Tech2 Touch

Category: Laptops

  • Asus VivoBook 15 (X505Z) Review-Pros and Cons

    There are very few good laptops in the budget of around 35k. Asus VivoBook 15 (X505Z) is aimed to fill that void. It has modern stylish design and good internals. The base variant is priced at Rs.30,999 and the top variant is priced at Rs.35,990. Here is our Asus VivoBook 15 (X505Z) review with pros and cons.

    Asus VivoBook 15 (X505Z) Review

    This review is based on the Asus VivoBook 15 (X505Z) variant which has following specification.

    • 15.6-inch FHD anti glare display screen.
    • AMD Ryzen 5 2500U processor with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx graphics.
    • 8GB RAM and 1TB of hard disc.
    • Windows 10.

    Design

    VivoBook 15(X505z) is smaller in size compared to most of the 15 inch laptops. It is relatively slim and lightweight. It has thickness of 18.9 mm and weighs around 1.6 Kg. This makes it easy to carry and never feels too bulky. Asus has not done any compromise on the ports. It has two USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 (both Type-A), a USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen1) port, HDMI, a headphone and microphone combo port, Gigabit Ethernet, and a full-sized SD card slot.

    Display

    The Asus VivoBook 15(X505z) sports 15.6 inch LED-back-lit FHD (1920 x 1080) 60Hz Anti-Glare Panel with 45% NTSC. The viewing angles, Brightness are good considering the price. Overall with narrow bezel display provide good for watching movies and for gaming.

    Performance and Battery life

    VivoBook 15 comes in two variants. One comes with Ryzen 3  and the other one with Ryzen 5. There is difference in RAM and storage as well.

    My review unit is the top end variant which has Ryzen 5 2500U processor, 8GB RAM and 1TB storage. There is one free RAM slot available. User can upgrade the RAM upto 16GB.

    This laptop is powerful enough to do most of the regular work such as streaming videos from Youtube, Netflix, editing documents and playing light games. Wi-Fi 802.11ac with 2×2 MIMO antennas is added advantage.

    The stereo speakers are decent. It is loud. But quality is not great. Coming to battery life, for my usage it lasted around 4 hours. There is fast charging option as well. As per the claims it charges the battery 60% in just 49 minutes. In my usage, I got very close result to this.

    Keyboard and Touchpad

    The keyboard on VivoBook 15(X505z ) is good. Keys are large and layout is decent. The keys has decent travel as well. Lack of LED indicator for Caps Lock is a drawback. Overall the keyboard provides good typing experience. The Touchpad is responsive and fairly accurate.

    Asus VivoBook 15 (X505Z) Pros and Cons

    Asus VivoBook 15 (X505Z) Pros

    • Slim and Lightweight.
    • Decent display panel.
    • Good performance.
    • Pricing.

    Asus VivoBook 15 (X505Z) Cons

    • No backlite keyboard. No indicator for Caps Lock.
    • Audio output could have been better.

  • Asus ROG GX531 Hands on Review

    The new Zephyrus S GX 531 is the gaming laptop from Asus with latest hardware specifications. The top variant sports Core i7 processor, NVidia RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics and 1TB of SSD.

    ROG gx531

    Zephyrus GX 531 sports 15-inch full HD 144 Hz display panel. The thin bezels around the screen provides immersive viewing experience.  The short response time and high refresh rate makes it one of the best choice for gaming. The colour accuracy, contrast and peak are decent but not great.

    Asus ROG GX 531 powered by the six core Intel Coffee Lake-H Core i7-8750H CPU with Intel HD630+Nvidia RTX 2080 Max-Q 8GB graphics.  Internal storage, one opt upto NVMe 1TB of SSD disc.  The new RTX 2080 GPU enables photorealistic graphics with help of real-time ray tracing technology and AI-enhanced image processing. The GPU boosts upto 1330MHz at 90W, with 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM clocked at 6151MHz. Both can be overclocked.

