The consumer-end of ASUS’ Z87 roadmap includes a number of motherboards for enthusiasts of both ends of the budget spectrum. This is led by the high-end Z87-DELUXE, which delivers the most features. The Z87-A, on the other hand, aims at more mainstream builds. In between, you get the Z87-PRO and Z87-PLUS motherboards, while the Z877I- DELUXE brings the new platform into mini-ITX territory.

The ASUS Z87-PRO

These motherboards feature ASUS’ new 4-way optimisation system called the Dual Intelligent Processors, which helps improve performance, efficiency, digital power and cooling by utilising a number of core features, such as DIGI+ Power, TPU, EPU and Fan Xpert 2. When users are away from the PC, the design will intelligently switch to an Away Mode, so you can keep the PC running with minimal power draw.

ASUS’ TUF series of motherboards (the ones built to be the toughest and hardiest motherboards around) also saw their Z87 counterparts, now toughened by the TUF Fortifier, which helps prevent the board itself from bending due to heat whilst conducting hot air away from the components at the back of the PCB.

Aside from the prerequisite Sabertooth Z87, the TUF series also saw the GRYPHON Z87, which is the first ever Micro ATX TUF board.

The ASUS GRYPHON Z87

Last but not least, we get the Z87 ASUS Republic of Gamers series of motherboards. Making a return here are the ASUS ROG EXTREME and ROG GENE motherboards, which serve to fulfil different needs and segments of users. ASUS has also introduced the ROG HERO, their new series that is catered towards mainstream gamers and value-conscious users.

The ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VI HERO

These boards all offer new features that make overclocking easy and improved performance, the first of which is the new mPCIe Combo II, which offers faster and more networking options as well as support for the new NGFF SSD connectivity.

You can read our full coverage in the upcoming June 2013 issue. In the meantime, head on over to www.asus.com/my for more information!

Yap Yean Yean, Senior Marketing Development Manager for FPCA, said during the launch: “This ultra-stylish Fujitsu Ultrabook is developed with an all-out pursuit of elegance – from every detailed design of the model to its embodied cover, accessories, mouse, AC adaptor and other peripheral devices.”

How stylish is it? For starters, the LIFEBOOK CH702 features a cubic zirconia embellished flip latch on the top casing, a pearl-designed power button, floral-motif patterned airvents and elegantly-finished keys. To top it off, the device comes with a bejewelled wireless mouse shaped like a compact powder case, a pristine-white bejewelled AC adaptor and a carrying case decorated with a detachable pearl charm. Oh, and there’s muscle underneath all that grace, too: the notebook comes with a 3rd-Gen Intel Core i5 processor.

This a limited edition laptop, available for purchase through a specially designed Online Pre-Order Program with an easy 24-month credit card instalment option. The product prices at RM4,296 onwards and can be pre-ordered at fujitsumalaysia.com/ch702.

It is in this writer’s humble opinion that Sonic Gear’s EVO line of speakers are among the best there is. They’re fantastic in sound, and usually come affordable. So how do you top this, exactly? The answer is in the EVO 9 BTMI, and it’s an answer decked in sultry music.

This is a fairly large set of speakers, and – as any 2.1 speakers would come – consists of a sub-woofer base unit and two satellite speakers. On the base unit you’ll find a large volume knob, which you can press to toggle the subwoofer bass, as well as the LCD display. Four buttons sit under the knob, functioning as the mode toggle and the pause, forward and reverse buttons.

The EVO 9 offers one of the most robust set of connectivity options yet. Aside from the typical auxiliary option over a 3.5mm cable, the EVO 9 also supports SD card and USB playback. Additionally, you can stream music from any Bluetooth enabled device, making the EVO 9 more of a media player than traditional PC speakers. It even sports two mic input ports complete with individual volume control. Yeap, this speakers set even complements your karaoke needs.

When it comes to audio performance, the EVO 9 is downright excellent. It’s loud, for one, and offers excellent clarity, managing our instrumental tracks with great detail. There’s also enough bass to go around. The EVO 9 also works nicely for movies and games, able to determine directions with good precision. It’s worth noting that playback over USB, SD card and Bluetooth does not suffer in quality.

It’s not without its annoyances, however. Like the Morro 7, the EVO 9 doesn’t support NTFS formatted drives, though it is capable of playing FLAC format files (audiophiles can rejoice for this). We also wish that there’s a way to toggle the equaliser modes on the base unit; instead, you have to rely on the remote control.

