Nintendo Switch Is Shown To Be Capable of Running Android 10

The Nintendo Switch is one of the best gaming systems available today given its hybrid nature. You can enjoy it comfortably at home on your TV or just bring it around with you like a typical handheld gaming device. To add more versatility to it, someone has managed to installed Android 10 to the system.
Nintendo Switch Running Android 10

The folks over at XDA Developers have managed to install Android 10 on the Nintendo Switch and actually managed to run the operating system. To be precise, it’s LineageOS 17.1 but it is based on Android 10 so it counts. Previously, they did something similar as they ported over Android 8.1 Oreo to the hybrid gaming system.

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For those of you who aren’t aware, the LineageOS 17.1 used here is based on the NVIDIA Shield TV’s software. It is said to work faster and is more responsive compared to Android 8.1, along with a boost in battery life as it managed to implement a deep sleep mode.
Apart from that, Wi-Fi performance has also been improved, and there is better Joy-Con support here. What makes running Android on the Nintendo Switch a very attractive idea is the ability to download more apps on the system, giving you more usability than you would get with its native OS.
For the full list of updates, check it out right below here:

Android 10 based on Lineage 17.1
OTA updates.
Full Joy-Con and Pro Controller support with analog sticks and rails.
Hori Joy-Con support.
Deep sleep that can last for weeks.
An Android TV-based build.
Reworked fan profiles for quieter operation.
Optimized dock support with resolution scaling.
A rewritten charger driver supporting USB-PD and third party docks.
Optimized touch screen driver.
Easier install via Hekate partition tool.
Reworked, simpler, power profiles.
Much improved WiFi driver with less dropouts.
Shield TV remote app support for easy docked control.
Reboot to payload support.
Improved Bluetooth accessory support.
Autorotation support.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t something that Nintendo officially support, and it’s not something the LineageOS team planned for either. It’s funny to think that this version of Android 10 lacks support for NVIDIA Shield games like Half Life 2 and Tomb Raider despite being the same software build.
It’s only natural to expect bugs, and some of the known ones include Bluetooth audio stutter, Joy-Cons not working properly with certain apps, and that it will not work with every Switch model. In fact, it only works with Nintendo Switch models without the updated internals, which means the Lite variant is definitely out of the question.
The great thing about doing this is that you can easily switch between Android 10 and its native OS for as long as you have an extra microSD card to spare for the Android installation. Just be careful if you plan on doing this as it might brick the system if you make a simple mistake. If anything goes wrong, it will not be covered by warranty, and no one will compensate you for it so do it at your own risk.
Source
Pokdepinion: It would be interesting if everyone could get it to run both Android 10 and its native OS. You’d have a media powerhouse in a very convenient form.
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Apex Legends New Havoc Energy Rifle Weapon Unveiled – Assault Rifle Sniper Hybrid?

Apex Legends New Havoc Energy Rifle Weapon Unveiled

The folks over at Respawn Entertainment has made the biggest change to their popular battle royale game, Apex Legends, since the game’s launch. It’s a brand new weapon called the Havoc Energy Rifle.
The Havoc Energy Rifle is a new Energy ammo-based weapon that has multiple different functions. In its basic form, it is a full-auto assault rifle that can be used to mow down whoever you may come across in Kings Canyon. Much like the Devotion, the energy ammo LMG, you can also attach the Turbocharger Hop-Up to the Havoc to remove the autofire delay that is present on the weapon.
Unlike other guns in Apex Legends though, the Havoc is compatible with multiple Hop-Up attachments. If you attach the Selectfire Receiver Hop-Up to the Havoc, the gun then gains the ability to be used in a charge beam mode. Essentially, this charge beam works like a sniper rifle allowing you to also pick apart foes that you may come across with pinpoint accuracy.

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You can also cycle through this charge beam mode and auto fire mode as you see fit. Basically, the Havoc allows you to be able to have the benefits of both a sniper and an assault rifle at your disposal all at once if you have the Selectfire Receiver attached, which is extremely handy.
Be sure to check out the trailer for the Havoc Energy Rifle at the top of this post for a clearer idea as to how it works.
Apex Legends is currently available for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Pokdepinion: Personally, I’m more of a long-range and short-range fighter, not so much mid-range so this one might just work for me.
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NVIDIA adds Metro Exodus to RTX Triple Threat — more free games when you buy a GeForce RTX card!

