Review – ASUS Vivobook Pro 15 OLED M3500Q: Aimed towards creators

In the most recent announcement, ASUS came up with a brand new lineup of laptops – the “Pro” variant of the Vivobook laptop. We’ve praised the Vivobook S series of laptops for its price-to-performance ratio while offering a very good battery life and has some upgradability.
So, does the Pro variant expand upon these plus points? And comes with OLED too! Let’s find out today.

From the moment of unboxing it, I can see that it’s very different from the Vivobook S series of laptops. From what I can feel and see, this laptop has a fantastic build quality.

The design of it though, is a weird one. Remember like a year or two ago when ASUS had this obsession whereby the enter key has a Mountain Dew color? Well, they now have this warning-stripe design obsession.

Another weird point is the addition of these two metal plates that I’m not a fan of because of a few reasons. Number 1, literally everyone that saw this laptop asked me if those two plates can be peeled off. Number 2, those plates will have grime stuck around the edges. Number 3, it will also snag on those little flaps in my bag.

But, once we open the laptop – which is doable with one finger since the hinge is so finely tuned, we can see a beautiful 15.6-inch OLED screen. Actually, I want to point out that the coating that this screen has feels very similar to the inner display of the Galaxy Z Fold3. It’s very smooth and glossy, but somehow it’s not reflective like a typical glossy display, if that makes sense.

Anyway, just know that it looks great and has fantastic brightness. I don’t care what color accuracy ASUS claims this laptop has because we did our own test to find out that this screen can go up to 400 nits of brightness. And testing the color accuracy of this display at 100 nits brightness, it covers more than 99% of both sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamuts – and I’m very impressed by this OLED panel here.

However, for our case, I think we got a lemon unit. When I used this laptop, I thought my eyes were starting to give up since the text appears blurry and has color fringing. It is most noticeable when viewing white texts on a dark background. After some discussion, we think that our unit is a lemon unit – but it’s still something that customers need to be wary of.

I should also mention that the bezels of this laptop are also adequately thin and the webcam is also at the top of the screen, alongside a physical webcam shutter and some microphones.

This is also one of the best build quality of a laptop that I’ve seen so far. See this? There is barely any flex on the screen when I tried to bend it. Plus, it also has a relatively thin bezel.

The keyboard of this laptop is fairly decent. It’s not my cup of tea since the keys are quite stiff and springy, short travel distance, typing area is biased to the left, and the keyboard is cramped up since it has a numberpad.

Still, I can live with this keyboard.
The trackpad also got a big upgrade – and I mean literally big in terms of size. It’s now super big and thanks to ASUS for developing proper palm rejection algorithm, I didn’t have any misclicks or the mouse cursor doing the moonwalk on the screen while I was typing.

It also has this very, extremely smooth surface. Navigating using this trackpad feels weird because it’s just so smooth, and using multitouch gestures feels surreal on this laptop.
But, here comes the funky part. The ASUS Vivobook Pro 15 OLED comes in a few different spec configurations that we can choose from, and the one we have is the highest-end variant.
It comes with:

AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX
16GB RAM at 3200MHz
512GB NVMe SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop

Okay, so looking at the product page of this laptop, ASUS is hinting that this laptop is made for everything – browsing, gaming, and even content creation. However, looking at the specs page, the literal highest-end variant of this ASUS VivoBook Pro 15 OLED is 16GB RAM. If I am to run Chrome, Premiere Pro, and After Effects at the same time (which I do all the time), I am sure that 16GB of RAM will get choked up instantly. And we’re not here – we’ll revisit this point later.
Now then, what about the performance of this laptop? As told earlier, editing some fancier videos on Premiere Pro will eat up nearly all of the available RAM, and that’s just not good.
If we are to do some simpler edits with this laptop, then yea – there are no issues editing videos on this laptop at all in terms of performance.

But in terms of the experience though, please get some earphones or headphones. I was editing some video in performance mode and, oh my god, the fan sounds like a drone propeller. I can tune it down to standard mode but there are some hiccups here and there in terms of performance.
And so, I was curious. What type of cooling system did ASUS use for this laptop? I mean, it has a Ryzen 9 5900HX chip and an RTX 3050 Laptop GPU inside. So, I opened it up – which was rather difficult, by the way. There is a plastic tab grabbing the middle part right above where the battery is, which makes it very likely to break the tab if we just pry it open.

Once I got it opened though, we can see two semi-shared heatpipes, each leading to their own heatsink and fan at the sides. That’s it? No wonder this laptop is so low-powered and the fan sounds like a helicopter. From our wattmeter, this laptop takes in slightly less than 100W all the time – which is weird since this laptop comes with a 120W power supply.
Anyway, after having a hard time opening up the laptop to satisfy my curiousity, I immediately realized there is no reason for us to open it in the first place. There is nothing that we can do to upgrade this laptop. Remember when we talked about the 16GB RAM? Yeah, that’s the maximum we can get. The RAM is soldered onboard and we can’t add additional RAM sticks.

There isn’t even an additional SSD slot! We only have that M.2 SSD slot and that’s it. As a video editor, I think this is just insufficient. Save a few projects on this laptop and you’re essentially out of storage.

Then, we gotta talk about the ports of this laptop. I don’t know how to tell you this but I think ASUS should have placed more of the ports at the left side of the laptop.
You see, there are two USB 2.0 ports on the left. The position is good, but I think one for an external mouse is enough.

At the right side, we have:

3.5mm audio jack
microSD card reader
USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 1 port (5Gb/s)
HDMI 1.4
USB 3.1 Type-A Gen 1 port (5Gb/s)
Power jack

And I think ASUS should have those high-speed USB-A and USB-C ports on the left side. Because of how tiny the SSD is, I had to use an external SSD to load my footages. I’m using the ROG STRIX Arion and naturally, I connected that external SSD to the high-speed USB-C port. And when I did that, the cable got in the way of the mouse. This shouldn’t have happened.

Also back to the power intake a little while – remember when I said that this laptop is always taking in just a little shy of 100W of power? I thought – hey, maybe I can get full performance if I plug it into the Ugreen 100W GaN charger, right? Nope. This laptop doesn’t support USB-C charging. What a bummer!

One thing I am impressed with, though, is the battery life. Despite having such a powerful processor, it manages to last for about 6-7 hours in a single charge if I use it conservatively at 40% brightness in silent profile while viewing mostly dark stuff. Because this is an OLED panel, the battery usage fluctuates wildly depending on what you’re viewing and what brightness you’re using.
Should you buy the ASUS Vivobook Pro 15 OLED M3500Q?
So, at the end of the day, this exact spec of the Vivobook Pro 15 OLED that we have is priced at RM5,199. I honestly think it’s an okay price to pay if you can live with the glaring shortcomings of this laptop.
All this for RM5,199.
However, I also think that the Ryzen 9 5900HX is overkill. Getting the Ryzen 7 5700H version is a much better option, and at the lower price of RM4,799 too. Everything else remains the same.
Where to buy? (Affiliate links)

Amazon
Lazada
Shopee

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SNS Network awarded Enterprise Business Strategic Partner title by Samsung Malaysia

Local tech gadget and ICT systems distributor SNS Network has received a new award from Samsung Malaysia for recognizing their effort in driving the education sector via technology.

The award is specifically named Enterprise Business Strategic Partner (Education Segment) and is given to those who have made significant efforts and results in promoting digital education through dedication and hard work.
Through the provisioning of tablets to students, SNS thinks it is one of the necessary steps to achieve digital transformation for the education market. By allowing them to gain the vast collection of resources online that are much more interactive and fun than traditional books, youngsters can develop more skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and more.
Expressing his gratitude and thoughts at the time of receiving the award, SNS Network Executive Director Kelvin Pah stated they are more than happy and honored to partner with Samsung Malaysia on initiatives to help equip students of the modern era with something that will be useful in the future.
Samsung Malaysia Electronics President Denny Kim also expressed the same stance and appreciation towards SNS Network in their joint statement.

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The new realme GT 2 Pro packs powerful hardware and a special microscope lens for super close in shots

The latest flagship device by realme which is the realme GT 2 Pro has been officially announced and revealed.

realme wasted no time in sliding all the goodies to the GT 2 Pro but pure computing juice isn’t the only thing it offers. For one, the special back design Paper Tech Master Design is created by renowned Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa and utilizes a 0.1mm laser engraving process to precisely etch on a bio-based polymer to give it a premium paper texture feel while staying environmental-friendly.
Another interesting point is the 40x zoom micro-lens that promises unparalleled zooming capabilities and bokeh effect to enable a brand new photo shooting sensation. But I wonder what kind of miniature things are the best subjects for this lens, huh. Also, the screen is no doubt one of the top boys you can find in the market right now.
Before you press that Buy button, be sure to look through the rest of the stuff for the device.

6.7-inch LTPO2 AMOLED Display

1440p Resolution
Top Left Punch Hole Notch
120Hz Refresh Rate
HDR 10+ Support
1 Billion Colors
1400 nits Peak Brightness

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Chipset
12GB RAM
256GB Storage
Triple Rear Camera

Main: 50MP f/1.8 with multi-directional PDAF, OIS
Ultra-Wide: 50MP f/2.2
Microscope: 3MP f/3.3 with AF, 40x Magnification

32MP Selfie Camera
5,000mAh Battery

65W Fast Charge

Paper White, Paper Green, Steel Black, Titanium Blue Colors

Price and Early Bird Bonus
The realme GT 2 Pro’s standard price is getting set at RM2,999 but as usual, you’ll be able to grab it at a much lower number at RM2,599 either through realme’s Shopee store or any realme authorized resellers at the following dates:

Online (Shopee) with free Buds 2 NEO

1st Round: March 25 – 26
2nd Round: March 30 – 31

Offline with free Watch 2 Pro + extended warranty

1 Round only: March 26 – 27

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Kingston releases new FURY Beast DDR5 RAM with a big sticker that says AMD EXPO

The AMD Ryzen 7000 Series desktop processors are certainly drawing a new ceiling line for the consumer market with gamers that are not cash-strapped waiting patiently for the official sales. Accompanying the new CPU, though, is the new AM5 socket and memory support of DDR5 (Although they officially ditched DDR4 but I digress).
The debut of the new platform also showcases AMD’s version of the “Intel XMP” one-click overclocking profiles for RAM kits – the AMD EXPO. To take advantage of exclusivity, Kingston has revealed the FURY Beast DDR5 AM5 series memory modules.

