Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – It Can Still Soar Higher

Unboxing the Acer Predator Helios 300 2020
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Box

Let’s kick off the Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 review with the unboxing. Inside the box of the Acer Predator Helios 300 2020, you will find the following items:
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Box content
International Travelers Warranty GuideSetup Guide230W Charging BrickPower CableThe Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 laptop itself
Appearance
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Lid
The Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 retains the same design from its predecessor. It looks like a beefier Triton 300 but I wouldn’t call it bulky as it’s still pretty portable within gaming laptop standards. You get a glowing Predator logo with no text on the lid surrounded by the dark blue colour scheme and two slits sandwiching the logo. It’s a bit of a fingerprint magnet but it’s not too bad.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Open up the lid
Lift the hood up and you’ll be greeted with a 15.6-inch Full HD 144Hz IPS display, a 4-Zone RGB chiclet keyboard, and your usual trackpad below the keyboard. Above the F1 is a Turbo button, so you can instantly increase your fan speeds whenever you need it.

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Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Ports
On the left side, you have a Kensington Lock, an RJ45 LAN port, two USB-A ports, and a combo audio jack. On the right side, you have a USB-C port, another USB-A port, an HDMI port, and a mini DisplayPort. There are also air vents on both sides with identical placements. You might be wondering where the charging port is by now. That is the only port residing in the rear, sandwiched between the two air vents.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Bottom
As for the bottom, you can see about 10 screws, four rubber stands, product stickers, speaker grilles, and a whole lot of air vents. You can easily spot the CPU fan here, and one screw is hidden behind an Acer sticker, which will void the warranty if torn.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Warning
There’s also a small “Do Not Touch” warning near the rear vent.
Overall, I still dig the design of the Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 gaming laptop. It has a solid build quality, still relatively portable, and doesn’t go overboard with the gamer aesthetics. As the design is mostly the same, you may find it a little boring but to me, why fix something that isn’t broken?
If you need something more powerful, check out the Acer Predator Helios 700 that launched alongside this by clicking right here.
Specifications
CPUIntel Core i7-10750H (6C / 12T @ up to 5 GHz, 12M, 45W TDP, 14nm)RAM8GB (1 x 8GB) 2933 MHz DDR4GPUNVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, 6GB GDDR6Storage512GB PCIe NVMe SSD (WDC PC SN730)1 x free SSD slot1 x free HDD slotSoftwareWindows 10 HomePredatorSenseAcer JumpStartAcer Collection SKILLER NetworkingDTS:X UltraConnectivityWireless Wi-Fi 6, 802.11ax 2×2 (KILLER AX1650)Bluetooth 5.0 Wired1 x RJ45 LAN (KILLER E2600)1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A with power off charging2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A1 x USB Type-C (supports USB 3.1 Gen2, 10Gbps)Display15.6″ FHD (1920 x 1080) 144 Hz, Acer ComfyView IPS display1 x HDMI 2.0 with HDCP support1 x Mini DisplayPort 1.4WebcamHD 720pAudio2 x speakers 1 x 3.5mm combo audio jackSupports DTS:X and Windows Spatial SoundKeyboard4-zone RGB chiclet keyboardPower230W power adapter 58.7Whr 4-cell Li-ion batteryDimensions363.4 x 255 x 22.9 mmWeight2.2 kg
Performance
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – CrystalDiskMark
Let’s start things off with CrystalDiskMark. The Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 has a very speed SSD storage. This will ensure minimal bootup times / loading speed for pretty much everything you need to do on the machine. In case you’re wondering, it’s the Western Digital PC SN730 NVMe PCIe SSD.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Cinebench R15
Moving on to Cinebench R15, the performance is about what you’d expect from recent Intel Core i7 CPUs. I did expect it to perform better but given the single stick RAM configuration, it’s not a surprise. You should see a notable boost when upgraded to dual-channel RAM.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Cinebench R20
A similar pattern can be seen in Cinebench R20, but this time, it doesn’t completely lose out to the Acer Nitro V 2020. In general, it seemed to perform better here than on Cinebench R15 but either way, it’s definitely not a weak machine. I still do expect a good performance boost here with dual-channel RAM.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Unigine SuperPosition
As for Unigine SuperPosition in its 4K Optimized benchmark, the Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 performed well enough. I do believe the three laptops that scored better than it here are more optimized, so you can do the same here to get a boost in performance. With that being said, nothing seems out of the usual.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – 3DMark Time Spy
A similar pattern can be seen in 3DMark’s Time Spy as well. It’s interesting that the same GPU paired to an older generation CPU scored better. Running temperature seems to be fine with no thermal throttling, in case you were wondering if that caused a dip in the score.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – 3DMark Port Royal
In 3DMark’s Port Royal benchmark for ray tracing, we weren’t surprised by its score. Given how resource-intensive ray tracing is, the RTX 2060 is definitely not powerful enough to truly handle the load. Sure, it can do ray tracing, but I personally wouldn’t recommend it, at least not for now.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – PCMark
Moving on to PCMark, it seems to be a rather rounded gaming laptop with the exception of Digital Content Creation. I do believe this is due to the single stick RAM configuration, as well as its capacity of 8GB. If you were to get two sticks of 8GB DDR4 RAM, the score here should be relatively on par with the higher end Triton 500 2020.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Gaming
When it comes to gaming, I’m actually surprised by the results as it seems to vary quite a bit. I expected it to have higher frames in some games, and lower in others, so it’s a bit weird. For instance, I expected it to go above 100 FPS easily for CS:GO but also expected it to struggle more in Final Fantasy XV. It’s not bad by any means, it does perform well enough but if you upgrade to two sticks of 8GB RAM, you might see an increase of 5 to 10FPS.
With the exception of the ones labeled 4K and DLSS, all games ran in Full HD at their highest settings. You can still get more FPS for a smoother experience if you lower down your settings.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – PCMark Modern Office endurance test
As for battery life, PCMark’s Modern Office endurance test saw this machine getting 3 hours and 37 minutes per full charge, which is average for a gaming laptop. On the gaming endurance test, it managed to last an hour and 7 minutes. In comparison, the Triton 500 has the better battery life in both areas.
Compared to my own real world use for web browsing, videos on YouTube, word processing, and picture editing, I got about 3 and a half hours of use before I had to charge it again. This is average, but it isn’t bad and essentially what you can expect from a gaming laptop nowadays.
If you want to compare the performance with its previous iteration, click right here.
User Experience
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review
The Acer Predator Helios 300 is a decently powered gaming laptop and is the more affordable one within the Predator lineup. You get an Intel Core i7-10750H CPU, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 GPU, 8GB single channel 2933MHz DDR4 RAM, and 512GB NVMe PCIe SSD. It’s great for Full HD gaming but its potential is held back by the RAM. Double the capacity by adding another 8GB stick and you should see the performance soar even higher.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – 144Hz
It uses a Full HD 144Hz IPS display with good viewing angles and colours for gaming. Realistically, you’d probably only be able to take advantage of the high refresh rate on Apex Legends and CS:GO with graphics settings turned down a notch.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Display
I personally feel that the colours aren’t as good compared to the Triton 500 2020 so if you want to do colour-accurate work, best to hook it up to an external display. The side bezels are relatively thin but the top and bottom are on the thick side. It does have less flex and seem sturdier compared to the Triton 500. You can open the lid up to 145°, which is good enough.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Up to 145°
For running temperatures, both the CPU and GPU ran well with no thermal throttling on my end during my benchmarking process with CoolBoost enabled. The CPU did reach 90°C but it hardly went above that. The GPU on the other hand ran noticeably cooler, which is great. If you’re worried, you can always use the Turbo button for maximum fan speeds. Generally, the fan noise is within acceptable levels but on Turbo, it gets really loud. It’s still worth it for lower running temperature.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – Ports
The Acer Predator Helios 300 has a good array of ports. You have three USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A ports, a USB-C port, an RJ45 LAN port, an HDMI port, a Mini DisplayPort, and a combo audio jack. As it has both mini DisplayPort and HDMI, it makes a tri-monitor display setup easy to use. Moreover, with one of the USB Type-A ports having power-off charging, this laptop can function as an emergency powerbank. Would be great if this one had an SD card reader.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – 4-zone RGB
The Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 gaming laptop; 4-zone RGB chiclet keyboard. It still works well and is comfortable to type on with decent tactility so I have no complaints. The trackpad itself works fine and there’s nothing to boast about. I do hope the next iteration will add a fingerprint scanner here for added convenience.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – PredatorSense
As expected from a Predator-series machine, it comes with the PredatorSense software. You can activate it by by pressing the Predator button on the Numpad or manually looking it up on Windows 10. You can do some simple overclocking, adjust fan speeds, customize hotkeys, and more. The UI is simple, straightforward, and pleasing to the eyes so I’m sure most people would have no issues using it.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – KILLER Control Center
On the networking side, it is powered by the KILLER AX1650 Wi-Fi which lets you take advantage of the new 802.11ax technology. While I don’t notice much difference in terms of speed as my home internet isn’t super fast to begin with, it’s certainly reliable and seems to get better reception than my other devices, like my desktop and smartphone using 802.11ac Wi-Fi. You can further optimize it in KILLER Control Center.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review – DTS:X
For the speakers, the Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 gaming laptop is loud but it lacks the depth to make it enjoyable. It emphasizes more on the highs with lows essentially being non-existent, making the audio sound rather hollow especially in high volumes. It’s best to use your favourite pair of headphones for a more immersive experience. The DTS:X software will work better that way too.
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Verdict
Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 Review
The Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 is a good gaming laptop to consider. It still has a solid build quality, 144Hz IPS display, packs a good amount of firepower, is still rather portable for a gaming laptop, speedy SSD storage with good capacity, comfortable 4-zone RGB keyboard, Wi-Fi 6, and a good array of ports.
However, the battery life is average, it’s a fingerprint magnet, it doesn’t differ much from its previous iteration, 4-zone RGB feels a little outdated in 2020, the fan gets really loud in Turbo, and it’s true potential is held back by the single stick 8GB RAM. If you already own the previous iteration, there’s really no reason to upgrade to this one but otherwise, it’s still one worth considering.
With that, I award the Acer Predator Helios 300 2020 gaming laptop with our Silver Pokdeward.

