Join the Garmin Squad Virtual Challenge with promos on these selected Garmin watches!

While most of us are stuck indoors and cannot go out to workout or hit the gym, that’s no reason to be a couch potato. Technically, it is for most of us, but if you are concerned about your fitness, you can definitely workout from home, and Garmin is here to motivate you with the Garmin Squad Virtual Challenge to help you work up a sweat during the Restricted Movement Order (RMO).
Garmin Squad is a fortnightly community workout, but because of the ongoing RMO, Garmin Squad goes online. The virtual challenges will be added every two weeks starting today until further notice, and all you need to do is to register here. You will need a Garmin watch ready to participate, but if you don’t, Garmin Malaysia is currently running promotions on selected watches too!

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From today until 14th April, fitness enthusiasts can get up to RM200 discounts off these selected Garmin smartwatches:

Garmin Venu: RM1599 (NP: RM1799)
Garmin Forerunner 245: RM1299 (NP: RM1450)
Garmin Forerunner 245 Music: RM1499 (NP: RM1699)
Garmin Instinct: RM1299 (NP: RM1450)
Garmin Instinct Tactical: RM1450 (NP: RM1599)

The Garmin Venu is their more lifestyle-oriented smartwatch, while the Instinct Tactical is the other end of the scale with a military-inspired design. It’s actually designed to fulfil the US MIL-STD 810G ratings too, so it isn’t just for looks. If you purchase the above Garmin smartwatches, you can also make use of the free shipping voucher code: FREESHIPPING. Check out the Garmin smarwatches on offer here.
Don’t run outside. Not yet.
Now get off your bums and go workout! I will join you guys after this episode of Explained. Or maybe two more.
Pokdepinion: Well if you are looking for a smartwatch to prepare yourself to workout after the RMO is over, this isn’t a bad time to get one either…
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You Can Now Make Donations With Your Touch ‘n Go App To Mosque

TNG Digital has today revealed that they’ve partnered up with Ar-Rahah Mosque in Kampung Kerinchi, where they have introduced a new way for you to donate and contribute through the Touch ‘n Go eWallet.

With the new feature, you can simply make your contributions through a simple tap on your device. Aside from that, the partnership sees a year-long program which covers several areas such as Generation 13, a special class for youths that focuses on the perfection and philosophy of Solat, Ar-Rahah De Hearty, where they emphasize on outdoor activities such as aerobics, gotong-royong and more as a creative approach to get closer to the community in Kampung Kerinchi. Additionally, there’s i-Entrepreneur and Back to School programs as well.

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The new QR-enablement at Ar-Rahah sets the stage for other mosques in the country to take part and adopt technology to further enhance their daily operations and activities.

If you are interested in the new feature, you can download the Touch ‘n Go eWallet app (available for both Android and iPhone), scan the QR code, select the amount that you’d like to donate, key in your 6 digit pin and you are good to go.
Pokdepinion: I think that it’s a good initiative from them. If some reason is holding you back from going to the mosque, you can still contribute from the comforts of your home.
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ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2 — here’s what we know so far

The ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2 has been gradually revealed in teasers on ASUS’ Facebook page, and here’s what we know about it thus far. It does seem like a major upgrade over the ZenFone Max Pro M1 thus far, so let’s see what we have got.
Good gaming chops

ASUS is touting the ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2 to be a gaming smartphone. They have asked for suggestions as to what chipset should be in it, but we have of narrowed it down to the Snapdragon 660 or Snapdragon 636. The former is going to be a pretty huge upgrade coming from the ZenFone Max Pro M2.

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Massively upgraded camera

One of the main downers with the ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M1 is the subpar camera. The 6GB version had a slightly better variant, but not by far. The ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2 is expected to feature the Sony IMX 486 sensor for the primary camera, which is a 12MP sensor with large 1.25μm pixels. The same sensor was used in the Xiaomi Mi A2, so you can expect much better shots from the ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2. ASUS also added in 3-axis EIS for good measure. No OIS yet, but hey, this is a huge step forward, right?
5000 mAh battery

The ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2 is going to have a 5000 mAh battery, which is the same as the currently outgoing ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M1. However if the ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2 arrived with Android 9 Pie out of the box, it could take advantage of the Adaptive Battery feature which uses AI to improve battery life.
New design

Design wise, the ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2 looks like it will be sporting a pretty major redesign. Instead of the aluminium chassis the ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M1 sported, it seems that the new Max Pro M2 will tout a glass/plastic back, as well as a new notched display. On the bright side, ASUS is keeping up with the Joneses in terms of outlook, but a bummer for those who despise the notch.
The ASUS ZenFone Max Pro M2 looks like a pretty interesting device thus far, and we can’t wait to see what ASUS will unveil at Jakarta this 11th December. ASUS will be livestreaming the event on Facebook too, so stay tuned!
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Get Deals Up To 96% Off With Shopee’s Million Dollar Brands Discounts During Shopee 8.8 Brands Festival

Million Dollar Brands Discounts with Shopee

Shopee has revealed a new feature called Million Dollar Brands Discounts which will allow users to purchase 100% originals from their favourite brands with significant discounts. You can find discounts of up to 96% and Shopee says that all the deals in the Million Dollar Brands Discounts portal are subsidised by them. Accessible from the Shopee App homepage, the Million Dollar Brands Discounts portal will showcase deals from a long list of brands including Samsung, Seiko, Tomei, JBL, Fjallraven Kanken, Bonia, Levi’s, Dyson, Tefal and more.

Furthermore, Shopee assures that all products featuring the Shopee Mall tag are guaranteed to be 100% authentic. Shopee will reimburse the customer double the amount paid for if any of the products are found to be counterfeit through the Shopee Mall Authenticity Guarantee policy.

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The Million Dollar Brands Discounts is introduced in conjunction with its Shopee 8.8 Brands Festival with the entire campaign running from now till 8 August. In addition to that, there will be many different activities for users to enjoy during the campaign. These activities include Shopee Games such as Shopee Garden, Flappy Shopee, Shopee Poly, Shopee Link and more. Through these games, users stand to win prizes worth up to RM88,000 daily.
Moreover, many other brands will be running their Super Brand Day with Shopee during this 8.8 Brands Festival with massive deals and promotions. Some of these brands include Perfect Diary, L’Oreal, realme, Innisfree, Tefal, Bokitta, Enfagrow, P&G, Acer, Universal Traveller, Photobook, Unilever, Skechers, Philips and Vinda.

Besides branded deals and discounts, users can look out for RM8 deals daily during Shocking Sale. On the biggest day of the campaign, 8 August, the minimum spend for users to enjoy free shipping will be lowered to RM10 from 12AM to 2AM with added surprises throughout the day while brands will be offering 50% off vouchers.
In addition to all the other activities during the 8.8 Brands Festival, Shopee will also have a female magazine talk show. The talk show will feature past contestants from the Miss Astro Chinese International Pageant and is aimed to empower women on a variety of topics. To watch the show, users can catch Shopee Live on Sundays (9 and 16 Aug) at 8.30PM with repeats on Saturdays (8, 15 and 22 Aug) at 5.30PM.
Pokdepinion: Oh my poor wallet. Every year I say to myself, “This year I won’t spend my money. This year I won’t spend my money.” and what do I do? I go and spend my money.
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Will Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia Premier Access Be Available At Launch?

With the video streaming service officially launching on 1st June 2021, many started to wonder if Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia Premier Access will be available as well. This is the case given that our international counterparts have them as part of their offerings. Here’s what we know thus far.
Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia Premier Access

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For those of you who are wondering whether Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia Premier Access will be a thing, it will not be available for now. Apparently, Malaysian subscribers will instead have to wait for Premier Access content to be made available on the platform later after their release in the cinema, and also wait for the exclusivity period on Premier Access to expire for new movies.
In case you didn’t know, Premier Access is an additional offering on Disney+ on top of the subscription, where you get to enjoy the latest movies as soon as it’s launched in cinemas. These movies will eventually go to the regular version of Disney+ within a matter of months, usually 3 months after, so if you’re willing to wait, you don’t have to pay extra for it.
Some of the notable movies made available as part of Premier Access include Mulan, Raya and The Last Dragon, and Cruella. Disney has confirmed that Cruella will be available on both Disney+ and Disney+ Hotstar in August 2021, which would give it a 3-month period before the exclusivity expires.
While it’s not available at the moment, they may consider making Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia Premier Access available at a later date. When that happens, we will report it as soon as information becomes available so stay tuned.
Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia is officially launched today, on 1st June 2021, and it has a subscription price of RM54.90 for a period of 3 months, meaning it’s RM18.30 per month, but you have to pay for 3 months upfront every time.
Source
Pokdepinion: Personally, I wouldn’t pay extra just to watch those movies as soon as it’s out, especially if I’m already paying for the subscription. Might as well just wait it out and use the money for something else, like good food or snacks to enjoy while watching shows on the platform.
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BlackBerry KEY 2 Review – After 2 months of intensive usage

Introduction

I know.. I know.. It’s been ages since you last heard about the brand. In fact, the last time I myself used one, Pokde.net was not even established yet. So when BlackBerry invited us to their BlackBerry KEY 2 launch event, my curiosity ensued and I told myself, I had to give it a shot at least. The internet was going nuts on its first impressions and BlackBerry got hit pretty hard for the pricing, so I’m not going to dig down that part any further. Instead, I told myself, let’s get familiar with the device first and see how our trip down the memory lane actually goes about. I use WhatsApp very extensively, so it wasn’t hard to force myself into using the device. Except, I kept on convincing myself that I’ll port the WhatsApp later and was carrying the device with me without any purpose until then. So, 5 days later, I finally built the courage and took the plunge into the dark abyss that I have no idea will lead to which end.
Unboxing the BlackBerry KEY 2
Here’s an unboxing video that we made for your viewing pleasure instead. Why not, right?