CHIP CONCLUDE: Without a doubt, the Sonic Gear EVO 9 is the evolutionary step ahead of its predecessors. Not only is it an excellent speakers system with great audio quality, it also offers robust playback options and features.

(previously published in issue April 2012)

The Nokia Lumia 820 has the misfortune of living under the shadow of its bigger, better brother: the Lumia 920. In that sense, the 820 doesn’t quite shine its worth of charms and wonders, though it is a more affordable Windows Phone 8 device with a few cool tricks up its sleeve.

This smaller Lumia (it’s a 4.3-incher) does, thankfully, bear Nokia’s famed sturdiness in design. It’s a little thicker and heavier than you’d expect, but the weight goes well with the solidness in built.

Contrary to most Lumia devices, the 820 doesn’t have a unibody design. Instead, you can swap the back cover out with something brighter in colour, in either matte or non-matte – even one that supports Qi wireless charging. It’s a really nice touch.

All things considered, it does feel rather disappointing to discover that the Lumia 820’s display isn’t so great. While it is very responsive, the lower-res display doesn’t provide the best viewing experience and white bits tend to appear with a slight blue tinge. At least it’s bright, though, and its viewing angles are great.

The 1.5GHz dual core Snapdragon S4 processor powering the device is among the top-tier in performance, and provides the 820 with a speedy and smooth experience. Apps run without problems here and scrolling through menus zip by like butter on ice.

But Lumia devices are all about the camera too, right? In this aspect, the Lumia 820 delivers. Pictures come out sharp and colour reproduction is great. It is, however, rather lacking compared to the 920’s camera. For starters, there’s no optical image stabilisation or a backside illuminated sensor. The lens is also an F2.2 one, compared to the 920’s F2.0.

CHIP CONCLUDE: The Nokia Lumia 820 is, ultimately, something of a mixed bag. The design quality is apparent and the interchangeable back cover is a great concept, not to mention the speedy performances. The lower-res screen and lesser-featured camera does leave things to be desired, though.

(previously published in issue April 2012)

We’ve seen a number of big, bold and beautiful monitors coming intp our labs, some with features that we didn’t know we even needed, and others with designs that look like they belong in an art gallery. BenQ has decided that both should exist, and with that in mind gaves birth to the BenQ VW2230 LED monitor.

The monitor comes with three display output formats, including VGA, DVI and HDMI 1.4. There is also an audio out port which can be hooked up to either speakers or headphones when using the HDMI output.

The VW2230 is one of the few monitors we’ve seen that comes in an all-white design, and looks like a monitor that was designed in the mid-2000s, with a huge base. Not that it’s a bad thing; in fact, we find the simple aesthetics to be quite charming. Of course what’s really important here is the display quality.

Speaking of the display, the VW2230 uses a VA LED panel, which offers excellent performance, especially when you’re watching HD movies or playing games with it. Also thanks to its non-glare panel, you no longer have to worry about placement of the monitor as light does not reflect from it, giving you the best viewing quality even in places where there is a lot of daylight.

Accessing the menu panel is as easy as touching the touch-sensitive panels at the side, marked by circular bumps. From here you can choose various picture modes, incorporating BenQ’s Senseye technology. Two of the most notable ones include Reading Mode, for those who often use the computer to read through news sites or work on documents, and also the M-Book mode, which calibrates the colours to make the VW2230’s colours look similar to a Mac display. One thing that we found, is that in certain picture modes, the text or picture being displayed can look a bit fuzzy, but it’s a very mild issue.

The monitor also comes with a curious green thingy that sits in a hollow bump at the base. You can use it to prop your phone and cards up, or use the hollow part to store paperclips. Nifty!

CHIP CONCLUDE: The BenQ VW2230 may not look very sophisticated, but it’s one of the few that get things right in terms of picture quality and usability. If you’re looking for a no-frills monitor for various uses without breaking the bank, this may be the one for you.

(previously published in issue April 2012)

You may forgive Canon for being a little camera-crazy over the past couple of months or so, with the launch of a variety of cameras ranging from ones for amateurs, pros and even videographers. This time around, we’re looking at another of their point and shooters, the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS.

Camera technology has come a long way ever since digital point and shoot cameras first made the scene many years ago. The SX50 HS now features a more streamlined design, reminiscent to that of a smaller DSLR. Most of the dials and buttons are situated on top of the camera, which makes adjusting settings on the camera easy. It’s a little bulky for a point and shoot, but it grips and holds well.