Big thanks to Acer Malaysia for passing us this laptop for the purposes of this review.
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Get Ready For HUAWEI’s Online Store 11.11 Mega Sale

HUAWEI has prepared something special for this 11.11 with several bargains waiting for their fans. This time around, you can get your hands on even more discounts when you shop at HUAWEI’s official e-commerce store.
HUAWEI Online Store 11.11

The sale will be coming soon, but HUAWEI has prepared a teaser first. As part of HUAWEI’s Flash Deals, you have the opportunity to purchase selected items for as low as RM11. All you need to do is look out for special days leading up to 11.11 online sale day itself, specifically on the 5th, 7th, and 9th of November at 3PM to grab these deals.

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So you might wonder what’s so special with HUAWEI’s 11.11, well on top of all the discounts and rebate vouchers combined used for purchase, HUAWEI has topped it up with another 5% discount upon check out. In total, you could get up to 90% + 5% discount waiting for you.
Besides that, you can purchase RM50 vouchers from the 5th to 10th November 2018 to earn up to RM250 worth of rebate vouchers that can be redeemed on 11.11 from Shop.Huawei. Values of rebate vouchers with purchase amounts are as followed:

Voucher Purchase Amount
Value Of Vouchers
Value of Rebate

RM50
RM250
5 times more

RM40
RM160
4 times more

RM30
RM90
3 times more

In addition, HUAWEI users can download and sign up on HUAWEI AppGallery which they can then claim rebate vouchers and e-gifts worth RM100,000.
Pokdepinion: Hmm, I wonder what products will be offered for that RM11 price special?
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ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE gets listed with AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX and RTX 3080

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 announced earlier this year was an amazing machine, and it seems like the next iteration will be even more awesome. A South African retailer has reportedly listed a series of ASUS ROG Zephyrus laptops featuring the yet unannounced AMD Ryzen 5000 series mobile processors and GeForce RTX 30 series graphics.

As what should be the flagship of the ROG Zephyrus family, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE is listed with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX. In the previous generation, we saw ASUS getting exclusive access to the AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS and Ryzen 7 4800HS, with the “S” suffix denoting that it is a specially binned 35W TDP part. We have no idea what the “X” here means, but it might indicate that AMD might be finally prepared to offer an overclockable SKU.

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Also listed were the Zephyrus G14 with a Ryzen 9 5900HS and a GeForce RTX 3060 as well as a Zephyrus G15 that’s paired with a Quadro RTX 3000. The latter does seem rather weird as the Zephyrus G15 should still be member of the Republic of Gamers series, and is not a part of the ProArt lineup where a Quadro GPU would make more sense. Perhaps it was a typo on Pinnacle’s end. Or maybe ASUS is really intent on blurring the lines between their workstation and gaming laptops?
ASUS AMD Ryzen 5000 series laptops

CPU
GPU

ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE
AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX
GeForce RTX 3080

ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE
AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX
GeForce RTX 3070

ROG Zephyrus G14
AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS
GeForce RTX 3060

ROG Zephyrus G15

Quadro RTX 3000

If anything, I am quite interested to see what the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX will bring to the table. Will it be a higher TDP? Or an unlocked multiplier? The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15’s cooling design is more than capable of handling an Intel Core i9-10980HK, so I do think that it won’t have any issues handling the more efficient AMD Ryzen processors.

With the AMD Zen 3 architecture bringing improved IPC and efficiency, Intel definitely has their work cut out for them. With that said, the upcoming Tiger Lake high performance mobile processors will offer improved IPC and efficiency compared to their current Comet Lake parts, with the new Willow Cove core architecture and 10nm SuperFin manufacturing process. Well, I guess this makes next year’s laptop scene all the more interesting.
Source
Pokdepinion: An overclockable Zen 3 in a laptop should absolutely annihilate the competition…
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Realme C1 with more RAM and storage goes on sale in India this 5th February

The Realme C1 is a pretty decent little entry-level device, offering a suprisingly snappy Snapdragon 450 chipset at a very affordable price. When we reviewed it, we only wished for more RAM for a smoother gaming experience. It seems Realme has been listening, as the Realme C1 has just been launched with more storage and RAM in India.

There will be two new variants of the Realme C1, one with 32GB storage but maintains the RAM at 2GB, and another with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage. The former goes for Rs 7499 (~RM433) while the latter is priced at Rs 8499 (~RM491). The new variants will be offered on Flipkart this 5th February.

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The key specifications of the Realme C1 are:

Snapdragon 450 chipset
Up to 3GB RAM
Up to 32GB storage
6.2″ HD+ IPS display
ColorOS 5.1
4230 mAh battery

Would you be interested in getting the upgraded Realme C1 if they do arrive in Malaysia? Let us know!
Pokdepinion: The 3GB RAM variant would be quite enticing if Realme Malaysia can price it below RM500!
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Death Stranding Confirmed for PC Release

Thanks to all of you who have been supporting #DEATHSTRANDING!DEATH STRANDING release on PS4 is November 8, 2019!!Furthermore, KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS is happy to announce that DEATH STRANDING will be coming to PC in early summer of 2020!!#kojimaproductions #deathstrandingpc pic.twitter.com/Sk4clWWY1X— KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS (Eng) (@KojiPro2015_EN) October 28, 2019

It looks like Death Stranding won’t be a PS4-exclusive game forever after all. Kojima Productions and 505 Games have officially announced that the game will indeed be coming to PC.
Announced via the official Kojima Productions Twitter account, Death Stranding will be coming to PC sometime in 2020, around early Summer. There’s no exact release date mentioned, and it seems like a rather odd timing since the PS4 release is just around the corner.
Rumours of a PC release of Death Stranding regularly happened in the past, most notably in July, when the game for some reason wasn’t listed as a PS4 exclusive. Perhaps they realized that word is starting to spread further and they’d rather be the first to announce it as opposed to hearing it from some leak.

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At the moment, there’s not much else details available on the PC release of Death Stranding. We have no idea if it will be coming to Steam or Epic Games Store. There is always a chance it could appear on both, or be a timed-exclusive on one marketplace. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Once again, Death Stranding will be coming to PC in early Summer 2020. The PS4 version will be releasing earlier, on 8th November 2019.
Source: Twitter
 Pokdepinion: Not particularly surprised to see the game coming to PC. I’d be more surprised if it popped up on Steam instead of Epic Games Store however.
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Claim This Free PC Game Now And It’s Yours Forever

Tired and bored at home? Don’t know what games to play? Well this free game might be for you.
Get Goat of Duty for free

Yeap, the game on offer is indeed Goat of Duty. Should you get it? Well why not? It’s absolutely free for PC gamers on Steam.
As you can tell, the game is a first-person-shooter title where you play as a goat (duh) and fight up to 10 players. There’s four modes to choose and play from, which includes: Free-for-all, Gun Deathmatch, Herd Wars, and Fus Ro Arena.

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Here’s the synopsis of the game, courtesy of Steam:
Goat of Duty is a fast-paced multiplayer shooter where goats armed to the horns bleat face to face in a relentless deathmatch. Ram and troll your friends, don the craziest goatstumes, and put your skills to the test in the quirkiest FPS ever. Are you ready to become the GOAT of goats?
The game will be available to claim up until the 1st of April. To get it, you can head to the link right here.
Pokdepinion: I’m just going to put it in my library first and see how it goes from there.. :P
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More Details On Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction Revealed By Ubisoft

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction, the next mainstream chapter in the Rainbow Six franchise, has received further information from Ubisoft. Rainbow Six Extraction’s many features, including a deep operator progression system, four adjustable difficulty levels, 12 ever-evolving maps, 13 dynamic mission objectives, over 90 guns and gadgets, a unique ranked mode, and extensive post-launch support, are available for free to both Rainbow Six Siege players and those looking for a new PVE co-op game.
Rainbow Six Extraction new details

Rainbow Six Extraction, developed by Ubisoft Montreal, allows players to join the REACT Team and create a one to three-player squad of well-known and adored Rainbow Six Siege operators to face enigmatic extraterrestrial monsters known as Archæans.

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The operators have been altered to best take on the alien menace, with over 65 weapons, ten legacy Rainbow Six Siege tech, and 15 exclusive REACT tech. Extraction is also entirely playable alone for gamers new to Rainbow Six who wish to go at their own speed.
Players will be stationed in four different regions around the United States, including New York, San Francisco, and two others, and will battle the alien threat in 12 brand-new, unexpected maps. Each map is nearly three times the size of previous Rainbow Six Siege maps, and each has its own set of dynamic modifiers, ensuring that no two incursions are the same.

During tactical incursions, take on 13 various mission objectives, including the Gateway Objective, in which players must battle a Protean, a lethal Archæans version that has taken on the guise of REACT operators and mimics their behaviour.

Extraction provides not just brand-new Rainbow Six mythology involving many of their favourite characters from Siege, as well as 12 fully distinct levels to dominate, but also a brand-new twist to classic gameplay mechanics for Rainbow Six Siege players.
Players can move via a specific levelling system for each of the 18 Rainbow Six operators for the first time, allowing them to upgrade their Operator’s gear, weapons, and skills in an altogether new way. Players will get permanent access to new containment zones, Operators, personalization items, new REACT technology, greater difficulty levels, and more as they go through the game.

