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ASUS UX434 Zenbook 4 full review

by with No Comment ASUSLaptopReviews

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.

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Coolpad Cool 3 Plus full review

by with No Comment Reviews

Smartphone market has evolved a lot over the past few years. If you just look at the low budget segment, one would notice lot of difference in the features you get for the price range. One such brand Coolpad has launched a device with some good features at low price point. Its the new Coolpad Cool 3 plus which we got our hands on and took it for a spin. Let us check out what exactly are the features, are they worth it for the price tag. This is a Coolpad Cool 3 Plus full review written after using the phone for few weeks and these are my opinion.

Coolpad Cool 3 Plus Review

Design

Coolpad Cool 3 Plus has a glossy plastic back which ofcourse doesn’t look premium, but still gives a nice touch to it. Now the color which I received was the Ocean blue. Now the color is too shiny and I didn’t enjoy it much. But then I took a opinion of some other people out of which some liked it and some didn’t. So make sure you check the color online before going for any option. When you first hold the device the back does have a plastic finish. The overall grip of the device is good. The device has a bit of compact form factor and you are good to go with one hand use. Overall the phone does seem durable on the insides but can take some damage on the outside. As for the volume rockers and power button are on the right, hybrid sim tray on the left, micro USB port & speaker grill on the bottom and headphone jack on the top. On the rear it has the fingerprint scanner which is still my fav place for it to be. Considering the price range, the design aspects of Coolpad Cool 3 Plus are quite decent.

Display

The device comes with 5.7 inch IPS LCD display. I am not really sure about any additional gorilla glass protection on the display. It has the dewdrop notch for the front camera on the display. Overall touch operation is decent on the device. The backlit works well in medium sunlight. Overall display quality and color reproduction are decent as per the price point.

Performance

Let us start with hardware performance first. The Coolpad Cool 3 Plus comes with a Mediatek Helio A22 quad-core processor clocked at 2.00 GHz. It has two variants in terms of storage – 2GB RAM & 16GB storage, 3GB RAM & 32GB storage. I got the later one, and it worked well in terms of performance. The multitasking was decent and the overall usage was good. As for the graphics and gaming requirements the device comes with Power VR GE8300 GPU. It can run basic games giving you entertainment at low budget too. You can always try running mid level or high-level games by lowering graphics on these low budget smartphones to get less latency and frame drops. I won’t promise anything to the hardcore gamers here as this is a smartphone in lower budget segment. Overall hardware performance is again decent. In terms of software, the Coolpad Cool 3 plus comes with Android Pie with 360OS on top of it. The operating system works smooth on the hardware that comes with this device. There are some third party apps that comes with the device which can be removed if desired.

Camera

Coolpad Cool 3 Plus has a 13MP rear shooter with LED flash. It has the 8MP front camera with dew drop notch. Now as for the rear camera, it takes decent snaps in daylight. Though the dynamic range is average as it makes dark spots more darker and over exposed bright spots. In the low light is struggles to take a good picture. Also indoors or in low light, make sure to be very stable while taking pictures as the camera will give some blurry image. The selfies are a bit of average even in the daylight. Overall there is nothing too attractive about the camera here.

Sound and Connectivity

The speakers of the Coolpad Cool 3 plus are on the button which give some decent clear sound output. As for the connectivity you get Wifi, bluetooth, GPS etc which are pretty normal to be found in every device. As for the SIM card, its a hybrid slot, so either SIM or expandable memory card. I think adding memory through an external card would slow down the performance of the device. You still have the 3.5mm audio jack available and micro USB slot for charging.

Battery

The device comes with a 3000 mAh battery. It would last a day if you would want that. For power users who would do lot of gaming, the device won’t last the whole day. As for the charging you get a compact charger of 5W rating. The current is quite less in this case so the charging takes about 2.5 hrs to full charge.

Price

The 2GB RAM with 16GB storage is available for Rs. 5,999 and the 3GB RAM with 32GB storage is available for Rs. 6,499. You can available some discount offers while doing shopping online.

Verdict

Overall the Coolpad Cool 3 Plus is a decent device for its price range. The display, build, and battery are decent. I won’t say expect everything from a low budget, but you can always go for the competitor Xiaomi with some Redmi series smartphone or pay some extra bucks and Realme smartphones.

 

ASUS ROG GX531

ASUS launches new gaming laptops 2019

by with No Comment ASUSGamesLaptopTechnewz

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 with  9th 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 with  12 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 having  15″ 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 144Hz  1080p 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-DIMM  DDR4 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.2  PCIEX4 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.

