Gone are the days when bulky laptops were still in the trends, people now tend to use light-weight ultrabooks which they can carry around. ASUS is in the market of making slim ultrabook laptops and is doing a pretty good job. The best thing about these laptops is they come with both performance and portability combo. When I say performance, I don’t mean gaming – but something that would let you do your office work easily. Ultrabooks also have good battery life. So today we will be talking about ASUS Vivobook 14 X409FA-EK502T – how it performs in daily life.
ASUS Vivobook 14 X409FA-EK502T full review:
Design
ASUS Vivobook 14 X409FA just weighs at around 1.6 k.g. which makes it portable to easily carry around with you. It has a plastic matte finish body and comes in 2 colors – transparent silver & slate grey. In terms of ports on the left are the – DC power jack, type C- USB 3.1, HDMI, USB 3.1 & on the right are – 2 USB 2.0 slots, 3.5mm audio/mic jack, microSD slot, with some power/battery indicator lights. This covers a lot of connectivity options. You also have the fingerprint sensor on the trackpad of the Vivobook 14 X409FA. In terms of design, the laptop does a decent job and gives a finish for business use.
Display
ASUS Vivobook X409FA has a nano-edge 14-inch FHD 60Hz display. What more to expect if you have a full HD bright display on an ultrabook. Plus the thin bezels on the sides make you feel that the screen size is larger. There is an anti-glare coating on the screen to help you focus even if there is a reflection of some light source on the screen. I would say the brightness of the screen is decent for you to work even in some external light too.
Performance
ASUS Vivobook 14X409FA has an i5-8th Gen(8265U) processor clocked at 1.6 GHz. This is enough for doing office work. My model came with 8GB of RAM which is expandable up to 12 GB SDRAM. I feel that 8GB of RAM can easily handle multi-tasking but just in case you can still increase if need be. The ultrabook comes with 512GB PCIe SSD which makes it so much faster. The boot time on this ultrabook is so less which is excellent for business meets. You can always keep the ultrabook on sleep mode as the wake speed of SSD is faster too, but even if you shut down the boot-up is quick. Plus 512GB is enough storage for handling all the work. Just in case you want to increase the storage, you can go for an HDD. ASUS Vivobook 14 X409FA has an EAR HDD protection which is excellent to absorb any shocks that might damage the HDD while you are on the move. As for the software part – the ultrabook comes preinstalled with Windows 10.
Battery:
It has a 2-cell 32 Wh polymer battery which can last around 5-7 hours depending on your usage. They have fast-charging enabled in this ultrabook which can charge to 60 percent in 49 minutes approx which is really good for an ultrabook. The laptop has 1-year international warranty.
At this price point, you are getting an i5 8th gen ultrabook with 512GB SSD. I guess this is a pretty decent deal for an ultrabook. Anybody who is looking out for general work laptop with portability can definitely go for this one.
Apple Macbook Pro is one of the best when we talk about compact powerful laptops. But there has been a lot of other brands like ASUS who are in the same ultrabook style laptop segment. We got our hands on one of the recent ASUS UX434 Zenbook 4 laptop. It is slim, aesthetically beautiful in terms of design, and is powerful too as per the specifications. Let us find out if it can give a tough competition to the best brands out there through ASUS UX434 Zenbook 4 full review. I used this laptop for 10 days and here is my opinion on different parameters of this ultrabook.
ASUS UX434 Zenbook 4 full review:
Design
When you first unbox the laptop, you will see a very premium finish laptop with some good design. ASUS UX434 has spun metal finish concentrated ring design on the lid. The royal blue color with some rose gold trim panel gives the whole laptop some rich feel. The laptop is made compact due to the decrease of bezels on the screen. The ultrabook weighs at around 1.26 Kg which is pretty light weight to carry around. It comes with a sleeve to protect it from dust and scratches. The laptop has a ErgoLift hinge which lifts the laptop slightly up when you open up the lid. This creates some space from the bottom of the laptop to your table. This helps you to properly position your hands while typing with that slight lift, it feels great. Also because of that lift, the cooling is done efficiently as there is enough space for air to pass along with good exposure to speaker sound. Good design is really something which ASUS kept in mind while making this ultrabook. As for the ports, on the left you have DC input power jack, HDMI port, USB 3.0, along with USB-C 3.0. On the right hand side are the micro SD card reader slot, USB 2.0, Audio jack & some LED lights for charging/battery indication. The speaker grills are at the bottom of the laptop. Overall, design is one of the strong points of ASUS UX434 Zenbook 4.
Display
One of the very first things that comes to mind while looking at ASUS UX434 is the bezel. They are so thin from all the sides that it is hard to believe that you are looking at a 14 inch screen. We literally had to verify it with a measuring tape. The display is FHD NanoEdge one and has some really great color reproduction. You will enjoy watching videos, movies, surfing the internet and working with this kind of nanoEdge display. It seems like you are just looking at the display as a whole almost without any significant bezels and the screen to body ratio is stunning 92%. The viewing angles are good too on this laptop. One special thing that lies above the screen display is the 3D IR webcam tech which recognizes face in a much more accurate way. It even didn’t recognize me with my specs off once I registered my face with the specs on. It is quite accurate in a dark room too and always better than always entering the pin/password. Never thought I would enjoy face unlock so much on a laptop. There is also a variant with touch available on display for ease of use.