Infestations, parasitic mutation problems, multiple incursion kinds, and intriguing new gameplay features such as nests, spores, and Sprawl are among the 13 archetypes of deadly Archæans variations. Extraction also presents a fascinating gamble to players who enjoy a challenge: extracting and collecting their prizes or travelling deeper into each map’s subzones, facing greater hazards and greater rewards for those who survive.
Their operator will become MIA if they fail to remove, however they have the option of returning to the containment zone to rescue their downed operators. A feature-rich PVE system called Maelstrom Protocol will be discussed at a later date for players that enjoy a more difficult task.

Players that play both Rainbow Six Siege and Rainbow Six Extraction will earn the top United Front cosmetic packages in both games, as well as quick access to Extraction’s entire roster of 18 operators in Rainbow Six Siege.
Pre-ordering Rainbow Six Extraction will get you the Orbital Decay bundle, which includes exclusive Epic items like Finka and Lion’s Orion uniforms and headgear, the universal Vaporized weapon skin, and the Crashlander charm. Rainbow Six Extraction will also feature live customer service and content updates on a regular basis.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction will be released in January 2022 on Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and the Ubisoft Store on PC with full cross-play, cross-save, and cross-progression.
Pokdepinion: Aliens huh? To be honest, I kinda like and don’t like the idea of Rainbow Six with aliens. It sounds weird and interesting at the same time.
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HUAWEI nova 7 Series Now On Promo Price From RM899

HUAWEI Malaysia is looking to wrap up the year by offering their HUAWEI nova 7 series on a special promotion starting from today where you can get your hands on the HUAWEI nova 7i and HUAWEI nova 7 SE 5G.
HUAWEI Malaysia Year End Super Rewards

As you can see from the promo, you can get the HUAWEI nova 7i for just RM899 and RM1,299 for the HUAWEI nova 7 SE 5G. The latter is the most affordable 5G smartphone in the country where it is equipped with a Kirin 820 SoC as well as a 64MP AI Quad Camera. Coming with a 6.5-inch ISP display with HDR10 support, it has 8GB RAM that’s paired with 128GB internal storage. Not to forget, there’s a 4000mAh battery under the hood.

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On the other hand, the HUAWEI nova 7i packs a Kirin 810 chipset, 48MP main camera, and a 4200mAh battery. It sports a 6.4-inch display and offers 8GB RAM that’s mated with 128GB UFS 2.1 storage.
Both of them comes with a 40W HUAWEI SuperCharge support, where you can charge your device up to 70% in just 30 minutes. Aside from their discounted prices, you can also get up to 50GB of free cloud storage for three months for the HUAWEI nova 7i and for 12 months for the nova 7 SE. You can redeem this reward from the HUAWEI Member Center.
Interested in either devices? You can get them at the HUAWEI Store or HUAWEI Experience Store nationwide.
Pokdepinion: If you’re wondering how they really perform, do check out our reviews on them (linked in the article). I really liked the improvements that HUAWEI has provided in their mid-range segment with the nova 7i.

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Andaseat Kaiser Frontier Gaming Chair Lands In Malaysia, From RM1,199

Fusion Tech Supply Sdn Bhd (local distributor of Andaseat) has announced the new Kaiser Frontier gaming chair is now available in Malaysia with two colorways available. The Kaiser 3 is also launched in the local markets with two sizing options.
The Kaiser Frontier comes in a single size, XL – which supports person weighing maximum of 150kg and height between 170cm – 200cm. The installation is simplified with the new user guide, and redesigned installation process that includes magnetic system and sliding rails. The chair includes lumbar and strap head pillow for additional comfort and support. It also features “Titan Steel” frame and the 65kg/m high-density cold-cured moulded foam ensures firmer cushioning and long-lasting elasticity for prolonged comfort.

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It’s available in two colors, Black and Maroon; pricing is RM1,199 for West Malaysia and RM1,289 for East Malaysia. Meanwhile, the Kaiser 3 is available in both L (<120kg, 150-190cm) and XL (<180kg, 181-210cm) sizing, with pricing listed as RM1,649 (WM) / RM1,739 (EM) and RM1,799 (WM) / RM1,889 (EM) respectively. Customers can look for the resellers in the microsite here and visit the official Shopee store here.
Pokdepinion: I dig the understated design – should blend into most environments without sticking out in the crowd.
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PewDiePie Reveals He’ll Take A Break From YouTube Next Year

It’s hard to be in the 20th century and to not know the name “PewDiePie”. He is after all the most successful content creator on YouTube after all. Despite topping the charts in the video streaming platform, it seems that he’s tired of it.

PewDiePie, or his real name, Felix Kjellberg managed to gather 100 million subscribers on YouTube this year, an incredible feat to say the least. Some might think about what’s his next move since he’s already made it thus far. Well here’s what he has to say:
I think now is a great time as any to announce I have a special announcement to make. I am taking a break from YouTube. Next year. I wanted to say it in advance because I made up my mind, I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m feeling very tired. I don’t know if you can tell. Just so you know, early next year I’ll be away for a little while. I’ll explain that later, but I wanted to give heads up.Felix Kjellberg / PewDiePie
Some have speculated on what could be the exact reasoning to him releasing a statement such as that. It could be due to the sole fact that he is..well tired. Let’s just hope that he returns to the scene with a bang.

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Pokdepinion: Though I don’t watch his videos as much nowadays (I prefer his old contents), it’s definitely tiring being in this type of industry. Many don’t see the hard work that goes behind the scenes. I’d say he deserves his break.
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[E3 2019] Next-Gen Xbox Project Scarlett Officially Revealed

Many people were expecting it, and they delivered it. At the Microsoft E3 2019 press conference, we got the formal reveal of the next-gen Xbox Project Scarlett, with Head of Xbox Phil Spencer taking the stage to announce it.
According to Phil Spencer, it is developed by the same team behind the Xbox One X, and with this, they are creating “the future of gaming for you.” While the box wasn’t shown, a plethora of details for Project Scarlett was divulged.
The video discusses how this new console will improve the player experience in a multitude of ways. Partnering with AMD to bring the latest Zen 2 and Navi technology to the next console, the next Xbox will boast 40 times performance increases from the current line of consoles, bringing 8K resolution, up to 120 frames per second, and real-time ray tracing to the next generation.

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It was also revealed that Xbox has a number of studios working on titles for its next-gen platform. One of which is Halo Infinite, which has been confirmed to launch in Holiday 2020.
We have hundreds of people across both our first party studios, as well as our third-party studios, working on those next-generation experiences today.
Lastly, some interesting tidbits featuring in the video confirms backward compatibility on Project Scarlett. One of which states that Xbox will be bringing “four generations of content better than you’ve ever seen them before.” Another features Spencer himself. “I don’t lose my last generation as I move into the next generation; the people I play with and the games that I want to play,” explains Spencer. “That experience should be continuous and always growing.”
Pokdepinion: I am amazed but at the same time curious to see how it will stack up against Sony’s next-gen console. Regardless, strength isn’t what makes or breaks a console, it’s the games themselves but it’s shaping up to be pretty awesome so far.
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11th Gen Intel Core “Rocket Lake” to launch in Q1 2021

AMD is set to announce their next-gen processors later today, and Intel decided that they wanted to pre-emptively capture some mindshare. They have just announced the 11th Gen Intel Core desktop processors “Rocket Lake” well ahead of their launch date, which is set to happen in Q1 2021.
Not much else is revealed about the 11th Gen Intel Core desktop processors aside from the launch date and the fact that they will support PCIe 4.0 connectivity. Intel does talk a lot about gaming in the same blog post, and we can safely presume that Intel is going to focus on gaming performance with Rocket Lake. Given that both NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards support PCIe 4.0 now, the timing of this announcement is pretty apt.
Previous rumors have hinted that Rocket Lake will still be manufactured on Intel’s well-refined 14nm process node, although it will offer the latest Willow Cove core architecture that was just introduced with the 11th Gen Intel Core “Tiger Lake” mobile processors. With everything from the 6th Gen Intel Core to the latest 10th Gen Intel Core desktop processors featuring the same Skylake microarchitecture, this will be a welcome change to the desktop segment. It is also rumored to work with the LGA1200 socket, which will make it a drop-in upgrade for 10th Gen Intel Core users.

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Well, we will have to wait and see what’s to come in Q1 2021, although Intel has hinted that they will be sharing more details soon.
Pokdepinion: If Rocket Lake can hit the high clocks that we see on the current 10th Gen parts, while also having an IPC advantage with Willow Cove, we might have a pretty interesting processor next year.
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TM Unifi Service Disruption in Sarawak Area Due to Fibre Cable Issues

#unifialerts Perkhidmatan unifi, jalur lebar dan telefon tergendala untuk sebilangan pelanggan di Sibu, Tanjung Manis, Sri Aman dan Bitangor di Sarawak dari 9 pg, 23 Dec akibat kerosakan teknikal. Perkhidmatan sedang dibaikpulih secara berperingkat. pic.twitter.com/qptCTfP8Ny
— unifi (@unifi) December 23, 2018

If you’re a TM Unifi subscriber and you’re wondering why you have trouble getting internet access or if it’s a lot slower than usual, then this might just be the case. It appears that there is a TM Unifi service disruption in certain parts of Sarawak.
The areas that were specifically mentioned are Sibu, Tanjung Manis, Sri Aman (not to be confused with the school of the same name in Petaling Jaya), and Bitangor in Sarawak. It may have an effect on nearby areas but for now, these were the ones specifically mentioned.
The reason behind the TM Unifi service disruption is said to be due to a “fibre cable fault” and it started from 23rd December 2018 at 9AM. At the moment, they have already begun repairs in order to restore the service to its full capacity but they will need a bit of time in order to do that.