Appearance

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Let’s take a tour around the device first, shall we? On the front facade, we have the obvious full blown hardware QWERTY keyboard which probably is the only reason you are reading this review right now, but we shall elaborate that later on in the User Experience section. The spacebar doubles as a fingerprint sensor which I really love! It’s very elegantly done, and works flawlessly. I’ll get to that later on too.
Right above the keyboard, we have the display which is a 4.5″ IPS display that will give you plenty of mixed feelings. Embedded within, right at the top of this is the earpiece speaker sandwiched in between the front facing camera and the ambient light sensor that is located next to the staus LED. The camera itself is a 8MP fixed focus that uses LCD flash and records at 1080p at 30fps. The precision around this is remarkable, to be honest. The glass cut out around the earpiece is just perfect. The Gorilla Glass definitely helps in the added protection. So far, so good.

The body itself is made of Series 7 Aluminium alloy frame and I won’t lie, I really love how solid the build of this device is! Moving to the back of the BlackBerry KEY 2, things get rather interesting. It has a unique diamond textured non-slip grip back that not only looks elegant, but really works! At the top of this is BlackBerry’s first ever dual camera setup together with a dual tone LED flash. The main camera is a 12MP with a 79.3° field of view, 1.28um dedicated sensor and f/1.8 aperture and Dual PDAF. The second camera is also a 12MP but with a 50° field of view and a smaller 1.0um sensor dan f/2.6 aperture and single PDAF.
Slightly below the camera, centered to the body of the device, the BlackBerry emblem graces the back reminding you that you are reviving the yesteryears today.

Moving to the right side of the device, you will be presented with the volume rocker at the top most, followed by the power button has a jagged surface to differentiate it with the next one, which is the BlackBerry Convenience Key. These buttons are pretty elegantly designed as you can see the chamfered sides around it. These chamfered sides are also visible around the entire device, so BlackBerry certainly didn’t cheap out on the design process of the BlackBerry KEY 2.
Yes, the 3.5mm jack is still here!
At the top of the device, the 3.5mm socket sits gracefully at the edge with a secondary microphone accompanying it for stereo recordings and noise cancellation during calls. I’m not sure if this is the best position for this, but the fact that it’s still there is all that matters to me I guess.

On the other side, is the SIM slot where it houses the combo tray so you can choose between dual-SIM setup or combining one SIM with a MicroSD card.

At the bottom, on the left side is the main microphone, followed by the newly adopted USB Type-C and right at the other end is the main speaker for all audio output.
Specifications

CPU/Chipset:
Qualcomm Snapdragon 660, Kryo 260 Octa-Core (2.2GHz x 4 + 1.8GHz x 4)

GPU:
Adreno 512

RAM:
6GB

Display:
4.5″ IPS LCD (1620 x 1080), 24-bit colour depth, 433ppi, 3:2 aspect ratio

Storage:
64GB (expandable via microSD up to 256GB)

Camera:
Main Camera(s)
Dual Camera 12M+12M with Dual Tone LED Flash, HDR, 4K video recording at 30 fps, Scan, Private Capture
Main Camera: 12MP FoV 79.3°, 1.28um, f/1.8, Dual Phase Detection Auto Focus (Dual PDAF)
Secondary Camera: 12MP FoV 50°, 1.0um,  f/2.6, Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF)
Front Camera
8MP Fixed Focus, Selfie flash using LCD, 1080p video recording at 30 fps

OS:
Stock Android OS 8.1 Oreo

Connectivity:
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz)
Bluetooth 5.0 LE (Low Energy)
LTE-FDD: Band 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 19, 20, 26, 28, 32 (2100/1900/1800/1700/850/2600/900/700/700/700/850/800/850/700/1500)
LTE-TD: Band 38, 39, 40, 41 (2600/1900/2300/2500)
Dual SIM mechanism: DSDS and both SIM can be standby on 4g
NFC

SIM:
Combo SIM (Dual Nano-SIM / Single Nano-SIM + Micro SD)

Battery:
Li-ion 3500mAh (non-removable) Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0 Supported

Dimensions:
151.4 x 71.8 x 8.5 mm

Weight:
168 g

Performance
So we are pretty clear now that the BlackBerry KEY 2 definitely has a beautiful outlook. Can good looks satisfy performance? Under the hood, we have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 coupled to the Adreno 512 GPU, assisted by 6GB of hard cold RAMs. Given the fact that it has a rather odd display ratio and results in less than FHD resolution, I expect the performance to be competitive. So let’s see.

First up, we have Antutu v7 for the charts. This is rather mixed feeling that we have here. Sandwiched between two Snapdragon 636 devices, the BlackBerry KEY 2 sips right under the Xiaomi Mi A2 that uses the same SoC under its hood.

Next, we put the CPU to test. As you can see, the multi core performance is pretty remarkable. After all, we have 4 performance cores clocked at 2.2GHz and another 4 cores clocked at 1.8GHz for efficiency. On Geekbench, anything above 5000 for multi core performance delivers pretty good outcome in terms of the performance actually.

Next up, we have the 3DMark that pushes the CPU and GPU measuring performance with Vulkan and OpenGL ES. It seems like the BlackBerry KEY 2 did well here. At least it’s approaching the Snapdragon 821 class performance which is a good news.

Now there is only one thing I need this device to do well, and that is productivity. It’s BlackBerry after all and productivity is highly expected from it. However, looking at the charts, things are not really looking very impressive as it loses even to the Snapdragon 625 which is a couple of generations older. These are synthetic tests, a visual aid for us to gauge where they stand but the real world experience can often times differ. Still, I had better expectations and this is not looking good.

Finally, the most anticipated test for the BlackBerry KEY 2, the PCMark Work 2.0 Battery Life. BlackBerry has always been known to have excellent battery life and the BlackBerry KEY 2 is no exception here. Scoring 557 for a 3500 mAh battery capacity is actually downright insanely awesome! I can definitely vouch for this after using the device for over 2 months! If there is one thing to die for in the BlackBerry KEY 2, it has to be the battery life!
You might be asking why am I comparing it with some of the more powerful devices here, right? Don’t get me wrong. If we’re going to put a competition here, we can choose to either fight only similar specification devices, or compare it with the devices that belong in almost the same value of the device. The BlackBerry KEY 2 is priced pretty high and if I’m spending that much, I am not going to be gentle with it, right? Now, here comes the brutality.
User Experience

Dear BlackBerry, let’s talk! You want to bring back the BlackBerry to the palms of the end users? Then listen carefully to this. You’re doing it wrong and the BlackBerry KEY 2 is not something that the millenials are just going to jump ship to. So let me highlight each and every experience here because I myself, being a BlackBerry user before, had intense fear before giving myself in to try out the device, let alone someone who has never even owned one before. The one thing everyone wants to know about is the keyboard, so let me cut the nonsense and get straight to the point here.

Let’s have a look at the BlackBerry KEY 2 keyboard first. This layout has been used by BlackBerry for ages actually. It’s not something that is new. The only problem is, that it doesn’t work anymore in 2018. Even after 2 months of continuous usage, I still couldn’t get used to it and these just need to change already.

For starters, the Shift key is next to the spacebar, and the Alt key is next to the Z key. You’re starting to see the problem now? For ages, we have been conditioned to have the Shift key on the left side and the Alt key next to the spacebar. This is the same across any devices that we own and changing this is extremely hard, near impossible for me. These two have to interchange. Period.

Next, the numbers. Just look at that arrangement. When you are speed typing, getting into the numbers gets very confusing and tedious. This layout might seem useful back in the days, but we have evolved. Typing on the smartphone is the most essential feature and people are NOT going to change their behavior just because of one device. Even the symbols are cluttered and extremely hard to get used to. If you are carrying two devices and the other not being a BlackBerry? Good luck maintaining two brains. Sure, you can use the symbol button to activate the on-screen keyboard – which takes space of the already small display, apart from the fact that it then beats the purpose of having the physical keyboard in the first place.
Now, what would be an ideal keyboard? I myself use SwiftKey since it ever surfaced in its Beta form and no other keyboards have ever convinced me to switch to them yet. Although I can still use them under circumstances. Let’s take a close look at the layout of three famous keyboards; SwiftKey, Samsung Keyboard and GBoard (Google Keyboard).
The Swiftkey is rather intuitive. Long pressing the keys will allow you access to the shortcuts above them so you don’t even have to press the symbol keys!
In all honesty, Samsung doesn’t really have the best keyboard either. But it’s still a mile better to use because of the number configuration.
I find GBoard’s layout to be the most interesting. The way the symbols are arranged are very close to how frequently you use them.
So, if you are using any of these keyboards, jumping to the BlackBerry KEY 2 will be a very hard task. If you already are a BlackBerry user, then you probably would love the KEY 2. Because the KEY 2 does have a very unique and elegant keys. The matte finishing is stunning and the keys travel distance is just perfect for a smartphone. If I don’t have to use numbers or symbols, I can actually type faster on the BlackBerry KEY 2 now compared to any other device. Bring in the numbers or symbols, suddenly everything gets interrupted.

Speaking of Symbols, the BlackBerry KEY 2 has a shortcut key next to the symbol key. This allows you to assign shortcuts to pretty much ANY key that is available on the BlackBerry KEY 2. I’m not sure how many shortcuts can you remember and you would use, but in the past 2 months, I assigned a few of them but used none, but that’s just me probably.

Probably the best thing that BlackBerry has done on the keyboard is the fingerprint sensor. I just prefer my fingerprint sensor where I can see it. No arguments. Put it at the back, or side, or on the moon, and I won’t use it. BlackBerry planted it right inside the spacebar and it works flawlessly. In a million times unlocking my devices, I would probably have one or two failures only? That also maybe because my thumb was oily or wet. I gotta vouch for this one. BlackBerry totally nailed the fingerprint sensor and I wouldn’t want them to change that.