Appearance-wise, they are the same as the standard “base” models in the sense of being available in both non-RGB and RGB versions. These sticks will carry the AMD Extended Profile for Overclocking certification (EXPO) with 2 preset profiles tuned by the manufacturer on top of 1 extra slot for user-customized parameters. Non-savvy users without any overclocking knowledge can easily gain access to speeds up to 6,000MT/s with a single click.
The FURY Beast line of products offers a low-profile heat spreader design to keep compatibility with most CPU air coolers out there and satisfies all DDR5 specifications including on-die ECC and per-module Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMIC) for extreme speeds and incredible stability.
The Kingston FURY Beast DDR5 AM5 RAM is available in 16GB single modules and 32GB kits of two. Be sure to verify that the orange-colored AMD EXPO sticker is there so that you don’t accidentally buy the “wrong” one.

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Review – Samsung Galaxy S9: Great Flagship Made Better

The Samsung Galaxy S9. It’s finally here – and Samsung claims that they have reimagined the camera. Since it is a brand new generation of flagship smartphone by Samsung, they’ve equipped the new Galaxy S9 with the latest and greatest hardware and software, too. Featuring nifty features like variable aperture and quirky ones like AR emoji, the Galaxy S9 has something for everyone.
Let’s take a deep dive into what the new and groundbreaking benchmarks that the Samsung Galaxy S9 is going to set.

Unboxing

In terms of the packaging design and overall look and feel, it’s no different from the previous generation. It still has the embossed blue “S9” printed on the sleeve which is slid out from the top or bottom to reveal the box.

The box – still the same as the the S8 era – is black and has the name “Samsung” embossed on it. Very minimalist and feels highly premium.

Opening up the box reveals a similar packaging design as the previous generation. The layout and all the included accessories are pretty much the same, too. Except for the included case. The Galaxy Note8 that we reviewed here came with a hard shell case – but the Galaxy S9 came with a smoked TPU case instead.

Speaking of the TPU case, it’s packaged in the little box on the top of the box. Yes, I know – there are many boxes here. Boxes within boxes. It’s elaborate – but tidy.
[nextpage title=”Display”]
I’m pretty sure all of us have heard and have a high chance to at least see smartphones from a year ago that has this elongated screen. Samsung started the trend with the Galaxy S8 that has an 18:5.9 aspect ratio display and dubbed it the Infinity Display. Since then, other manufacturers have been following Samsung.

Samsung does have the upper hand this time as they manage to up the ante by equipping the Galaxy S9 with a new display. DisplayMate, world’s leading evaluator of screens, said that the Galaxy S9 has “the best performing smartphone display that we have ever tested,” and has awarded the device its highest-ever “Excellent A+” grade.

Let’s not look at specs and alphabets and look back at the screen. The Galaxy S9 does indeed have a much brighter screen, and somewhat a little more reflective than the previous generation. The display now peaks at 1,130 nits, which is 10% brighter than its predecessor.

That translates to real-world use case as well. The first time I booted up the Galaxy S9, I realized how bright the display is. I have to tune it down to about 20% while on auto brightness. As for the size and resolution, it sports a 5.8-inch Super AMOLED 18.5:9 display with 2960×1440 resolution, scalable down to 1080p or 720p. Obviously, it’s a tradeoff between performance and crispness of images on the screen. More on this later.
[nextpage title=”Design”]
As for the design, Samsung didn’t change much when it comes to the physical shape and feel. It’s similar to what we have for the Galaxy S8, and it’s no surprise that many people will mistaken the brand new Galaxy S9 for the S8 or vice versa.
Familiar look…
Samsung didn’t fix what’s not broken – and they did fix the fingerprint scanner location. It’s now located at the center, just below the camera. The heart rate sensor remains on the side of the camera, but that’s alright.

The buttons are still around the same location and still feels magnificent to press on. The left side is where the volume rocker and the Bixby button are found, whereas the power button is located on the right side.

None of these buttons are textured so it’ll be quite easy to accidentally press on the wrong button – especially the Bixby key.
See those little dots? They’re helpful.
The smoked TPU case that Samsung included is a boon, too. It has these little dots at the back to prevent the case from making direct contact with the Galaxy S9’s glass back. It might seem trivial, but this is also to prevent scratches. Also, the TPU case has a smoked color to it, so it’s not that prominent when it gets dirty or starts yellowing.

While on the subject of the TPU case, the case accentuates the keys to be a little more prominent so it’s even easier to press.
The entire Galaxy S9 weighs only 160 grams whereas the case adds another 17 grams to the scale.
          Samsung Galaxy S9 only            Samsung Galaxy S9 with the TPU case
[nextpage title=”Connectivity”]
The Galaxy S9, being a flagship smartphone that it is, sports only the best of the best when it comes to connectivity. It didn’t differ much from last year’s flagship since no new development in connectivity has been made.
It still has Bluetooth 5.0, you can still connect to different Bluetooth speakers at the same time and play music together.
Of course, being the lovable people like they are, Samsung also included the 3.5mm audio jack beside the USB-C port. Thank you Samsung!

While we’re at the bottom of the phone, it’s also worth noting that instead of having just a few holes for the speaker grill, Samsung gauged out quite a lot of space internally for the speakers. They just look like two deep holes.
Tuned by AKG for better bass since it has a larger chamber perhaps? And yes, the speakers do sound fantastic this time around. There’s an option to enable Dolby Atmos too. The option to enable it is hidden pretty deep in the settings menu, but there’s a shortcut key on the shortcuts bar in the notifications. I suggest you to long-press on the Dolby Atmos to quickly access to its settings instead.
Also, as per usual, the Galaxy S9 has a single dedicated Nano SIM slot and another Nano SIM/microSD combo slot.

[nextpage title=”Camera”]
This is where the first major difference between the Galaxy S9 and S9+ comes. The Galaxy S9 only has a single camera at the rear. With the Galaxy Note8 that we reviewed here sporting a dual-camera system, why doesn’t the S9 have dual-cameras too? Maybe it’s due to the engineering challenges to cramp that many components into the already compact Galaxy S9.

Whichever the case may be, we did discuss back here that dual-cameras don’t necessarily produce better images. Dual-cameras can provide more information for a single image or offers more flexibility with the second camera, which either has a zoom lens or a wide-angle lens.
The Galaxy S9 does have a trick up its sleeve. It is the first smartphone to have variable aperture – and that means a lot. It can switch between f/1.5 or f/2.4 according to the lighting mode, or you can change it manually in Pro mode. Technically, it’s not variable aperture – more like binary aperture since it can only be in one of the two aperture sizes. f/1.5 has a larger opening, hence allowing more light to enter. This is especially useful for low-light shots without prolonging the shutter speed which will cause blurriness.
          Aperture at f/1.5            Aperture at f/2.4
Here’s the spec for the cameras on the Galaxy S9:

Rear-camera

12MP sensor
f/1.5 or f/2.4 aperture
1/2.5-inch sensor
1.4μm pixel size
Dual-pixel PDAF
OIS

Selfie camera

8MP
Has autofocus

The thing is, I tried to capture the aperture changing to and from f/1.5 and f/2.4 – but the transition was still too fast at 960fps. I managed to capture, however, the OIS zeroing in on the camera module after the aperture transition. Interesting find, I’d say.

Now, how does the Galaxy S9’s camera perform? Let’s take a look at the pictures below.

The full album of all the images taken are available on our Flickr account.

Rear-camera
While looking at these images, there are a few points that are quite apparent. Firstly, the images taken are really sharp. I mean, they really do stand out. Individual strands of eyelash can be seen, and I took that image at a mamak at night. It was a random shot, too. The Galaxy S9 took that image effortlessly, and the skin tones were on point.
While on the subject of colors, the images produced by the Galaxy S9 is looking pretty on-point too. There are some indoor shots where the image is just overexposed by a tad bit too much. Other than that, excellent camera for the to use and post stuff on social media.
As for low-light shots, Samsung bumps up the ISO by quite a lot to maintain a rather low shutter speed. It still looks great in most cases, but I found out that a night city skyline shot on auto mode just doesn’t look good. Noise is all around the transition where the city lights fade into darkness.
Dual-PDAF does help to speed its focusing time as well. Perhaps it will need the second camera to really help pinpoint its focusing even faster.

Selfie camera
I’m not much of a selfie person here – but for all I can say, the camera does perform really well in low-light condition. The picture here is taken when I was on the street at night. There’s a lamp post about 100 meters away from me, and this is the image that I got.
The place is actually a lot darker than what is shown in the image, by the way.

Camera UI
When it comes to the camera UI, it’s actually very intuitive – most of it, at least. The basic features are presented nicely and cleanly.

Everything that’s needed is laid out in this menu right here, and you can actually manually change the aperture through its nested options. It does keep everything clean, but needs a few more taps to get to those options that you want.
In auto mode, everything is just as simple as it can get. Just a bottom row of quick settings, that’s it. Samsung has differentiated things well enough to keep the advanced features at a place where normal users won’t get confused with.
Other camera features
Samsung also promote their new slow-mo feature a lot. They’re not the first to have such a feature on a smartphone, and their implementation is somewhat intuitive to use. It does take a bit of exploration and getting used to.
There are actually two modes to the slow-mo feature here. Firstly, you can have it capture multiple slow-mo points within a single video shot, or have only one slow-mo point in a single video.