NVIDIA has just announced the latest game bundle for their GeForce RTX cards. RTX Triple Threat. An apt name considering that it now features three games instead of just Battlefield V and Anthem back then.

The third game added to the list is Metro Exodus, which is the latest game to feature both RTX and DLSS technologies. If you purchase a GeForce RTX 2070 or RTX 2060-powered laptop or graphics card, you can choose from either Anthem, Battlefield V or Metro Exodus.

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Opting for the higher end GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti cards will net you all three games from the RTX Triple Threat bundle. This also includes laptops powered by the GeForce RTX 2080, so mobile gamers aren’t left out!

In addition to the new RTX Triple Threat bundle, NVIDIA also added more monitors to the list of G-SYNC Compatible displays, including the popular Acer ED273A monitor which is one of the most affordable 27″ curved 144 Hz FreeSync displays. The new monitors added to the list are:

BenQ XL2540-B/ZOWIE XL LCD
Acer XF250Q
Acer ED273 A

The new monitor profiles are added to the latest GeForce 419.35 Game Ready Driver, which also include optimizations for the titles in the RTX Triple Threat bundle as well as Apex Legends, Devil May Cry 5 and The Division II.
This is as good a time as any to pick up a GeForce RTX-powered gaming laptop or graphics card, with more games and more monitors supported under the G-SYNC Compatible program.
Pokdepinion: NVIDIA is really bringing on the hurt to AMD with more free games and more monitors officially supported by G-SYNC Compatible…
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PNY And Cooler Master Created A Monstrous 4.5-Slot RTX 4090 GPU
Image: Benchlife

Just when you thought GPUs couldn’t go any thicker – surprise surprise. In Computex 2023 PNY has teamed up with Cooler Master to showcase what is likely the thickest consumer GPU in existence with its massive 4.5-slot footprint, and likely in response to another AIB-cooler OEM collaboration that is ASUS and Noctua (which has since produced two generations of GPUs in super thick sizes).
While the ASUS x Noctua unit has so far been, as expected, unapologetically brown, the PNY x Cooler Master unit (named VERTO ARGB Dual Fan) apparently features two concept versions, both using the RTX 4090 silicon: one in black & white and the other is black-gray with a more metallic finish. The first version, as seen by Benchlife houses two 120mm fans from Cooler Master (with the 30th Anniversary logo too).
This 4.5-slot GPU, while extremely thick, has managed to cut down in length to just 305mm thanks to one less fan than most conventional high-performance GPUs that require three smaller fans (usually in the 100mm range) to provide optimal cooling. The thickness has slightly exceeded ASUS x Noctua unit, which measures at 87.5mm, with the PNY x Cooler Master unit measuring at 89mm thick.

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Image: El Chapuzas Informatico
Another publication El Chapuzas Informatico has confirmed the sighting of a second version of such GPU – this time in with the black fans confirmed to be using Cooler Master’s Mobius 120P ARGB fans. Interestingly, both models feature the older “GEFORCE RTX” typeface used in RTX 30 series and prior, and not the new NVIDIA Sans font that has been in use starting in this generation. In any case, given the sheer cooling performance of what Noctua provides for the ASUS card, you likely won’t be dealing with noise issues from this behemoth GPU either.
Source: Videocardz
Pokdepinion: The size is almost comical – considering only five years ago when we thought three slots is massive.
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HONOR Magic4 Pro Review – Big Performance with Big Cameras

Unboxing the HONOR Magic4 Pro
HONOR Magic4 Pro Review – Box & Phone

The HONOR Magic4 Pro comes in a sleek black box that is like any other smartphone box. It is thicker than some phone boxes and that is because there is a charger included in this one.
HONOR Magic4 Pro Review – Box Content
Inside the box, you can find the following items:

USB to USB-C cable
100W charger
Phone casing
SIM ejector tool
The HONOR Magic4 Pro smartphone

Specifications

Processor
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1
Octa-core
1x 2.995GHz Cortex-X2 + 3x 2.496GHz Cortex-A710 + 4x 1.785GHz Cortex-A510
4nm