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The repairs will be done in stages and the service is expected to be fully restored by the morning of 24th December 2018. This is of course assuming that everything will go smoothly.
Pokdepinion: If you have a friend based in Sarawak who’s currently complaining about slow / no internet, do share this them as it might be the reason why.
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Sony Reveals XPERIA 5 IV, Availability in Q4 2022

Sony introduces XPERIA 5 IV, which shares many of its features with the flagship XPERIA 1 IV, in a compact design.

New to XPERIA 5 lineup is Real-time Eye AF and Real-time tracking on all lenses – courtesy of Sony’s Alpha division – previously exclusive to its flagship counterpart. The 12MP front-facing camera has been upgraded as well, with improved sensor that supports 4K HDR recording.

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Sony’s audio features are here as well, such as 360 Reality Audio, and features a 3.5mm headphone jack for those who prefer to listen using wired headphones. DSEE Ultimate and LDAC supports ensures high resolution sound quality. Also supported is Bluetooth LE Audio, the latest standard for wireless audio devices.
Sony also offers their new Music Pro app that processes your recording on the cloud to remove unwanted noises with their unique sound separation technology, and provides users the options to mix audio channels as they prefer.
The display features a 6.1-inch, 21:9 FHD+ HDR OLED panel which is 50% brighter than the outgoing model, and Real Time HDR Drive helps with reproducing the gradation of overexposed and underexposed areas and smooths them out, providing a better viewing experience in outdoor environments.
Also in the panel is 120Hz support, and 240Hz touch sampling rate, giving gamers a competitive edge with lower touch latency. Game Enhancer gives gamers the tools to enhance their gaming experience and stream the content. Powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the 5 IV provides flagship experience in a compact package.
Battery has been upgraded too, now with 5,000mAh battery and adaptive charging allows to prolong its lifespan up to 3 years. With compatible chargers (XQZ-UC1), fast charging up to 50% takes 30 minutes. It also supports wireless charging and battery share features, so users can keep their devices charged and ready to go.
The packaging features no plastic packaging, entirely eliminated or replaced with paper materials.
Sony XPERIA 5 IV will be available in Black from Q4 2022 onwards in Malaysia.
Product announcement video can be viewed here, and full product video can be viewed here.
Pokdepinion: For those who wants a small phone with plenty of battery life, this might be a very compelling choice.
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MSI may have confirmed the exact launch date 12th Gen Intel Alder Lake

MSI seems to be a pretty actively participating in accidentally leaking details about their partner’s product. Previously, MSI’s support staff hinted at the launch of the 11th Gen Intel Core processors in March, and now we will apparently be seeing the 12th Gen Intel Core Alder Lake processors by 4th November. Now, this leak is apparently not accidental, and Intel seems fine with it, because this page has been up for a more than a day by now.
The page in question is about MSI offering an upgrade kit for existing MSI liquid coolers to make them compatible with the new LGA1700 socket. MSI will give you the option to get your upgrade kit starting 4th November, which is definitely a good hint. I mean, there’s no point getting an upgrade kit if you don’t have a 12th Gen Intel Core processor and an Intel 600-series motherboard, right?

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MSI is offering the upgrade kit for the MSI MAG CORELIQUID 360R, 280R and 240R, as well as the CORELIQUID K360 and K240. The kit will comprise of a backplate, the mounting bracket and the necessary standoffs and screws. You can’t get yourself the kit just yet, with the button to fill out the form still greyed out with the text “COMING SOON” on it.
Aside from MSI, Noctua has also announced that they will be providing an upgrade kit to enable owners of their existing coolers to use it with the next-gen Intel platform. I hope more manufacturers will follow in the footsteps of Noctua and MSI, as it would really help to make the upgrade less painful on the wallet.
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Pokdepinion: We are really seeing Intel step up their product releases this year. Hope it doesn’t become a trend to release two generations a year… My wallet can’t take it.
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Touch ‘n Go eWallet gets updated — check the balance of your Touch ‘n Go card from your phone!

Recently it seems like we are seeing a flood of e-wallets popping up in our local scene. We now have quite a few names in the market. Touch ‘n Go, which had a rocky start, is now back. The Touch ‘n Go eWallet has just seen its latest update and now rocks a whole new user interface.

You can even monitor the balance in your Touch ‘n Go cards, but currently there is still no support for reloading the cards via the Touch ‘n Go eWallet. You can add up to three cards, but the cards’ balance will not be updated in real-time, and changes will only appear a day later.

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The new eWallet will tie in to the RFID toll payment system, which will be replacing the SmartTAG payment system soon. The Touch ‘n Go eWallet is available for both iOS and Android users.
Pokdepinion: Well now I don’t have to guess how much balance there is left in my card, but with it still unable to reload my TnG card makes this feature seem rather half-baked…
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Injustice 2 Gets Special Justice League Event; It Coincides With the Movie

To celebrate the release of the Justice League movie in cinemas, there is a special Injustice 2 event that coincides with the film.
Are you a fan of the superheroes from DC Universe? Have you been playing Injustice 2 recently? And are you looking forward to the Justice League movie? Well, if all of this fits you, there’s something special happening and it’s something you’re definitely going to enjoy.

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Injustice 2 Gets Special Justice League Event

Warner Bros. Interactive revealed a special event lined up for their fighting game Injustice 2, available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam and the Microsoft Store.
To coincide with the release of the Justice League film, Injustice 2 will have special Justice League-themed in-game event where players will be able to take on unique challenges in the Multiverse to earn special gear and items found in the film. Additionally, this event will also be available in the mobile version of Injustice 2.
Recently, Injustice 2 has been receiving some interesting crossover characters including: Red Hood, Sub-Zero, Starfire, Black Manta, Raiden and Hellboy. However, the most notable crossover event that we’ve seen is the announcement that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will also make their way into the game.
Special events are not anything new to Injustice 2, the game has been receiving updates and patches since its release earlier this year. Injustice 2 puts a focus on characters and stories from the DC Universe and allows players to fully customize their fighter with various gear and weapons. Also, players are able to choose the character’s fighting style and skills.
Injustice 2 is currently available for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC via Steam.

Pokdepinion: Well, it’s a good way to promote the Justice League movie and get people to keep playing the game. I have no complaints here, been looking for a reason to get back to the game anyway.
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AMD Lost CPU Share to Intel in PC Gaming

As of April 2019, Intel CPUs had a 81.72% share while AMD took 18.26% according to a Steam hardware survey. In other words, the survey showed that majority of their users are on Intel. However, it is still an improvement from the previous quarter, which showed AMD having 18.1% CPU share. As of June 2019 however, they have dropped to the lowest figure that they haven’t had for a long time.
According to the Steam hardware survey as of June 2019, AMD has dropped to 17.99% while Intel holds 82.01%. There’s no concrete explanation as to why as it’s simply a survey to see how many of Steam users are using what type of hardware. However, things are expected to change for the red team with the arrival of the AMD Ryzen 3000 series CPU.
In other related data, Windows 10 is currently the dominant OS, reaching 70.92% share. Windows 7 on the other hand has dropped to a mere 1%, most likely due to the OS’s looming end of support date. It also appears that the popular standard right now for Steam users is Full HD resolution and 8GB RAM. Furthermore, Oculus Rift appears to surprisingly be the more popular VR headset option against the HTC Vive, which isn’t far off in shares.

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Interestingly, the most popular graphics card utilized by users, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, is still maintaining the lead despite a small drop at 16.01%. The GTX 1050 Ti is close by at 10.63%, which shows that it is indeed a popular choice but we may soon start to see big changes coming. The RTX series of graphics cards have popped up and made slow, yet steady gains in shares. The RTX 2070 is the most popular one, but it only holds a 1.1% share.
On an overall level, AMD only has roughly 15% GPU share while NVIDIA holds the rest. With the announcement of the NVIDIA Super cards as well as the upcoming AMD Navi Radeon graphics cards, consumers will have more options to choose from and we may see a noticeable shift here.
Source: Steam
Pokdepinion: Not a cause for alarm but I am expecting to see a big change when the Ryzen 3000 series is widely available across the world. Not to the point of having majority share but still a significant enough impact.
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PUBG MOBILE PRO LEAGUE MY/SG Welcomes KOLs To Join Top 3 Teams in Season 4

PUBG MOBILE PRO LEAGUE MY/SG has announced that some of Malaysia’s most influential Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) will join the top three teams in Season 4 to add more exciting innovations and increase the fight. The invited KOLs include Mohd Fariz “Soloz” Zakaria who will be joining the Anti Circle team, DaddyHood (DDYHD) who will be joining the Homebois team and XK Penjahat who will be joining the R2K team.
PUBG MOBILE PRO LEAGUE MY/SG brings in Malaysia’s biggest KOLs

Soloz’s participation is exciting news, especially given his large fan base in the esports world and his commitment to mentoring newer players. Daddyhood, a Johorean skater-turned-entrepreneur, will continue to compete in esports with the Homebois squad with the aim of winning. Meanwhile, the R2K team’s XK Penjahat are a talented group that won a PUBG Mobile event back in February, making it a tough match against other teams.

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“With the participation of these KOLs and their huge number of followers we hope to light up the highly watched PUBG Mobile esports scene and will further inspire and groom younger players in the esports community. With such highly-rated players, PUBG MOBILE PRO LEAGUE Season 4 certainly promises to be an exciting outing for millions of esports enthusiasts and the development of the industry in Malaysia,” said Gaga Li, Head of PUBG MOBILE SEA Esports.