Is GOQii RUN GPS worth buying

Is GOQii RUN GPS worth buying – Inbuilt GPS

by with No Comment Fitness bandReviews

We are part of that era where everything is getting smarter day by day. We are surrounded by all the smart tech may it be smartphones, smart TV, smart classrooms and even we have got smart e-toilets. In this chaos of smart gadgets, one of the products that we got our hands on was GOQii RUN GPS. Once you buy this product all you need to do is configure it with your smartphone and track your daily activities with the help of there GOQii App. We always try to track our workout or our morning walks stats, but we can’t do it verbally or manually. Now we have a solution to that problem. GOQii RUN GPS helps you to monitor your heart rate, your calories burned throughout the day, it also monitors your different activities such as Walking, Running, Workout, Cycling. The best part about buying this fitness band is that you get free 3 months subscription of the premium feature of the GOQii app in which you get a Coach who trains you according to your health need, You get access to health expert and doctor which helps you with your diet and supplements. Despite all these features let us see is GOQii RUN GPS worth buying?

Is GOQii RUN GPS worth buying?

Is GOQii RUN GPS worth buying

GOQii RUN GPS fitness band

GOQii RUN GPS full review

I’ve been using this band from the last couple of week and this is my opinion about the GOQii RUN GPS, so lets us talk about the design aspect first.

Design

 

GOQii RUN GPS is not as slim as the other band available in the market. It is because of the inbuilt GPS tracker installed in the band which makes the band slightly thicker by 0.5 mm – 0.6 mm compared to other brands in that segment. Despite all the extra width added to the band, it still weighs less compared to others. You get regular silicon rubber strap which gives you a comfortable wearing experience. You get an O-LED multi-color display which makes the readings visible even in the direct sunlight.

You are reading: Is GOQii RUN GPS worth buying

Performance

Here’s the list of features provided by GOQii RUN GPS:

  • GPS Tracking: This is the most unique feature of the band as it comes with inbuilt GPS. Now to activate it make sure the GPS file is updated using the app. Next go to track mode and select the activity you are doing, it will ask you to toggle gps on/off. Once you activate it, it will take time to acquire your position. After it has acquired the position, you can start the activity of running/jogging. After you are all done, just sync the band again with the smartphone to know the route you travelled. This way your smartphone GPS is not used, thus it saves the battery.
  • Time:- The GOQii band provides time, date, day & battery level on the first screen. But you cannot customize the Home screen/Front screen of the band.
  • Step Counts:- The band provides pretty accurate steps counts, but the only drawback is that when you shake your hands or do off-roading where your hand tends to shake a bit, it will also be counted as steps. So the total step count might not be the most accurate. This is a problem with other bands too. So make sure that whenever you want it to matter, just check the current steps count before starting your walking activity.
  • Online Coach & Health Expert:- In your 3 months free subscription to the app you get online coach which helps you to prepare your diet plan according to your body/target, regular followup calls arranged every week to check the progress, and some online training/guidance live stream interactive videos! This is one of the most important features of this specific band which makes it the USP. You can always renew your membership to continue availing the benefits.
  • Online Doctor:- In that 3-month subscription, you also get an online doctor facility in which you can discuss your health problems and cure them with their help.
  • Run Tracking:- In track mode, we get different options, one of them is Run Tracking mode. With the help of GPS, the band tracks our progress i.e. distance traveled, calories burned, heart rate monitoring and few other things.
  • Heart Rate:- Heart rate feature helps us to monitor our heart rate and it gives the runtime heartbeats value, whereas in other bands we get the average value of 1 minute.
  • Exercise:- In Exercise tracking mode we can track the time of workout, Calories burnt, average heart rate during a workout, maximum and minimum heartbeats during the workout.
  • Notification:- When you connect your band with Bluetooth you can also get notification of calls, Whatsapp, FaceBook, messages, and other notification services on your band which makes it easy to see a notification.
  • USB Charger:- There is no special charger for this Band. To charge your band all you need is to remove the strap, plug the device in any USB adapter and the band will start charging.
  • Sleep Monitor:- Sleep monitor feature on this band helps you to monitor your sleep, and give you the accurate sleeping pattern.
  • Alarm – One can set an alarm in the band with the help of the app. The band vibrates at the time set by the user.
  • Battery life – 7 days depending on your usage. It takes about 45 Min – 1 hr for a full charge. But if we use it daily for tracking or exercise or running especially the GPS feature, then the battery won’t last that long.