GPU
Adreno 730

RAM
8GB

Connectivity
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6e (2.4GHz and 5GHz)
Bluetooth 5.2
USB Type-C 3.1
A-GPS, Glonass, BDS, Galileo
NFC
5G

Storage
256GB UFS 3.1

Display
6.81″ LTPO OLED
HDR10+
Up to 120Hz Smart Refresh Rate

Rear Camera
50MP f/1.8 wide-angle camera, multi-directional PDAF, Laser AF
50MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, 122˚ FOV, AF
64MP f/3.5 periscope telephoto, 3.5x optical zoom, PDAF
3D Depth Camera

Selfie Camera
12MP f/2.4 wide-angle selfie cam
3D Depth Camera

Battery
4600mAh
Wired HONOR SuperCharge 100W
Wireless HONOR SuperCharge 100W
Reverse Wireless Charging

OS
Magic UI 6.0
Android 12

Ingress Protection
IP68

Dimensions
163.6 x 74.7 x 9.15 mm, 215g

Colours
Cyan, Gold, Black

Performance

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Unfortunately, the HONOR Magic4 Pro could not run Antutu v9. However, starting off with Geekbench 5, the HONOR Magic4 Pro falls behind the Xiaomi 12 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus even though they have the same CPU. The results might be due to thermal throttling.

The HONOR Magic4 Pro would run as expected as seen in the 3DMark. However, there are some notable differences with other devices that run the same chip such as the Xiaomi 12 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus.

According to PCMark, the HONOR Magic4 Pro falls behind the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and the Xiaomi 12 Pro. Despite having the latest flagship chipset, the device has a significant difference compared to the Xiaomi Mi 11 which features a previous-gen flagship chipset.

For the battery life of the HONOR Magic4 Pro, the device could last up to 533 minutes on a 60Hz refresh rate. Furthermore, the phone could last up to 512 and 507 minutes on 90Hz and 120Hz respectively. Therefore, you should not fret as the difference between the refresh rates does not have a major impact. On an overall level, the battery life is pretty average.
As for the HONOR Magic4 Pro’s charging speed. The device supports both wired and wireless charging with wired charging being more reliable and faster than the latter. It takes about 30 minutes on wired charging to charge fully from 20% whereas wireless charging takes about 40 minutes to charge until 100%.
Camera
HONOR Magic4 Pro Review – Camera UI
This is the native camera UI on HONOR Magic4 Pro. The UI is straightforward and there is a Pro feature for achieving more detailed photo settings. One special mode of the camera is the additional Movie features where you can film in different modes such as Classic, Sunsplash, and more.

The Magic4 Pro comes with a 50MP main camera, a 50MP ultrawide camera, and a 64MP periscopic zoom. The camera performance is rather smooth in general. However, when rapidly taking photos in a short span of time, the software would get a little laggy. The filming on the phone in both Video and Movie mode is interesting as there are different filters to mess around with for different feels.
From Left to Right: Camera Zoom at 1x; Camera Zoom at 10x; Camera Zoom at 20x
The photos are amazingly detailed in 1x even though it’s been zoomed in and compressed multiple times. However, in 20x to 100x, details of the photos start to degrade. The Night mode of the camera works like a charm but when zooming in on the photo, the details immediately softened, making the photo muddier.
The Good