Season 4 of PUBG MOBILE PRO LEAGUE MY/SG will run from August 24 to September 19. The competition will run for 18 days and will have a total prize fund of USD150,000 (RM635,400). Weekday matches will be held on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, like in prior seasons. Super Weekends, on the other hand, will go from Friday to Sunday.
The first-place team from each region, as well as the top three teams from the winning country, will compete in the SEA Championship this season. In addition, the best three teams from the SEA Championship will advance to the much-anticipated PMGC at the end of the year, which will have a USD6,000,000 (RM25,416,000) prize pool.
For live updates and more information on PUBG MOBILE PRO LEAGUE MY/SG, visit and follow PUBG MOBILE Malaysia’s official platforms on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
Pokdepinion: Now this is interesting. I like watching Soloz play and I’m excited to see what he will bring to the competition.
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Upgrade the MacBook Pro with the Blackmagic eGPU — make it the “ultimate Mac setup”

Well the name is quite misleading. There is no black magic involved here. The Blackmagic eGPU is just an external GPU designed with Apple’s clean aesthetics. Most of the external GPU enclosures on the market now feature designs that would suit a gamer more than a professional, so this is meant to satisfy the latter.

Inside the Blackmagic eGPU is a Radeon Pro 580 8GB GDDR5, which is massive upgrade over the mobile Radeon Pro and Iris Plus GPUs you get in the MacBook Pros. Apple claims the Blackmagic eGPU will deliver supersmooth gaming, performance to handle graphics-intensive pro apps as well as enable VR creation and enjoyment.

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Aside from amping up your graphics performance, the Blackmagic eGPU also comes with two Thunderbolt 3 ports to drive premium displays, a HDMI 2.0 port for more conventional panels, four USB 3.0 ports for your peripherals or VR headset, and it can even charge your MacBook Pro.

Apple recommends you to pair the Blackmagic eGPU with the LG UltraFine 5K display for the ultimate Mac setup. With the Blackmagic eGPU already costing $699 (~RM2824), and the LG display costing another $1299.95 (~RM5252), So, Apple, you want us to spend an extra $2000 just to make your MacBook Pro become the MacBook Ultimate?
Pokdepinion: Oh well, this is the time to ask yourself, do you really need that much graphics horsepower?
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Realme 2 Pro is Shopee’s 15.11 Men’s Festival “Smartphone Champion”

The Realme 2 Pro is an amazing device for its money, so it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that it was crowned “Smartphone Champion” during Shopee’s 15.11 Men’s Festival. 2500 units of the Realme 2 Pro was snapped up in merely 3 hours!
The Realme 2 Pro was also the Best-Selling Item during Shopee’s 11.11 Big Sale, which was the affordable mid-range device’s debut in our country. Realme was named Top brand during the Shopee’s 11.11 Big Sale.

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Consumers were also giving out rave reviews of the Realme 2 Pro, complimenting the smartphone’s capacious 8GB RAM and powerful Snapdragon 660 AIE chipset at such an affordable price.
In case you missed it, the Realme 2 Pro was available for discounted prices during the 11.11 Big Sale. Luckily you still can get your chance to own the Realme 2 Pro at the same promotional prices very soon. At 9am on 21st November, the affordable mid-range device will be priced at the following special prices:

4GB + 64GB – RM799 (RRP RM849)
6GB + 64GB – RM899 (RRP RM949)
8GB + 128GB – RM999 (RRP RM1099)

Don’t miss this chance, because there might not be another to own such an affordable yet well-specced device!
Pokdepinion: I never knew there was a Men’s Festival at all.
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Xiaomi Supposedly To Launch New Entry From Mi 10 Series Powered By Snapdragon 870

As you may recall, Xiaomi launched their Mi 11 series at the end of December 2020 recently. Despite that, it appears that they could be releasing a new device from the Mi 10 series where a tipster has said it will be powered by a Snapdragon 870 chipset.
Xiaomi to release new device for Mi 10 series?

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The leak was revealed over at Weibo where the tipster has said that the company is preparing a Mi 10 model that’s powered with the mentioned SoC. As we all know, the previous Mi 10 series all came with Snapdragon 865 chips, last year’s flagship chipset.
We’ve mentioned in our previous article that the Snapdragon 870 is basically a “Snapdragon 865 Plus Plus” where its prime core can reach up to 3.2GHz instead of the Snapdragon 865 Plus’ 3.1GHz. Everything aside from that, is basically the same.
Qualcomm has mentioned previously that Xiaomi will be releasing a device that’s packing the silicon and this could be the case. Despite that, there’s not much details going on about the device aside from the chip so it’d be best to wait for official details to come from Xiaomi. That being said, take the news with a pinch of salt, at least until more information becomes available.
Stay tuned to Pokde.net for the latest tech and gaming news plus reviews.
Source
Pokdepinion: It’s not much of an improvement compared to last year’s top chip.. but I wouldn’t mind if it meant that Xiaomi can offer a lower priced flagship smartphone. Snapdragon 865 Plus was already a decent chip to begin with after all.
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AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT leaked to offer RTX 3060 Ti performance

AMD is reportedly bringing an AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT to the fight soon, to serve up an offering in the lower price segment. This is an interesting bit of news as it means that AMD will finally have something that will slot in below the $499 MSRP of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070.

According to the leak, which we recommend taking with a pinch of salt, the Radeon RX 6700 XT will offer performance on par with, or even beat the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. It is expected to come with a 40CU configuration clocked at up to 2.5GHz, with 12GB of 16Gbps GDDR6 over a 192-bit bus. Due to the cut down GPU, the Infinity Cache will also be slightly smaller at 96MB, versus the Radeon RX 6800 series’ 128MB.

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Power draw is expected to be over 200W, and AMD is reportedly going to work with AIBs to bring GeForce RTX 3070-caliber coolers to allow the GPU to fully stretch its legs when it comes to boost clocks. AMD will be bringing a reference model that will be available at MSRP, but the higher-end AIB cards with the better coolers will understandably be quite a bit more expensive.

So how much will the MSRP be? Predictions point to it being very close to the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, although it is supposedly cheaper to produce, indicating that it will be a smaller die. The Navi 21 GPU powering the Radeon RX 6800 XT is 100mm2 smaller than the equivalent GeForce RTX 3080‘s GA102 GPU, so we might be seeing something similar in the lower-end segment as well.
AMD can take advantage of these alleged cost savings to bolster their profit margin or entice gamers to pick the red camp’s card over NVIDIA’s by pricing it lower. It really depends on how AMD wants to play their cards.

AMD’s RDNA 2 product stack is actually very interesting in the way that they fill up the gaps between the GeForce RTX 30 series offerings in the best way possible. However their current lowest-end card is the Radeon RX 6800 which is still quite significantly pricier than the GeForce RTX 3070 at $579, and a far cry from the GeForce RTX 3060’s $329 MSRP. You can watch the entire video below if you are interested in finding out more about the leaked Radeon RX 6700 XT.

The cards in the lower price points are generally more popular than the high-end price segments, so AMD is definitely expected to impress with the lower-end RDNA 2 cards to draw some serious attention to their recent improvements. Hopefully supply issues would be less of a problem by the time AMD decides to roll out the Radeon RX 6700 XT cards so gamers can actually upgrade their gaming setups with one.
Source
Pokdepinion: The lower-end cards are definitely going to end up in more systems than the pricier cards ever will, so hopefully AMD hits a homerun with the Radeon RX 6700 series!
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New PlayStation 4 “Days of Play” Variant Revealed – Limited Edition, Interesting Aesthetics

Sony Interactive Entertainment has unveiled a brand new, limited edition variant of the PlayStation 4 console known as the “Days of Play” PS4. It looks pretty great, and it might be something you’d want in the living room.
Limited Edition PlayStation 4 “Days of Play” Variant Revealed

The folks over at Sony Interactive Entertainment Singapore has unveiled a new, limited edition variant of their PlayStation 4 console known as the “Days of Play” PS4.

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This limited edition PlayStation 4 console comes in a dark blue colour; a well-known colour to represent PlayStation, with the iconic PlayStation shapes designed in gold. The blue and gold contrast gives a beautifully bright gorgeous look to the machine. A DualShock 4 wireless controller with the Days of Play design is included in the bundle, with subtle gold shapes printed on the touchpad.
Jim Ryan, Deputy President and Head of Global Sales & Marketing for Sony Interactive Entertainment, said:
It is great to see Days of Play returning in 2018. For us it’s all about thanking the fans -making sure they get the chance to play the latest blockbusters or enjoy completely new or enhanced experiences on PlayStation.
This year even more PlayStation products will be offered at a great value by select retailers, along with launching a Limited Edition PS4, designed especially for Days of Play. It’s the passionate community which makes PlayStation the best place to play and Days of Play is our way of helping people discover new experiences and play more.

The new Days of Play limited edition PlayStation 4 console has 500GBs of internal storage, and will be available from 8th June 2018 to 18th June 2018 with a retail price of RM1,299. It will be available for purchase at all PlayStation Authorized Dealers and Sony stores nationwide. If you’re not sure where exactly that is, click here to find out.
Pokdepinion: If my PlayStation 4 suddenly dies during this time period, I know which one I will be gunning for :)
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Sony HT-G700 3.1ch Dolby Atmos/DTS:X Soundbar Lands In Malaysia At RM2,299

Searching for a soundbar to fit with your entertainment system? Well Sony Malaysia has announced the arrival of the Sony HT-G700, which is a 3.1ch Dolby Atmos and DTS:X soundbar.
Sony HT-G700 soundbar

The Sony HT-G700 features Immersive Audio Enhancement, where it is said to offer an upgraded surround experience with up to 7.1.2 channel surround sound. It comes with three front speakers, combined with the brand’s signal processing.
Aside from that, its tuned S-Force PRO which uplifts sound to fit a wider TV screen height of over 55-inch, or so Sony claims.