Let’s talk about the display. The BlackBerry KEY 2 has a rather odd 3:2 ratio display for 2018. That’s just because of the keyboard using up all that real estate. If you can look beyond that, then the display is very beautiful. It has 24-bit colour depth and 433 ppi IPS panel delivering extremely crisp colors. The whites are pleasant, the blacks are balanced, making productivity a bliss on the BlackBerry KEY 2.
Next to the display, there is a BlackBerry Convenience Key that is much like the Bixby key that you could find on the newer Samsung devices. But it provides you with more options unlike the Bixby key. Yet, I didn’t find the use of it. I suppose keeping things simple is the way to go.

Coming to the dual camera. I don’t think I am anywhere near impressed with the pictures that the BlackBerry KEY 2 takes. Not the main camera, not the secondary camera, not even the front camera. The 12MP dual camera setup has a very slow shutter and often times take rather blurry images unless you hold it extremely steadily. Not something you could use as a handy camera for point and shoot moments. The colors are dull and the white balance is almost non-existent.
I took some samples for you and these were taken with as steady hands as possible. So, if photography is your main reason of buying your next phone, the BlackBerry KEY 2 is definitely not something that I can suggest.

If there is one thing I really love about BlackBerry KEY 2, is the battery life. I mean it. For something that has a 3500 mAh battery, it really performs like as if it has a 4000 mAh battery. I don’t know what sorcery has BlackBerry put in their devices, but this is just something they have been famous for years for.

The charging itself is pretty interesting. You have two options to choose from to decide if you plan to just charge the device, or give it an extra boost so it charges while you use it.
The redactor is pretty cool to have and it’s very seamless to use. But the BlackBerry Hub is not my cup of tea.
Finally, as for the BlackBerry applications, I don’t really find the BlackBerry Hub useful because it makes things more cluttered than organized for me. I guess the way we use our social applications do have priorities as I want to see WhatsApp messages on higher priority than my Facebook Messenger chats. I ended up using the native applications anyway. Apart from the fact that the applications looks rather bland and boring. But I do like the Privacy Mode and the redactor that came handy several times, taking the screenshot above just being one of them.
Conclusion
At RM2599, the BlackBerry KEY 2 honestly doesn’t justify its price. But let’s put that aside for a while and look at the overall package. The build quality is insanely good. In comparison to its BlackBerry KEY 1, the KEY 2 does justice to itself in this area. The battery life screams BlackBerry’s enigma. The display, while having a rather weird ratio, is very vivid and crisp. But that’s all about why you would want to carry the BlackBerry KEY 2; of course other than the fact that you want to live the nostalgia.
The keyboard needs a major rework. It doesn’t work for today’s generation and current user behavior. The layout has to adapt to the modern keyboards. The camera is sub par. In fact, some mid-range devices can put up an easy fight here. Until these are not fixed, I find it hard for people to consider the BlackBerry KEY 2. Let’s see what they bring in the future.
I do want the BlackBerry to make a comeback, but BlackBerry needs to listen to what the consumers really need. The last time they didn’t listen to what we had to say, they had a major down fall.
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Last Chance For You To Win Prizes Including A Mercedes-Benz GLA200 From ASUS 30th Anniversary

You might’ve seen on the internet about ASUS’ 30th Anniversary celebration. Well if you didn’t, this is your last chance for you to win yourself to win big from ASUS Malaysia in conjunction with their birthday.
There’s also the chance for you to win a new Mercedes-Benz GLA200 as well as prizes worth up to RM260,000.
In order to win, you need to purchase any of the eligible ASUS or Republic of Gamers (ROG) product from ASUS Authorized Partner nationwide. Do note that all ASUS or ROG products are eligible except for laptops, tablets, smart watches, AIO Pcs, Tower PCs, smartphones, powerbanks, apparels, and any laptops or smartphone accessories.

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You are then required to fill in the entry form with your personal details online.
You’ve got until the 31st of December 2019 to make your purchase and submit your entry by 3rd January 2020. The winner will be announced on the 9th of January, where he or she will walk away with an ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q G-Sync gaming monitor (December’s prize).
For more details, check out the link right here.
Pokdepinion: Don’t mind the Mercedes, I’m fine with even getting the monitor :P
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TM and Digi collaborates to expand high-speed broadband coverage

TM and Digi has just signed an agreement that will see TM providing layer three high speed broadband (HSBB) network services to Digi. This collaboration will allow Digi to expand its fiber coverage to more areas across Malaysia, including Sabah and Sarawak.
Digi anticipates that this collaboration will allow Digi to connect an additional three million households with fiber Internet services. Digi has just recently announced Digi Internet Freedom which brings together the best of fiber internet and 4G LTE networks. The plan gives subscribers unlimited fiber internet along with discounts on their postpaid lines.
More players in the fiber internet game is very interesting, especially when we consider Digi’s intention to expand its connectivity even Sabah and Sarawak as well. Hopefully the dream of seeing HSBB services across the whole of Malaysia will come true soon!

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Pokdepinion: Now all the major mobile telco operators have fiber services… Let’s see if we will see wider coverage and faster speeds now!
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TP-Link introduced new AC and Deco router line-up in CES 2017 – For faster and more reliable Internet connections

On this year CES 2017, TP-Link has introduced Deco, a new line of Whole-Home Wi-Fi Systems that address the need for faster and more reliable Internet connections, due to the growing number of connected devices throughout the home.

The Deco M5 Router uses the latest Wi-Fi mesh technology to provide seamless wireless connectivity throughout every room in your home.

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The Deco M5 Plus Router with Powerline is the most advanced version that features built-in Powerline technology. This router is the first Whole-Home Wi-Fi System that incorporates both Wi-Fi and powerline technologies into one small form factor, providing an even stronger connection for wireless devices across the home.
Vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. Gopi Sirineni said:

“TP-Link Deco, armed with our advanced Qualcomm ® Wi-Fi solutions, is equipped to help ensure consumers will have an easy to use, more seamless connectivity experience than ever before.”

In addition TP-Link also has introduced two new networking products at the show; the AC2300 Wireless MU-MIMO Gigabit Router and the RE650 AC2600 Wi-Fi Range Extender with MU-MIMO.

The AC2300 Wireless MU-MIMO Gigabit Router allows you to watch 4K movies and enjoy high-speed gaming with fast Wave 2 Wi-Fi. This powerful router can talk to many devices at once, placing each on the best Wi-Fi band to maximize performance. It even allows users to prioritize games, movies and other content or assign bandwidth to the devices you use most.

The RE650 AC2600 Wi-Fi Range Extender expands powerful Wi-Fi across your home, eliminating dead zones, drop outs and spotty signals. The RE650 works with any Wi-Fi router, access point or modem router to boost extended Wi-Fi coverage and performance to devices at all corners of your home.
Executive vice president of TP-Link USA, Lewis Wu said:

“Our ultimate goal is to provide whole-home networking solutions that work together to bring you Wi-Fi that works perfectly in every room and smart products that let you run your home exactly how you want.”

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Banjo Kazooie in Super Smash Bros Ultimate Was Made Possible Thanks to Minecraft

One of the most iconic games on the Nintendo 64 is Banjo Kazooie. Many expected more to be released on Nintend’s platform but developer Rare was surprisingly sold to Microsoft for USD $375 million. Given the situation, it would be hard to expect them to ever appear in a Nintendo game / platform ever again. This is especially the case when the third game in the franchise, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, was released exclusively for the Xbox 360 in 2008.
To many gamers’ surprise, Banjo Kazooie was unveiled as a DLC character for Super Smash Bros Ultimate at E3 2019. Needless to say, many gamers were excited and happy when they knew it was happening for real. This also made it seem like pretty much any character could possibly end up in the game. However, it was no easy feat for the dynamic duo to join the roster.
According to GamesIndustry in an interview with Rare’s Craig Duncan, Minecraft paved the way for the relationship between Microsoft and Nintendo. For those of you who aren’t aware, Microsoft acquired the game’s developer, Mojang, for USD $2.5 billion in 2014. The game itself has been released on a number of platforms, including the Nintendo Switch, 3DS, and Wii U.

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Ever since then, the two companies have seen a lot of collaboration, supporting cross-play between the two platforms while Microsoft even publishes games like Cuphead on the Nintendo Switch. There will be more characters coming to Super Smash Bros Ultimate via Fighter Pass Vol. 2. With these kinds of collaborations, we might just see more big surprises, and probably a flop like the announcement for Byleth.
Source: GamesIndustry
Pokdepinion: I like seeing these kinds of collaborations. There’s no need to be enemies just for the sake of it. It’s all about business.
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More Genshin Impact 3.0 Codes For You to Redeem

With Genshin Impact 3.0 now live, I’m sure many of you are excited to explore the new region of Sumeru. With new characters for you to pull, I’m sure a good number of you are trying to get as much Primogems as possible, among other items.
We have some extra codes for you to redeem and while they’re not much in the grand scheme of things, it’s still worth something. Just keep in mind that they can expire anytime as we aren’t aware of how long it will last so make sure to redeem them as soon as possible. Without further ado, let’s get straight to the codes:

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Genshin Impact 3.0 Codes

6A6VJTWGCPYV – 60 Primogems and 5 Adventurer’s Experience
GENSHINGIFT – 50 Primogems and 3 Hero’s Wit

How to Redeem
For PC and mobile gamers, you can easily redeem the code via the official Genshin Impact gift redemption page or via the Redeem Code option within Settings > Account in the game. All you have to do is make sure you picked the right server and key in the correct details. If you picked the wrong server by accident, you will not be able to transfer it over to your actual one.
For PS5 and PS4 Genshin Impact players, it’s more straightforward as you only have one option. You can redeem the code directly via Settings > Account. Just remember that your account must at least be on Adventure Rank 10 to redeem them.

Genshin Impact 3.0 is currently live for the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Android, iOS, and PC. A Nintendo Switch version of the game is still currently in development.
Source
Pokdepinion: Sumeru is pretty big, isn’t it. I mean, I didn’t play it yet but I was watching a friend explore a good chunk of it. It’s amazing to think it will be further expanded upon in future updates given the sheer size of it.
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Anker 535 Powerbanks Are Being Recalled Over Fire Safety Risk

The Anker 535 powerbank, otherwise known as the Anker Powercore 20K, is being recalled due to it being a potential fire hazard.
Anker 535 is a Fire Hazard?