 

The best feature which I liked about this band is the online coach and doctor support which I personally feel is very useful. Bands light is always dim but wakes up when you lift the band which according to me is a good feature. Another feature which the band provides is that you can search your phone through your band and vice versa only if the band is connected to the phone via Bluetooth. The band is priced at Rs.4999 INR which according to me is slightly costly. But as the band provides the Online coach and doctor subscription for three months it justifies the price. There are other bands with the same/similar features below this price range, but the online coaching/training stands out and takes a step ahead in this fitness world! This keeps you motivated towards your health.

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AQFIT M2 Smart Fitness Band Full Review

by with No Comment ReviewsTechnewz

AQFIT is a fitness brand that has various products which can help you keep track of your fitness. One of the products that we got our hands on was the AQFIT M2 smart fitness band. It can be used instead of using a normal wristwatch. This AQFIT M2 smart fitness band will show you time, date, day along with other things like step count, distance, calories burnt and much more. These fitness bands take various parameters while quantifying your activities and fitness throughout the day. So let us check out all the features of this band and take it for a review to check if it is worth buying or not.

AQFIT M2 Smart Fitness Band Full Review

Let us start with the design aspect and then move on to the performance and features of the AQFIT M2 smart fitness band. I have used this band for 2 weeks now and I am sharing my opinion about the same.

Design

The AQFIT M2 smart fitness band has a slim body with OLED display on the front. The touch is only supported at the bottom of the display, and you can tap it to navigate it through various options. On the back is the sensor to monitor various heart and blood-related parameters. The band has rubber straps which can be removed to expose the charging USB connection. You can directly plug this band to the USB wall charger or power bank without any need of charging cable. You also get an extra red colored strap which looks pretty cool as well. The band is IP67 waterproof so don’t hesitate to use it while doing heavy sports activity or in the rain as well. The current display is good, but they could have improved it a bit to match it with Honor band 3 but then they have a different product – B2 band that does the job well.

Performance

Here is the list of features provided by AQFIT M2 band:

  • Time – The M2 band provides time, date, day & battery level on the first screen. You can always change the look of the whole thing using the options menu in the band.
  • Steps count – The M2 band provides quite an accurate reading of steps you walked the whole day.
  • Distance covered – On the third screen you can check out how much distance did you cover throughout the day. It is a good parameter to check if you are concerned about health.
  • Calories Burned – Next is the measure of calories burned throughout the day doing various activities. Please note that you change the band mode according to the activity performed. This will help keep proper track of the calories burned.
  • Pulse rate and Blood Oxygen – As the band has a heart rate sensor, it will show you the pulse count per minute. Now the most interesting thing is, M2 band can show you the blood oxygen level in percentage. Anything above 95% is good for a normal person.
  • Blood Pressure – Again a feature which is not seen in many bands out in the market. M2 band shows you the current blood pressure – both systolic and diastolic.
  • Sleep – You can wear the band whole night to know your sleep pattern. It will show you how much time you were in deep sleep and light sleep. This helps you to check if you are enjoying a sound sleep or not. For this, you will need to connect the band with App to check sleep pattern. Also, the app needs to know your daily sleep schedule.
  • Alarm – One can set an alarm in the band with the help of the app. The band vibrates at the time set by user.
  • App notifications – One can get notifications from Whatsapp, Facebook or Call alerts too when connected with the smartphone. It shows some details about the notifications on the band screen itself.
  • Camera mode – When in camera mode in the app, you can just shake the wrist to take a picture.
  • Stopwatch – The band has a built-in feature for stopwatch if you want to measure any specific sports activity in terms of time.
  • Sport type – The band has sport type modes as running, cycling, & workout.
  • Battery life – 7 days depending on your usage. Takes about 1-1.5 hrs for a full charge.

One of the smart features about this band is, you can lift the wrist to activate the screen and check the time. Apart from this, you can also search for the phone by triggering a ring from the band or find the band by making it vibrate from the app. This is a very useful feature in case you are not able to find the smartphone or the band. But make sure the two are connected by Bluetooth. I guess this band has most features covered. I would say the band shows a quite accurate pulse rate and oxygen but about the blood pressure, it might not be 100% accurate. For pulse rate, I did check with other devices that doctors used and they were very close. Make sure you wear the band a bit tight to get the best results. The M2 band is priced at 2,499 INR but you can get it for 2,000 INR with offers going on Flipkart or Amazon. The band is well priced though I feel a bit of price drop will help it compete with other brands.