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There’s a sound or audio mode which you can select from directly from the soundbar or even via the remote control. What’s interesting is that there’s a Night Mode where it tailors sound settings to accentuate speech, offering clear audio even at low volume levels.
The Sony HT-G700 comes with a wireless subwoofer and a larger cabinet size that you can connect with your TV through Bluetooth or HDMI eARC/ARC.
You can get it at Sony Stores, Sony Store Online, authorized dealers and at their official store on Lazada for the price of RM2,299. For more details on the HT-G700, you can head to the link right here.
Pokdepinion: Seems like an interesting soundbar. What you make of the pricing though? Let us know in the comments.
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HoYoverse Establishes Headquarters in Singapore

HoYoverse has just announced the opening of its Singapore headquarters. The Singapore office will house a committed team of experts to deliver high-quality entertainment services globally, with a 28,000 square foot space and a flexible work environment.

Genshin Impact, Honkai Impact 3rd, Tears of Themis, as well as a vast variety of cartoons, comics, music, products, and other content, have all been released by the firm and have received high critical praise. The company has also made recent announcements of two new games, Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero.

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The creation of the Singapore office is a key step in HoYoverse’s worldwide development after Montreal, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Seoul. The Singapore office, which collaborates closely with other offices and offers technical assistance for game creation, will go ahead act as a vital centre for the company’s international distribution and operating operations.

HoYoverse is adopting a flexible working approach, enabling staff stationed in Singapore and North America to work wherever they feel most creative and productive, in order to foster a global attitude and build an inspirational workplace. To ensure an inclusive and secure working environment in the interim, the company will offer the required tools, technical assistance, and well-structured welfare and benefit packages.
By the end of 2022, the company will increase its workforce by hundreds with the launch of its Singapore headquarters office. Experts in game development, engineering, marketing, product, operations, function, and project management are needed for available positions.

For more information about Hoyoverse job recruitment, feel free to visit their website by clicking the link here.
Pokdepinion: Fans of miHoYo might take this opportunity to try applying for a job with them at their Singapore HQ.
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This is how Intel® makes classrooms smarter

While Intel® is probably better known for their processors, they have been diversifying their business to include all silicon products to power a variety of devices including smart displays for education. Intel® calls them Interactive Flat Panel Displays (IFPD), and integrated numerous technologies to make smart displays like the JOI® Smartboard actually smart, instead of just being a normal LCD display connected to a PC. JOI® harnesses Intel®’s technology for the JOI® Smart Classroom ecosystem.
The main one is of course the Intel® Core™ processors which power the JOI® Smartboard. I guess Intel® Core™ processors do not need any more introduction, as they are widely available in PCs in every conceivable form factor today. The Intel® Core™ processors powering the JOI® Smartboard deliver the performance necessary to provide an intuitive user experience for teachers and students to use the smart displays effectively.

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With a JOI® Smartboard as a terminal, educators can not only present the content on the display, but also to annotate it from their personal computing devices and all connected smart devices can show a copy of it. JOI® Smart Classrooms can easily conduct presentations or classes without the need of cables via wireless screen sharing.
It is possible not only on laptops and tablets, but also other mobile devices, allowing schools the flexibility of choosing the devices to balance cost. With affordable options from JOI®, ranging from the Intel® Atom-powered tablets to more powerful systems powered by Intel® Celeron chips, schools can always choose JOI® PCs that fit their needs and budgets.

Intel® hardware integrate seamlessly with Windows 10 on the JOI® Smartboard to enable collaborative learning with a familiar and intuitive user interface, across a variety of hardware form factors. The optimal combination of hardware and software is what makes a classroom a more conducive learning environment.
All these technologies are integrated to be a part of the JOI® Smartboard as well as the JOI® devices, which are all powered by Intel®. As a whole, they create an ecosystem which JOI® dubs their JOI® Smart Classroom. The JOI® Smart Classroom powered by Intel® can be easily deployed in schools, as the ecosystem is ready to be customized to fit any schools’ needs.
Education does not need to be only about copying notes from a whiteboard, and smart classrooms have also been proven to be more effective than conventional settings by enabling collaborative learning, and JOI® is right at the forefront of making that happen with Intel® technologies.
For more information about the JOI® Smartboard, head on over to the following link here, or contact any of these PICs to find out more about JOI®’s products:

Janet
Zulfa
KK Mak
Saw

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Twitter Warns You From Changing Your Birthday Year

Apparently there’s a prank going on over at Twitter, where it results in people being locked out from their account. The cause? Well it seems that people were told that by changing your Twitter birthday to any date in 2007 will enable a hidden color schemes menu in the app.
Seems harmless right? Think again. By doing so, you’ll be telling Twitter that you are under the age of 13. This will then lock you out from your account as Twitter only accepts users that’s aged 13 and above. Of course, Twitter themselves have posted a Tweet on the issue.
https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1110641101822517248

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If you’ve actually changed your birthday to 2007, you’ll find yourself facing unnecessary process to recover your account. You’d need to contact Twitter support and then provide identification document to prove your real age.
They’ve also mentioned that users that’s been locked (for the birthday issue) should follow the instructions that were sent (most likely to their registered email) soon after the change was made.
Pokdepinion: I just can’t comprehend people sometimes.. Sure, a hidden color scheme, but why…?
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ASUS TUF Dash F15 Review — a dashing performer

The ASUS TUF Gaming brand has been focused on bringing value-for-money in the mid-range segment, from their PC components to their laptops. Today we will be taking a look at one of the newest members of the latter, the ASUS TUF Dash F15 (FX516PM).
This is ASUS TUF Gaming’s first attempt to penetrate the thin-and-light gaming machine market, and it is based on the 2020 ROG Zephyrus G15’s chassis. It is also one of the first machines to debut with the Intel Tiger Lake H35 processors here in Malaysia, so we will also be testing out a brand new CPU here. Let’s go.
Unboxing

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As customary of the TUF Gaming series, the ASUS TUF Dash F15 comes in a cardboard box. However the branding is much more evident on the front of the box this time around, with the use of the new TUF Gaming emblem. The name of the laptop also stands out against the black background, which is pretty nice to see.

On the inner flap where you would often find the “Welcome to the Republic” message with ROG laptops, the ASUS TUF Dash F15’s packaging presents a better view of the new TUF Gaming logo. It definitely looks a lot better than the antiquated design of the old logo.

There aren’t a lot of stuff in the box, as you only get the mere basics. The ASUS TUF Dash F15 comes with some basic documentation and the 200W power adapter, which is one of the newer, more compact models that ASUS has been bragging about recently.
Appearance

With the new branding, ASUS has also apparently set out to differentiate the TUF Gaming lineup more distinctly from the rest of the laptops in the market right now. The TUF name is featured along the right side of the laptop, while at the top left corner there’s the TUF emblem. With the no-nonsense design and matte gunmetal gray aluminum finish, I do think that the ASUS TUF Dash F15 does exude a pretty sturdy vibe.

Unlike the lid, the bottom is made of plastic. There are a lot of vents here for the fan intakes, above the heatpipes and even a small vent above the SO-DIMM slot. The ones in the lower corners are for the speakers. The ASUS TUF Dash F15 touts pretty tall feet to provide some clearance for air intake.

Opening up the laptop, the first thing that you can appreciate is probably the ultra-slim bezels around the 15.6″ display. The next thing you might notice is the highlighted WASD cluster. I don’t know why ASUS likes doing this but it does take away from the sleekness of the ASUS TUF Dash F15. Quite a shame, really.
ASUS TUF Dash F15 (FX516PM) Specifications

CPU
Intel Core i7-11370H, 4C/8T @ 3.3GHz (up to 4.8GHz boost), 35W TDP, 10nm SuperFin

RAM
16GB DDR4 3200MHz (1 x 8GB SO-DIMM + 8GB on-board), dual-channel

GPU
Intel Iris Xe Graphics, 96EU @ 1350MHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 6GB GDDR6, ROG Boost up to 1525MHz (80W TGP / 85W with Dynamic Boost 2.0)

Storage
1 x 512GB Samsung PM981 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD
(2 x M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 slot)

Software
Microsoft Windows 10 Home
GeForce Game Ready Driver 466.27
Intel Graphics Command Center
Armoury Crate
MyASUS
Microsoft Office Home & Business 2019
McAfee Personal Security
DTS:X Ultra

Connectivity
Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (WiFi 6, up to 2.4Gbps)
Bluetooth 5.1
Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit LAN
1 x Thunderbolt 4 USB-C
3 x USB 3.0

Display
15.6″ FHD (1920 x 1080) Chi Mei N156HRA-EA1, 144Hz refresh rate, Adaptive Sync, 250 nits, 62.5% sRGB
1 x HDMI 2.0b
1 x DisplayPort via USB-C

Audio
2 x 2W speakers
1 x 3.5mm combo jack
DTS:X Ultra software
Array microphone

Power
76WHr 4-cell Li-ion battery
200W power adapter
USB-PD charging support (not included)

Dimensions
360 × 252 x 19.9 mm

Weight
2.0kg

Performance
The ASUS TUF Dash F15 (FX516PM) actually has several performance profiles to choose from, and we will be testing the laptop in all the following benchmarks in the Turbo profile. In this mode, the CPU gets a PL1/PL2 limit of up to 64W, although we did not see it pull this much power at all. The GPU can also pull up to 92W here as observed in HWiNFO, higher than the 85W TDP limit it is supposed to have. Interesting.
Synthetic

ASUS equipped the ASUS TUF Dash F15 with a great 512GB Samsung PM981 SSD, which delivers excellent performance. The ASUS TUF Dash F15 is configured to be able to support two PCIe 3.0 x4 SSDs, so you can actually add more storage to the ASUS TUF Dash F15. Unfortunately you won’t be able to upgrade to a PCIe 4.0 SSD, as the four PCIe 4.0 lanes from the CPU are already connected to the GeForce RTX 3060.