Performance
The laptop comes in two variants of processor i5-8265U and i7-8565U. The one which I received was the i7 one. Same goes with RAM variants as it is available with 8GB or 16GB memory. I got it with 16GB RAM one which worked excellently with multitasking. As for the storage the size might vary but it comes with SSD only, so the read/write speeds are really great. As for the graphics it comes with Intel 620 integrated one and NVIDIA GeForce MX250 dedicated one. These were some specifications on paper. Overall performance wise I tried running it with a HDMI monitor attached in extended mode. ASUS UX434 might be compact in size, but the performance it gave while working on it for 10 days was pretty awesome. With so many task running alongside the whole bunch of chrome tabs multiple instances, everything worked so smoothly. I don’t remember the Zenbook 14 getting laggy or dropping frames even for one second. This is something which a powerful user like me faces in other competitor laptops but Zenbook 14 didn’t disappoint in terms of the overall performance. Tried playing some games too, they all ran well but the bottom gets a bit warm so you need to keep it on a flat surface. Pretty normal stuff for an ultrabook, but overall I really enjoyed using the Zenbook 14 in terms of hardcore performance.
Sound and connectivity
The speaker grills are at the bottom so make sure you don’t cover them up while keeping on bed or pillow. The sound output from the laptop was really loud and clear with the ASUS SonicMaster technology. As for the connectivity options, Wifi and bluetooth are available. Wifi worked at pretty decent speed and so did the bluetooth 5.0 with wireless mouse and bluetooth speaker as tested. Other connectivity options in terms of ports are the USB 3.0, USB 2.0, USB-C 3.0, HDMI, audio jack, micro SD reader, and HDMI port. It covers everything except the RJ45 lan port which comes as a extender to USB-C port via adapter. So ASUS has kept almost all the options of connectivity available with the Zenbook 14.
Keyboard and Touchpad/ScreenPad
Normally we don’t talk a lot about laptop’s keyboard or or trackpad but this time its something special. Want to specifically mention that whatever key specs you might see on paper, the typing experience here is just great. The keys here have 1.4mm travel distance with LED backlit which makes it easier to see in the dark. Also this gives any laptop a premium look.
As for the touchpad, its not just a normal one. It has a touchscreen built into it which enables you to do something else while not disturbing the main screen. The UI is similar to what a smartphone has with some quick feature apps like number key, handwriting via touch drawing etc. You can put any screen from the main screen to the Screenpad 2.0 and use it there. There are gestures built to easily lock/unlock the screenpad and switch to normal trackpad for the mainscreen. Its quite easy and interactive to use the laptop with Screenpad. Suddenly gives you a second screen to interact and work with. I tried opening the windows explorer on the Screenpad and it worked quite well with touch precision. More and more apps are getting optimized to work with this 5.65 inch Screenpad 2.0.
Battery:
Zenbook 14 has a 50Wh Li-Po battery that can easily last for around 8-12 hrs depending on your usage. On an average for me it lasted for 8-10hrs which was quite sufficient for my work without plugging in the charger. Also I just closed the lid and put it to sleep while I was carrying the notebook around.
Price and availability:
As of now I could find the i5 variant on Flipkart for around 94000 INR. The price might differ depending on if the online platforms have a sale going on.
Verdict:
Overall I think Zenbook UX434 excels in all the features and is a very good ultrabook to go for if you are someone looking for a compact, premium yet powerful ultrabook. The build quality, display, performance, battery and sound are all good on this laptop. Let me know if you have any doubts and want to know more about Zenbook 4 through the comment section below.
Laptops have a big disadvantage of customization when compared to a regular PC. If your laptop is slowing down, the first thing that comes to the mind is increasing the RAM. But it might not be the satisfactory solution that you are looking for. The best way is to get a SSD installed. What is SSD? How to install SSD in any laptop? Let us answer all these questions in this article.
What is a SSD(Solid State Drive):
Keeping aside the technicalities, SSD is basically a solid-state storage device which doesn’t have rotating disks or movable read-write heads. It is much better than an HDD. It has quicker access times, low latency and is more durable than the hard drive. With all the speed and durability comes extra cost. SSD is costlier than a HDD, so going for 128GB or 255GB might suffice your needs. This is one of the secrets why Mac(Macbook/iMac) products are faster than other laptops/PC as they only use SSD now.
One of the major challenges is, not every laptop comes with an SSD slot. In this case, we still have a workaround to get SSD installed in any laptop.
How to Install SSD in any laptop:
1) Firstly check the specifications of your laptop on the internet
Just search the specifications of your laptop and look for a M.2 Slot. If it’s specified that there is a M.2 slot then you don’t have to do too much work. Just buy a M.2 SSD which is not like the usual looking SSD rectangle body but rather looks like a RAM. The M.2 SSD fits in the motherboard of a laptop similar to the RAM.
2) M.2 slot not there? No problem. Replace the CD-Drive with SSD
If there isn’t a M.2 slot in your laptop, you can still add a SSD. In order to do that you will have to order a caddy.
This is a pretty obvious step. But buying an SSD can be a task too. There are so many types of SSD. Which one to buy?
If you have an M.2 slot check all these out and select one depending upon your memory need->M.2 SSD
If you don’t have an M.2 slot but have a CD-Drive slot buy any of these according to the storage needs->SATA SSD
4) Install the SSD
Now that we have covered all the prerequisites that come into play before the actual installation, let us look at the actual installation.