Anker, a popular manufacturer of mobile accessories, has recently issued a recall for its 535 powerbank, also known as PowerCore 20K, due to a fault in the manufacturing process. The powerbank has a model number of A1366 and a recall has been initiated as a result of a “manufacturing condition” that has caused “a small number” of the devices to overheat and pose a fire safety risk.

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The company is voluntarily recalling all of the affected battery packs, and is working with local government agencies to do so. While it’s not clear when the recall notice was put up, it has already been linked to a house fire in Leitersburg, Maryland, in the US, as reported by Herald-Mail Media. The battery pack was stored inside a suitcase with nothing connected to it, and was last used about a week before the incident. The suitcase was destroyed, but the fire was contained to the bedroom it was in.
According to Anker, the 535 powerbank “met all applicable industry standards prior to its sale” in multiple countries, including Malaysia. The defect was discovered later, prompting the recall. Owners of the Anker 535 powerbank are advised to stop using the device, store it in a safe location, and dispose of it at a facility that accepts Lithium batteries. The affected customers can also fill a form to obtain a refund. The Anker flagship store on Shopee currently lists the affected battery pack at RM449.
Source
Pokdepinion: If you own this powerbank, stop using it immediately. Anker is a good brand but unfortunately, these things just happens.
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GPU Turbo Update Now Available For HUAWEI Nova 3i

HUAWEI has just announced the GPU Turbo update is now available for all HUAWEI nova 3i users. The update will revamp the ability of the smartphone to process graphic-intensive apps and improve performance.
GPU Turbo Update Now Availabe For Nova 3i
While it has been quite some time since the company have announce of the feature, the update wasn’t out yet. Now nova 3i will be the first to be getting the update.
They have said that the GPU Turbo update will make high-graphic gaming experiences possible while also unlocking the potential for other demanding applications such as AR or VR technology for shipping, learning and fun.

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Besides mobile gaming, GPU Turbo will deliver an optimized EMUI experience for HUAWEI devices. Previously, the feature was said to give 60% more graphics performance while also lowering 30% of battery consumption.
Pokdepinion: What are you waiting for nova 3i users? Get your updates now!
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OPPO F7 Set For Malaysia – Coming This 19th April 2018

OPPO has announced today that their latest smartphone, the OPPO F7 is bound to arrive to Malaysian shores this 19th April 2018.
OPPO F7 Release Date Confirmed

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The newest product ambassador for the OPPO F7, Hebe Tien
Famous Taiwanese singer, Hebe Tien and local Malaysian celebrity Neelofa has also joined in at being the product ambassador for the brand new device. Previously Neelofa was also product ambassador for the previous OPPO F5, which was launched at the end of last year.
While previously we wrote on the device’s color variation, it didn’t had a confirmed release date yet, but now it is confirmed. The new OPPO F7 will be utilizing AI Beauty Recognition technology, similar to the one that the previous F5. Despite that, the new device will receive an upgrade on its camera, where it will come with a 25MP front camera while having AI Beauty 2.0, the second generation of it’s edition,
OPPO F7 Specification Table

CPU/Chipset:
Mediatek Helio P60

GPU:
Mali-G72 MP3

RAM:
4GB LPDDR4

Display:
6.23″, IPS LCD 1080 x 2280 pixels (~405 ppi density)

Storage:
64GB (expandable with microSD up to 256GB)

Camera:
Main Camera(s)
16MP, f/1.8, phase detection autofocus, LED flash
Front Camera
25 MP, f/2.0

OS:
Android 8.0 Oreo (ColorOS 5.0)

Connectivity:
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.2

SIM:
nanoSIM

Battery:
Li-ion 3400 mAh (non-removable)

For more updates on the device or other stuff related to OPPO, you can check out their Facebook for more information.
Pokdepinion: To be honest, not really excited about it (more because I’m not a selfie-type of person). Don’t see much that they are bringing in new to the table, considering that the OPPO F5 didn’t blew me away or knocked me out of my feet. Well let’s hope I’m wrong. What do you think? Are you excited for the OPPO F7? Fancy their previous F5? Let us know in the comment section down below!
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ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 Review — unleashing the Amped up Tiger

I really love it when ASUS explores new form factors with the ROG Zephyrus lineup. I mean, that’s the whole reason we have the ROG Zephyrus lineup in the beginning: they were exploring ultraportable gaming laptops. While we may have diverged a bit with more mainstream designs in the ROG Zephyrus series in recent years, the notable ones like the ROG Zephyrus G14, one of the first 14″ gaming laptop in the market, and the ROG Zephyrus Duo series as the first dual-display gaming laptops are truly very exciting. Today we take a look at the ASUS’ first 16″ gaming laptop, the ROG Zephyrus M16. Let’s begin.
Unboxing

The ROG Zephyrus M16 comes in a large box, containing the laptop’s actual packaging along with the cool ROG backpack. The ROG Zephyrus M16’s packaging is very reminiscent of the ROG Zephyrus G14‘s box, which I do love very much, so it immediately gets bonus points here.

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In the box, you get the usual documentation. The ROG Zephyrus M16 also comes with two power adapters, a 100W USB-PD one along with the standard 240W adapter that enables the full performance of the ROG Zephyrus M16. Another nice inclusion is the ROG Chakram Core mouse, which is one of the most premium mice in ROG’s lineup right now. Absolutely nothing to complain about here, and if you want, you can watch our unboxing of the laptop here as well.
Appearance

One major defining aesthetic of the ROG Zephyrus M16 is the Prismatic Film under the 8279 CNC machined holes in the magnesium-aluminum lid. While it might look pretty similar to the ROG Zephyrus G14 at first glance, it does not have the AniMe Matrix LED array underneath, so all you get is this mesmerizing reflective effect when you move it around. Instead of a huge ROG emblem, you also the apparel-inspired tag on the lower left edge of the laptop, which is very stylish indeed.

On the underside you get two long rubber strips for grip, and a vent-like pattern across half of the bottom cover. I say “vent-like” because the only areas that are actually perforated are the small zones directly above the fans. I am not sure why ASUS doesn’t just make the vents bigger for passive ventilation over the other parts, but I guess the engineers at the Republic of Gamers know better than me.

Anothe aspect of the ROG Zephyrus M16 that looks absolutely amazing is the rear end. With it closed, you can clearly see this diagonal pattern here, with the huge vents. The lights in the center are the status LEDs, and I must commend ASUS for doing an absolutely stunning job of integrating the status LEDs into the design of the ROG Zephyrus M16.

Once you open up the laptop, the ROG Zephyrus M16 impresses with its screen-to-body ratio. While most gaming laptops in recent years have adopted narrow bezels around the top and sides, they usually still have a relatively thick lower bezel, or what we affectionately call the “chin”, as they have to find a place for the display circuitry. The ROG Zephyrus M16 does away with that, and you can see that the display seems to start directly where the lower half ends, and I must say it looks just as amazing in person.
This is also what enabled ASUS to offer a 16″ display in a 15″ chassis. The screen-to-body ratio is a whopping 94% with a 16:10 aspect ratio. This is taller than your average 16:9 display, but it isn’t actually noticeably different when you are looking at the screen. It looks quite normal, unless you have it right beside a regular 16:9 laptop. There’s also a webcam up top, making this the first ROG laptop in a very long time to have a webcam.

Here’s a closer look at the tiny lower bezel. The ROG Zephyrus M16 touts an ErgoLift hinge which sees the lid go further down than the bottom half, raising the laptop off the surface you have it on. ASUS still managed to sneak in the ROG Zephyrus branding in the narrow bezels, just so you don’t forget what laptop you have.

The ROG Zephyrus M16’s hinge also goes all the way to 180°, raising up the bottom half even further while the lid goes flat onto the desk. To be entirely honest I still don’t really find 180° hinges that useful, especially in gaming laptops, but hey, it’s here if you suddenly find a need for it.

Overall, the design of the ROG Zephyrus M16 offers a refreshing change from previous generations of ROG laptops, but those coming from the ROG Zephyrus G14 or the new ROG Zephyrus G15 will find it quite familiar. The main advantage of this laptop’s design is definitely its impressive screen-to-body ratio, which gives you more viewing space in a smaller body than the last-gen ROG Zephyrus M15 GU502.
ROG Zephyrus M16 Specifications

CPU
Intel Core i9-11900H, 8C/16T @ 2.5GHz (Intel Turbo Boost Max 3.0 up to 4.9GHz) 45W TDP, 10nm SuperFin

RAM
32GB DDR4-3200 (16GB on-board + 16GB SO-DIMM), dual-channel

GPU
Intel UHD Graphics, 32EU @ 1450MHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8GB GDDR6, up to 1390MHz (100W with Dynamic Boost 2.0)

Storage
1 x 2TB Samsung PM9A1 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD
1 x vacant M.2 slot

Software
Microsoft Windows 10 Home
NVIDIA Game Ready Driver 471.41
Intel Graphics Command Center
Armoury Crate
MyASUS
Microsoft Office Home & Student 2019 (license bundled)
McAfee Personal Security

Connectivity
MediaTek MT7921 (WiFi 6, up to 2.4Gbps)
Bluetooth 5.2
Realtek Gigabit LAN
1 x Thunderbolt 4 USB-C
1 x USB 3.2 Gen2 (10Gbps) USB-C
1 x USB 3.2 Gen2 (10Gbps) (Type-A)
1 x USB 3.0 (5Gbps) (Type-A)
1 x microSD card reader

Displays
16″ WQXGA (2560 x 1600) 16:10 165Hz IPS-level display, 100% DCI-P3, Pantone Validated
1 x HDMI 2.0b
2 x DisplayPort over USB-C (Thunderbolt 4 is connected to iGPU, USB 3.2 Gen2 is connected to NVIDIA graphics)

Audio
2 x 2W tweeter + 4 x 2W woofer with Smart Amp Technology
1 x 3.5mm combo jack
Dolby Atmos
Array microphone
AI Noise-Cancelling Audio

Power
90WHr 4-cell Li-Ion battery
240W power adapter
100W USB-PD charging (included)

Dimensions
355 × 243 x 19.9 mm

Weight
1.9kg

Performance
Synthetic

The ROG Zephyrus M16 is the first laptop we have played with that came with a PCIe 4.0 SSD. And I must say, the performance is truly impressive. It probably also helps that this is a Samsung drive, which are known for being absolutely great performers. It also runs relatively cool, as compared to first-gen PCIe 4.0 SSD.