The ASUS TUF Dash F15 outperforms all of the laptops that we have previously tested in Cinebench R20 in the single-core portion of the benchmark. However with only four cores under the hood, it understandably takes a backseat in the multi-core section. It does outperform the Acer Swift 3X though, which was our previous best result with the 11th Gen Tiger Lake processors.

We dropped the Acer Swift 3X from the benchmark here, as the Iris Xe MAX graphics won’t hold a candle to these dedicated graphics solutions. Compared to the other gaming laptops we have reviewed, the ASUS TUF Dash F15 (FX516PM) with the GeForce RTX 3060 finds itself slotted quite comfortably between the RTX 2070 Max-Q and RTX 2070 SUPER laptops, which is quite an interesting find, as the 80W GeForce RTX 3060 here would probably qualify for a Max-Q label too if NVIDIA didn’t decide to do away with it, I guess this is a pretty good result for the mid-range Ampere GPU.

The ASUS TUF Dash F15’s 3DMark Time Spy results reflect a similar scenario, although the MSI GE66 Raider gains a larger gap here. This might be due to the fact that MSI laptop has not only a more powerful GPU, but also a more impressive 8-core CPU, which would have contributed to the rather large gap we see here.

3DMark Port Royal sees the ASUS TUF Dash F15 slotted in between the GeForce RTX 2070 laptops once again, but this time we are back to see it being about exactly right in between the two older laptops again. Still, it seems that the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER laptop does have quite a noticeable advantage here, indicating better raytracing performance from the older GPU.

Moving on into PCMark 10, we see that the ASUS TUF Dash F15 (FX516PM) posts some good results across the board. It appears that the few, nippy cores, weren’t great for the Essentials portion of the benchmark, but it redeemed itself with excellent scores in Productivity which gauges performance when working with spreadsheets and word processing. Digital Content Creation is also great on the ASUS TUF Dash F15, with the combination of the Iris Xe Graphics and GeForce RTX 3060 offering a pretty healthy advantage in this area over last year’s ROG Zephyrus G14.
Do note that all the above benchmarks compares much pricier and also heavier machines (with the exception of the ROG Zephyrus G14 and GIGABYTE AORUS 15G XC) against the ASUS TUF Dash F15. So while the ASUS TUF Dash F15 (FX516PM) is unable to outright score a win in most of the benchmarks, in terms of the weight-to-power and cost-to-performance metrics, it does have its merits.
Gaming

Gaming performance on the ASUS TUF Dash F15 is seemingly held back by its CPU. The performance in most games is quite evidently CPU-bound, and the worst case scenario is in Rainbow Six Siege, which I left out of this chart for scaling reasons. While we get a respectable 150FPS in that esports title, the CPU is actually more heavily loaded than the GPU. You can expect to see a similar situation in other esports titles that will be more CPU-bound than GPU-bound.
On the bright side, although we see some games like Cyberpunk 2077 average just 24FPS when DirectX Raytracing is enabled without DLSS, the experience is actually quite playable thanks to the adaptive sync feature of the display. Of course, I would prefer a higher frame rate, and we can quite easily achieve that with DLSS, so this is more like a worst case scenario more than anything.
Newer games that can take advantage of more cores will probably see the CPU bottleneck the performance even more. With that said, it is evident that the ASUS TUF Dash F15 (FX516PM) can deliver decent frame rates, but I am not sure for how much longer as newer games are now being developed to use more CPU cores. There is an advantage of going with a more efficient CPU though, as you will see in the next section.
Cooling
While there isn’t an option to manually tune the fan speeds, but I guess with Turbo allowing for maximum cooling and the Silent mode featuring an actual 0dB mode when temperatures are below 70°C, I am not exactly left wanting here. Finally, a gaming laptop that can be practically fanless! What a time to be alive!

As mentioned earlier, the power limits for the CPU and GPU are quite generous, and they are exactly the same in the Performance and Turbo profiles. However when it comes to the Silent profile, the CPU PL1 is dropped down to a mere 30W, while the GPU only pulls up to 53W even when fully loaded with Realbench. Speaking of which, we will be testing the cooling performance in Realbench in Turbo mode here.

While the CPU does get 64W PL1 to play around with, in practice we see it hover around 41W on average. It will boost up and down opportunistically, between 37W and 48W. As a result, the CPU clocks are also hovering between 3.4GHz and 4.2GHz, with an average of 3.8GHz.
Thanks to the significantly lower power limit here as compared to the standard 45W TDP CPUs that ASUS used to put into the ROG Zephyrus G15 that the ASUS TUF Dash F15 is based on, we are also seeing the CPU only hit 89°C at max, with the average temperature across the 15 minute run being just 80°C.
Moving on to the GPU, the power draw averages 79W, with the temperature maintained below 79°C at all times. Average clocks are pretty decent at 1410MHz here. We do observe a peak power draw of 90W here, which is quite interesting. Looking at the graph, you might also notice that the temperatures aren’t in an upward trend, which means that the cooling of the ASUS TUF Dash F15 (FX516PM) is more than capable of handling the thermal output of the CPU and GPU here.
In the GPU-centric Superposition stress test, the Dynamic Boost 2.0 capability pushes most of the power to the GPU. Here we see a power draw of 84W, and clocks of 1435MHz, on average. Temperatures are very well controlled with only the GPU being heavily loaded, with the GPU sitting below 73°C. The CPU is very comfortable below 67°C in this benchmark, drawing around 13W of power.

If you would like a closer look at the innards and the cooling system of the ASUS TUF Dash F15, you can check out our teardown video above.
Battery Life

One very interesting thing with the ASUS TUF Dash F15 is that while it has a rather small 76WHr battery, it is capable of over 9 hours battery life. This makes it the longest lasting gaming laptop we have tested, being more comparable against the lower-powered multimedia laptops rather than the other gaming laptops we have tested. This is great, as it means that the ASUS TUF Dash F15 offers gaming laptop performance while still offering enough juice to last a regular work day.
User Experience
Display and Audio

At first glance, you won’t really notice anything particularly wrong with the display here. Colors are pretty vibrant, and ASUS tuned it in a way that it definitely looks good enough for most intents and purposes. In fact I quite liked the display here. Motion is very smooth with the 144Hz refresh rate, and the adaptive sync feature means that lower frame rates doesn’t look nearly as bad on the display.
However upon further testing, it is apparently a rather mediocre panel that’s only capable of 62% sRGB, 44% DCI-P3 and 42.8% Adobe RGB. That’s worse than my ageing ROG Strix SCAR II! It also has an unremarkable maximum brightness of just 250 nits. Color accuracy is mediocre too, with an average Delta E value of 2.5.
Overall, it’s a pretty standard display panel, and you might not even notice the disparity unless you are checking out the ASUS TUF Dash F15 (FX516PM) right beside a better display panel. ASUS does offer you an option of a better panel, but you will have to shell out for the range-topping ASUS TUF Dash F15 FX516PR that touts a 240Hz 100% sRGB display.
Audio on the ASUS TUF Dash F15 is decent enough for catching up on the latest episodes of anime or K-drama, and I do consider it passable for a laptop of this caliber. Two upward-firing tweeters might sweeten the sound, but I guess you won’t exactly miss them if you haven’t experienced them before. ASUS also included DTS:X Ultra to improve the sound, and I guess it does work pretty well, especially if you plan on tweaking the sound profile to your liking.
Keyboard and Trackpad

I hope you like teal, because that’s the color of the keyboard’s backlighting here. Instead of RGB, ASUS decided that this greenish hue was the best match for what would otherwise be a sleek monochrome machine. I think white backlighting would been better, but somehow this is the color that the designers at ASUS decided upon. Oh well. The keyboard offers a nice amount of travel and tactility, and it is comfortable for both typing and gaming marathons.
Another thing worth mentioning is that the cooling system also intakes air from the keyboard deck, which keeps it cooler to the touch. As a result, the WASD cluster remains pretty cool at around 35°C, while the area in the center of the keyboard goes up to around 50°C. When the innards are working hard pushing frames or rendering your latest videos, ASUS made absolutely sure that your fingers will not get toasted by the keyboard.

The position of the keyboard in the center of the laptop is pretty nice for those used to touch typing, and ASUS made sure to not clutter the keyboard deck with extra keys in unusual places. What I didn’t quite appreciate was the lack of a PrtScr key. In yet another peculiar decision by ASUS regarding the keyboard, the ASUS TUF Dash F15 has a hotkey to the Snip and Sketch tool, but no PrtScr button. In case the designers at ASUS didn’t realize, you can assign the PrtScr key to be a shortcut to the Snip and Sketch tool, but you can’t do the inverse. And that eliminated the ability for me to do my usual Win + PrtScr combo to take quick screenshots of my benchmark results. Absolutely annoying.

Luckily, the trackpad was a joy to use. I did not feel I needed a mouse to perform my usual benchmarks, and the centered position was intuitive to use. If I were to nitpick, I would probably complain about the lack of discrete click buttons, but in practice it performed just fine. The ASUS TUF Dash F15 was able to discern between me trying to do gestures and me trying to drag things around, and I appreciate that. Just give me back my PrtScr button and I think I would absolutely love the input here. Maybe a fingerprint scanner would be nice as well.
I/O ports

The ASUS TUF Dash F15 has a decent complement of I/O options. While ASUS somehow decided to leave out more modern ports like USB 3.2 Gen2, there’s still three USB 3.0 ports on the ASUS TUF Dash F15 (FX516PM), two of which you can see on the right side of the machine. There’s also a Kensington slot to allow you to secure your laptop physically.