By default, capturing slow-mo will need you to frame your shot within a little square frame. When the Galaxy S9  detects motion in the square frame, it’ll automatically record at the native 960fps. Samsung, being the genius that they are, included a “manual” mode for the slow-mo feature too.
It’s not exactly a “manual mode” per se – more like a “capture slow-mo whenever you like” mode. With just the press of a button, you can record slow-mo according to your will. Though, it does need a bit of practice in timing to capture slow-mo at the right moment.
The variable aperture on the other hand, can be changed accordingly while in manual mode. If it’s in auto mode, the aperture changes between f/1.5 and f/2.4 according to the lighting condition – obviously, but has about a 1~2 second delay before the aperture changes.
It’s also worth noting that by default, the camera “rests” or “idles” at f/1.5.

Let’s not forget about AR Emoji either. It’s a fun little feature where it transports your face into a set of emojis in GIF format so you can share them with your friends on social media.
[nextpage title=”Software”]
When it comes to the overall look and feel of the software, the brand new Samsung Experience 9.0 brings a lot of smaller quality of life improvements under the hood. Now, whenever I install some apps that support the app twinning (known as Dual Messenger here), a notification will appear asking if I want to clone another copy of the app for my second account.

Since the fingerprint scanner is moved to a more appropriate position, I find that the “swipe fingerprint scanner to show or hide notifications” become useful. You’ll have to enable the fingerprint scanner gestures for that.

Speaking of the fingerprint scanner, the Galaxy S9 now has a total of 4 different methods to unlock the phone. You have the usual password or pattern unlock, fingerprint, the iris scanner, and also face scanning. It’s only natural to add face scanning unlock since there is an emphasis on “3D face scanning” tech for the past few months.

Also, Samsung now has something called Intelligent Scan where you can unlock the phone by using both your iris and face data together. There is about a second delay, from my tests – a picture can’t fool the Galaxy S9 to unlock. If the place is too dark for face scanning, the Galaxy S9 will bump up the brightness a little so that it illuminates your face for the face scanning to work.

[nextpage title=”Performance”]
Of course, the flagship smartphone here screams top-of-the-line hardware with flagship performance to boot. The Galaxy S9 is equipped with these hardware:

10nm process technology
Exynos 9810 Octa chipset
4x 2.7GHz + 4x 1.8GHz octa-core processor
Mali-G72 MP18 graphics
4GB RAM
64GB storage

The new 10nm process technology here means an improvement in battery life, efficiency, and performance. Learn more about why it matters here.
Without further ado, let’s jump into the benchmarks.

Looking at the benchmarks above, the Galaxy S9 is obviously the highest in our charts.
While playing games, I’m surprised that Honkai Impact 3 was suggesting me to run that game at medium settings instead. Screw that. I bumped it all to the highest settings at 60fps, and wow. Everything is gorgeous yet buttery smooth. On many phones, even tilting the phone to change the 3D parallax effect will be jittery – but not on the Galaxy S9.
Benchmark scores aside, the user experience is just magnificent. Everything is just smooth.
[nextpage title=”Battery”]
For those who are already eyeing on the battery, the number itself may not sound magnificent. “Only 3,000mAh?”, you might think. Now, the Galaxy S9 does have a few specialties up its sleeve.
Firstly, its SoC is manufactured with 10nm process technology. In short, that means better efficiency and even better performance. Learn more about it here.
Secondly, the Galaxy S9 – just like its predecessor – can switch between resolutions. The change is applied system-wide and not application-specific, so the it will downscale from its 1440p resolution down to 1080p or 720p. In number of raw pixels, downscaling from 1440p to 1080p results in a 56.25% drop – but how much does it affect your battery life in everyday use?
We have the answer here.

Charger

Samsung did include the usual adaptive fast charger too. 9V 1.67A. In charging speed, it can reach from about 15% to 100% in about 1.5 hours. Pretty good. It does reach 75% mark in less than than an hour. Now that’s good.

Here’s a little bonus data – if you turn off fast charging, the charging curve is pretty much the same overall, just that the time is obviously prolonged. It took about 1.8 hours to charge it up to 100% – which is about 1 hour and 48 minutes.

Just like last year’s Samsung charger, it can collapse to become flatter too. Easier for transportation and for travels.
The 3rd prong can collapse downwards
[nextpage title=”Wrapping up the Samsung Galaxy S9 review”]
Here goes – the Samsung Galaxy S9. It’s Samsung’s top-tier smartphone of 2018 with Samsung’s greatest offering. Its SoC is made from their latest 10nm process technology and packed with speedy UFS 2.1 flash chips. It’s also the first smartphone to have a variable aperture. It changes between the two aperture sizes so quickly that even the 960fps slow-motion can’t capture how it happened.
With that said, the battery life on the Galaxy S9 is… just like before – mediocre. I do wish that Samsung can sacrifice its thinness by just a little and equip it with a large battery. Perhaps a 4,000mAh battery, please?

On the question of “should I get the Galaxy S9 or Galaxy S9+?”, it truly depends on you. The major differences between both these phones are the camera, battery, and obviously the screen size. The Galaxy S9+ has a larger battery, and that also compensates for its larger screen size. That leaves us with the camera. The Galaxy S9+ has dual-cameras, whereas the Galaxy S9 has a single one. The Galaxy S9+’s second camera – the one with a zoom lens – offers much more flexibility, and we hope to do a separate review on the differences for these two phones in the near future.
Until then, the Samsung Galaxy S9 is priced at RM3,299 and it’s available in Midnight Black, Coral Blue (the one we have here), and the all new, beautiful Lilac Purple. Honestly, I’m surprised by the price as Samsung retained its previous pricing throughout the entire Galaxy S9 family.
Where to buy?
Lazada perhaps?

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Review – Edifier W830BT Wireless Headset

It’s been quite some time since we last take a look at a wireless headphone from Edifier. Remember the W800BT? Introducing the Edifier W830BT. It’s all grown up, and it’s looking more matured and glamorous than before. But ultimately, how does it sound?
Let’s dive into the review of the Edifier W830BT wireless headset.

Unboxing

The box of the Edifier W830BT is simpler compared to their Bluetooth speakers and wireless earphones that we looked at before. Simpler only means that Edifier is taking a different approach while still presenting the same amount of information on the packaging itself.
At the front you have an image of the headphones themselves, alongside with a few feature highlights. I find it weird that Edifier didn’t highlight the Qualcomm aptX feature at the front, but instead placed it at the side.

At the back is where the specs and features are listed, alongside with the contents in the box. There’s also a quick rundown of the buttons on the W830BT as well.

Of course, it supports Qualcomm aptX as well. Learn more about it here.
Opening up the box reveals foam underneath and at both the top and bottom the shell case, but not the sides.

The documentations are found underneath the shell case. Rather simple packaging.

Opening up the case itself reveals the Edifier W830BT itself alongside with a little wrapper inside the compartment above that is held by velcros. Here you’ll find the micro USB cable and also a 3.5mm audio jack.

Design
The Edifier W830BT comes in both black and white colors. The one we have here at Nasi Lemak Tech is the white color – and to my surprise, its combination of beige/gold accents make it look absolutely gorgeous.

The Edifier W830BT is made out of higher quality plastic and it feels great to the touch. The surface of the plastic has small little grains which makes light diffuse, but too tiny to feel by the fingertips.

I do wish that Edifier added a few more chromed accents, but I think with its gold/beige color combo looks good already.
These are very comfortable!
The earcups and headband are made out of PU leather as usual. The headband is relatively thick enough and has some nice foam inside to keep it sprung up all the time. The earcups themselves are really thick and has about 6cm in length and 4cm in width.

The earcups themselves can be to face outwards when you rest them on the shoulders. This is also the same with the Beyerdynamic Custom STREET. Edifier took it to another level by having the W830BT to be foldable too. Yes – the Edifier W830BT can have its earcups rotated and folded – together at the same time, if you need it to be that compact.

The entire Edifier W830BT weighs in at 264g, while the case alongside with the two included cables weighs 474g in total.
Features

The Edifier W830BT comes with NFC on the left earcup so you can pair with your device with a single wave. Android only, though. The left earcup is also where the micro USB charging port is found – covered by a rubber flap – and also the 3.5mm audio jack. The 3.5mm audio jack is helpful if your Edifier W830BT ran out of battery but you still want to enjoy some tunes.
Plugging in the audio jack to the Edifier W830BT will automatically turn off the headphones and work exclusively in “passive” mode. No impact on the overall user experience but just want to highlight some random quirk we found out.

On the right earcup is where the indicator LED is found, alongside with 3 little holes for microphone, and the main controls. These 3 buttons function as such:

Center button

Hold to power on
Hold a short while to redial last called number
Press to play/pause

+ button

Press to increase volume
Hold to go next track

– button

Press to decrease volume
Hold to go previous track

Let’s not forget that the Edifier W830BT also comes with Qualcomm aptX. It won’t improve your song quality, but it ensures you’ll get a consistent, continuous stream of audio rather than being choppy. Qualcomm aptX is only useful for high-bitrate playbacks.
Learn more about Qualcomm aptX here.
As mentioned earlier, the Edifier W830BT does work in passive mode – where only the 3.5mm audio jack is connected. However, there’s a catch. The microphone doesn’t work with the included 3.5mm audio jack as it is a TRS audio jack. A TRRS audio jack is required for microphone to function as well.
Using the Edifier W830BT
Upon wearing it for the first time, I fell in love with its comfort. Seriously, the foam is superbly comfortable and enjoyable to wear. However, due to the nature of PU leather which is used to make the earcups, my ears can barely breathe. PU leather is known to create a fantastic seal around the ears for noise isolation, but also causes the temperature to rise as there’s virtually no air circulation.