It’s somewhat refreshing to see Intel back on top, although just barely so. The single-core performance of Tiger Lake-H is truly menacing, but we can still see that the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE managing to top it in multi-core performance. This is still going to be one of the fastest laptops you can buy now, and probably the fastest if you factor its portability into the equation as well.

With a GeForce RTX 3070 under the hood, it is obvious that it cannot compete against the GeForce RTX 3080 laptops in our list. However, it does manage to edge out the Acer Nitro 5, which has a GeForce RTX 3080. There are more factors at play when it comes to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series Laptop GPUs, including Total Graphics Power (TGP) limits and cooling, and that’s why we have this odd situation here, where a GeForce RTX 3070 comes out on top of a GeForce RTX 3080.

A similar scenario is seen in 3DMark Time Spy, where the ROG Zephyrus M16 slots in behind all the GeForce RTX 3080 laptops, with the exception being the Nitro 5. Interestingly enough the AORUS 15G XC comes up behind the ROG Zephyrus M16, despite coming with a GeForce RTX 3070 with a 105W TGP, versus the ROG Zephyrus M16’s 100W maximum TGP.

Interestingly, even in 3DMark Port Royal we still see a similar gap. 3DMark Port Royal usually prefers bigger GPUs, simply due to the fact that they have more raytracing cores to handle the workload. The fact that the ROG Zephyrus M16 still manages to come out on top is quite an eye-opener to me.

PCMark sees the ROG Zephyrus M16 outperform every laptop we have tested, and even pre-built gaming desktops. The potency of the combination of hardware here is truly something to behold, and the ROG Zephyrus M16 performs great in the full PCMark 10 suite, thanks to a very nippy CPU, fast GPU and of course, the excellent PCIe 4.0 SSD, which definitely contributed to faster loading times, a metric which is measured in the Essentials category.
Gaming

At native resolution it’s gonna be hard to take full advantage of the high refresh rate display. . More modern raytraced-titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Metro Exodus see frame rates below 60FPS on average, even with DLSS on. Even less graphically taxing games like Far Cry 5 fail to go above 100FPS on the graphics.
But of course even at these lower frame rates, the experience is still very good, because of the adaptive sync display taking tearing and stuttering out of the equation. Esports gamers can probably eke out a good time from the ROG Zephyrus M16 though, with the ROG Zephyrus M16 pushing 175FPS in Rainbow Six Siege, and 105FPS in For Honor.
Battery Life

The ROG Zephyrus M16 touts an “iGPU Mode” that is somewhat like cheating in the battery life metric. This mode disables the dedicated graphics, so you will only be using the integrated graphics. As such, it pulls ahead of the other laptops in this stack quite easily, with over 7 hours of battery life. Without toggling the iGPU Mode, you will be looking at around 5 hours of juice, which is pretty much par for the course when it comes to gaming laptops.
Cooling

At first glance, the ROG Zephyrus M16 seems to tout a much beefier cooling system than even the flagship ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE. We will get into the actual performance in a bit, but you can see a total of six heatpipes. Three of those are shared between the CPU and GPU, with an additional heatpipe each to wick away more heat from each processor. The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE only has two shared heatpipes and one smaller one for each chip. The last heatpipe here seems to be routed to help cool the power delivery and also VRAM.
The CPU gets a liquid metal application to improve the heat transfer from the chip to the cooling system, while the GPU gets a standard thermal paste application. I guess once you see the temperatures, you will understand why.

We will be testing the cooling in the “Turbo” mode that’s available in Armoury Crate. Realbench stress test loads both the CPU and GPU in a super-taxing content creator workload. The CPU draws about 40W on average here, with the initial boost seeing a peak power draw of 112W. This burst is very short, but it is enough to see temperatures hit 95°C. The spike in the middle where the CPU draws around 85W also sees CPU temps hit 96°C. The average temperatures are actually much more reasonable, at around 78°C. The average CPU clocks observed is 2645MHz, although it spends most of its time at 2594MHz while pulling less than 40W.
The GPU on the other hand runs much cooler, with an average temperature of 73°C, with clocks averaging 1475MHz. The peak temperature observed on the GPU is 75°C, while the peak clocks are 1845MHz. Average power draw is around 85W, with a peak of 115W. The reason why we see rather low power draw from the GPU is because of the Dynamic Boost feature which diverts power to the CPU and GPU depending on which chip needs more of it.

Once we switch gears to a GPU workload like 3DMark Time Spy, the GPU is capable of drawing 99.5W on average, just slightly below the 100W max TGP limit that the ROG Zephyrus M16 is designed with. The GPU clocks are actually not significantly higher, at about 1462MHz, CPU temperatures are very good here, which is to be expected anyway because 3DMark doesn’t exactly tax the CPU much. It remains below 70°C at all times while sipping less than 24W of power.

Overall, the ROG Zephyrus M16’s cooling appears to be pretty well matched for the hardware. However the high initial power draw of the Core i9-11900H definitely doesn’t help here. One other thing to consider is rather high skin temperatures, with the area above the keyboard feeling too hot to even touch. This also raises other worries, such as the longevity of the soft-touch coating, as well as the display, which has to deal with all that hot air blowing at it.
Setting aside those concerns, the overall gaming experience is still pretty good. This is because the ROG Zephyrus M16 sucks in air from the area around the WASD cluster, so that area of the keyboard still remains comfortable to game on for extended gaming sessions. You do want headphones on though as the fans can get loud. I do wonder if a more conservative boost algorithm would help the thermals, but I guess ASUS wanted to eke out all the performance they can from the hardware here.
User Experience

As we have already elaborated earlier, the ROG Zephyrus M16 is very compact for a 16″ laptop thanks to the unique aspect ratio. It’s also relatively light for the performance on tap, weighing just 1.9kg. Overall, a nice laptop that you can bring with you everywhere for work or play. And did we mention that this laptop comes with a 100W USB-PD charger that’s like half the weight and size of the regular 240W charger?

As the first ROG laptop in a long time to offer a webcam again, the ROG Zephyrus M16 is definitely quite a special laptop. ASUS was pretty proud of this, even throwing in both 3D and 2D noise reduction. The outcome appears to not be all that great, but I guess no one is expecting high quality images or video footage out from a webcam anyway. While the cutout is rather wide, there isn’t actually anything else there aside from the webcam. No IR facial recognition here, unfortunately.

Aside from being the only laptop in the Republic of Gamers’ current-gen lineup to offer a webcam, the ROG Zephyrus M16 also has a fingerprint scanner baked into its power button. This is the same Single Sign-On (SSO) fingerprint scanner as what we saw in the ROG Zephyrus G14, that makes it very convenient to login to your laptop, with you only needing to touch the power button once and it will unlock when it reaches the Windows lock screen.
Speaking of the lock screen, I found a rather weird issue with the ROG Zephyrus M16. While most recent high-end gaming laptops packed an Intel WiFi 6 adapter, the ROG Zephyrus M16 comes with a new MediaTek MT7921 WiFi 6 adapter that exhibits a noticeable delay when it comes to reconnecting to the WiFi when waking up from sleep. Speeds are fine once the connection is established, but I just didn’t like the wait. I mean, it doesn’t really make sense to have an ultraportable laptop in 2021 that takes a good 30 seconds to connect to WiFi when its woken up, right?
Display and Audio

Aside from offering more viewing area than your average laptop, the display here is also amazing. The peak brightness is a retina-searing 468 nits according to our Spyder5, and color accuracy is also amazing. The average Delta E in the sRGB gamut is 0.37, while the maximum is just 1.14, which is insanely accurate for a gaming laptop.
Color gamut coverage is also very good at 99.9% sRGB, 83.1% Adobe RGB and 97.5% DCI-P3. ASUS claims 100% DCI-P3 for the display here, but they might be referring to the gamut volume, as that figure is at 99.9% DCI-P3. If you are interested in the gamut volume, we have 97.2% Adobe RGB and 141% sRGB.
Overall, I would consider this to be an absolutely flawless display. And did I mention that it is a WQHD+ panel which means that this display is really, really sharp? At 189PPI, the display here is actually denser than a 27″ 4K display. The fact that ASUS didn’t go for a 4K panel is also good, because as you have seen, the performance of the GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU isn’t going to suffice for a good 4K gaming experience.

The audio on the ROG Zephyrus M16 is exceptional. The ROG Zephyrus M16 packs a six-speaker system that sounds downright amazing. It is comparable to many cheap compact speaker sets, which means that you can essentially jam to your favorite tunes or catch a movie on Netflix without having to connect them to speakers or headphones. There’s actually a half-decent reproduction of the bass frequencies and also surprisingly sparkly highs. Of course, don’t expect really thumpy bass, as there just isn’t enough volume for deep bass.
Keyboard and Trackpad

The typing experience on the ROG Zephyrus M16 is awesome, with a appreciable amount of tactility. Travel distance is also pretty good. Overall, The keyboard feels awesome to type on, and I wouldn’t mind using this for typing out my daily articles. Oddly enough though, for a laptop in 2021, the ROG Zephyrus M16 only has single-zone RGB illumination for its keyboard. I guess it’s alright, but if you want more bling, this won’t be the laptop for you.
My main issue with the keyboard on the ROG Zephyrus M16 is the lack of a PrtSc button. ASUS has inexplicably decided that a shortcut to the Snip&Sketch tool is sufficient to replace the PrtSc button, but I guess they didn’t realize that you can actually assign the PrtSc button as a Snip&Sketch shortcut. You can’t use the dedicated shortcut key like you would use a PrtSc key though, which is absolutely backwards. ASUS, why can’t you take your “don’t fix what ain’t broken” approach that you so evidently used in the design of the ROG Zephyrus M16, and apply it to your keyboard?