Here’s a video for M.2 slot users on How to install SSD in any laptop:
For users not having the M.2 Slot:
After buying the caddy, appropriate SSD and removing the CD-Drive, it’s time to actually insert the SSD.
Check out this video-
After installing the SSD in the caddy, just one simple task remains. Just insert the SSD into the empty CD-Drive bay. Tight all the screws and you are done! Make sure that you install the operating system in the SSD itself so it boots and functions faster than it used to on HDD. High definition games also work in a better way when installed on SSD. This was all about how to install SSD in any laptop! Comment down below if you have any questions and we will surely help.
ASUS has been a dominating name when it comes to top of the line products; a range of dynamic laptops and over the top high-end ROG series. ASUS is launching their new revolutionary range of gaming laptops for the gamers out there. Comprising of celebrated titles like Strix, Zephyrus and much more.
ASUS launches new gaming laptops 2019
ROG Strix G531/ G731
The Strix G531 comes with9th gen i5-9300H or i7-9750H along with Nvidia GTX-1660 GDDR5 VRAM. The 6-core processor clocks as high as 4.5 GHz with a single core, and with12 threads to speed up heavy multitasking. A new wraparound light bar illuminates the outer edge of the chassis which speaks the ethos of the ROG brand.
The Strix G731 is just like a big brother to G531. G731 has 17″ 120Hz IPS panel unlike G531, which is having15″ 60Hz display.
ROG Strix SCAR III G531
The Strix SCAR III G531 successor of well-known SCAR II is getting quite popular. It is loaded with Intel Core i&-9750H or i9-9880H processor and RTX 2060, 2070, as well as GTX 1660,depending upon the variant.It comes with DDR4 RAM up to 32GB and 1TB storage. Depending upon the GPU it has 15.6″ 144HZ/3ms, 15.6″ 240Hz/3ms and 15.6″ 144Hz/3ms for RTX 2060, 2070 and GTX 1660 respectively.
It has keystone unlock feature for deep customization. Keystones are physical keys that can be docked to quickly load system preferences stored in your ROG ID or unlock access to an encrypted Shadow Drive hidden on your computer.
ROG Zephyrus M GU502
The Zephyrus M GU502 15-inch gaming notebook is new for this year. It features an incredibly fast 144Hz1080p display with a three milliseconds response time and super narrow bezels. In this laptop, you will find an Intel Core i7-9750H with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660Ti 6GB DDR6 GPU. It comes with 16GB DDR4 RAM which is expandable up to 32GB. It maintains a slim profile and lightweight build. Zephyrus M can be charged through its USB type-c port using a portable charger or even with a mobile power bank. It has an intelligent cooling system with powerful 83-Blade fans which ensures the best experience each chassis and components. This laptop has been designed to make thin and light gaming available to everyone.
ROG Zephyrus S GX531
The Zephyrus S GX531 is the world’s slimmest gaming laptop. It features a buttery smooth 15.6″ FHD 240Hz display panel with three milliseconds response time to spoil all the gamer out there. The R/L bezels are just 6.5mm thick which gives it an amazing look. This laptop comes with Intel Core i7-9750H CPU. The fully upgraded CPU has 6 cores and 12 threads, which makes it perfect for both work and games.
To boost up its performance, even more, it consists of Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 (Max-Q). It comes with 8GB onboard + 1 x SO-DIMMDDR4 RAM which is expandable up to 24GB. The laptop is also quite lightweight at just 2.1 kilograms. It has the Active Aerodynamic (AAS) cooling system with its dual high-performance 12V anti-dust cooling fans which drive more airflow to cool the laptop. Furthermore, there are also 5 heat pipes and 4 heat sinks with vents for an increased heat dissipating performance.
ROG Zephyrus GX701
The Zephyrus GX701 has a lot to offer in performance as well as the display department. It comes with the new 17″ panel which is not only great for gaming with a 240Hz 3ms response time display, but it also gives content creators an accurately color calibrated display. The thin bezel design is offering 81% screen to body ratio. It is having a 9th Gen Intel Core i7-9750H processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX-2080 GPU (Max-Q) along with 16 GB DDR4 RAM which is expandable up to 32GB. With these features packed in sleek form factor, It is a treat to play games on this machine.
Like the Zephyrus S, it also comes with an Active Aerodynamic System (AAC) to cool down this machine while using. The keyboard is forward positioned like desktop style, As it lowers the temperature of the keyboard surface, it will help while gaming for hours.
ROG G703
The Asus ROG G703 is a little different than the other laptops in the line-up. At first glance, you will notice that this laptop has a beast looking design. Not only the design but this machine has over the top specs as well. It comes with 8th generation i9-9980HK overclockable CPU. Asus claims that they are able to stably overclock the CPU to 4.8GHz scale. As claimed by Asus, it the most powerful laptop for AAA titles. The GPU in this scene is the Nvidia RTX 2080 8GB DDR6. Like the CPU, the GPU is also overclocked to 1855MHz.
To support this top-notch specification, It provides a 17.3″ Anti-glare display. It is having a 144Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time with FHD (1920 x 1080p) IPS LED display panel. The beast has 32GB DDR4 2666MHz SDRAM. In addition, 2.5-inch 2TB Firecuda SSHD as well as 3 slots of M.2PCIEX4 NVME 512 GB SSD (RAID0) slots. In conclusion, This giant has over the top specifications which will not be practical for most of the users but for those who crave for the best, you will love it for sure.