The HONOR Magic4 Pro has a 6.81″ LTPO OLED HDR10+ curved display with up to 120Hz dynamic refresh rate. The display reproduces rich and vivid colours that are pleasing to the eyes. When watching videos such as Youtube or Netflix, you can have a really enjoyable experience with its WQHD+ display.
The phone can also handle gaming pretty well with no throttling or lagging even after hours of playing, likely due to some game optimizations in the background. The phone screen is covered with aluminosilicate glass which feels really strong and protective. Furthermore, the phone also has an IP68 rating whereby dust and water would not damage it.
The Bad
As much as the build of the HONOR Magic4 Pro feels solid, the glossy finish makes it rather slippery and is a fingerprint magnet. Furthermore, the screen curvature is too steep for some gestures as my fingers keep slipping off the edge. Sometimes I won’t be able to see some details that are at the side of the screen as it is curved away from my line of sight. After lengthy use of the camera, the temperature of the phone would get uncomfortably hot.
Initially, the lack of screen transition effect makes the UI feels weird however when looking into the developer option, the animation got turned off. After some time the transition would be switched off again and I have to repeat the same steps again. This may be due to a software bug and hopefully, it gets fixed in future updates.
Magic UI 6 surprisingly lacks its own custom personalization options and forces the user to customize the phone only through their Theme Store.
Not only that, the company announced that the phone would only receive two Android updates and two years of security patches in the future, which pales in comparison to some of their competitors.
HONOR Magic 4 Pro Review – Back Camera
The back camera is unnerving as it is really huge. Having the phone without a cover would not be stable and it requires you to actually get a cover to compensate for the stability of the phone on a flat surface. Sometimes taking photos would catch someone off guard as the huge round multi-camera setup just seems off-putting.
HONOR Magic4 Pro Review – Front Camera
The front camera is a pill-shaped camera that actually takes up quite a bit of space on the top of the screen. I would honestly prefer a notch or punch-hole camera as it does not get in my way while gaming or watching any videos on fullscreen.
HONOR Magic4 Pro Verdict
The HONOR Magic4 Pro is priced at RM3,999 which is what you would expect from a typical flagship nowadays. While it is still a solid phone, it does have its fair share of drawbacks so it’s best for you to be aware of it before biting the bullet on this one.
At the end of our HONOR Magic4 Pro review, I award this phone with a Bronze Pokdeward.

Big thanks to HONOR Malaysia for sending us this smartphone for the purpose of this review.
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Blower GPU Returns: PNY Made A Blower-Style Cooler For RTX 4070

Japanese media GDM discovered what used to the “forbidden fruit” of NVIDIA GPUs: blower-style cards. Blower cards, while not as popular as it used to due to its louder fan noise and less efficient cooling, still have a niche in multi-GPU setups as axial fan-based cooling will not function with multiple GPUs stacked together. However, workstation cards still retained this design, and so did some consumer GPU – until NVIDIA silently banned AIBs from making them since the RTX 30 series.
That seemed to be no longer the case, as PNY created the exact thing that NVIDIA used to forbid their AIBs from doing. Was the ban lifted? We’d assume so – or else NVIDIA would most definitely give PNY a hard time for it, given the ever increasing control over the designs from the GPU chipmaker.

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As to how this card came by, it can be explained for the most part from PNY’s workstation models. PNY is one of the very few AIBs that sells workstation cards on behalf of NVIDIA – so in theory they can easily transplant the same cooler down to the consumer version, since workstation cards technically uses the same silicon, just with more VRAM and some workstation-specific features enabled for those types of users.
PNY claims this card will only produce 32dBA on load with a single 82mm blower fan, which is not that much different from regular axial fan cards. Granted, the RTX 4070 is a 200W card so it’s not the most demanding hardware as far as heat is concerned. It apparently also supports overclocking, given the VelocityX label appearing in the spec sheet.

That said, don’t expect RTX 4090 blower versions to appear any time soon, even if the 450W power can be tamed somehow – NVIDIA still wants you to buy their much pricier RTX Ada workstation cards instead.
(Image credit: GDM)
Source: Videocardz
Pokdepinion: I’d assume such designs is probably cheaper to build – what if we see the return of blower cards?
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New Playstation 4 Pro God of War Bundle And Playstation 4 Pro TB Coming Soon In Malaysia

The folks from Sony Interactive Entertainment Hong Kong Limited SG Branch has announced today of a new Playstation 4 Pro God of War Bundle and the Playstation 4 Pro Jet Black 2TB model will be making their way here to the country from the 11th of January 2019.

For the new God of War Bundle, it will be available at a suggested price of RM1,799, which includes the PS4 Pro 1TB console itself,  a Dualshock 4 wireless controller, as well as the Blu-ray Disc version of the PS4 exclusive God of War.