The trackpad here sports a glass cover, making for excellent smoothness when swiping across. Like all recent laptops, the accuracy is pretty good. I am honestly quite surprised to see such a large trackpad here, when most gaming laptops settle for much smaller ones. I would have liked to have dedicated clickers which would have made them more intuitive to use when dragging things around (or gaming on the trackpad), but I am also happy to report that I didn’t encounter any issues with drag-and-drop on the ROG Zephyrus M16.
All around the keyboard and trackpad, we have a soft-touch coating which I am not exactly confident about, especially with the amount of heat that the ROG Zephyrus M16 can produce. Usually heat is one of the main reasons why the soft-touch rubber coatings break down into a sticky mess, but hopefully we won’t see that here.
I/O Ports

The ROG Zephyrus M16 has a pretty good assortment of ports, with the left hosting a HDMI 2.0b port, Gigabit LAN, USB 3.2 Gen2 ports in both USB-A and USB-C form factors and one Thunderbolt 4. Each of the USB-C ports are also capable of display output, so you can expand the ROG Zephyrus M16 into a full-fledged multi-monitor workstation. On a side note, if you want the full performance from the GPU in the ROG Zephyrus M16, you should connect a display to the USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port. There’s also the combo 3.5mm jack here, that ASUS has been oddly enough dropping from a lot of their recent lifestyle laptops.

The right flank is a lot sparser, with a USB 3.0 port and a microSD slot. I would have preferred a full-sized SD card slot, but ASUS says that the decision to go with the smaller slot is to accommodate content creators using drones and action cameras. I mean, I do use a microSD card slotted into an SD adapter to use with my camera… So I can get behind this.
Pre-installed Software

The ROG Zephyrus M16’s Armoury Crate lets you monitor the system, toggle certain settings like the power profiles and display overdrive, tweak the limited RGB settings and also the iGPU Mode. iGPU Mode is pretty cool, as it allows you to save more power by disabling the dedicated GPU in the ROG Zephyrus M16, when you don’t need the extra performance that it offers.

As most of the options and toggles are baked into Armoury Crate, MyASUS on the ROG Zephyrus M16 is noticeably sparser than what you would see on the likes of the ASUS ZenBooks. You do get the Link to MyASUS feature, which is a nifty way to connect your phone to your laptop.
Conclusion

The ROG Zephyrus M16’s main advantage over existing laptop designs is its great 16:10 display. Aside from that, the formula has not been tweaked much. I would still say that ASUS did a decent job here for RM11 499. Aside from the lack of a PrtSc button and the somewhat toasty thermals, the rest of the ROG Zephyrus M16 is pretty good. There’s an excellent array of ports, including Thunderbolt 4, the keyboard is comfortable to type on, decent battery life, 2TB of PCIe 4.0 storage, and I do quite like the aesthetic that the Prismatic Film brings to the table. And we finally see the return of the webcam into ROG’s lineup.

It does face a lot of competition from within its family at the same price point though. There’s the ROG Zephyrus G15 and the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE, which both offer their own advantages. Personally, I would probably go for the ROG Zephyrus G15, as it shares the same Prismatic Film-infused lid, although it does lose out on the extra bit of screen on the bottom bezel that you get with the ROG Zephyrus M16. You can however get the ROG Zephyrus G15 with a GeForce RTX 3080 under the hood, for the same price as the ROG Zephyrus M16 with the GeForce RTX 3070…

Our thanks to ASUS Malaysia for sending us the ROG Zephyrus M16 for review.
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Diablo Immortal Has Been Delayed And Will Now Release In 2022

Blizzard has just announced that Diablo Immortal has been pushed back and will now see a first-half of 2022 release. The developer explained that the delay was necessary as they need to work on improving some of the game’s gameplay experience.
Diablo Immortal pushed back to 2022

Blizzard says that based on players feedback, the game needed more PvE and PvP elements. New PvE elements that will be added to Diablo Immortal include more Raids in the Helliquary system, more engaging Bounties, and better rewards obtained during Challenge Rifts.

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Blizzard says that they will also improve on the PvP experience in Diablo Immortal. These include further improvements to the Battleground system that was first introduced in the game’s Closed Alpha. Cloud of Stryfe, another PvP mode introduced in the Closed Alpha will also get further improvements and optimisations.

Another feature Blizzard mentioned that they are currently developing is adding controller support to Diablo Immortal as making the game’s character progression more exciting for higher-level players. The company says that they are also figuring out ways to improve upon the ‘weekly XP cap’ they introduced to the game to stop players from spending unhealthy amounts of time playing.
Diablo Immortal was first announced back in 2018 and will be set in between Diablo II and Diablo III. The game’s announcement was met with a lot of negative responses from the gaming community, particularly those who were looking forward to an actual sequel in the Diablo franchise. It was also the game that spawned the infamous ‘out of season April Fools joke’ meme.

Head over to the official Diablo Immortal website and Twitter page for more information. You can also head over to the official subreddit for more information and interactions concerning the game.
Source
Pokdepinion: Well, this sucks. Contrary to the general reaction to the game’s initial reaction, I was pretty excited to play a mobile version of Diablo. Hopefully, the delay would be a good thing for the game in the long run.
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As some of you may remember, Apex Legends seemingly launched from out of nowhere on 4th February 2019. It was rather sudden, and a rather weird time for a game launch. No one really cared much about it after and just enjoyed the game but as it turns out, there was a perfectly good reason why it was done that way.
Why Apex Legends Launched Out of Nowhere Is Surprisingly Touching

And that’s why Apex launched at a strange time, around lunch on February 4, 2019. Because @Respawn prioritized my family first.
— ░〚GW〛 Jon ‘slothy’ Shiring ░ (@jonshiring) October 8, 2020

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Lead Programmer for Apex Legends, Jon Shiring, explained about the surprising launch of Apex Legends on Twitter. On 4th February 2019 at 10AM, Jon had a court appointment to finalize the adoption of his daughter. This also happens to be the same time and date as the launch of Apex Legends.
Instead of going on ahead with the launch anyway, Respawn Entertainment prioritized Jon Shiring’s family situation and pushed the launched time to later so he can settle his court appointment, and then continue on with the launch after he’s done. Little did they know, that same game would have over a million players within 8 hours of its launch.
This story is shared is Jon Shiring is finalizing the paperwork for his daughter’s adoption. Typically, you’d expect businesses to push on ahead with the planned time regardless but it’s great to hear of such stories in the games industry. It’s also good to know that Respawn Entertainment cares about their employees and family matters enough to do such a thing.
Apex Legends is currently available on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC for free. It’s expected to launch for the Nintendo Switch in the future, with cross-play beta now available.
Source
Pokdepinion: For those of you who might have seen this as a very small matter and that they should have pushed it to a different day if they really cared, you need to understand one thing. As much as family is important, business is still business and it can’t stop running. Giving such a leeway for Jon Shiring is a pretty big move for the company.
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Waiting For Cyberpunk 2077? CD Projekt Red Gives Update On Release

It seems like forever for Cyberpunk 2077 to finally come out. It was originally scheduled for an April 2020 release but has since been extended. Now the folks behind the game has given a release date update.
Cyberpunk 2077 release date update

The news was revealed by Adam Kiciński, the president and CEO of CD Projekt Group. Here’s what he has said:
There is no shortage of motivation and we also possess all the tools needed to facilitate remote work. We’ve been operating in this mode for over three weeks and to-date results confirm that we can carry on with all our operations without major disruptions. Our plans haven’t changed; we’re steaming towards the September release of Cyberpunk.Adam Kiciński, CD Projekt Group president and CEO
So there you have it. Cyberpunk 2077 will be releasing in September, which means that they will have no delays (well hopefully) from their 2nd release date announcement.

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Despite the game being delayed due to technical issues, some have thought that the game would’ve been delayed even further due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Source
Pokdepinion: Please, no more delays.. I’ve been dying to get my hands on the game.
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When you think of internal storage devices, it can be easy to misunderstand that you’d get the whole capacity listed. Whether it’s 500GB or 1TB, you’re not going to get whole capacity for use as some will be reserved for system files. In the case of the Xbox Series X, it will take a big chunk of it.
Xbox Series X Will Take Up Big Chunk of Storage Space for System Files

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According to the folks over at GameSpot who already have an Xbox Series X with them, the 1TB SSD that comes with the console already has roughly 200GBs taken up by system files. To be precise, it’s 198GB for the OS and other important system files.
In other words, gamers will only have access to about 802GB of space in the 1TB storage capacity. With that being said however, there is still a chance that Microsoft might still trim down on the system files’ size so you’d have access to more space. 800GB is still a pretty big amount of space, but if you keep focusing on that missing 200GB, it can seem painful.
With games getting bigger in size over the years, it’s not a surprise to see a console’s OS taking up a lot of space as well. After all, they’re not as simple as the old days as gamers expect it to come with chock full of features, which will certainly add to the overall size.
If the internal storage capacity is not enough, you can always make use of the Xbox Series X Expandable Storage cards by Seagate. For now, Microsoft’s next gen console is expected to launch on 10th November 2020.
Source
Pokdepinion: Personally, I’m actually fine with it taking up that amount. It’s not really a big deal and I’d still have plenty of leftover storage space anyway.
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Halo Reach Will Finally Be Coming to PC Very Soon