ASUS TUF FX505 design

ASUS TUF FX505 gaming laptop review

by with No Comment ASUSGamesReviewsTechnewz

ASUS has quite a long range of gaming laptops in the ROG series. Mostly the ROG laptops cost a bit higher but with the new TUF series laptops, they might fit into your budget. One such laptop is the ASUS TUF FX505 which is the sucessor to the FX504. So let us check out the laptop review and if it offers good performance at low price.

ASUS TUF FX505 gaming laptop review:

Design

ASUS laptops have some really tough builds and some great looks. With the TUF series in the market the design has changed a bit from the outside. The ASUS TUF FX505 has some grooves cut out at all four corners. The design is quite good considering its a gaming laptop. The chassis is made out of hard plastic and is of good quality. The keyboard base can be pressed if applied some pressure, but it doesn’t bother much while gaming. The screen has got some flex if you apply some real pressure to twist it. The laptop has brushed texture on the outside lid and inside of the laptop too. There are air vents on the right, back, and at the bottom of the laptop. The typing experience on the keyboard is just great. The WASD keys are transparent. The trackpad works in a decent manner too. The laptop weighs around 2.3 kg. As for the ports goes you have power jack, gigabit ethernet port, HDMI, USB 2.0, 2 USB 3.1, audio-microphone jack all placed on the left hand side. If you are a right-handed person then you can play games without getting issues from all the cables. On the left and right side are the speakers. Overall the build and design of FX505 laptop is good.

Display

The FX505 has a very thin bezel display on the sides. It sports a 15.6-inch Led Backlit FHD anti-glare display which comes in two refresh rates options of 60Hz & 144Hz. Getting a 144Hz display in some budget gaming laptop is a good sign. The viewing angles of the display are just great, and the color reproduction is quite good. You can adjust the brightness directly from the keyboard itself. Overall the display is pretty good for gaming, watching movies etc.

Performance

Coming to the core part of any gaming laptop – the FX505 comes in two processor variants – the i7-8750H clocked at 2.2 GHz and the i5-8300H clocked at 2.3 GHz. I got the i7 model for review. As for RAM, it comes with 8GB of DDR4 2666MHz one, and you have two slots for expansion that can go up to 32GB dual channel. For storage, you have 1 TB of SATA HDD(FireCuda) and a 256GB SATA 3.0 M.2 SSD. Decent specifications which are expandable in terms of memory. Overall this config did work great in normal use cases like heavy multi-tasking work and loading heavy software. The boot time with Windows 10 OS was short which is good. I liked the typing experience on this laptop very much due to the proper spacing and the key feedback. Talking about the graphics, one has two variant- the first one with 4 GB of NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti & the other with 6GB of NVIDIA GTX 1060. The graphics performance for gaming is kind of average I would say. Now the reason being, you can play most games smoothly at medium settings, some with good experience at ultra settings too. But there are times where FPS would really matter and you need to lower the graphics settings to achieve it. The laptop makes sound like any other gaming laptop while heavy gaming and in silent mode, you can still hear the fan a bit. The temperatures do rise while gaming, but its nothing too hot that you can’t handle. The laptop gets a bit warm from the center and prolonged use may cause some heat touching your right hand as the vent is on right-hand side too. The copper heat sink pipes are shared between the CPU & GPU. I would say, overall cooling system could have been improved. The overall gaming experience is pretty decent.

Sound & Connectivity

As you can see there are three USB ports – one 2.0 port and other two 3.1 ports. You have a port for HDMI and a highspeed ethernet port too. Normal Wifi & Bluetooth connections work in a decent manner while using gaming accessories. As for sound you have 2 speakers and the placement is something which gives decent audio output. I wouldn’t say it is loud, but decent for a normal gaming laptop.

Battery:

ASUS FX505 comes with a 3 cell 48Wh battery that will last for around 1 hr for gaming and 3.5-4 hrs for video playback when there are no background apps & keyboard backlit is off too. You can use NVIDIA settings to save battery for a longer duration. The laptop could have lasted more on battery. One common issues is drop in FPS while playing games over battery.