This range of high-end lineups also includes the ASUS STRIX SCAR III, ASUS ROG G531/731. Overall this lineup is going to be a no-go for the budget-friendly gamers out there. As the pricing of these products is not a viable choice for most of them. This range would be mostly upheld by the reviewers and the strong financialists in the market. All of these will be coming in the second half of July 2019.
ASUS has quite a good line up of laptops with the new series of Vivobook series. One such model ASUS Vivobook S14 S406UA which has balanced features. It is pretty lightweight when compared to normal laptops. Let us check out ASUS Vivobook S14 S406UA full review and find out if its worth the money or not. The model which I received had the i5 processor in it. I used this laptop for roughly around 10-12 days for light gaming, heavy work, watching movies etc.
Front top
ASUS Vivobook S14 S406UA full review:
Design – 7.5/10
Sleek design
Touchpad with Fingerprint sensor
Chiclet Keyboard
Heat vents
Heat vents
The laptop has a brushed aluminum finish plastic body to keep the weight to a minimum. I would not say that this is the best premium design I have ever seen, but it doesn’t look that bad too. The plastic quality is decent enough for the chassis. I am not a fan of the brushed design which is present on the top. Though the matte around the keyboard and the dotted print near the keys looks good. Overall the thickness of the laptop reduces as you go from the top(battery) to bottom(touchpad). There is a slot-like space between hinge bar and laptop base. If you look closely, you will find air vents for cooling. The vent is also present at the bottom and I felt that most of the air escapes from the bottom which might get hot if you keep the machine on the lap. The vent placing could have been improved to avoid heating issues at the bottom. It can be unbearable if it comes in contact with skin or while you are wearing a thin clothing. The touchpad is placed at the center just below the keyboard. It is large enough to operate the laptop properly. Keys are well spaced too and the typing experience was good. The laptop weighs just 1.2 kg and is highly convenient to carry at all times. Overall the design of the laptop is decent enough.
Display – 9/10
Display
When you open the lid you will see that the display has thin bezels on the sides, bit thick on the top and the max on the bottom. The bottom part feels quite thick considering the other sides. As soon as you boot the laptop, you will see that the display is very crisp and clear. ASUS Vivobook S14 S406UA comes with an FHD(1920×1080) 14-inch LED-backlit display. It has an anti-glare coating on the display which does work in sunlight to avoid too much light reflections. The viewing angles on the display are good and the display is bright enough to make it work outdoors. One of the major issues with the display lid is that it wobbles while you keep the machine on the lap by opening it to for more than 90 degrees and start typing. This issue is with the hinge design may be. And the other small factor is the large bezel at the bottom which could have been avoided by making the laptop form factor even small. But that is something you can work with. Overall if we only speak about display then it is pretty good.
Connectivity – 8.5/10
Left ports
Right ports
This laptop has pretty much everything if ports are concerned. ASUS Vivobook S14 S406UA has a USB 2.0 port, USB 3.1 type A port, USB type C 3.1 port, micro-HDMI, micro SD card slot, and a 3.5 mm audio jack. It does not have a LAN port given the thickness of the laptop. It has inbuilt Wifi and Bluetooth 4.0 support. The options given for connectivity are sufficient for any normal usage.
Performance – 9/10
ASUS Vivobook is a laptop which is meant for powerful multitasking work and not for gaming as it doesn’t come with a dedicated graphics card from Nvidia or AMD. In terms of processor, it comes in three variants – i3-7100U, i5-8250U, & i7-8550U. I had the i5 processor version which is a quad-core system having a base clock speed of 1.8 GHz and can go up to 3.4 GHz at peak. The machine has 8GB DDR4 RAM and 256/512 GB of SSD storage. Because of the SSD, the performance is quite good along with the operating system boot speed. I tried playing music along with many tabs of Google chrome opened up simultaneously which worked smoothly. It comes with Intel HD/UHD 620 integrated graphics which will help in day to day applications and not particularly meant for heavy gaming. Though I managed to run GTA San Andreas and some other low-graphics game pretty easily. I would say you can try out a few games on this laptop. I had no complaints regarding the laptop performance as such, the only issue was with the heating vents present on the bottom which can get heated up and irritate sometimes. As for the OS, it came with Windows 10 home 64-bit out of the box which worked pretty great.
Below are the results from Geekbench 4 – CPU and Compute Benchmark.
CPU Benchmark
OpenCL Benchmark
Speaking about the keyboard, the keys are spread out as there is no dedicated numpad. The travel distance is around 1.4mm which gives quite nice typing experience. I enjoyed typing on this chiclet keyboard even at night as it comes with backlit keys which surely does help. The touchpad comes with a fingerprint sensor to unlock the laptop, which works pretty good too. Apart from that, the laptop has an HD 720p webcam for video calling.
Sound – 8/10
ASUS Vivobook S406UA Speaker Grill
ASUS Vivobook S14 S406UA comes with 2W stereo speakers from Harman Kardon along with microphone support. The speakers are placed at the bottom, which is a bad place. If you use it on a flat surface like a desk, then the sound output is maximum. But in case you keep it on lap or bed or on a pillow, the sound will get suppressed. The sound quality is amazing and is very crystal clear. Though I felt that the audio level could have been better to match with something like Macbook. Overall the audio experience for movies and games was decent.