    The keyboard placement on this gaming laptop is little different. It is downshifted. Instead of being in the usual spot, it is downshifted. There is no palm rest area. Coming to Keyboard, it has standard layout with well-sized and spaced keys.  Virtual NumPad is available on touchpad. 

    Key Specifications

    • 15-inch full HD 144 Hz display with 3ms response time.
    • six core Intel Coffee Lake-H Core i7-8750H CPU with Intel HD630+Nvidia RTX 2080 Max-Q 8GB graphics.
    • Upto 1TB SSD storage.
    • Upto 24GB 2666MHz DDR4 RAM.
    • Anti-Dust Self Cleaning Fans

  • Asus F570Z Gaming Laptop Review-Pros And Cons

    Asus F570z is an entry level gaming laptop in India. Ryzen 5 quad core processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 4GB discrete graphic card, 15.6 inch full HD Anti glare display are key features of this notebook. Asus F570ZD-DM226T the model we are reviewing here is priced at Rs.52,980. However there is cashback offer upto Rs,3500 in paytm mall. This brings the effective price of this gaming laptop price to less than 50k. For this price, is this worth buy? Let us find out in this Asus F570z Gaming Laptop Review in the form of Pros And Cons.

    Asus F570z Gaming Laptop Review-Pros And Cons

    Asus F570z Pros

    Let us begin with what we liked on this laptop.

    Design: Asus F570z has a metallic finish. The texture all over looks impressive. It is made up of plastic but it does feel good because of the textured metallic finish. It weighs around 1.96 Kg.

    Display: Asus F570z comes with a 15.6 inch full HD IPS Anti glare screen which offers decent brightness. For regular usage such as reading, writing and watching movies, it does not disappoints.

    Back-lite Keyboard: This budget gaming laptop has back-lite full sized keyboard. The keys are well placed and has enough travel. In this price range very few laptops comes with back-lite keyboard which offers to customize the intensity of back-lite.

    Good Performance: The Quad Core Ryzen 5 Mobile 2500U processor with 8GB of RAM and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 discrete graphic card provides a good performance for the price. It manages to do all the day to day tasks and some tasks such as basic photo/video editing without any issues.

    Connectivity Ports: It has 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 3.0 port, 1 USB 3.1 Type C , LAN , and HDMI ports.

    Asus F570z Cons

    Average viewing angles: The 15.6 inch Anti Glare display panel has average viewing angles. When it viewed from extreme angles color shifting is noticeable.

    Average Battery Life: With my usage, the laptop gave around 3 hours of battery backup.

    Space bar: This may be specific to our device. The space bar was sticky. Apart from that, the typing experience was great.

    Summary: Considering the price, Asus F570z offers a lot. But it is not perfect as well. Addition of SSD and better viewing angles would have made this laptop much more impressive.

  • HP Omen Vs ASUS STRIX 2 -Comparison

    Gaming laptops are becoming popular in Indian market. There are many options available today when it comes gaming laptops in India. HP Omen and ASUS ROG series are known for gaming laptops. In this post, let us have a quick comparison between HP Omen-dc0106tx Vs ASUS SCAR 2.

    HP Omen Vs ASUS STRIX -Comparison

    Design

    Designwise both HP Omen 15-dc0106tx and ASUS ROG STRIX are attractive. Both with their distinctive theme and solid build quality provide a great feel.

    Coming to differences, HP Omen sports most of the ports in the rear side and camera is placed in the top center. ASUS STRIX has most of the ports in the left side and camera is placed in the bottom right. We liked the HP Omen camera placement and comfortable palm rest area of ASUS STRIX.

    Processor and GPU

    Both HP Omen 15-dc0106tx and ASUS ROG STRIX which we have compared features Intel Core i7 8750H & DDR 4 16GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060. HP gaming laptop had 128GB SSD with 1TB hard disc and ASUS ROG had 256GB SSD and 1TB of hard disc.