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On the other hand, the PS4 Pro Jet Black 2TB model will be available at a price tag of RM1,949 and of course it is double the storage that you’d find from a normal PS4 Pro. What better way of downloading all your games, apps, and more right?
Pokdepinion: For me 2TB is more than enough to store all my favorite games. If that’s not the case for you, you can further expand it through an external HDD even more.
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Lost Ark breaks Steam Records with 1 million players

Lost Ark racks up astonishing figures despite early release

A few days ago, Lost Ark racked up 500,000 players in just a few hours despite players having to pay for it in an early access period prior to its official free-to-play release. It has since become one of the most popular new games on Steam with 1 million concurrent players and has now surpassed DOTA 2 to become one of the most played games in the entire history of Steam with 1,297,896 concurrent players.
After some shaky launch day issues and server problems, the game is now officially out for everyone to play for free. As of right now, the game has surpassed both DOTA 2 and CS:GO’s concurrent player record of 1,295,114 and 1,308,963 players respectively. However, only time will tell if the game will be able to break the astonishing amount set by PUBG back then with its 3.2 million players at a time.

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Lost Ark, a free-to-play ARPG MMO, was initially released in South Korea back in 2019 on PC. The game was then brought to US and European shores when Lost Ark publisher Smilegate reached out to Amazon for partnership. The Diablo-like combat game combines common MMO features with ARPG-mechanics and is now available for free on PC via Steam.
Source
Pokdepinion: Over the weekend, I saw many Twitch streamers and friends play Lost Ark. The game looks impressive enough and it’s FREE so I’m eager to see for myself what the game has to offer!
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ASUS ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming Review — ROG Strix attempts the premium price range

The ASUS ROG Strix family consists of products that are essentially distilled down from the Republic of Gamers’ lineup of premium products, and today we are taking a look at the ASUS ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming. As a board carrying the “E” suffix, it is the highest end of the ROG Strix Z490 boards. And as you might expect, it gets quite a bit of premium features from its more premium brethren from the ROG Maximus XII family too.
Unboxing

We did an unboxing of the ASUS ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming above, but if you want to check out the pretty impressive complement of accessories that come with the motherboard, take a look down below.

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Appearance

ASUS definitely stepped up their game with the ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming, with a design that looks clean while also being aggressive enough to fit right into the ROG Strix family. There’s some mirror effect on the I/O shield, which allow the board to look pretty even when you turn off the lights.

For the 10th Gen Intel Core processors, ASUS went all out with the cooling. Instead of what looks more like ornamental hunks of aluminium, they now feature deep grooves for airflow around the VRM area for better cooling, as well as to increase the surface area. The little bracket above the heatsink is where you can mount the optional fan, although it will probably be unnecessary for most users.

The lower half of the board is filled with the PCIe slots and M.2 slots. The PCH heatsink is covered by this oversized plastic shroud that also extends onto the “Northbridge” heatsink. More on that later. The two main PCIe x16 slots are reinforced to prevent them from being damaged by the heavy GPUs you might use with the ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming.

ASUS reserves the integrated I/O shield treatment for the more premium of their boards, and apparently they deem the ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming to be high-end enough to get one. You can spot the DisplayPort and HDMI ports which will allow you to use the iGPU. Those who were expecting more modern ports here will be quite disappointed to find a total of four USB 2.0 ports, instead of replacing them with more USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 ports.

You don’t get a backplate of any kind on the back of this board, but you do get a massive decal running across a quarter of the board. I am not sure what is this for, as you won’t even get to see it once you install it into a case. Oh well. I guess you can enjoy it for a few minutes before you throw it into a case.

RGB is very tastefully sprinkled across the board, with the I/O shroud getting the bulk of the lighting, while the PCH gets a stylized ROG logo instead of the usual ROG eye emblem. One concern I have is that the PCH’s RGB accents will largely be covered up by a large GPU, which will render it pointless.
Specifications
ASUS ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming

CPU support
Intel LGA 1200
10th Gen Intel Core desktop processors (Comet Lake-S)
Pentium Gold & Celeron processors

Power
1 x 24-pin ATX
1 x 8-pin EATX 12V (ProCool II)
1 x 4-pin EATX 12V
ASUS ASP1900B PWM controller (7+1 phase)
14 x Vishay SiC639 (50A) powerstage for CPU
2 x Vishay SiC639 (50A) powerstage for iGPU