The SX 50 HS is built with a 12.1-megapixel CMOS sensor and Canon’s DIGIC 5 processor, with a whopping 50x (24-1200mm) lens on top of it. It also has a 2.8-inch rotating display, and options to shoot in RAW mode — a rarity in cameras of this range. The SX50 HS has also increased the number of scenes in its Smart Auto mode to 58, compared to 32 in its predecessor. Of course, you can also opt to shoot in manual modes.

All of which are great, of course but how does it perform? If you’re an outdoors kind of person, the SX50 HS will work great for you. The colours from the camera are vibrant and the images come out crisp. The only issue being that if you’re using the 50x lens at the other end of the zoom spectrum, come prepared with a tripod, as at 1,200mm, your pictures are going to end up being rather blurry unless your arms are as steady as stone statues.

Rather unfortunately, the SX50 HS suffers from less than stellar performance under low light conditions. There is a hotshoe for you to add an external flash with, but shooting indoors with just the ISO count and aperture boosted won’t yield really good pictures. Images come out rather noisy as well.

CHIP CONCLUDE: The Canon PowerShot SX50 HS is a good camera for outdoor shots during the daytime, but suffers a fair bit when things start getting darker. If you have a tripod with you, you’ll be glad to know that you can make the most of the 50x zoom length that this camera provides you, and with a wide variety of scene modes to choose from, you won’t be getting bored of this camera very soon.

(previously published in issue April 2012)

The launch of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system has got every computer manufacturer’s attention, with the different ways the operating system can be used. AIOs have also joined the party, combining large touch screen display and a clean design that fits even relatively cramped spaces. One of these is the recently announced Fujitsu Esprimo X913-T.

The Esprimo X913-T is clad in an all-black chassis. The display is a 23-inch multitouch screen that is capable of registering up to 10 finger inputs simultaneously. It also has a number of I/O ports, including four USB 3.0 ports at the sides and the back, two USB 2.0 ports, one Ethernet port and one DVI port to extend the display to another monitor.

Powered by a 2.9GHz Intel 3rd-Generation Core i5 processor, the Esprimo runs Windows 8. Performance here is fairly good, and the machine can function both as a work and multimedia PC. Sadly, it doesn’t come with a dedicated GPU.

Far from being a typical AIO where the wow factor ends with just a touch sensitive display, the Esprimo comes with a number of other interesting software features, such as a Presence Sensor, which wakes the computer up from sleep mode whenever it senses that someone is near the computer.

Another interesting thing to note is that the Esprimo’s display can also be laid horiontally, allowing you to share its content much easily. What’s even better in our opinion is that the Esprimo does not require a power brick to be powered up. When we first unboxed it we thought that it was missing, only to figure out a short while later that all it needed was one power cable.

One criticism we’d like to point out to the Esprimo however, is that the touch sensitive display can be a bit jerky and unresponsive at times, which does get a bit annoying.

CHIP CONCLUDE: The performance of Fujitsu’s Esprimo X913-T AIO is expected from an AIO with relatively powerful specs. Its uniformed design makes for the perfect office machine, for those who value space, yet want something powerful to work with.

(previously published in issue April 2012)

BlackBerry is on a mission to return to its former glory and the BlackBerry 10 OS is set to do that. The BlackBerry Z10 is their first ever BB10 smartphone, which begs the question: is it any good?

The BlackBerry Z10 features a 4.2-inch touch screen with a resolution of 1,280 x 768 pixels, powered by a dual core 1.2GHz processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, expandable via microSD. Good specs, and what do you know? The Z10 runs smoothly without any hitches.

The Z10 also brings with it a wealth of new features, the most important being BlackBerry Flow. With no back or home button on the device, you utilise the bezel at the bottom to gain direct access to either the BlackBerry Hub, where all your messages are located, or the active frames, which you can then instantly select to do your next intended task.

This also ties in with Peek, a feature that allows you to Peek into the Hub to see what messages you have just received without exiting the app that you’re using.

The new BBM has also been improved with features such as BBM Call and Video, along with improved app integration and NFC support. Your BB ID now functions as your BB Pin as well, and your contacts and messages are carried with the ID, instead of the device pin.

Battery life of the Z10 is pretty standard as they come, with one full charge being able to last until evening on moderate usage. The 8-megapixels camera is not a world-class one, but it does take fairly decent pictures. Timeshift, which lets the phone take a blast of photos before the actual shot, lets you cycle through individual faces for the best one. It works wella and is very interesting.