For those who actually wear headphones for sports instead of earphones, you can actually consider the Edifier W830BT.
The 3 buttons are very tactile and good yet easy to press – especially the center button. Too easy to press to the point where I can accidentally press it when holding the earcups.
Comfort wise, I can wear the Edifier W830BT for about 6 hours straight and it stayed on my head snugly. It feels quite weightless on my head – and the clamping force is so well-done that it feels blissful. Better yet, the is sitting so comfortably yet snugly that it can’t be shook off even when I shake my head vigorously. Excellent design by Edifier here!
Listening test
Now, let’s begin the listening test for the Edifier W830BT. Right off the bat, I tested with some random music that I found online. Starting off with Something More by Love-Sadkid, paper latte, and Firth. It sounded amazing – as if the Edifier W830BT was made to listen to this type of song. Some might find the bass punches a little too strong, but I personally find it enjoyable. This song is really vocal-centric, and it feels like she’s whispering to my ears at a restaurant with trumpets at the background.

Listening to other songs like With The Funk by Slynk, Megan Hamilton, and The Bermudas sounded great with the punchy bass that the Edifier W830BT produces. However, Megan’s voice sounded a little muffled and mixed in with the bass.
Without a doubt, the Edifier W830BT has an emphasis on bass. Certain songs like Anthology (Daft Punk Tribute) by OVERWERK sounds great, but orchestral songs like Final Fantasy I~XIV Battle Medley just doesn’t sound as rich since the Edifier W830BT loses out in the highs.
They are extremely comfortable!
Soundstage of the Edifier W830BT is pretty much alright. It’s there, but nothing to really boast about. It’s suitable for games too, if you’re planning to get a wireless headphones for gaming and listening to music on the go.
Speaking of gaming, I used the Edifier W830BT and played CS:GO and didn’t notice any significant audio delay. Again, good job Edifier!
Battery life
Alright – so here’s a bold claim by Edifier. On the big itself at the top right corner, it is highlighted that the Edifier W830BT has a 95 hour of playing, or 60 days (1440 hours) of standby. That’s a very bold claim!
Now, I’m not sure what’s the battery size in this thing but I wore it for about 6 hours straight, and just to test the battery life, I left it on the table while it continued to play music. After 36 hours of non-stop music playback, the Edifier W830BT is still playing music. Even my phone is running out of battery.

According to John from My Everyday Tech, he says the W830BT can indeed achieve 95 hours of playback while listening to music at a relatively low volume – about 10~20%.
Charging it on the other hand, does take a long time. So plug it in overnight and let it charge. Have a good night sleep knowing that you’ll get to enjoy some great tunes in the morning when you wake up.
Wrapping up the Edifier W830BT review
The Edifier W830BT is a wireless headset that got fixed what the W800BT did wrong. Firstly, the build quality is better. Secondly, its comfort is just magnificent. Sound quality is subjective as usual, but bassheads and those who enjoy some beats with vocals will enjoy the W830BT for sure. Let’s not forget about the battery life too.

And for just RM279 over at Lazada now, I think it’s a damn good deal. Not sure if the price will retain at RM279 or not since it’s stated that the original price is actually RM499. Better buy it now if you’re looking for a wireless headset.
Where to buy?
Over at Lazada!

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Xiaomi announced their new #MiNotebookAir

As we all know Xiaomi is slowly trying diverge their target market rather than just focusing on smartphones. The best part of the Mi Notebook Air is that it has all your necessary connectors such as HDMI, USB 3.0, USB-C as well as audio port.
As for price, we are not sure how much will be when it arrive in Malaysia (or will it ever arrive here) but in Mainland China, it will cost you about RMB 4999, and if you wanted to opt for lower specs (probably without the dedicated GPU) it will be about RMB 3499.

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OPPO F1s Black Sold Out In 3 Days

We’ve talked about the OPPO F1s Black edition here – it’s a limited edition variant of the OPPO F1s. To be honest, I like it. The striking matte black brings a very classy design to a hip and young smartphone. But of course, such a nice smartphone means many people are going to get it.
Now, OPPO did not disclose how many units were available for purchase – but for all we know, it’s gotta be selling like hotcakes. The original OPPO F1s in Rose Gold and Gold hit the 100k units in less than 2 months – for Malaysia alone.

Quoting OPPO’s words, they claim to be “shocked to learn that the OPPO F1s Black Limited Edition has already sold out in just three days”. I am too, as there are many more competition that arose since the initial launch of the OPPO F1s. To maintain this momentum in the market for this long is difficult, especially in the growing market segment of selfie-centric smartphones.
So, did you get yourself the OPPO F1s Black this time? Maybe OPPO will bring a second batch of the OPPO F1s Black in the market some time in the near future. I sure hope they will!

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“Review” – ROG Phone 5s Pro: What has changed?

Since the first ROG Phone 4 years ago, Qualcomm also released a new “plus” variant of their flagship chipset of that particular year, touting even more performance. And it’s usually the ROG Phone series that make use of this “plus” variant of Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon chipset.
However, this year is different. We have the ROG Phone 5 series (review here) that utilizes the base version of Qualcomm’s flagship chipset – the Snapdragon 888. However, the Snapdragon 888 is known to be a heater of a chipset (as shown here), and my eyebrows raised at the fact that the Snapdragon 888+ actually exists, then quietly launched into the market, and is equipped in the ROG Phone 5s series of smartphones.

Since we have both the ROG Phone 5 (Snapdragon 888) and the ROG Phone 5s Pro (Snapdragon 888+) with us, we decided to compare and contrast what’s the difference between these two chipsets.
The only difference between these two phones is the chipset, by the way.

 Benchmarks
We started off with 3DMark Wild Life. The results are… pretty close. But that’s only a short burst of performance.

What about in the long-run? So we tested with 3D Mark Wild Life stress test. It goes through 20 loops of the 3D Mark Wild Life back to back and see how a device sustains its level performance.

And to our surprise, the ROG Phone 5 with the Snapdragon 888 is ever so slightly better than the ROG Phone 5s Pro with the Snapdragon 888+.
In Geekbench 5 CPU test, the Snapdragon 888+ is surprisingly performing worse than the 888! But the GPU is slightly better.

Then for Antutu, we can see that the differences are clearer. The CPU on the Snapdragon 888 is better, but the GPU on the Snapdragon 888+ is better. The memory scores here are irrelevant since both devices have different RAM configurations.

What about gaming?
But benchmarks aside, we took both the ROG Phone 5 and ROG Phone 5s Pro and hopped into Genshin Impact and do the same things together, and see how both these phones perform in real-world gaming scenarios.
All I can say is, the performance difference between the scores is minimal and I just don’t think it’s enough of a difference to rave over the new Snapdragon 888+.

There are conspiracy theorists saying that Samsung sabotaged Qualcomm by making the Snapdragon inefficient. Those are serious accusations and I really want to see some proof.
But I honestly don’t think that’s the case because Samsung’s latest flagships – the Galaxy Z Fold3 and the Galaxy Z Flip3 – are both using the Snapdragon 888 chipsets too.

For all I can say, it seems like Qualcomm didn’t do proper QC or they messed up the implementation of their “Prime Core” that’s based on Arm’s Cortex-X1 design. It’s not the first time Qualcomm messed up and created a heating machine – look at the Snapdragon 810.
But that’s a topic for another day because it’s very in-depth.

I’d say ROG did a fantastic job (with asterisks) in terms of properly managing the heat coming out of the Snapdragon 888 and Snapdragon 888+ chipsets. There’s no screen dimming issue or extreme thermal throttling – it’s just very uncomfortable to touch.

By the way, I don’t know where to put this – if you want to check out the gaming performance of the ROG Phone 5s Pro alone – check out this video instead.

So… should you buy the ROG Phone 5s?
Everything else from the ROG Phone 5 review still applies to this ROG Phone 5s series, by the way. All the accessory compatibility and its features, they’re all still the same. Here’s a quick refresher for you.

Because of how few changes (only one, let’s be honest) there are between the ROG Phone 5 and the ROG Phone 5s series of smartphones – to the point that even the prices are the same – I’ll give the ROG Phone 5s Pro the same award.

Where to buy? (Affiliate links)

Amazon US
Lazada
Shopee

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[UPDATED] Sony launches Xperia C4 Dual, M4 Aqua, Z4 Tablet

Probably one of the biggest news for entry-level smartphones by Sony right here. It’s best to let the phones speak themselves.

Xperia C4 Dual

Has dual-SIM, a 13MP rear-facing camera and a full-fledged 5MP front-facing camera with Sony’s own Exmor R and LED flash, all powered by a 1.7GHz MediaTek MTK6752 octa-core processor. Also, has a 5.5-inch full HD display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2.

The C4 Dual is available in black, white, and mint colour! Price is to be determined, and only available next month though. 🙁
[UPDATE] : The official price of the C4 Dual is here! It will be priced at RM1,299 with GST included, and comes with 3 colours – black, white, and mint.
Xperia M4 Aqua

If a waterproof phone is all you want, but don’t need the flagship horsepower, the Xperia M4 Aqua is for you. It’s a 5-inch phone with 1280×720 display, powered by a Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor. With a 13MP rear-facing camera and a 5MP front-facing camera to go alongside with 2,400mAh battery, there will be many great underwater shots taken. Also, it has dual-SIM ports!

Ths M4 Aqua comes in black, white, and coral colours – retails at RM969 and available this week!
Xperia Z4 Tablet

The mother of all tablets. The Xperia Z4 Tablet now wields a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor with LTE and 64-bit octa-core processor. It has 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and expandable up to another 128GB with a microSD card. It’s a perfect marriage with the 10.1-inch, 2560×1600 pixel screen, and powered by a 6,000mAh battery.

It also has a 8.1MP rear-facing camera, a 5.1MP front-facing camera for all the underwater goodness. Also, it weighs only at a mere 393 grams. OMG!

It’s available in black and white, and retails at RM2,699 for the tablet only and RM3,199 with the keyboard. Also, It’s available on the 22nd of June 2015.