Price

ASUS TUF FX505 is priced at Rs. 76,390 for the i5 variant & Rs.88,990 for the i7 variant on Amazon India website. As for the GTX 1060 variant the price is Rs. 1,19,990 on Flipkart.

To sum it up, the FX505 has a great design, good display, decent gaming performance with an average battery. To get the best gaming performance for no framedrops, one might need to adjust the graphics settings accordingly. Let us know if you would go for this laptop or not in the comment section below. We would love to solve any queries or doubts regarding the review.

Zenfone Max Pro M2 Featured

ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2 full review

by with No Comment ASUSReviews

Lately, there has been a lot of tough competition in the budget segment of smartphones. Companies like Xiaomi, Realme, ASUS, Huawei – Honor series etc are offering some real power packed features in budget price. Recently we got our hands on the latest ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2. As the Max series has developed over the past few years, it is not just battery life but also the improvements in performance and other features. So let us do a full review to find out if ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2 is worth buying or not.

ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2 full review:

Let us try to keep the review very precise and to the point while covering all the parameters. I had used the device for 2 weeks as my primary smartphone to experience the pros and cons.

Design

ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2 is sufficiently smart and slim considering the large battery pack it offers. I remember the old bulky Zenfone Max devices, while the M2 is nothing like those. It is stylish and looks premium for that matter. It is mostly because of the plastic polished back which gives a feel of glass along with the wave design. The micro USB port, headphone jack, and speaker are on the bottom while the volume rockers and power button on the right. On the left, there is the sim card & microSD card slot with noise cancellation microphone on the top. The smartphone has thin bezels on the left & right side with some really thick strip on the bottom. The notch is small compared to other devices. The device has curved side edges due to which grip is good but can be slippery with wet hands or on a smooth surface. You get a silicon transparent case with the device which helps to improve the grip. Overall the design of the smartphone is premium and slim.

Display

Zenfone Max Pro M2 has a 6.26-inch FHD+ display having an aspect ratio of 19:9. The display is crisp and the color reproduction is good. Overall display quality is great and touch experience is good too in day to day use. As for the protection, the display comes with a Corning Gorilla Glass 6 protection. I tried dropping the device quite a few times and from a different height, but it survived every time that too without a protective case. Though the protruding rear camera might take some of the hits. The smartphone can be used in broad daylight too, the only problem is if you watch a movie and some dark scene comes in, then it would be difficult to see in sunlight. The notch is also small so the notification icons fit in at the top. The bottom bezel could have been thinner. Overall the display of ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2 is good.

Performance

Starting with the hardware, ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2 packs in a Snapdragon 660 chipset with an octa-core processor. It is a power efficient chipset with AI engine feature. In support of that, the device has 3/4/6 GB RAM options with 32/64 GB internal storage. Apart from internal storage, there is a dedicated microSD card slot that supports up to 2 TB. This is a useful feature in expanding storage. So this combination easily handles all the day to day apps, multi-tasking, app-switching and gives you a really smooth performance. Coming to the gaming section, the device has Adreno 512 GPU which handles gaming pretty well. Normal games run smoothly on high settings, while games like PUBG can run without much of lag in medium settings. I was able to try out many games on this smartphone and it could run most of them without a problem. Though this is not an ideal gamers device, though it handles gaming pretty well. Talking about the fingerprint sensor, it worked really well but the facial recognition still needs a lot of improvement in terms of speed.

Coming to the software, Zenfone Max Pro M2 runs on stock Android oreo, but ASUS has surely promised a Pie update soon enough. The stock UI is great, but it still has some preinstalled apps. Overall there was not much complain on the software end.

Camera

ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2 has a 12MP + 5MP rear shooter with a 13MP front camera. Talking about the rear camera, it ha Sony IMX486 image sensor which is surely good in hardware terms. The software could have utilized the sensor in a better way though. The rear camera has good color reproduction as compared to the front camera. In the front camera, the colors appeared a bit washed off. The bokeh effect could have better captured the edges in a much better way. The outdoor daylight photography is great with the rear camera. With the Snapdragon 660, Zenfone Max Pro M2 can capture 4K recordings at 30 fps. The EIS does work to clear out the shaking of the video. I tried installing GCAM and found that the selfies improved a lot in terms of color reproduction and sharpness. Low light photography with default ASUS camera app is good too with the F1.8 aperture but improves if GCAM is used.

