core i5 or Core i7 processor, and 128GB or 256GB solid state disk.

While I’m still not entirely sold on the idea of lifting your hands from a keyboard to poke at the screen when there’s a perfectly serviceable touchpad just below the keys, there’s no denying that the Windows 8 Metro environment is clearly designed for touch.

So it’s no surprise that we’re seeing a number of laptops with touch panels on display at Computex this week. They’re designed to take advantage of the touch-friendly features in Windows 8 when Microsoft’s new operating system hits the streets this fall.

It’s also probably a little cheaper to throw a touch panel into an existing laptop than to design a special hinge or slider mechanism that lets you convert a laptop into a tablet.

via Netbook News and The Verge