Battery – 8.5/10
ASUS Vivobook S406U rear/bottom
ASUS Vivobook S14 S406UA has a 2 cell 39 Wh battery which lasts for about 6 hrs with normal work usage and 4 hrs with music+power usage. The laptop battery will survive based on your usage. I would say that the battery life is decent and considering that it charges quickly – 60% in 1 hr approx. The power adapter is square in shape and pretty compact to easily carry it along with the laptop.
The new ASUS Vivobook S14 S406UA is a laptop that is lightweight, good on performance, has an excellent display and a decent battery life. It is not meant for hardcore gamers but for someone looking to carry it around for multitasking, requiring good performance or to watch movies its a good choice.
Intex had launched this multipurpose car inverter charger which can be used to convert car 12-14V DC battery power to 200V AC power. Now this can be used to plug in chargers of laptops/mac or if need be you can even plug in some light load appliances. This is one amazing device as one can gain benefit of charging laptop inside a moving car(dream come true right!). Apart from that there are some other charging features too. We did a complete review after using the product for a sufficient amount of time. So let us share our Intex car inverter charger full review.
What is an inverter?
Well in terms of electronics an inverter is something that converts direct current DC to alternating current AC. Our phones and laptops normally use chargers to convert AC to DC and then charge on DC power supply. Every car battery is a DC supply of around 12-14V that cannot be directly used to charge our laptops. Now using an inverter we will convert 12-14V DC to 200V AC and then use a charger to again convert it to suitable DC voltage of approx 19V in most cases. So in short apart from mobile charging, you can now charge your tablets and laptops while travelling in a car.
Intex Car Inverter Charger Full Review:
Power rating
PORTS
So Intex Car inverter DC-200 is a highly portable device and has a shape of small dustbin. Well it is shaped more like a cuboidal glass with tapering bottom. The reason behind this is you can easily place it in a glass holder which are already present in most of the cars. On the bottom there is a small fan which keeps the inverter cool enough to shed of some heat. Prolonged usage may lead the inverter to get a bit warm I would say. Also if you try to draw more current then also it will get warm but that is not something to worry about. There is a lid on top of the charger inside which are all the ports that you need. There is a standard 3 pin plug which gives output of around 200V AC when measured. Next there are two USB ports one with 2.4A written over it and other with a Auto range of 0-2.4A. There is not much of a difference as the current will be drawn based on your smartphone. These two usb ports can be used to charge your smartphones. Next you also have a cigaratte lighter slot in case you plan to use it or else you can again plug a car charger inside that. Now to turn things on/off we have a small white toggle switch and a indicator LED(power/fault). The design is great and the build is good too. You get a cable with car charger plug that goes into your car’s cigarrete lighter slot.
Features:
3 Pin AC Plug for laptop chargers and other appliances
2 USB 2.4A ports to charge smartphones
1 car charger slot/cigarrete lighter
To get into some more technicalities, it is 200W rated with 250W max output and that can go up to 500W peak power. The USB ports are rated at 5V 3.4A rated.
Cable with plug
Cable slot
Overall the device is a saviour for people like me who wish to carry their workstation inside a car. Your devices like laptop, smartphone, tablet charged along with some good internet is what you need to spend your life travelling in a car. Never miss client’s call or quick skype meeting if your laptop battery ran off. Also we tried powering Nvidia Jetson board with this and it worked pretty well. Just remember that you don’t plug in any heavy loads and even if you do it by mistake then there is a fuse and overcurrent protection on the inverter. The price of this device Intext DC-200 car inverter charger is around 2750 INR on Flipkart and Amazon. Let me know your views on this amazing car accessory and whether you will go for it or not in the comment section.
The best gaming laptops take on many different appearances, these slimmest laptops are the best ones for gamers which are easy to move, they can enjoy their passion inside out. Gamers will end up loving the deadly combination of the software and the lightest weight. Here are the best 3 light weighted best slimmest gaming laptops 2017:
Best Slimmest Gaming Laptops 2017
ASUS GX501 Zephyrus – The world’s slimmest gaming laptop powered by a 7th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 (Kaby Lake) processor and the latest NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 graphics with Zephyrus features the Windows 10 Creators Update.
The 15.6-inch Zephyrus features an ultra-slim profile and incorporates the ROG-exclusive Active Aerodynamic System (AAS) — a specially designed cooling system. It also features customizable ASUS Aura RGB lighting effects and a super-fast 120Hz panel with wide-view technology, 100 percent sRGB color gamut and NVIDIA G-SYNC™ for breathtaking gaming visuals.
Price – Rs. 2,99,990/- onwards
You are reading: Best Slimmest Gaming Laptops 2017
2. Lenovo Legion Y720 – the gaming laptop features a 15.5-inch Full HD IPS display with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The device is powered by the latest Intel Core i7- i7-7700HQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz) along with NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 graphics card. The laptop is backed by up to 16GB RAM (2x8GB DDR4 2400) and 2TB of internal storage. On the connectivity front, it offers three USB 3.0 ports, Wi-Fi 2×2 AC, Bluetooth 4.1.
The device runs on latest Windows 10 and comes with loaded with HD 720P webcam. It measures 38.0 cm x 27.7 cm x 2.9 cm and weighs 2.95 Kg and offers up to 5 hours of backup.