Camera Samples from ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2

Connectivity & Sound

As for the connectivity, you have a triple slot SIM card & microSD tray. Both the SIM card slots support 4G LTE and VoLTE bands. Other common connectivity options like Wifi 2.4GHz, Bluetooth 5.0, & GPS are present. One problem I faced while speaking over call was the low voice which was probably because of the silicon case provided with the device. When I removed the case, other person was able to hear me loud and clear. It might be the case that the microphone was getting blocked due to the case.

As for the sound, ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2 has a 5 magnet speaker powered by NXP smartAMP which does its job in the best possible way. The speaker is really good on the Max Pro M2 and the sound is loud & clear.

Battery

ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2 sports a massive 5000 mAh battery which lasts for 1.5-2 days of usage. For a very powerful user like me using Wifi or 4G at all times with some GPS, video playback, Bluetooth music streaming, & loads of calls it lasted for more than 1 day and even 1.5 days for that matter. Even while gaming you will experience that this battery is really amazing. Though I did feel that the charging speed could have been better. In this age of Type C and fast charging, ASUS should really see to adopting fast charging tech especially for the Max series devices with massive battery packs. The charger is the same old micro USB port with a 5V 2A power rating.

Price

The ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M2 is Rs. 9,999 for 3GB/32GB, Rs. 11,999 for 4GB/64GB, & Rs. 13,999 for 6GB/64GB variant. The device is available in Titanium & blue color. The pricing got cut with the new Redmi Note 7 entering the market.

Overall the Zenfone Max Pro M2 is a combination of all the features packed in one device. I would say it is a good device to grab out there with the battery being the core followed by design, performance, & sound.

 

HyperX Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse review

HyperX Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse review

by with No Comment GamesMouseReviews

HyperX is a brand famous in the world of gaming for its accessories and gaming gears. They have quite a few gaming keyboards and mouse available in the market. We got our hands on HyperX Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse. We tried using the mouse in different scenarios apart from gaming too. So here is a quick review of HyperX Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse. The pros and cons of the mouse will help you decide if you should go for this mouse or not.

HyperX Pulsefire FPS Gaming Mouse Review:

HyperX Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse review

We will divide the review into two major sections – the first being design, and the second will be the performance.

Design

HyperX Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse review

HyperX Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse has a premium plastic body. On the left and right-hand side are rubber pads for a better grip while gaming. The rubber pads have some really great texture for good grip. The mouse is pretty large considering the width. Despite this fact, the Pulsefire FPS weighs only 95g and is a real light-weight deal which is good. It has a HyperX logo on the front-bottom with some LED glow. The mouse has a six-button design – left, right, scroll button, DPI button, & 2 side buttons. The DPI button and scroll wheel also have LED lights. The skates on the bottom are large for easy gliding of the mouse while gaming. The only issue which I felt was the improper curves on the mouse. When you try to lift the mouse, it slowly slides down. So if you are keeping the DPI lower and you need to lift the mouse again & again, then the overall grip would change and you will need to re-position. This might not happen very frequently but it might affect when the time-frame is really short. To avoid this, you might need to have a tighter grip on the mouse while things get intense. The cable of the mouse is braided with black as the base color and some red spiral design.

Performance and other features

HyperX Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse review

As the name suggests Pulsefire FPS, this mouse was meant to be really precise while gaming. In the first person shooting games, you need high-precision and accuracy to aim and fire. All the precision magic happens inside the Pixart 3310 optical sensor. It works great and with medium to lower DPI, you can really move pixel by pixel with no added acceleration. There are 4 preset DPI values set at 400(white), 800(red), 1600(blue) & 3200(yellow) which can be set by pressing the DPI button indicated by the LED light. 3200 DPI is quite nice and sufficient for gaming and other needs as above that, the pointer is not really in your control. One drawback is that there is no dedicated software to configure the functions of this gaming mouse. One needs to set the functions of buttons and change other settings in the gaming menu itself. The other highlight of the mouse is the Omron switches which will really last long. They have some amazing crisp tactile feedback. Overall gaming performance for this mouse was great. I tried playing many FPS games with this and the experience was good.

HyperX Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse review

Price & availability:

The HyperX Pulsefire FPS is available for Rs. 3200 on Amazon and Rs. 3549 on Flipkart.

To sum it up, HyperX Pulsefire FPS is a great mouse for precision and the buttons are great too. The only minor thing which could have made it better is a software support for configuration. Though you always have the DPI button to change the settings quickly. Here are some alternatives to compare – Razor DeathAdder or Puslefire core or cheaper alternative Logitech G402. Do let me know if you have any doubts in the comment section below.