It looks like the rumours were true after all as Halo Reach will indeed be a part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which will be launching for PC in just a few weeks.
Officially announced by Microsoft at X019, Halo Reach will be added to The Master Chief Collection on 3rd December 2019 for PC and Xbox One. Furthermore, the game will also begin the launch of The Master Chief Collection on PC. Additional Halo titles will then be added to The Master Chief Collection on PC over the course of 2020, concluding with Halo 4.
Here’s a synopsis of the game, courtesy of Steam:

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Halo: Reach comes to PC as the first installment of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Now optimized for PC, experience the heroic story of Noble Team, a group of Spartans, who through great sacrifice and courage, saved countless lives in the face of impossible odds. The planet Reach is humanity’s last line of defense between the encroaching Covenant and their ultimate goal, the destruction of Earth. If it falls, humanity will be pushed to the brink of destruction.
In addition to announcing the launch date for Halo Reach today, Microsoft also released a new trailer for the title showing it off in glorious 4K graphics. You can check out the trailer at the top of this post.
Once again, Halo Reach will signal the beginning of the arrival of Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC. It will be happening on 3rd December 2019.
Pokdepinion: Given how affordable the entire collection is, I’m very tempted to buy. It’s more so for multiplayer than playing through the campaign.
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MSI teases Z170 SLI KRAIT edition — with Dragon logo

MSI Europe teases the new MSI Krait series motherboards with the Z170 chipset, with a black and white color scheme but still no official specifications detailed.
From the only picture we have of the board, we can see that it’s an ATX form factor board with four RAM slots and three PCIe slots. With a quick glance at the PCIe slots, we can see that the first two slots are x16 and the last slot we can see that it’s clearly soldered with 8 lanes. Beside that we also have three PCIe X1 slots here and an old-school PCI slot.

Storage-wise, there are six SATA ports, four white ones near the southbridge heatsink and two more black ones at the bottom of the board. A friendly reminder, the two SATA ports at the bottom are reserved for SATA- Express which can deliver speeds of up to 16Gb/s. I’m not finished yet, take a good look below the CPU socket and we can see a M.2 slot. With that long space, I believe it will fit most M.2 cards.

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Moving on, I want to mention that the MSI Z170 board also comes with Audio Boost 3.0. Separated from the rest of the board, I have a little question, will it come with Nahimic? And the last one is abit tricky, I can’t see it well but I think it’s written Gaming LAN below the left VRM heatsink. Will this board come with Killer LAN chipset? I have no idea.
There are no details about the upcoming Intel Skylake but this year MSI is leading the way to tease us with their new board (Usually Asrock does the “first” thingy), and considering the above picture, we know that the time of Intel Skylake is dawning.

SOURCE : MSI Europe

Pokdepinion : Black and white theme is great for my build, but the most intriguing question playing on my mind, this is part of the Krait series right? So why did MSI put the Dragon logo instead of the snake (Krait) there? And God knows who still uses the legacy PCI slot? So will I build a new system after Skylake launches? Nope, just too broke for that, haha.

You might also want to read : PCIe 4.0 — blazing fast 16GT/s, new adapter in 2017
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11.11 HONOR Brand Day Ends With Massive Sale Figures

11.11 HONOR Brand Day Wraps Up With Massive Sale Figures

HONOR Malaysia has announced that their 11.11 HONOR Brand Day campaign on Sunday, 11 November 2018, ended with success where their newly launched HONOR 8X sold out more than 250 units in their first 30 minutes of sales.
Besides the phone, their HONOR Band 3 sold out plenty during the same period, thanks to fans and consumers who also helped shared promotional news for more than 10,000 times on social media.

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Interestingly, 70% of the sales were made through the newly launched HONOR App.
For future promotion from the brand, you can visit HONOR’s official e-commerce website or even HONOR Malaysia official Facebook page.
Pokdepinion: It’s kind of not surprising that their honor 8X did good during their promo period. To begin with, the phone was at an affordable price of RM949.
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Production of Vega GPUs unable to meet demand; RX Vega shortage will last until October

AMD Vega cards are in shortage, causing price spikes that have caused both dissatisfaction and disbelief among fans. Low yield rates are claimed to be the reason behind the insufficient supply of AMD Vega cards, driving prices through the roof as retailers have insufficient cards to sell to consumers.

AMD Vega GPUs feature integrated High Bandwidth Memory 2 (HBM2) which promises massive gains in memory bandwidth but the manufacturing process of these GPUs is more complicated than traditional designs with GDDR5 or GDDR5X VRAM. AMD has promised that they are working with partners to churn out more GPUs, but reports point to the shortage lasting until October as the Advanced Semiconductor Engineering’s (ASE) packaging technology is proving problematic.

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If you are interested in building a rig with an AMD RX Vega card, be prepared to wait or pay a premium for these “limited edition” cards until AMD solves their supply issue and deliver more GPUs to vendors.
Pokdepinion: The main problem I forsee is while AMD is busy solving their supply issues, the competition is busy selling their cards. This will mean even less money for AMD to reinvest into the development of upcoming architectures.
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AirAsia Passengers and Employees’ Personal Data Might Be Leaked

Due to a recent attack by a ransomware group, there is a possibility that AirAsia passengers and employees’ personal data have been compromised.
AirAsia Facing Ransomware Attack

AirAsia Group is allegedly hit by Daixin ransomware group 5M UNIQUE Passengers personal data, All employees personal data leaked@ransomwaremap pic.twitter.com/M9bg22S5QW
— Soufiane Tahiri (@S0ufi4n3) November 20, 2022

AirAsia might have become a victim of the Daixin ransomware group recently, which could potentially result in the personal data of over 5 million passengers and employees being leaked out.

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In a joint Cybersecurity Advisory Notice by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), it was mentioned that the Daixin ransomware group was actively targeting US businesses over the past few months. Most notably, it seems to be those within healthcare and public health sector.

This makes it rather odd since AirAsia isn’t related to any of that, but somehow apparently found themselves as a target of their attacks. Based on an interview with Dissent Doe, it appears that the airline has responded to the group when they reached out.
No details on the amount of money requested or if any transactions occurred between the two parties. Since the group mentioned about releasing data, including backdoor information, it’s likely that no settlement has been made.
Interestingly, the disorganization of their network potentially saved AirAsia from more damage. It was described by Daixin ransomware group as chaotic and not appearing to have any set standard. However, they also pointed out that the network protection was very weak, which makes it easy to breach.
Source
Pokdepinion: Not exactly the kind of thing that inspires confidence but then again, what’s new?
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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series Specifications Change Leaked Out

Some updates.
RTX 4090, AD102-300, 16384FP32, 384bit 21Gbps 24G GDDR6X,
RTX 4080, AD103-300, 10240FP32, 256bit (?18Gbps 16G GDDR6?),
RTX 4070, AD104-275, 7168FP32, 160bit 18Gbps GDDR6 10G.
And DO NOT expect a lower MSRP.
— kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) June 23, 2022

Some new details on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics cards have surfaced online courtesy of Twitter user Kopite. It appears that the RTX 4090 will be getting 16,384 CUDA cores instead of the earlier reported 16,128 CUDAs, giving it an upgrade from 126 streaming multiprocessors to 128. Other specification details remain the same, 24GB GDDR6X with TDP expected to reach 450W.

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As for the RTX 4080, it is expected to launch a month after the RTX 4090 and is known as the AD103-based card. It will having 10,240 CUDA cores and 16GB GDDR6 memory. The latter may be subjected to change as remaining with GDDR6 would make it slower than its predecessors, but it’s worth noting that it does have bigger L2 cache.

Model
GeForce RTX 4090
GeForce RTX 4080
GeForce RTX 4070
GeForce RTX 4060

Architecture
Ada (TSMC N4)
Ada (TSMC N4)
Ada (TSMC N4)
Ada (TSMC N4)

GPU
AD102-300
AD103-300
AD104-400 -> AD104-275
AD106

Board Number
PG139-SKU330
PG139-SKU360
PG141-SKU341
TBC

SMs
126 -> 128
80
56
TBC

CUDA Cores
16128 -> 16384
10240
7168
TBC

CUDA vs Predecessor
+56% (vs 3090)
+18% (vs 3080)
+21% (vs 3070)
TBC

Memory
24 GB G6X
16 GB G6
12 GB G6 -> 10GB G6
TBC

Memory Bus
384-bit
256-bit
192-bit -> 160-bit
TBC

Memory Speed
21 Gbps
18 Gbps
18 Gbps
TBC

TDP
~450W
~420W
~300W
220W+

Launch Date
September-October 2022
October-November 2022
November-December 2022
January 2023

Lastly in the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series leak, the RTX 4070 is expected to go from 12GB to 10GB VRAM instead, which means a narrower memory bus from 192-bit to 160-bit. The CUDA core count is said to be 7,168, which means 512 disabled CUDA cores on the AD104 GPU.
For now, do take all the information with a grain of salt. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics cards are expected to launch somewhere between late Q3 2022 to early Q4 2022. We will report more on this as soon as information becomes available so stay tuned.
Source
Pokdepinion: My PC suddenly has an itch for an upgrade. Granted, I’d probably wait it out first anyway.
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MSI GF63 THIN Laptop With 10th Gen Intel Processor Now Available For Preorder

You might have read MSI’s laptops for this year previously. The company has announced that the MSI GF63 is now available for pre-orders.
MSI GF63 THIN Malaysia Pre-order

The MSI GF63 THIN comes with up to 50% increase in performance compared to the previous generation of predecessors, thanks to the 10th Gen Intel Core processors. Talking about that, it will come with either the latest Intel i5 or i7.
As for graphics, there’s the NVIDIA GTX 1650 Max-Q graphics, which they claim is 33% faster than the previous budget graphics option.