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[UPDATED] Xiaomi Malaysia brings Mi 10T and Mi 10T Pro; starts from RM1,699

Xiaomi Malaysia just announced that both the Mi 10T and the Mi 10T Pro will be available in the Malaysian market in just a few days! To celebrate its arrival, Xiaomi Malaysia has a few different special deals to commemorate this special event.
Before we begin, let’s take a look at the differences between the Mi 10T and the Mi 10T Pro on paper:

Mi 10T Pro
Mi 10T

Display

6.67-inch IPS LCD
2400×1080 pixels in resolution
AdaptiveSync @ 30Hz/48Hz/50Hz/60Hz/90Hz/120Hz/144Hz

Chipset
Qualcomm Snapdragon 865

Rear camera

Main: 108MPf/1.69 with OIS
Ultra-wide Angle: 13MP f/2.4
Macro: 5MP f/2.4; AF

Main: 64MP f/1.89
Ultra-wide Angle: 13MP f/2.4
Macro: 5MP f/2.4; AF

Front camera
20MP f/2.2

Connectivity

5G
WiFi 6
Dual SIM
NFC
IR blaster

Unlock

Side-mounted fingerprint sensor
AI Face Unlock

Battery & charger

5,000mAh
33W wired fast charging (included)

Storage variants

8GB+128GB
8GB+256GB

6GB+128GB
8GB+128GB

Color

Cosmic Black
Lunar Silver
Aurora Blue

Cosmic Black
Lunar Silver

The differences here aren’t exactly that huge, namely the RAM, storage, and also the main camera sensor’s resolution. And we’ve also reviewed the Mi 10T Pro here. In short, the Mi 10T Pro is great for those who want to take mobile photography seriously, else the Mi 10T is already perfect.

And if you want to know how the Mi 10T Pro performs in games, here is another video for that.

As for the prices, the Mi 10T and Mi 10T Pro only have one variant each in Malaysia:

Mi 10T (8GB RAM + 128GB storage) @ RM1,699
Mi 10T Pro (8GB RAM + 256GB storage) @ RM1,999

By looking at just the price and specs, the Mi 10T is going to be the replacement for the POCO F2 Pro that we loved. It’s with more or less the same specs but at a much lower launch price here in Malaysia.

Roadshow
Xiaomi Malaysia is having a roadshow this 9th to 11th October at these places. There are a total of 450x Mi TV 55″ to be given out, too. To learn more about the terms and conditions, refer to Xiaomi Malaysia’s official Facebook post:

And I know, the COVID-19 situation in Malaysia is getting exponentially worse day by day. So, I’m not sure what’s going to happen within these few days. Either way, do keep an eye out on Xiaomi Malaysia’s official Facebook page for the latest updates.
UPDATE: Xiaomi Malaysia is bringing the roadshow deals to online entirely!
After many of us have voiced our concerns regarding the physical roadshow event that Xiaomi Malaysia wants to have, it has now been migrated to be a fully online-only deal. Took them long enough, but still – I’m glad they made the change.
The roadshow at Sunway Pyramid is still there, but it’s for experiential purposes only.
Here’s the official statement from Xiaomi Malaysia.
The health and safety of Malaysian Mi Fans and consumers during these unprecedented times remain our top priority. Thus, with regards to the current COVID-19 situation, we have decided to shift from offline to online all sessions of the latest announced Mi 10T Pro and Mi 10T First Sales Roadshow at Sunway Pyramid, 1 Utama, Gurney Mall (Penang) and Paradigm Mall (Johor Bharu), previously scheduled from 9 October onwards.

All exclusive first sales roadshow sessions will be live on Xiaomi’s official Lazada store and other participating online stores’ channels from 9 October onwards, in the meantime, adjustments to the special offers and deals will also be made. This is part of our efforts to keep our Mi Fans and consumers safe, without compromising the enjoyment of participating in our roadshow.

On the same note, the exhibition space at Sunway Pyramid’s LG2 Blue Concourse will still be open to the public for experiential purposes. All precautionary measurements and SOP guidelines are strictly followed.
From what we can find out, now the first 500 customers will be receiving the Mi TV instead. The model of that TV is the Mi LED TV 4S 55″.
Subsequent 650 customers will be receiving the Mi True Wireless Earphones 2 Basic, which we also have reviewed here.
Lazada special
Xiaomi is also having a similar deal going on at Lazada, whereby they’re giving out a total of 7x Mi TV 55″. But instead of being the fastest to make the purchase, it’s going to be a “who gives the best review” competition.

I mean… you could just refer to our review and have the “best review” for the Mi 10T Pro and win the TV. 😏

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realme Malaysia launches yet another new budget smartphone – the C33 at RM559

realme Malaysia announced the availability of the upcoming budget smartphone C33 last week.

Despite the concept of budget smartphones is to either serve as the main device for budget-constrained people or as a side or backup phone for the rest of the consumers, the C33 actually managed to catch a glimpse from me due to the fact that its main sensor is a 50MP unit and not some cheapo lens.
Although it won’t instantly make shots extravagantly pretty, at least it is usable in terms of maybe, taking a document photo. But the efficient SoC plus the big block of battery will definitely light up the device for a long time per charge, that’s for sure.

6.5-inch IPS LCD Display

720p Resolution
Waterdrop Notch

Unisoc Tiger T612 Chipset
4GB RAM
64GB Storage
Dual Rear Camera

Main: 50MP f/1.8 with PDAF
Depth Sensor

5MP Selfie Camera
5,000mAh Battery

Night Sea, Aqua Blue Colors

Price and Availability
You may buy the realme C33 in Malaysia starting October 7 at the price of just RM559 on Lazada and Shopee.

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OPPO Reno & Reno 10x Zoom Edition; priced at RM1,999 & RM3,399

Today marks the date that OPPO Malaysia finally shows us the OPPO Reno series of smartphones. A while back, we have already played with the Reno, though it was concealed. OPPO highlights that the Reno series of smartphones has something called the “10x lossless zoom”.
The OPPO Reno is an entirely new series of smartphones that fit into the family, and the OPPO Reno spans from mid-range to high-end devices. Today, OPPO Malaysia focuses only on the Reno itself. Honestly, I prefer the Ocean Green color. As for the price, OPPO Malaysia has priced the OPPO Reno at RM1,999. Quite hefty.

Pre-orders for the Reno begins 17th May until 27th May 2019 at OPPO’s official online store and also authorized stores and dealers. All pre-orders will come with freebies as well:

Smart Battery Casing worth RM199
Extended one year warranty worth RM119
Screen protection warranty worth RM119

We thought that the OPPO Reno 10x Zoom edition will be launching as well – but unfortunately, it won’t be here today. Also, the core specs of the OPPO Reno itself is actually very similar to the higher-tiered Realme 3 Pro (review) that was released not too long ago, and priced at RM1,099 only. That makes the Reno very niche, and we wonder what’s the price of the 10x Zoom Edition going to be when it arrives to Malaysia.

UPDATE: OPPO Malaysia just announced that the Reno 10x Zoom Edition will be the in market too!
The OPPO Reno 10x Zoom Edition is officially in Malaysia with the price at RM3,399.

The OPPO Reno 10x Zoom, as the name implies, has a the touted “10x lossless zoom” and can zoom up to 60x digitally – 10x more than the Huawei P30 Pro.
The pre-order for the OPPO Reno 10x Zoom will be available starting from 27th May at 1pm to 17th June 2019, and you can also get up to RM877 worth of free gift:

Smartphone Gimbal Stabilizer worth RM599
Extended one-year warranty worth RM139
creen protection warranty worth RM139

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HP launches Creators of Tomorrow Mentorship Project in collaboration with Yuna

HP Malaysia has started the Creators of Tomorrow Mentorship Project aimed to inspire and enable creativity among the youths of today through the help of industry professionals. To start things off, they are targeting the music industry and partnering with internationally acclaimed artist and homegrown talent Yuna.
Start by visiting the project page to learn more about the contest, then submit your application on the microsite by uploading/sharing a link to a 30-second vocal or instrumental cover of your favorite song. Easy as that!

Speaking of the HP ENVY laptops, you now can get RM100 off your next HP ENVY 13, HP ENVY 15, or HP Spectre x360 purchase from now until the end of November by using the code ENVY100 on Shopee. You’ll also get some freebies worth RM409, including an HP Pavilion Backpack, HP Wireless Mouse, and Kaspersky Internet Security for your device. Find out more about this offer here. On the other hand, on the big day of November 11, you can the same discount and freebies when you purchase RM3,000 worth of HP products and not just the laptops, just anything HP will be eligible.

KL Fashion Week x HP
On a side note, HP is also joining hands with KL Fashion Week to search for the next generation of talented designers that could come up with a whole new idea or scope of sustainable fashion in which the top 10 participants will receive guidance from KLFW’s mentors as they finalize their collection to debut at KLFW Digital 2020 in November.

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DXRacer & Gamer Zone Debacle: What Really Happened?

Over the course of the last 24 hours or so, a lot has happened regarding Gamer Zone, DXRacer, and a particular someone with the name Vince Lim. There is this big DXRacer and Gamer Zone debacle The story here is quite convoluted, so let’s understand it part by part.
The accusation
We start off with the one who started all of this. Her name is Emily Kong, and she accused Gamer Zone for essentially giving false promise to her. For those who follow the eSports scene in detail, the name Emily Kong might ring a bell – that’s because she’s Mushi’s girlfriend.

Here’s the summary of this part of the story:

Emily Kong orders a DXRacer chair on Saturday, was told it’ll be shipped out on Monday.
On Sunday night, Emily receives a message saying that the model she wanted is out of stock. Gamer Zone gave her two options – either take a different model, or wait for 2-3 weeks for new stock to arrive.
Emily wanted a refund, but was rejected.
Gamer Zone was rude to her.
Emily posted the whole story on Facebook and got viral.
Gamer Zone refunded.