Over on the left, you will find the coaxial power input, a Gigabit LAN port, HDMI, another USB 3.0 port as well as the Thunderbolt 4 and 3.5mm combo headphone jack. The Thunderbolt 4 port also hosts DisplayPort output as well, which will allow you to plug in two more monitors to the ASUS TUF Dash F15 without issue. It also supports 100W USB-PD charging, but unlike its ROG Zephyrus brethren, it does not come with a USB-PD power adapter in the box.
I guess with USB-PD chargers being quite affordable nowadays, getting a smaller charger to bring with you on work trips shouldn’t be too much of an issue anyway. Or you can even forget about bringing a charger on shorter excursions, since it will serve you for around nine hours before it runs out of battery.
Pre-installed Software

If you have seen our recent reviews, you would probably have guessed that the ASUS TUF Dash F15 comes with Armoury Crate. It sports a yellow theme to go better with the TUF Gaming branding, but aside from that, it is identical to the version you get with ASUS’ ROG and ROG Strix laptops. It offers a few cool features, including the iGPU Mode that allows you to switch off the GeForce RTX 3060 in the ASUS TUF Dash F15 to conserve power.
As with all recent gaming laptops from ASUS, there’s also a hotkey to Armoury Crate. But instead of the ROG logo, you get an Armoury Crate icon here. I am not sure why ASUS didn’t just put a TUF Gaming emblem here, but I am not exactly complaining either, as the Armoury Crate icon does look pretty good.

Meanwhile with MyASUS, you get the settings for the battery charging mode to potentially extend the lifespan of your battery, update your drivers and the cool Link to MyASUS feature. I think the former could possibly be integrated into Armoury Crate just for the sake of consistency, but considering just how difficult it was for ASUS to get Armoury Crate working properly across all their machines, it might be a bit too much to ask for.
Conclusion
Personally, I do quite like the ASUS TUF Dash F15. It’s rather portable, it has good battery life, runs relatively cool, and it can also be really quiet with its true 0dB mode. But it is because of drawbacks like the missing PrtScr key, odd color choice for the keyboard backlighting and mediocre display panel that holds me back from fully embracing it.
Also, if you are serious about gaming, you should probably opt for the recently launched Tiger Lake H45 models, or maybe something else from ASUS’ lineup with more CPU grunt under the hood. With the limited CPU performance here, opting for the newly introduced GeForce RTX 3050 Ti variant might be the wiser choice.

For RM5499, the ASUS TUF Dash F15 FX516PM is a decent enough option featuring the GeForce RTX 3060. But considering the fact that you will not get to enjoy the full performance of the GeForce RTX 3060 in the ASUS TUF Dash F15 due to the CPU here, you might as well save some money and get the option with a slower GPU. This is a great laptop, just not one that can really take full advantage of a GeForce RTX 3060 or higher.

Our thanks to ASUS Malaysia for sending us the ASUS TUF Dash F15 (FX516PM) for review.
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Google working on in-house Chromebook CPUs?

Google has already worked with Samsung to develop their first custom SoC for the Pixel 6 series, and according to reports, they might be also attempting to create an in-house chipset for Chromebooks. They were apparently inspired by Apple’s success with the Apple M1, which is a rather interesting case study of dropping x86 for Arm.
Global shipments of Chromebooks have reportedly nearly doubled last year, thanks to increased demand due to the pandemic forcing students and workers to get a laptop to learn/work from home. That might have motivated Google to take a closer look at their Chromebooks, and optimize the performance to further enhance their desirability, although it is also worth mentioning that shipments has slowed down sharply since July.

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The report also points out that Google has been hiring engineers from Intel, Qualcomm and MediaTek. Aside from talent, Google will also be looking at about $500 million in costs to design a cutting-edge 5nm chip. This won’t be Google’s first attempt as custom chips though. Way before the Tensor SoC that’s going to power the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, they have already created tensor processing units (TPUs) to help speed up their AI computing workloads in their data center cloud servers back in 2016. The latest generation was just introduced this May.
It will be interesting to see if Google will be creating a custom SoC for Chromebooks. Unlike Apple, Chromebooks are also made by Google’s partners, like ASUS and Samsung. Whether the partners would opt to pick Google’s chipsets over existing options from Intel, MediaTek and Qualcomm remains to be seen. OEMs probably buy their chips in bulk from the chipmakers, which might get them a better deal than what Google can offer.

Maybe Google will reserve it for their own Pixelbook offerings, but the fact that they are available in so few regions that it might not be really worthwhile for Google to invest in a custom chip just for their own Chromebooks. Especially when Chrome OS is only about 1.74% of market share globally.
Source
Pokdepinion: I never liked Chromebooks, but maybe Google can change my mind with a well-optimized hardware and software package…
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Darkwood’s Devs Are Putting Their Own Game on Torrent; For People Who Can’t Afford It

It would seem that Darkwood’s own developer, Acid Wizard Studio, is putting their own game up on torrent. Has the world gone mad?
Videogame piracy isn’t new. In the past, it was pretty rampant but in today’s world, it’s not so bad anymore… or at least, not as easily accessible as last time. After all, having games being pirated means that the developers’ hard work will generally go unpaid to a certain extent. Which is why it’s baffling when a development studio is putting their own game up on torrent, free-of-charge.

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Darkwood’s Devs Are Putting Their Own Game on Torrent

Torrenting is alive and well, as the many who watched the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight illegally last night can attest to (ahem, Periscope streams ahem), but while users tend to torrent games like The Witcher series, it’s rare to see a torrent of a game from the developer themselves. Acid Wizard Studio, the minds behind the top-down horror game Darkwood, have announced that their game is available now on Pirate Bay.
What began as one user’s reason given for refunding the game lead the team to make it available for free, with the hopes that players who enjoy the game and want to support what the studio is doing will purchase the game via Steam, Humble Store, or GOG. Their stipulation:
Please, please, don’t buy it through any key reselling site. By doing that, you’re just feeding the cancer that is leeching off this industry.
They’ve also assured players that the download is the latest version of the game (1.0 hotfix 3) and is completely DRM-free, with no added extras or catches. They even avoided adding pirate hats. The download is intended to give players who may not have the means safe access to their beautiful and unique take on the genre.
Darkwood is only a little more than a week old, having launched officially on July 17, but with “overwhelmingly positive” reviews on Steam, it’s clear to see that players are loving the game. It is available now on Steam for RM31.00 / $14.99. You can check out the game’s official release trailer at the top of this post, or give the haunting live-action trailer here a try.

Pokdepinion: As much as I do love free games and I’m sure most of you feel the same way, I don’t want these developers to do free labour. If you enjoy Darkwood, please support the developer by buying the game off of Steam. It’s pretty affordable.
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GIGABYTE announces Xtreme gaming peripherals — RGB LEDs in everything except the gaming chair

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GIGABYTE, today rolled out its entire line of Xtreme Gaming series peripherals and gears, namely the XK700 gaming keyboard, XH300 gaming headsets, XC700W and XC300W PC cases, XTC700 CPU cooler, and XGC300 gaming chair.

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XK700 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
Built for responsiveness and precision control, the new XK700 gaming keyboard features gaming-grade mechanical red key switches coupled with the full N-key rollover functionality. The big-sized rubber feet can be adjusted precisely to the most comfortable height by rotating the circular gear, while keeping the keyboard firm and steady during intense gaming operation.
Product landing page: XK700 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

XH300 Gaming Headsets

The new Xtreme Gaming headsets have gamers immersed in a true-to-life gaming realm generated by 50mm driver units with enhanced bass reproduction; the built-in bendable microphone can be adjusted to the optimized placement for clear communication between teammates during combats. The ergonomic and lightweight design ensures extended comfort for prolonged gaming sessions.
Product landing page: XH300 Gaming Headsets

XC700W Full-tower PC Case

The new full-tower case comes with ample room and optimized thermal design, ideal for massive liquid cooling or multi-GPU builds. The 4mm black tempered glass makes the case a stunning showpiece for displaying all PC parts through the full-side panel window. This heavy-weight case also features aluminum shell that adds robustness to the structure, while completing a clean and sleek chassis font with a premium touch.
Product landing page: XC700W Full-tower PC Case

XC300W Mid-tower PC Case

The new mid-tower case is designed for powerful gaming builds on a budget with flexibility to expand and upgrade when needed. The XC300W uniquely supports both vertical and horizontal GPU installations, allows gamers to showcase their cool-looking graphics cards through the transparent acrylic side panel window. Messy cable power connectors can be hidden inside the PSU shroud, while separating the PSU heat from the rest of the internal system for more efficient dissipation.
Product landing page: XC300W Mid-tower PC Case

XTC700 CPU Cooler

Forged with 2 big 120mm PWM fans to each side of the heat-sink, the new Xtreme Gaming CPU cooler is able to efficiently dissipate heat at a very low noise level. The PWM function provides the accurate and efficient fan speed for the CPU, finding a perfect balance between noise reduction and thermal performance. GIGABYTE patented blade fan design enhances airflow by 23%, whilst the 2-ball bearing structure delivers longer and more stable lifespan. The Xtreme Gaming logo is illuminated in customizable RGB for a fully dynamic lighting experience.
Product landing page: XTC700 CPU Cooler

XGC300 Gaming Chair

Featuring the extra higher backrest with up to 180-degree tilt and numerous manual adjustment options from top to bottom, the new ergonomically-designed Xtreme Gaming chair offers maximum flexibility to suit both gaming or relaxing comfort for each gamer. The chair also comes with the matching headrest pillow and lumbar cushion to provide enhanced support to the neck and the lower back.
Product landing page: XGC300 Gaming Chair
Pokdepinion: While every GIGABYTE’s gaming peripherals comes with RGB LED, I wonder why they didn’t bring the feature to its gaming chair too.
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