ASUS ROG Strix II

ASUS ROG STRIX II GL504 review | Benchmark

by with No Comment ASUSGamesReviewsTechnewz

ASUS has made a lot of gaming laptops till now, but the one we are reviewing today can be one of the best in terms of design. ROG series laptops are specially built for gamers keeping all the parameters in mind. Today we have ASUS ROG STRIX II GL504 gaming laptop for review. As I said, it was built considering the design aspect in mind. So let us take it for a spin and find out if its really a worthy gaming laptop or not.

 

ASUS ROG Strix II GL504 review

Design: 9/10

We will start with the key point of the laptop which is design. ASUS ROG STRIX II has a very compact build considering its a gaming laptop. The chassis is all made out of plastic – good quality one. This helps keep the weight of the laptop in check. There is some camel print design on the laptop which doesn’t look that impressive as compared to other designs available in ROG laptop. Some might like it, but I didn’t. The hinges are really good such that it stays at once place in any position. One can lift the screen with one hand, so the laptop has good weight on the bottom side too. On the top of the plastic lid, it has brushed metal-like finish with the glowing ROG logo. It looks pretty cool to see the ROG logo shining in the dark with all the breathing RGB led. One of the most attractive thing on the laptop is the RGB LED strip on the front edge. The keyboard is all RGB too, with see-through WASD keys. Overall the build quality and design of the laptop is great and you will have no complaints in terms of design.

Connectivity: 9/10

Most of the ports are on the left side of the laptop, giving you enough room to keep the mouse without any tangled wire issues. On the left, you have the power jack, RJ45-LAN port, mini-display port, HDMI, 2 USB 3.1, USB 3.1 type-C, and the 3.5mm audio jack. On the right-hand side is the USB 3.1, SD card reader, & Kensington lock.

Display: 9/10

When you first lift the lid, you will notice that the display has little bezels on left-right & top. On the bottom, it has a thick strip where you can again find the shiny ROG logo. To adjust the height of the bottom, they had to keep the thick bezel. The display on ASUS ROG Strix II has a 144 Hz refresh rate with 3 ms response time. It is very fast in terms of response time as you don’t want any lag in terms of gaming. Its a great full HD display on the ROG Strix II which is best suited for hardcore gamers where every frame matters.

Performance

The model of ASUS ROG Strix II that I received came with Intel i7-8750H latest processor. It had 16GB of RAM clocked at 2666 MHz. As for the storage, it had 256GB of SSD and 1 TB of SSHD. The SSD is enough to have the operating system and some games for quick loading, rest can easily go in the SSHD. The specs for processor, memory, & storage are well suited for any heavy editing or multitasking work. Coming to the key parameter which is the GPU, ROG Strix II comes with 6 GB of NVIDIA GTX 1060 GDDR5. You can play almost all the games on high settings to get decent FPS. Dual fans inside the laptop keeps the laptop all cooled down while gaming, though they may make some noise while running. The wents are on the back end, front-top and on the right side. I had no issues as I was all plugged in while playing games. So I guess fan noise doesn’t matter much while gaming, does it?

As for the in-game testing, we tested the laptop with Rise of Tomb Raider. Here are the scores that we got with the in-game benchmarking tool.

Also for heavy graphics intensive games like Witcher III we got around 60-70 FPS on an average. I disconnected the power source from the laptop and ran it on battery power to find out that FPS dropped and after a point, I could feel the lag. So keep in mind that, to get optimum performance you will have to always keep the laptop plugged in. Overall in terms of gaming, I had no complaints and the gameplay experience was great.

Sound

ASUS ROG Strix II have 2 speakers of 1W each. The speakers are not that impressive in terms of audio quality. The sharpness in the sound especially for the high notes was missing. Different audio types in a game were not played to perfection. This is one segment where the ROG Strix II could have improved.

Battery

As for normal surfing and working, the battery will last for around 3.5 hrs. This is kind of below average battery life for a normal battery. Something over 4 hrs could have been a great thing for this kind of laptop. Gaming over battery creates an issue with the gameplay as it lags and frame drops appear. So I won’t suggest playing many heavy games on battery power.

Overall the ASUS ROG Strix II laptop is good in terms of design, display, performance and somewhat in cooling too. But it still can improve in battery and sound. As for the price goes, the laptop is priced at 1.42 lakhs on Amazon. You have all the parameters laid out in front of you, so you can decide which one to weigh more and accordingly conclude. If you leave the sound & battery thing, then you can go for this stylish powerful laptop.