A lot of you might think – that’s the end of the story, right? Apparently not. In Emily’s post, she even posted out the name of that person from Gamer Zone that was talking to her – and that name is Vince Lim.
But first, let’s dive deeper into Gamer Zone.
Gamer Zone’s website
They have a pretty simple website which you can take a look here. There is literally nothing to look at other than DXRacer products alone. I’m not really interested in that – so let’s head on to their subpage – Showroom.
Wait a minute – that’s Ultimate.Zone they’re showing. Even the address is pointing to their new location.
[alert type=”info” icon-size=”normal”]Unfortunately, they’ve removed the webpage already and it’s now only showing a 404 page.[/alert]
Hold on, I know Vince Lim. He’s one of the guys from Ultimate.Zone. Let’s inquire him instead.
Clearing up the fog
I know Vince Lim. He’s a nice dude and I’m sure he wouldn’t act in such a way. He’s been in business under the name Ultimate.Zone for quite a few years already too.
I shot a message to Vince Lim on WhatsApp, and I got a “lol” at first. Then, an essay explaining the entire DXRacer and Gamer Zone debacle poured in. Here’s the summary:

The Vince Lim that Emily is referring to is not the Vince Lim that I know
Through further digging, we found out the two Vince Lim’s full name

Vince Lim Wee Ming (Gamer Zone)
Vince Lim Wee Fong (Ultimate.Zone)

Both Vince Lim know each other and are aware of what’s happening

I asked Vince Lim of Ultimate.Zone to get an idea of what’s going on and why Gamer Zone puts Ultimate.Zone as their showroom – and the answer I got is just mind-boggling.
Apparently, Gamer Zone sent out DXRacer chairs to Ultimate.Zone and asked them to assist in selling them, Hence they put Ultimate.Zone as their showroom.
Verdict & What Can We Learn?
We here at Nasi Lemak Tech is not accusing anyone over the entire DXRacer and Gamer Zone debacle – we’re just reporting what we know to clear up the confusion. We see it as miscommunication, though the situation could be handled in a more pleasant manner.
At first, many things don’t add up. The coincidence in names is the one thing that I can’t wrap my head around – how can it be so similar? Upon looking further at the evidence that we have, the correlation between the two Vince Lim in question disappears.
Also, both DXRacer Malaysia and Ultimate.Zone have issued official statements, clarifying that they are indeed not related to Gamer Zone.

Let’s be honest here – the entire situation can be avoided. How? Remember to check who’s the official reseller, and buy from them instead. That way, you’ll have less chance of going through such a debacle.
That’s all the information we have for now, and we’ll definitely keep this page updated when we know more.

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Watch The Making Of Julian And His Magical Skates Here

A while back, we did a feature on the animated short about Julian Yee – a Malaysian who is qualified for Pyeong Chang 2018 Winter Olympics for ice skating. The bizarre story here is that a Malaysian is able to qualify for ice skating. There’s no snow in Malaysia – but Julian Yee practiced in at shopping mall during his early career. Hence, Samsung made an animated short about it and called it Julian And His Magical Skates.

What’s interesting is that the entire short was made using the Samsung Galaxy Note8. We also reviewed it here, and we liked the S Pen a lot. By just using the Galaxy Note8 and the S Pen alone, the team got to work with their brainstorming, sketches, drafting animations and more. And just over a month later, the official video was brought to life.

The entire video was done in just 30 days with a total of 10 Galaxy Note8 at hand. Pretty crazy, if you ask me.

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Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018) Pre-Orders Start 15th October

The all new Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018) was just launched a few days ago in the first ever Unpacked event in Malaysia. We attended the event and we finally got our hands on the brand new Galaxy A7 (2018) – and it’s going to be available for pre-orders starting 15th until 21st October.

To celebrate the arrival of the all new Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018), Samsung is rewarding all pre-orders with 3 more gifts which are worth RM302 in total. You’ll get:

Samsung Screen Protection worth RM112
Mini Tripod worth RM95
Thermos Mug worth RM95

The retail price of the Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018) is of course, RM1,299. It’s a mid-range smartphone that has some of Samsung’s premium features which are only available in the Galaxy S and Note series of smartphones.
As for the specs you’re getting, the Galaxy A7 (2018) will have:

6-inch Super AMOLED display with 2220×1080 resolution
8x 2.2GHz octa-core processor
Rear-facing cameras

24MP f/1.7 main camera
5MP f/2.2 depth sensor
8MP f/2.4 ultra-wide camera with 120º

4GB RAM
128GB internal storage
3,300mAh battery
Android 8.1.0 Oreo
Supports NFC and Samsung Pay

It’s also available in a total of 3 different colors – gold, black, and blue. Not sure where’s the pink color, though. If you’re wondering how the phone actually looks like, you can check out our coverage of the Unpacked event here, or watch the video below.

The Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018) is available for pre-order at any Samsung authorized dealers or at the Samsung online store. For more information on the Samsung Galaxy A7’s pre-order promotion, please visit: www.samsung.com/my/galaxyapreorder.

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Review – Samsung Galaxy S23+

Okay, today we’re reviewing the Galaxy S23+, which is the last one on our list. I think many people will agree when I say that the S23+ has the middle-child syndrome. It’s oftentimes ignored and gets left out. It even shares many similarities with the base S23 too.
For today, we’re going to do this review a tad bit differently. We’re going to talk about the similarities with the S23 first, then the many differences that I’ve found out, and finally – the value proposition of the S23+.

So, we’ll start with the similarities. The S23+ shares the exact same design as the regular S23. The Plus is just bigger. The colors are also identical, so we have the 4 colors – Cream, Green, Lavender, and Phantom Black – alongside the 2 exclusive colors on Samsung.com – Graphite and Lime.

With a bigger phone size means a bigger screen too. The S23+ comes with a 6.6-inch screen but the resolution is identical to the S23. It has 2340×1080 pixels in resolution and uses the Dynamic AMOLED 2X branding which means 120Hz refresh rate too. The display also goes down to 10Hz, by the way – we can also use the Device Info HW app to check the phone’s refresh rates.

The screen’s overall brightness values in different modes are also identical since Samsung claims all phones within the S23 series has a peak brightness of 1750 nits – and from our tests, yes – they’re all achieving the same max brightness.

Even the color accuracy is the same too. Tested at 100 nits brightness, it can cover virtually 100% of sRGB And DCI-P3 color gamuts with a similar Delta E as the S23.

Skipping forward, the software. All phones within the S23 series – and even the S22 series and the Z Fold4 – are already using the One UI 5.1. The features are the same across all of them, so watch our other reviews at the top right corner instead because I don’t want to repeat the same things.

Then, everything else is surprisingly different even though they share some key specs.
Camera
We’ll talk about the cameras first. As you know, the cameras are identical to the S22+ too. Furthermore, the S23+’s camera are identical to the small S23 too. So, when we look at all of the pictures taken, they’re identical.

To have a look at all the pictures taken by the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus, watch our video at the top of this review.
Performance
And then, the performance. The S23+ also uses the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and the performance is… well, kinda weird. You see, for whatever reason, the S23+’s render resolution in Genshin Impact is the highest out of the three – at 1872×864. It’s only slightly higher than the Ultra, though.

The resulting performance is also very similar with the small S23 and Ultra – hovering about 55fps to 60fps average and dip to about 50fps in certain scenes. It’s never stuttery and I enjoyed the gaming experience overall.

Since it is bigger than the S23, the temperature is also better controlled and it’s always below 42°C on all sides of the phone’s surface. I had a lot of fun playing games on this phone, honestly.

Of course, the Galaxy S23+ also has the “pause USB Power Delivery” feature and you’ll need to perform some ritual to summon it out. Watch our video here to find out how.

Battery life
Then, the battery life. Now, since we didn’t review the S22+, we don’t have any past data to compare with. However, we can compare it with the small S23 and the Ultra instead. So, using the same PCMark test locked at 100 nits brightness, the S23+ can reach 15 hours!

How is this possible with its 4,700mAh battery? It’s 300mAh less than the Ultra, but lasts 2 hours more. Well, I think it’s mainly because the S23+ has the same number of pixels on the screen as the small one, hence the power saving.
Charging speed
The charging speed is something that we’ll have to use the Ugreen 100W GaN charger again – and it takes bout 70 minutes to charge from 15% to completion. The temperature is kinda weird since it did touch 40°C and immediately drop back down, then it does the temperature control thing by controlling the charging speed to go up and down in response to the temperature.

Few more things to highlight
And a few more things to mention. The Galaxy S23+ still uses a USB 3.0 port at the bottom, so we can transfer files in and out quickly.

Of course, Samsung DeX is also present here – and it also has the IP68 rating as well. Nothing out of the ordinary.

What I realized is that the S23+ starts from 256GB storage only. That means it is using UFS 4.0, just like the Ultra – and that’s why the write speed is identical to the Ultra. The read speed and the RAM speed are identical across all the 3 phones within the series.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus?
And finally – let’s talk about the middle-child syndrome. The reason why I say this is because the S23 is one of the best small flagship smartphones that is available worldwide and there is a surprising number of people who likes small phones. The Ultra – well, it’s the best of everything. If someone wants the best flagship smartphone money can buy, they’ll go for the Ultra.

That leaves the S23+ stuck in the middle. It’s practically a larger S23 but without the Ultra’s flairs. If you just want a bigger S23, then yeah – go ahead. This is actually a fantastic phone.
However, I want to talk about the value proposition and why the S23+ exists. If we look at the S23 family, the prices are as shown here.

Let’s just use the 256GB storage as the comparison since I think 128GB is just insufficient for today’s usage.
As we can see, there is a huge price gap between the small S23 and the Ultra. So, Samsung made the Plus to be an in-between option. Bigger than the S23, but without the Ultra’s flair.
Honestly speaking, I personally think the price of the Plus is appropriate. It’s justifiable, just for whatever reason – many people tend to forget about the Plus and rarely get talked about.
So, if you’re looking to get a new everyday flagship phone without the premium price and features, then the S23+ is a fantastic phone – especially the battery life.
Where to buy? (Affiliate links)

Amazon
Lazada
Shopee
Samsung.com (telco unit)
Samsung.com (unlocked)

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From Taipei : ASUS Announces The New ZenFone 4 Family of Smartphones

Words can’t describe the amount of heat here in Taipei right now. We’re constantly on a 35 degree Celsius weather and to top it all off, the venue is really crowded! But that doesn’t stop us from reporting what’s going on here in Taipei, Taiwan. It’s the day the ASUS ZenFone 4 family of devices are launched together with its family of devices!
When I say it’s a family of devices, I mean that it’s literally a family of devices. There are a lot of other devices other than just the ZenFone 4 alone. Let’s make it simple this time with this handy little breakdown.