Price – Rs. 1,49,990/- onwards
3. Acer Predator Helios 300 – The Predator Helios 300 notebook is powered by up to a 7th-gen Intel Core i7 processor, mated with 16GB of DDR4 RAM. The laptop can be configured with either an overclockable NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or 1050Ti graphics processor. The AeroBlade 3D fan inside the notebook keeps it cool while you play graphics-heavy games.
Acer Predator Helios 300 comes with a 15.6-inch full HD IPS display. It offers a 256GB SSD and a 1TB HDD for storage.
Price – Rs. 1,29,999/- onwards
So these were some of the best slimmest gaming laptops 2017. Let me know which one would you go for in the comment section below.
Have you been thinking of buying a new laptop lately? Do latest and pocket-friendly gadgets fascinate you? Then we might just have the best laptop for you, which is none other than – Lenovo Ideapad 310. This newly launched laptop comes with many exciting features at an amazing price range. Not only is it the one sure shot answer to all of the above questions, but it also is, undoubtedly, a better-quality laptop as compared to most of the existing lots in the market. But is it the best? Let’s find out.
Lenovo Ideapad 310:
Lenovo first introduced the Ideapad 310 and Ideapad 510 together. Their launch in the Indian market was done in October 2016. There were also some of the cheap laptops in the same range but this model has some good features too. Let’s now head on to some of the striking features of this laptop.
Lenovo IdeaPad 310 is backed with the latest 7th generation Intel Core i5 7200U processor running on Windows 10 Home Operating System. It comes with 4GB DDR4 RAM. The handy screen size of 15.6 inches which is actually a Full HD IPS Display coupled with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, enhances gaming, surfing, and visual experience. Lenovo Ideapad 310 also has N16V-GMR1 DDR3L Graphics processor and a hard drive space of 1 TB. Not only this, it flaunts a 1 MP webcam with microphone for better video calling and recording experience, Trackpad for scrolling and navigation, and a built-in DVD Drive. The features ensure that you get a never before experience all through the day.
Coming to the price, Lenovo Ideapad 310 is available on Amazon.in at a very reasonable price point of Rs. 46,990 only. If are an HFDC cardholder then with current Amazon HDFC offer you can grab additional 10% cashback. This price is very cheap if we take into consideration the Intel i5 7th Gen processor and other exquisite features of this laptop.Buying from Amazon also gives you a choice to either pay full at the beginning or make use of the no cost EMI offer.
Pros:
Lenovo Ideapad 310 has plenty of features that make it stand out from the rest of the crowd-
The Look- The laptop offers a very clean and simplistic design. The silver-colour adds a touch of sophistication to the laptop and resembles aluminum. The sides, on the other hand, are black and flat. This Black & White contrast gives the notebook a classy retro look.
However, the interior is a different story. Sturdy from top to bottom except at the middle of the keyboard which feels really comfortable with the popular AccuType design, this laptop has got the looks to watch for.
The Cost- Lenovo Ideapad 310 comes at an unbelievable price point of just Rs 46,690. Most other companies do not give such a powerful processor in this range. Even if they do, there is surely a significant compromise made on some other aspect of performance.
Take Lenovo Yoga 510 Notebook, for instance, which is also equipped with the 7th Gen processor, but costs around 13,000 more or Dell Inspiron 500, which has roughly the same specifications as the Ideapad 310, but costs approximately Rs 12,000 more. So, Lenovo Ideapad is very cost-efficient.
The Processor- Equipped with an Intel Core i7-6500U (Skylake) dual-core processor, the Notebook’s CPU offers better than sufficient performance results for its most users. A 2.5 GHz base clock speed, that can be increased to 3 GHz (two cores) or 3.1 GHz (one core), using Turbo, is offered by the processor. The Cinebench R15 test, a tool to compare graphics and performance across various platforms and processors, gives Lenovo Ideapad 310 total 131 points as opposed to the 74 points to Lenovo Ideapad 500 (AMD A10-8700 Processor), proving310 to be a much better performer.
Cons:
Lenovo Ideapad 310, just like everything else in this world, is far from perfect. Here are the factors it needs serious improvement on-
The Screen- Having a glossy screen with a default resolution of 1366×768 pixels, the display of Lenovo Ideapad 310 offers a fairly good contrast of 714:1, but the brightness feels insufficient. Not only this, many instances of PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) flickering at a rate of 50 Hz at 80% or lower brightness levels, has also been observed. The quality of visual also decreases as we change the viewing angles, with the occurrence of contrast shift across the board. Besides, the device also shows flickering at the time of power adapter connection. All of the above factors, on prolonged exposure, may result in headaches and eye problems for users.
The Battery- The battery capacity is on the lower side, at just 30Wh, so that reflects in the performance too. When the Windows power profile is “Balanced”, the notebook is not in power saving mode, and the brightness is set to 150 cd/m², the IdeaPad reaches a run time of just 5:32 h, which is quite an average battery life.
So, is it the best from Lenovo?
The answer is No. Going through the hardware and software configuration of Lenovo Ideapad 310, it can be clearly seen that this notebook is quite budget friendly but performance wise, it is not completely up to the standard of some of its counterparts. In simplest terms, Lenovo Ideapad 310 is okay in most respects. It is good, but certainly not the best. It gives you the latest generation Intel Core i5 processor paired with Intel Integrated Graphics, which can be considered just fine compared to most other alternatives in the market. However, the screen problems and reduced battery life are a problem we just cannot overlook.