 

HyperX alloy elite RGB gaming keyboard

Is HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard worth buying?

by with One Comment GamesGaming PCReviews

HyperX is a company famous for making some really great gaming gears and accessories. Their products normally are a sign of good quality. We got to play with the HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard. Which is one of the premium keyboards, with great features. As normally the prices for the gaming keyboards are higher than normal ones, we are finding out, is HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard worth buying or not. I will try to keep the review simple, short and precise. It is based on my 2-3 weeks of usage over gaming and typing.

Is HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard worth buying?

Is HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard worth buying?

Is HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard worth buying?

Design

 

To start with, HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard is a mechanical one. You can remove each key-cap individually with the key-cap removal tool. The keyboard is made up of all plastic except the top bar which is metal – steel and gives the keyboard some weight. The design of the keyboard looks premium with all the RGB lighting. The keys have a kind of sharp edge to give better control. You have the linear-shaped backspace and enter key. One gets a wrist rest along with the keyboard, which is really hard to miss if you don’t check the box properly. The first week I ended up playing games without wrist rest. The wrist rest has a nice texture which gives a good grip. Again in terms of the plastic and rubber used, it is quite good. The keyboard has some special keys on top left and right. On the left, you have keys for brightness level, game mode, & lighting effects. On the right are the media playback keys along with a wheel for volume control. The wheel has linear groovings to give it a grip while rotating it. The wrist rest can be snapped easily to the keyboard. Apart from RGB lights on the keys, the keyboard has a light bar above the normal keys and below the special keys. It also has a USB 2.0 port to connect the mouse or other media devices. The cable for the keyboard is long, thick braided and has 2 USB jacks to power and support data. Overall the keyboard has a very premium finish in terms of looks considering the price and the fact that it’s meant for gaming. So is HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard worth buying in terms of looks? Well, I think so yes, keeping in mind the design and build of the keyboard.

Is HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard worth buying?

Features

Normally people would think that what kind of features a keyboard can have as it is itself an accessory. Well, HyperX has gone deep into researching the gaming experience to make some of the best gears and accessories for the same. To start with, they have directly integrated the famous Cherry MX keys into the HyperX alloy elite mechanical gaming keyboard. So HyperX hasn’t gone into inventing their own tech for the keys, instead introduced an already great tech for gaming in their keyboards. We all know how Cherry MX mechanical keys do justice be it gaming or typing. So I got the Red Cherry MX keys for the HyperX alloy Elite keyboard. The red gives you the least resistance while pressing the key. As it is mechanical Cherry MX keys, the height of the keys is good, so is the travel. As there is the least resistance, one can easily press the keys without making much of a sound. The precision is good as the response from the key press is pretty fast, as it captures it before the keys hit the bottom. I tried playing some action games, some racing ones, and some fighting games too. Overall the experience to play games using this keyboards was really great. Though if you consider typing, then you might need some time to adjust to this keyboard. Also, there is no tactile feedback, so one can go for brown one to balance gaming and typing. The blue ones have the max tactile feedback which is specially meant for typing work with some real key-press noise.

The keyboard has some really great color patterns which make the whole keyboard alive. It feels like the keyboard is reacting to your keypress and breathing. Using the software you can make your own modes and feed it to the keyboard memory, so it doesn’t get reset when turned off. I just love the brightness and modes of RGB color on this keyboard. As for the keypress precision, the keys have anti-ghosting feature and N-key rollover functionality. This means that each keypress gets registered individually irrespective of the others. You also get 8 extra keys – W,A,S,D,1,2,3,4 with some solid metal mesh-like pattern. This helps gamers to quickly get hands on those keys with the touch of the finger.

Pricing

The HyperX alloy elite gaming keyboard is priced for around 12,900 INR for blue and 15,717 INR for brown, red on Amazon. The prices go down heavily on sales so keep the links handy.

Verdict

The HyperX company is famous to make products which are durable, have some great quality and features. To answer the question is HyperX alloy elite gaming keyboard worth buying? So if you are looking for some really great gaming keyboard, then HyperX alloy elite RGB can really be a great choice if you compare it with near competitors. The precision is great, the design is good, and the quality too. There is no argument when Cherry MX is in picture. It’s more of like connecting with the gaming experience through the keyboard as a medium. Do let me know your views on this review.