    Starting with booting time to app/game launching was comparatively faster in ASUS ROG STRIX. Apart from that, other performance was more or less equal. Gaming performance, we felt ASUS did slightly better.

    Display

    Both these gaming laptops feature 15 inch full HD IPS display panel with 144Hz refresh rate. Brightness and Viewing angles were better in ASUS ROG according to us.

    HP Omen Vs ASUS STRIX -Comparison Summary

    HP Omen 15-dc0106tx advantages over ASUS ROG STRIX

    • Lighter. 2.2 Kg compared to 2.4Kg.
    • Placement of video camera.

    ASUS ROG STRIX Advantages over HP Omen 15-dc0106tx

    • Brighter display.
    • Better cooling system and comparatively quite fan.
    • Faster booting and app loading time.
    • Better trackpad and typing experience,

    These comparisons are based on our experience with HP Omen and ASUS STRIX. Both have their own pros and cons. Depending on the requirement, one can choose between these two laptops.

  • Asus ZenBook 13/14/15- Top 5 Reasons to buy

    Asus ZenBook series is known for providing powerful performance in a compact form factor with beautiful elegant looks. The new ASUS ZenBook 13 (UX333), 14 (UX433) and 15 (UX533) continue with the same trend. They are more compact thanks to NanoEdge display which provides near borderless viewing experience. In this post, let us have a quick look into the new ASUS ZenBook 13 (UX333), 14 (UX433) and 15 (UX533) features.

    Asus ZenBook 13/14/15- Top 5 Reasons to buy

    Design

    New ASUS ZenBook 13 (UX333), 14 (UX433) and 15 (UX533) are the most compact laptops in their respective size categories. With four-sided frameless NanoEdge display, ZenBook 13 is smaller than a sheet of A4 paper and the ZenBook 14 is about the same as an A4 sheet. ZenBook 13 is also 14.3% smaller than the previous generation ZenBook 13 (UX331), making it an amazing 25% smaller than the 13-inch 2016 ZenBook UX330,

    NanoEdge display

    The latest Asus ZenBook 13/14/15 notebooks comes with Patent-pending innovations for the new frameless NanoEdge display panel. Without compromising on the camera placement, Asus has managed cut the frame size from all the 4 corners.

    Exclusive New NumberPad

    Most of the 13-inch and 14 inch notepads does not come with exclusive NumberPad. In order to solve this problem, Asus has integrated LED-illuminated numeric keypad integrated into the touchpad. Tapping a single touch sensor at the top right of the touchpad turns NumberPad on and off. While the numberpad is enabled, trackpad functions as usual which includes all gestures.

    New ultrathin webcam

    To accomodate camera at the top bezel location, Asus used ultrathin camera module, with a four-element lens to produce sharper images and lower noise. Additionally, the advanced infrared (IR) camera on the new ZenBook Flip series has see-in-the-dark capabilities that enable fast, reliable hands-free face login with Windows Hello — even in dim environments. From wake-up to login only takes a few seconds.

    Military grade reliability, Enterprise level security

    All of the new ZenBook models have been torture-tested to military-grade (MIL-STD-810G) reliability standards, with demanding tests that include environmental extremes of altitude, temperature and humidity, in addition to extensive drop, shock and vibration testing. They also feature TPM 2.0 module for enterprise level security that gives business IT managers a high level of security by providing secure user authentication and remote access to corporate intranets.

    Cutting-Edge Components

    The new ZenBook series is built to deliver unbounded on-the-go performance, featuring up to the latest 8th Generation Whisky Lake Intel Core i7 processor and a range of fast graphics options including up to NVIDIA GeForce MX150 discrete graphics on ZenBook 13 and 14. ZenBook 15 is equipped with high-performance NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q GPU. All ZenBook 13 and 14 models are equipped with up to 512GB PCIe SSDs and pack 8GB RAM as standard. The ZenBook 15 on the other hand, features a 1TB PCIe SSD with 16GB RAM. ErgoLift and Quite fan are also useful additions.