Instead, for a few extra bucks, you can always go for the more powerful Lenovo Ideapad 510, with 8 GB RAM and offers great multimedia capabilities. It can better support the 7th Gen Intel Core I5 processor and has a 2 GB Nvidia GeForce Graphic Card to enhance your gaming experience too.
At the end of the day, the Ideapad 510 is a great improvement over 310 in terms of performance, screen quality and extended features. The notebook is available on Amazon.in at an exclusive price point of Rs 59,990 only. Additionally, you can use the available electronics offers to trim down your cost considerably.
Conclusion:
Overall, Lenovo IdeaPad 310 is an amazingly designed yet affordable 15-inch gadget with newer hardware but might not necessarily be future-proof. So if you are planning to buy a laptop with nice features but have a stringent budget window of around Rs 45,000, then you can surely go for this grab. All in all, Lenovo Ideapad 310 is a very sophisticated, stylish yet powerful laptop available in a very reasonable price range, but isn’t still the best from Lenovo.
Laptop battery life gets degraded over time mostly due to overcharging and various other factors. Though some of the people may find this as a myth that overcharging affects battery life. Let me tell you that we have performed some tests and it does affect the battery life. Apart from that laptop battery life is the only thing you will rely on when you have to work on the go. I have seen many laptops with a dead battery so they have to be plugged in like PC all the time. So today I will give you some tips to improve laptop battery life. These tips will help you to last longer with the battery you have.
Tips to improve laptop battery life:
Before starting with the tips let me tell you that every rechargeable battery has a certain number of charge cycles. In simple terms, if your battery has 1000 cycles then you can charge and discharge it only 1000 times. After that, it will not charge or maybe it will hold less current.
1.If possible don’t use your battery
If you have an option of removable battery then I would suggest that you avoid using the battery. I know this may sound like a crazy option but trust me it worked great in my case. That means just plug in the charger and slide the battery out. If you don’t have the issue of power fluctuation then this is the best way to ensure that you don’t waste your battery’s charge cycles. For the first 2-3 years, I practiced this and my battery quality was at excellent(shown by a Sony Vaio utility). But now from the last year, my Laptop is just plugged in all the time and suddenly my battery quality rating is Good. Plus the battery backup has reduced substantially. If you are removing the battery then do ensure that it is not completely empty, charge it till 80% and then keep it aside. You must have seen the laptops showcased at an offline store in malls are often kept without the batteries. Again do it at your own risk, mostly it should not have a negative effect. Also, don’t keep the battery unused for a longer period of time. Plug it in once in a while and use it for some time before removing it again.
2. Calibrate the battery
Sometimes the electronic circuit inside your battery may miss out some values due to prolonged charging. This happens when you don’t let your laptop battery go low. So first fully charge your battery. Then unplug the laptop charger and fully discharge the battery. Keep it discharged for like 2 hours and then again charge it from 0 to 100%. Voila! This is how you calibrate your battery so that it can hold maximum charge possible. Though I will suggest calibrating your battery once in a while and not frequently as draining the battery to 0% often will also decrease the battery life. So always charge your laptop when your battery percent reaches 30%. Do not let it go below 30%.
3. Reduce the heat
Every battery has a range of operating temperature and batteries do not perform well at high temperatures. So if your laptop is getting heated up continuous, then this will affect your battery life gradually. You need to reduce the heat and to do that make sure that your air vents are not blocked. Always use your laptop on a flat surface and not on the bed or pillow. Clean your CPU fan for dust and make sure you apply the heat sink gel timely. You can refer the video below on how to clean CPU fan of any laptop and apply heat sink gel.
4. Avoid overcharging the battery
Many people say that this is a myth, but I know that overcharging will kill your battery gradually. If you don’t believe me, then try overcharging your smartphone the whole night for a month and you will get to know the difference. So never keep your charger plugged-in when your battery is fully charged. As soon as the battery is charged, remove the charger and use the battery backup. If you have an option of removable battery then follow the first tip.
Now we will move on to the tips where you can save battery life and last longer on battery backup. This is the case where the utmost priority is to save battery life in order to use it for a longer time.
5. Reduce brightness/Use dark theme
The first thing that most of you will follow is reducing the screen brightness. I can say that screen will consume most of the battery, so the first priority thing to do is reduce the brightness to the minimum. This will save a hell lot of battery. Try to use the dark theme and dark wallpaper which will also help in saving battery.
6. Disconnect any peripherals
If you have connected any peripherals/accessories which you are not using then remove it – External mouse/keyboard/hard disk etc. They all consume power over the period and will decrease the battery power.
7. Disconnect Wifi/Bluetooth
Disconnect all the wireless connections that are not in use. Switch to ethernet from Wifi if possible as it consumes a lot of battery. Best way is to disable the wifi adapter as it will stop searching for Wifi signals. Also, disable Bluetooth as most of the time we never use it and it is left turned ON.
8. Eject Disc
If you have any CD/DVD inserted in your laptop then remove it after the work is done. Do not keep it inserted as it will use power to rotate the disc at high speed.
9. Reduce the background tasks
Close down all the background tasks that are not in use. There are many applications at the right-hand side of the taskbar which are always running in the background. Make sure you close the unnecessary stuff like torrent client, skype, onedrive/dropbox, any other monitoring utility. Imagine every background task is going through the processor each second for processing and that is consuming power. So multi-tasking is not the greatest way to go with when you have to save the battery.