ASUS ZenFone 4 Pro
The biggest brother among the entire family is the ASUS ZenFone 4 Pro. Its specs are extensive and thread well among other flagships smartphones of these days.

Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 (FinFET-based, we explained why it matters here)
Display: 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED display
RAM: 6GB
Storage: 128GB built-in; up to 2TB microSD card
Camera

Selfie: Sony IMX214 with f/1.9 lens
Rear-camera: Sony IMX362 sensor with f/1.7 lens + 16MP secondary camera with Sony IMX351 sensor and f/1.9 lens

Battery: 3,000mAh

Powerful indeed. All of these power for the price of USD $599. Is it worth it? We’ll find out when we get our hands on one of it 😀
ASUS ZenFone 4
This is definitely the main highlight of the day. The ASUS ZenFone 4 is finally official after weeks of leaks, predictions, and teases. Here’s what the ASUS ZenFone 4 officially has.

Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 630/660 (FinFET-based, we explained why it matters here)
Display: 5.5-inch 1080p Super IPS+ display
RAM: 4GB/6GB
Storage: 64GB built-in; up to 2TB microSD card
Camera

Selfie: 8MP 120 degree wide angle lens with f/2.0
Rear-camera: 12MP Sony IMX362 sensor with f/1.8 lens + 8MP secondary camera with 120-degree wide angle lens

Battery: 3,000mAh

With its sleek metal and glass build, I can see from the specs of the Snapdragon 630 and 660 chipsets that they do follow the trend of the ASUS ZenFone 3 – extremely long battery life with its slightly lowered clock speeds across all 8 cores.
Day long battery life – no issues!
It’ll be priced at USD $399.
ASUS ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro (ZD552KL)
Let’s talk about the Selfie first. We know that we’re all crazy about selfie and I absolutely loved the original ZenFone Selfie from a few years ago. It was the first ever smartphone with auto-focusing selfie camera. Now, it’s back!
Introducing the ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro – the smartphone that is an absolute beast when it comes to selfies.

Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 (FinFET-based, we explained why it matters here)
Display: 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED display
RAM: 4GB
Storage: 64GB built-in; up to 2TB microSD card
Camera

Selfie: dual-front facing camera; 24MP (2*12MP; Sony IMX362 + Omnivision 5670) sensor for DuoPixel sensor technology; f/1.8 with 120 degree wide angle
Rear-camera: 16MP Sony IMX351 f/2.2

Battery: 3,000mAh

From the looks of it, the ASUS ZenFone 4 Pro will be a very power-efficient smartphone, just like its predecessor. One thing I’m eager to test out is the DuoPixel camera technology as it combines two 12MP sensors to create a single 24MP image.

The ASUS ZenFone 4 will be available in a total of 3 different colors – Rogue Red, Sunlight Gold, and Deepsea Black. Its price? RM1,799/USD $379. Available starting on 25th August 2017!
ASUS ZenFone 4 Selfie (ZD553KL)
Stepping down a notch for those who don’t need the overkill hardware, we have the ASUS ZenFone 4 Selfie. Here’s the specs.

Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 (FinFET-based, we explained why it matters here)
Display: 5.5-inch 720p IPS display
RAM: 4GB
Storage: 64GB built-in; up to 2TB microSD card
Camera

Selfie: dual-front facing camera; 20MP f/2.0 with 120 degree wide angle + second f/2.4 camera
Rear-camera: 16MP f/2.2

Battery: 3,000mAh

As we can see here, it’s mostly similar in terms of the hardware – but the things that are different is the screen resolution, chipset, and also the front-facing camera.
One last thing that has changed significantly is its price. The ASUS ZenFone 4 Selfie is priced at RM1,299/USD $279 only. Available starting on 25th August 2017!
Comes in a total of 4 colors too – Rose Pink, Sunlight Gold, Deepsea Black, and Mint Green.
ASUS ZenFone 4 Max Pro (ZC554KL)
The Max series of ZenFones over the years have proved themselves to be of utmost worth for those who seek the longest battery live within a very limited budget. I did review the ZenFone 3 Max 5.5-inch variant here, too.
Now, for the ASUS ZenFone 4 Max Pro’s specs.

Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 425
Display: 5.5-inch 720p IPS display
RAM: 3GB
Storage: 32GB built-in; up to 2TB microSD card
Camera

Selfie: 16MP f/2.0
Rear-camera: dual facing camera; 16MP f/2.0 with 120 degree wide angle + second f/2.0 camera

Battery: 5,000mAh

From what I can see here, the ASUS ZenFone 4 Max Pro (a mouthful for a name) is indeed something that has decent hardware, but the battery life here is all that matters. with that massive 5,000mAh battery.
Fret not, the ASUS ZenFone 4 Max Pro is priced at only RM1,099. Comes in a total of 3 color choices – Deepsea Black, Sunlight Gold, and also Rose Pink.

That’s all we have for now, and we’ll update here again when we have more information. We’ll have a specific post about Malaysian prices when it’s available too! 😉

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Get this Alcatel One Touch Flash Mini 4031D – RM189 smartphone; while stocks last!

Quick! Alcatel’s budget smartphone is here – it’s the Alcatel One Touch Flash Mini 4031D, and it costs only RM189!

The Alcatel One Touch Flash Mini 4031D is a 4-inch smartphone with a dual-core 1.0GHz processor running on Android 4.4 KitKat, with the whole thing juiced by a 1,500mAh battery. Sure, the specs aren’t impressive – but remember, this smartphone is meant for those who don’t use much other than things like WhatsApp.
Pretty robust smartphone too – small body, 5MP rear-facing camera to take shots that are good enough for social media. Also, it has 512MB RAM, 4GB storage, and another microSD card slot that can expand up to an additional 32GB!

Hey, furthermore it costs only RM189! While stocks last though – so make sure you get it QUICK!
CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW!

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Jabra’s latest Elite 5 TWS hosts multiple premium features at an affordable price of RM699

Today, Jabra Malaysia has officially launched the new Elite 5 TWS that promises to hit the sweet spot of many people through its wide variety of features.

The product is served to fill the middle gap between the top tier Elite 7 and budget Elite 3 thus you know the Elite 5 is the “jack-of-all-trades” with very little compromise. For starters, it champions the Hybrid ANC technology by combining feedforward and feedback setup applied to a 6-microphone array that delivers astounding noise canceling and wind noise reduction, powered by the Qualcomm QCC3050 Bluetooth chipset.
The 6mm speakers can blast out a whole range of sound to make your music better and with support of AAC, SBC, and Qualcomm aptX codecs on top of a customizable equalizer, have fun wearing it with comfort for up to 7 hours (ANC On) with a total of 28 hours playtime provided by charging case.
The case is using a USB-C port (thankfully) but you may place it on top of a Qi-Charge-based wireless charging pad to juice it up without the troublesome cable.

Aside from being compatible with Google Fast Pair and Microsoft Swift Pair for an easy “wear and connect” experience, you may also use Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa for some hands-free help on the go and it also supports Spotify Tap Playback as well if you’re the type of streaming music from the cloud service.
Lastly, the Bluetooth Multipoint lets you connect to 2 devices at once so you can receive calls from both your laptop and smartphone without switching manually and the IP55 water and dust protection will keep the earbuds safe and sound from daily usage.
Pricing and Availability
Coming in colors of Titanium Black and Gold Beige, the Jabra Elite 5 TWS is priced at just RM699 and you can buy them starting today on Jabra’s official Shopee and Lazada page as well as other authorized resellers.

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Join the brand new #FanEditionShowDown challenge on Tiktok and stand a chance to win a Samsung Galaxy S21 FE

Samsung has recently engaged the #FanEditionShowDown challenge over at Tiktok that offers participants a chance to win a brand new Samsung Galaxy S21 FE.

With the good old Galaxy S20 FE back then becoming an instant hit with more than 10 million units sold worldwide, it makes sense for Samsung to continue the bloodline through the Galaxy S21 FE. Retailing from just RM2,899, it packs all the core spirit of the original Galaxy S21 in terms of performance and design while backing off some features that are too premium to get the price down to this figure.

And you can have a chance to own it by participating in the #FanEditionShowDown Tiktok Challenge starting right now until February 3. The competition revolves around showcasing the best outfit rendition representing the chic colors of the Galaxy S21 FE 5G which includes Lavender, Olive, Graphite, and White with the most creative submission winning the device in one go.
Follow these steps to get into the fray and battle it out.

Follow @samsung on TikTok
Submit a Tiktok clip that features a duet with one of the following influencers while including the hashtag #FanEditionShowDown

@ellyakeesha
@alex_hkf
@amandaamry
@ericofstedst
@laylasania
@wafiy_aan

Winners will be announced on February 16 on Samsung Malaysia’s Instagram account.
Find out more information about the #FanEditionShowDown TikTok Challenge here.

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New HUAWEI Mate 50 series enters Malaysia from RM3,699

HUAWEI Malaysia has announced the arrival of the latest Mate 50 series smartphones carrying 3 different variants with one of them being more special and unique.

The entire lineup consists of the Mate 50, Mate 50 Pro, and the Mate 50 Pro Orange Vegan Leather, and the main highlight is focusing on the new XMAGE imaging technology developed in-house by HUAWEI that delivers better and smarter post-processing results while assisting the optical sensors and mechanical parts to do a better overall job.
Coupled with the sleek and modern design incorporated with leading computing parts, the Mate 50 series aims to be the one that can be all and do all.
Here’s a quick spec sheet for you.