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The laptop comes with 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD as well as 8GB DDR4 RAM that’s upgradable up to 64GB for those who want to max it out.
Thanks to its Max-Q design, it only weights at 1.9kg. For battery life, they’ve said that it can last 7+ hours.
The MSI GF63 THIN will start at the price of RM4,399 and pre-order is now up and running. The pre-order period will last up until the 15th of April 2020. For those who get their orders early will receive the brand’s MSI BLACK Sports Bottle (while stocks last). You can pre-order the laptop here.
Pokdepinion: I think that’s a reasonable price for what it offers. Will you be getting one?
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[Computex 2019] Acer ConceptD lineup showcased — gives “wooden PC” a new take

The Acer Predator laptops offer powerful internals, but the gamer-centric design may not be the best match for creative people. For those who need the performance of gaming laptops but in a sleeker and more discreet package can opt for Acer’s ConceptD lineup. The lineup actually consists of more than just laptops, as it also features uniquely designed desktop PCs and color-calibrated monitors.
Acer ConceptD 9

Probably the highlight of the Acer ConceptD lineup, this laptop features understandable powerful hardware under the hood. But the main attraction of this laptop isn’t the beefy internals, but the unique Ezel Hinge that Acer has equipped it with. This allows it to rotate around for you to show your work to the person sitting opposite you, or just tilt it how you want to give yourself a more ergonomic experience using it.

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The reason why you would probably need to tilt the monitor a lot is probably the fact that the display works with a Wacom EMR Pen. The stylus requires no batteries, allowing you to work much more freely. The tilting display gives you even more freedom by allowing you to tilt the display to draw or write on it more comfortably. The display under it is Pantone Validated 4K UHD display with 100% Adobe RGB coverage, so you will be getting a color-accurate, pixel-perfect view every time.

Oh and there’s 9th Generation Intel Core i9 processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 graphics inside.
Acer ConceptD 5 and ConceptD 7

These are Acer’s more conventional laptops. The Acer ConceptD 5 is a really light laptop that comes in at around 1.5kg, but packs a 15.6″ 4K Pantone Validated display with 100% Adobe RGB coverage. It touts the Intel Core i7 8705G under the hood, which is a great mobile processor as it combines Intel’s CPU cores with AMD’s Radeon RX Vega M GL graphics.

On the other hand, the ConceptD 7 is a heftier laptop, but it can be configured to feature a Quadro RTX GPU for those who need professional validation. It too will feature the latest 9th Generation Intel Core processors, and of course, the Pantone Validated 4K UHD display with 100% Adobe RGB gamut coverage.
Acer ConceptD 500

This is Acer’s wooden PC, with a beautiful white finish around the sides and wooden paneling on the top. This is by far Acer’s most elegant desktop PC yet, with such a beautiful design that makes me drool even though it doesn’t have a single lick of RGB.

Further upping the game is the Qi wireless charging pad that Acer ingeniously integrated into the wooden top panel, allowing you to charge anything from an iPhone X to the latest Xiaomi Mi 9. Of course, this isn’t all show and no go, as it can be configured with the latest desktop 9th Generation Intel Core i9 processors and also the Quadro RTX 4000 GPU.
Acer ConceptD 900

If you want even more power, you can check out the Acer ConceptD 900. While it isn’t as much of a looker as the Acer ConceptD 500, what it has under the hood will blow away most gaming PCs out there. It can be configured with dual Intel Xeon Gold 6148 processors and a NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000, as well up to 60TB of storage for your artworks, or research material, if you see fit.
Acer ConceptD monitors

Acer also showcased three of their latest ConceptD monitors, the ConceptD CM7321K, ConceptD CP3271K P and ConceptD CP3271U P. These monitors are all Pantone Validated, with a color accuracy of up to Delta E<1. The ConceptD CP3271K P and ConceptD CP3271U P can even be used as gaming monitors with their 144 Hz refresh rates.

The flagship of them all should be the ConceptD CM7321K, with a Delta E of <1, 99% Adobe RGB color gamut coverage, VESA Certified DisplayHDR 1000 with 1152 local dimming zones thanks to Mini LED technology. By comparison, last year’s “God of Monitors” had just 384 dimming zones.
Pokdepinion: Please send me that ConceptD 500!
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HUAWEI FreeBuds 3, the better alternative to the AirPods Pro?

Noise-cancellation is the “in-thing” recently, with many users finding regular sound isolation just insufficient to really help them focus on the task at hand properly in noisier environments. While the AirPods Pro may be one of the most popular choices, the HUAWEI FreeBuds 3 may be a better alternative, while being more affordable at just RM679.
Here’s are some reasons why the HUAWEI FreeBuds 3 is a better option than the AirPods Pro.
World’s first open ANC TWS earphones
The HUAWEI FreeBuds 3 is the industry first semi-in-ear wireless earphones with active noise cancellation (ANC). It’s actually significantly more challenging to design open earphones with ANC, although HUAWEI did it successfully.

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The main advantage of having an open design is that it will still allow you to hear ambient noise in situations you will want to hear your surroundings, i.e. when crossing the road or when you expect your coworkers to ask you questions, while the implementation of ANC in the HUAWEI FreeBuds 3 also means that you can enjoy reduced noise levels when you want to immerse yourself in music or focus on your work.

Speaking of ANC, HUAWEI lets you tune the noise reduction with 9 customizable parameters via the Smart Life app. No two ears are alike, so being able to adjust the noise reduction is necessary to ensure a great listening experience. Aside from reducing the noise entering your ears, the HUAWEI FreeBuds 3 can also ensure that your calls are crystal clear. By combining bone voiceprint call noise reduction technology and a wind noise reduction duct, it is able to more effectively distinguish between your voice, the background noise and wind noise.
All of this is enabled by the HUAWEI’s self-developed chipset, the Kirin A1.
HUAWEI Kirin A1, low latency and zero dropped connections

The HUAWEI Kirin A1 is HUAWEI’s self-developed low-power chipset for wearables. The chipset is the brains of the HUAWEI FreeBuds 3, giving it many smart features, including its flexible noise cancellation capabilities. In addition to that, it also promises a better connection between the earpieces and your smartphone thanks to the implementation of Bluetooth 5.1 and BLE 5.1 as well.

Conventional true wireless stereo (TWS) earphones relies on one earpiece being the master, connecting directly to the smartphone and relaying the signal to the second earpiece. This introduces delay, which makes them unsuitable for watching movies and especially not for gaming. There’s also the issue of higher power consumption on the master earpiece. In the HUAWEI FreeBuds 3, both earpieces connect directly to the smartphone in a dual-channel synchronous transmission technology.

This lowers interference and latency even in busy wireless environments where lag and disconnections are a common occurrence with wireless earphones. It also promises better battery life, letting you enjoy more music on a single charge.
The 356 MHz audio processor in the Kirin A1 also lets you enjoy various audio enhancment features such as echo cancellation (AEC), automatic gain control (AGC) and adaptive noise reduction (ANR) to enhance your listening and voice call experience.
Instant pairing and convenient interaction

As soon as you pop open the lid of the FreeBuds 3’s charging case, the earphones will begin searching for a paired smartphone, completing the process in less than 3 seconds. Before you put them into your ears, they are ready to pump tunes into your ears.

Via the HUAWEI AI Life app which can be downloaded from the Google Play Store or the HUAWEI AppGallery, you can also set the gesture controls on the HUAWEI FreeBuds 3. Toggle the ANC feature, control your music playback or activate your voice assistant directly from the HUAWEI FreeBuds 3 with touthing the smartphone. You can also get a quick peek at the remaining battery on you connected HUAWEI FreeBuds 3 in the notification bar of your HUAWEI Mate 30.
More ways to charge
While the HUAWEI FreeBuds 3 features an efficient Kirin A1 chipset to deliver a total of 20 hours of continuous music listening, there will come a time when you need to rejuice the charging case. HUAWEI gives you two ways to do it.

You can connect a USB-C cable, which means you can directly charge it up with your HUAWEI Mate 30’s charging cable. Or if you want to skip wires, you can also make use of the HUAWEI Mate 30 series’ reverse wireless charging, as the HUAWEI FreeBuds 3 support wireless charging.
The most innovative technologies in an ingenious design

We have already touched on most of the technologies of the HUAWEI FreeBuds 3. Now let’s talk a bit about the design. Unlike other products, the design of earphones directly affect its usability and comfort. The HUAWEI FreeBuds 3 uses a Dolphin Bionic Design to let HUAWEI cram a large 14mm dynamic driver inside while still offering exceptional comfort.

It comes in both Black and White, which are always in trend. The matching charging case is also designed to be able to store up to four full charges, while still fitting comfortably in the palm of your hand. HUAWEI put a lot of thought into the design of the HUAWEI FreeBuds 3, and it does show.
The noise-cancelling, trendy and convenient HUAWEI FreeBuds 3 is now available at RM679, and you can buy it now from your nearest HUAWEI Store or online via the following link.
Get your HUAWEI FreeBuds 3 NOW!

As part of their HUAWEI Smart Life campaign, all HUAWEI Mate 30 users will also enjoy three months of free 50GB cloud storage! All you need to do is to sign in with your HUAWEI ID on your device and claim the free 50GB of cloud storage. It’s really that simple.
This is an exclusive article for HUAWEI Malaysia.
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LG patents sexdecuple camera system — that’s the sexy way of saying it has 16 cameras!

If you thought the race to add more cameras to the back of smartphones was getting out of hand, well you haven’t seen anything. LG apparently has a patent for a 16 camera system up their sleeves, and they might just use it next year.

Each of the 16 cameras each take a different angle, allowing you to change the pose of your subjects after the fact. It seems that they can also stitch images together to create a panorama of sorts, without having to move your device at all. LG also intends to create moving images, possibly a feature derived from the ability to change the pose of subjects

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Overall, it does seem pretty cool, but whether it will catch on with consumers remains another thing altogether. LG pioneering ultra-wide angle cameras in their smartphones didn’t exactly take off either, but now everyone from HUAWEI to Samsung have ultra-wide angle shooters.
If you would like to check out LG’s patent filing for yourself, you can do so here. Will all flagships start sporting 16 cameras or more soon?
Pokdepinion: I was hoping that it meant there will be 1x zoom all the way up to 16x zoom… I have…niche uses for more zooms…
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