That said, however, the Z10 is not without some faults of its own. Starting up the phone can take up to a minute, and there isn’t any notification of it being turned on until the BlackBerry screen pops up. The touch display’s accuracy is also slightly off, with careful presses required at times to avoid typos or wrong presses.

CHIP CONCLUDE: There will be initial hurdles in using the BlackBerry Z10, but the flagship phone is undeniably built with quality and BB10 is a refreshing new experience. Overall, it’s a big step in the right direction for BlackBerry, and we look forward to see where they’re heading with future iterations of the OS and devices.

(previously published in issue April 2012)

The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 is the smaller, more compact version of the Yoga 13; it’s essentially “stripped-down”, if you think about it, when it comes to specs and size. But, strangely enough, the size reduction does allow the Yoga to shine a little brighter.

One thing’s for sure: the Yoga 11 is impeccably designed. The device feels solid, sturdy and looks fantastic. It is a little heavy, though, which is something you don’t quite realise until you try to use it in tablet mode. The screen is also nicely bright, displaying crisply with good colours. The keyboard is also fantastic; it’s the great-to-type-in concaved keys that Lenovo often uses, and it’s nice to have it on board.

And yes: the unique flip screen design is here. You can bend the Yoga’s screen until it closes over the back, turning it into a tablet. You can also use it in tent mode, standing the Yoga like a baseless pyramid. It’s an interesting way to use a hybrid, and the smaller size works to the Yoga 11’s benefit, making it much nicer to hold. Still, it’s also a little odd to use and this is mostly because, in tablet mode, you’ll be meshing you fingers with the keyboard and there’s no way to cover it.

The Yoga 11 is powered by a quad core Tegra 3 processor, contrasting the Intel Core processors the Yoga 13 houses. The Windows running here is also the RT version. But don’t discount it entirely just yet. The processor is more than capable of running Windows RT, allowing you to run apps, Microsoft Office and watch HD videos with only slight hitches.

Battery life is also impressive. In our video loop test, with Wi-Fi on and brightness set to 70%, the Yoga 11 lasted a good 10 hours and 24 minutes. Very good if you’re constantly on the go, and it does put the Yoga 11 among the best battery performers out there.

CHIP CONCLUDE: The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 can easily be surmised as the smaller, stripped-down version of the Yoga 13, but the smaller size, long battery life and unique design makes it a good hybrid notebook if you’re looking for one.

(previously published in issue April 2012) 

CPU coolers are often one of the least-considered components on a person’s list when shopping for parts to build a computer, but what they don’t realise is that choosing a good cooler is important because a good cooler will ensure that your CPU lifespan isn’t cut short. Corsair, purveyors of PC components, have come up with a complete all-in-one watercooling solution with the Corsair H110 CPU Cooler.

The H110 comes in a box the size of a power supply unit, and provides several components of its own. These include the heatsink, which is attached to a large radiator via several rubber tubes filled with liquid coolants, and two 140mm fans which can be attached to the radiator.

Installing the watercooling block is a relatively simple process and only requires that you have a Philips-head screwdriver. You first install the two fans onto the heat spreaders, and mount the unit to the back of your casing (we recommend that you have at least a mid-tower casing at least), and then screw the CPU cooler head onto the sockets on the motherboard.

The H110 supports a wide variety of socket types from Intel, including Socket LGA 1155, 1156, 1366, 2011 and AMD, including Socket AM2, AM3, and FM1. It’s not stated whether it supports AMD’s new Socket AM3+ processors however, so do take note if you’re thinking of building a new PC with these two components in mind.

As with most watercooling blocks, the H110 shines when the CPU is overclocked, maintaining a low temperature even at high clockspeeds. In all our tests, the H110 never once recorded a temperature reading that went beyond 40 degrees Celcius. That said, the higher we clocked the CPU, and the higher the temperature levels rise, the 140mm fans got noticeably louder, and if you’re bothered by loud fan noises, we recommend clocking the CPU at around the 4.2GHz range for best performance-to-noise ratio.

CHIP CONCLUDE: If you have the money to spare for a good watercooling block for your CPU, we highly recommend the Corsair H110. It is perfect if you’re building an overclocked rig for every day use, and you don’t need to change the coolants every so often unlike a lot of unconventional watercooling solutions out there.

(previously published in issue April 2012)