Model

Mate 50

Mate 50 Pro

Display

6.7-inch OLED (1080p+ Resolution, Middle Notch, 90Hz Refresh Rate, 300Hz Sampling Rate)

6.74-inch OLED (1080p+ Resolution, Middle Notch, 120Hz Refresh Rate, 300Hz Sampling Rate)

Chipset

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1

RAM

8GB

Storage

256GB

Up to 512GB

Rear Cameras

Main: 50MP f/1.4 with PDAF, OIS, Laser AF
Periscope Telephoto: 64MP f/3.5 with PDAF, OIS, 3.5x Digital Zoom
Ultra-Wide: 13MP f/2.2 with PDAF

Front Camera

13MP

Battery

4,460mAh (66W Fast Charge, 50W Wireless Charge, 5 W Reverse Wireless Charge)

4,700mAh (66W Fast Charge, 50W Wireless Charge, 5 W Reverse Wireless Charge)

Colors

Black, Silver

Black, Silver, Orange Vegan Leather

Price and Availability
Preorders for the HUAWEI Mate 50 series are already underway and only last until November 11 with the base Mate 50 priced at RM3,699 while the Mate 50 Pro (8GB+256GB) is at RM4,499 with the special Mate 50 Pro Orange Vegan Leather (8GB+512GB) edition topping off at RM5,299.
Early birds will receive multiple gifts worth up to RM1,450 and one can preorder them via the official HUAWEI website, Lazada, or Shopee store.

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Facebook acquires Oculus; world rages

If you have not heard of what Oculus is, well, they’re the ones who are currently developing a new type of immersive screen that’s directly on your eyes. That’s virtual reality with screens directly in front of your eyes, much like you wear a pair of goggles with screens in it.
Oculus started off in Kickstarter with a small demonstration on what the Oculus Rift is, and everyone is just purely impressed by it and started to chip in to help out in the funding for the Oculus. However, about a week ago, Facebook acquired Oculus and we have no idea why. What we do know however, is that Facebook acquired Oculus for billion. I guess Kickstarter has to update their policy too to address the issue if the company gets acquired when the Kickstarter project is not done.

Via : The Verge, Ars Technica

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Review – Samsung Galaxy Watch5 44mm: What’s new?

In addition to releasing the Galaxy Z Flip4 and Z Fold4, Samsung also released the Galaxy Watch5. Now, to those who are in the loop, you might say – hey, this is identical to the Galaxy Watch4 series. And you’re right – kind of.
The Galaxy Watch5 series also comes with 40mm and 44mm sizes for us to choose from, but in a few different color choices than before. The one we have here is the Galaxy Watch5 44mm version and let’s compare it with the Galaxy Watch4 44mm that I was wearing for the past year.

Okay, let’s run through the similarities between these two watches. Given that these two watches are 44mm, they share a lot of the same hardware. They both look identical and share the same 20mm width watch strap with the exact same locking mechanism.

They also use the same 1.4-inch circular Super AMOLED screen with 450×450 pixels too. One big upgrade though is that the Galaxy Watch5 now uses a sapphire crystal glass instead of Corning Gorilla Glass.

The chipset of the device also remains the same – Exynos W920 and all of the other core specs remain the same. One thing that has changed is the sensor underneath the watch. We now have one little dot here which is supposed to be the infrared skin temperature sensor, but unfortunately, that feature has not been enabled yet. Even Samsung Health doesn’t have that option to display skin temperature too.

One big upgrade over the previous generation is actually the charging cable. I immediately realized that Samsung upgraded everything to USB-C this year but that’s not the only thing they upgraded.

The power output of the charger has also increased to 5V 2A. I tried reading somewhere around the magnetic puck itself but whoop – they printed it on the cable. The magnetic puck is also smaller this time, by the way.

Now, I’m not particularly concerned about the charging time but I’m concerned about the battery life. Samsung said that the battery capacity is now 13% larger than before. Given that everything else regarding the Galaxy Watch5 is the same as the Galaxy Watch4, then the battery life will be only gauging the impact of the increased battery capacity.

So, I used it the same way as how I did on the Galaxy Watch4 – and that 13% larger battery capacity definitely makes the Galaxy Watch5 go past the 2-day usage mark before it runs completely flat. Here are some of the data I recorded:

Charge #1

Started using on Friday at 3pm, returned charging on Sunday at 7.30pm with 10% left

Charge #2

Started using on Monday at 12am, returned charging on Tuesday at 9pm with 21% left

Charge #3

Started using on Tuesday at 12am, returned charging on Thurday at 10pm with 24% left

The Galaxy Watch5 still supports wireless charging so you can convert your Galaxy smartphone into a smartwatch charger via the Wireless PowerShare. Or… you can plug in the watch’s wireless charging puck into the phone. I didn’t expect this will work – but it did.

As for the software side of things, I’m going to briefly run you through here. It’s pretty much identical to before. There are two apps that you need to install – the Samsung Wearables app to set up the watch when you first unbox it – and within this app, we do have quite a lot of settings to customize.

If you don’t want to customize using the Samsung Wearables app, you can do the exact same customizations on the watch directly. I find it a bit awkward if we want to configure it directly on the watch directly – but hey, it works.

The second app is Samsung Health. It is here that we get a dashboard of all the health data gathered by the Galaxy Watch5. We have all the same types of health tracking features that the Galaxy Watch4 offers, so nothing special here. Again as a quick reminder – the skin temperature sensor is not enabled yet so there is no data shown on Samsung Health yet.

The health tracking – as far as I can see – performs the same as the Galaxy Watch4. We still have the usual health tracking like the body composition analysis, sleep analysis, all of those things – but we Malaysians still do not have ECG or blood pressure monitoring. Quite sad, honestly. I’ve been waiting for that feature for 3 years.
We have no idea what’s the holdup but we consistently asked Samsung Malaysia about this – and they also do not have any ETA for us.
Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Watch5 44mm?
And finally – the price hike. Last year, we regarded the Samsung Galaxy Watch4 series as the best smartwatch money can buy, and yet it’s actually the cheapest, most advanced Google Wear OS 3.0 smartwatch. It’s running Wear OS 3.5 now, actually.

This year, the Galaxy Watch5 is with the same sentiment. It’s still the most advanced Wear OS smartwatch but got a price increment of RM200. This Galaxy Watch5 44mm is at RM1,199 and that’s a 20% price increment over the Galaxy Watch4 44mm.

That might sound like a tough pill to swallow but there are no other new smartwatches using Wear OS 3.0 or above. Seriously, it’s still the best smartwatch money can buy despite the price bump.
By the way, accessories from the Galaxy Watch4 44mm fit perfectly on the Galaxy Watch5 44mm.
Heh, my bumper case can be used on the Samsung Galaxy Watch5!
Where to buy? (Affiliate links)

Amazon US
Lazada
Shopee

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The Mi 10T Pro is a great phone for gaming. Here’s why

This article is sponsored by Xiaomi Malaysia.
Smartphones these days have become more than just a phone – we’re doing work, taking pictures, and even playing games on this small device that we all have in our pockets. To have a device that can do all of those 3 aspects well and price affordably is a feat on its own – which is why the Mi 10T and the Mi 10T Pro are getting such rave reviews.

Now, let’s start off with some specs first. Both the Mi 10T and the Mi 10T Pro comes with these core specs:

Qualcomm Snapdragon 865
8GB RAM
5,000mAh battery

33W charger

And with these specs, that means the Mi 10T and the Mi 10T Pro can run everything smoothly. Don’t just take our word for us, take a look at our video here showcasing the gaming performance of the Mi 10T Pro.

And I want to take this a few more things here – the maximum temperature that we logged on the Mi 10T Pro while running Genshin Impact at its highest graphical settings at 60fps, was only at about 45°C. It’s a perfectly fine temperature for a smartphone to run at, and it’s slightly warm to the touch.
We also showed the frame rate monitor. If you want to know how we enabled that, check out this video too.

By the way, since it’s using the Snapdragon 865, that means it also supports 5G connectivity – when it is deployed to us Malaysians, of course.
And hey, the high-grade 6.67-inch IPS LCD that is capable of running at 144Hz refresh rate at most, or at even lower refresh rates to save battery life – thanks to AdaptiveSync technology. Let’s take this as an example – reading a bunch of texts and nothing is moving on the screen doesn’t need 144Hz. So just lower down the refresh rate to save battery?
We have talked about the AdaptiveSync feature in-depth in our review here.

You can play games for hours and hours straight
And speaking of battery life, Xiaomi’s Mi 10T and Mi 10T Pro both come with 5,000mAh battery which can last up to 2 days worth of usage. And if you need some battery life real fast, then that included 33W charger can charge from 15% to 100% in just about an hour.
The reason why Xiaomi is able to achieve this charging speed with a 33W charger is through the use of something they’re calling MMT technology – which is “middle-middle-tab” technology. It emulates dual-cell battery charging on a single-cell battery, which means the battery won’t degrade as much compared to a smartphone without MMT technology.

And yes, you can play games on the Mi 10T or the Mi 10T Pro for hours and hours straight, and it’ll still have some battery left.
Comes with competitive cameras
And yet, the cameras on the Mi 10T and the Mi 10T Pro are very competitive against other flagship smartphones in the market. Particularly, the Mi 10T Pro comes with a 108MP main camera. Combined with all of the other built-in features into the camera software, the Mi 10T Pro can take these pictures.
Taken with the Mi 10T Pro main camera.
Mi 10T Pro oil painting. Taken by a Mi Fan too!

Experience smooth gaming at an honest pricing
To experience its amazing gaming capabilities, the Mi 10T and Mi 10T Pro are priced as such:

Mi 10T Pro (8GB RAM + 256GB storage) @ RM1,999
Mi 10T (8GB RAM + 128GB storage) @ RM1,699

And as stated, the difference between the Mi 10T and the Mi 10T Pro is mostly on the main camera sensor and the presence of OIS on the Pro variant. But whichever you purchase, they’ll both come with:

24 Months Warranty
6-months Screen Protection Guarantee
4,000 units of 6 months Netflix Mobile subscription up for grab!

First come first serve basis.

Get now from Lazada or Authorised Mi Stores nationwide!
Click here to find out more details!

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