10. Turn ON the power saving mode
Turn on the power saving mode from the control panel. It will take care of the most of the tips mentioned above. Configure it properly so that it doesn’t affect your normal laptop usage. You can also install additional battery manager software that will help you save and improve battery life.
11. Defragment hard drive
Defragmentation will clear out the dead sectors of the hard drive and will increase the speed of the processing. Things will take less time to load which means low power consumption.
12. Shift to SSD
Buying an SSD will surely improve the battery life as all the mechanical parts are now removed. In the traditional hard drive, there is a mechanical arm plus the magnetic disc which spins at high speed to read the data. They are at motion continuously eating up all the power which is not the case with the analog components present in the SSD. While this option is a costly one, but it will substantially improve the speed of processing and increase battery life.
13. Buy a second battery
There is always an option to carry an extra battery, again if you have a removable battery option. You can always carry an extra battery with you for more power. Alternatively, if there is a bigger/higher capacity battery available for your laptop then you can go with that.
So these were some tips to improve laptop battery life and sustain longer on the battery backup. Using these tips you can ensure a longer life for your laptop’s battery. Trust me you will thank me one day in the case of emergency when your laptop will not give up on you. If you have any doubts regarding the above tips then do post them in the comment section below. Also, if you have any other tips or different views then also you are welcome to share with the rest of us in the comments.
ASUS has launched some great notebooks and tablets in the past and this time, it came up with something much slimer. Well, it gives a head on competition to the MacBook Air. The device we are talking about is the new ASUS UX305FA Zenbook which is one of the thinest ultrabook I have ever reviewed. Let’s do ASUS UX305FA full review and find out if it’s worth buying. Also, this review will test the device for all the features it promises to deliver.
ASUS UX305FA full review
Design and Display – 9/10
The most astonishing feature of the UX305FA is the design with a premium metal look. Let’s start by talking about its thickness i.e. just 1.23 cm and the weight is about 1.2Kg. Well, you can surely imagine how light and slim this ultrabook will feel in your hands. The top of the lid has the concentric circles with an ASUS logo in the center. The looks are not shiny but have a matte finish with not so rounded edges. The body picks up fingerprint quite easily so you may need to clean it to maintain the looks. The layout of the keyboard is very comfortable for typing and the touchpad works just fine. Only the one drawback is keyboard has no backlights, so the newbies might have some issue working late night. The speakers are located at the bottom. On the right, there is the charging port, 1 USB 3.0 port, mini-HDMI port, 3.5mm Audio jack, and some led notification lights for battery. While there are 2 USB 3.0 ports with SDXC card reader slot on the left. Overall the design of the Zenbook looks premium in every aspect.
Top of the LID
Keyboard Layout
Touchpad
Ports on the left
Ports on the right
ASUS UX305FA has a 13.3 inch full HD(1920×1080 pixels) LED display. There is an anti-glare coating on the screen for easy viewing in broad daylight usage. Also, the viewing angles on the ultrabook are great. At first, I thought that it might be a touch display but unfortunately, it wasn’t.
Performance – 6/10
Air Vents
ASUS UX305FA comes with an Intel Core M-5Y10c processor clocked at 998Mhz with a turbo boost up to 2.0 GHz (4M cache). Well here is the part where the ultrabook tends to compromise. The RAM on the device is 4GB with 256GB onboard storage. The performance with these specifications is just average. Though in normal usage the laptop showed no sign of slowing down or lag, but while trying to do some heavy things like gaming or video editing it didn’t last well. So if you have normal usage apart from gaming and video editing then you are definitely good to go. The boot time of this notebook with Windows 8.1 was incredible and it almost took 5-6 seconds to start. With all this said, I would rate the performance as moderate. Now coming to the part of heat generation, all thanks to the M-5y10c processor the ultrabook has passive cooling & doesn’t need a fan to cool itself. The Zenbook comes with Windows 8.1 pre-installed.
Sound and connectivity – 8/10
Ports on the left
Ports on the right
The speakers come with ASUS Sonicmaster technology, which makes the sound clear and moderately loud. You can put on the headsets if you want a better experience of music and movies. In terms of connectivity, ASUS UX305FA comes with 3 USB 3.0 ports which will surely give you high-speed date transfer. You get a USB to Ethernet port adapter to access the Internet via LAN. Don’t worry there are Wifi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0 at your disposal. Lastly, there is a SDXC card reader slot to read write the memory cards from different devices. The camera is a 720p webcam for all your video calling needs.
Battery – 9.5/10
Well the ASUS UX305FA has 3 cell Li-Po battery pack which tends to last 10 hours with Wifi as promised and gives an amazing battery backup. With this ultrabook in your hands, you don’t need to worry about battery issues. The power consumption is much less as compared to the other devices.
Pricing and Availability
The price of ASUS UX305FA is around INR 49,999 approximately and is available on Amazon and Flipkart. The ASUS UX305FA comes in 3 colors viz. silky-smooth Ceramic White, tactile Aurora Metallic, or classic Obsidian Stone.
Verdict
Apart from the performance, ASUS UX305FA aced in all the other features. It is thin, lightweight, comes with a metallic look, full HD display and an amazing battery backup. Comparing it with other ultrabooks in this price segment, the ASUS UX305FA is a very good choice. If you want good performance then I suggest either buy an expensive ultrabook or but a laptop instead. So this was our ASUS UX305FA full review & if you have any doubts please post them in the comment section below.