Chipset
Intel Z490

Memory
4 x DDR4 DIMM, max. 128GB un-buffered memory

Multi-GPU Support
2-way NVIDIA SLI
3-way AMD CrossFireX

Expansion slots
PCIe 3.0 x1
PCIe 3.0 x16 (x16 electrically)
PCIe 3.0 x1
PCIe 3.0 x16 (x8 electrically)
PCIe 3.0 x16 (x4 electrically)

Storage
6 x SATA 6 Gb/s, supports RAID 0,1,5,10
1 x M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA (disables SATA_2 when M.2 SATA SSD is used)
1 x M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 (disables SATA_5 & SATA_6 when M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD is used)

Network
Intel WiFi 6 AX201 (2×2 802.11ax, Bluetooth 5.1)
Intel I225-V 2.5G LAN

USB
Rear I/O:
3 x USB 3.1 (10 Gbps)
1 x USB 3.1 Type-C (10 Gbps)
2 x USB 3.0 (5 Gbps)
4 x USB 2.0
On-board headers:
1 x USB 3.1 (10 Gbps)
1 x USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) (2 ports each)
2 x USB 2.0 (2 ports each)

Audio
SupremeFX S1220A CODEC
5 x gold-plated audio jacks (rear)
1 x Optical S/PDIF out
1 x front panel audio connector

Display output
1 x HDMI 1.4
1 x DisplayPort 1.4

Other onboard connectors
1 x CPU fan header
1 x CPU_OPT fan header
1 x AIO_PUMP header
1 x VRM_HS_FAN header (VRM fan)
1 x W_PUMP+ header
2 x Chassis fan headers
1 x Temperature sensor connector
2 x AURA RGB headers
2 x ARGB Gen 2 headers
1 x Thunderbolt 3 header

Overclocking features
BIOS Flashback
Q-CODE readout
Q-LED debug LEDs
CPU_OV jumper

Included accessories
User’s manual
4 x SATA 6Gb/s cable
1 x M.2 Screw Packages
1 x M.2 rubber package
1 x 40mm assistant fan (VRM fan)
1 x Wi-Fi Antenna
1 x ARGB extension cable
1 x RGB extension cable
1 x Thermistor
1 x Driver disk
1 x ROG Strix stickers
1 x ROG Strix thank you card

Form factor
ATX (12″ x 9.6″)

System

CPU
Intel Core i5-10600K (ES), 6C/12T @ up to 4.8 GHz, 14nm

RAM
2 x 8GB TEAMGROUP T-Force Xtreem ARGB DDR4-3600

Motherboard
ASUS ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming (BIOS ver. 0503)

GPU
ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Advanced Edition 8GB GDDR6

Storage
120GB Kingston A400 SSD
960GB Kingston UV500 SSD
1TB Seagate FireCuda SSHD

CPU Cooling
Cooler Master ML240R

Case
Vector Benchcase

PSU
Cooler Master V850 Gold

Monitor
BenQ EL2870U

User Experience
Build
As a regular ATX board, the ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming will fit into all ATX cases, but of course we aren’t going to install it in a case. For those of you who are, you will love the integrated I/O shield as it is one less thing to worry about in your build.

An issue that you might have with the ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming is when you decide to install your M.2 storage. Somehow ASUS decided that a plastic cover like this should extend over the first M.2 slot and also the “Northbridge” heatsink. It is held down by a total of three screws, and the worst part is that you won’t be able to lift the cover off if you have a GPU installed, thus complicating any upgrades down the line.

Both the M.2 slots sport aluminium heatspreaders, complete with thermal pads pre-applied. That’s nice, but you will need to undo another two screws per piece to install a SSD under them. The good thing is that you will most probably not change SSDs throughout the lifespan of your PC, so while this is frustrating when you are setting up your build, it isn’t going to affect you that much down the line.
BIOS

ASUS went all out with the BIOS for the ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming, with most of the features you would expect from their higher end ROG Maximus boards making their way here. There’s an AI Overclocking mode too to make it easier to maximize the performance of the unlocked 10th Gen Intel Core processors without any prior knowledge about overclocking.
With that said, it can be a little too aggressive and apply voltages in excess of 1.5V, which is far from recommended. More fine-tuned control over the AI overclocking would have been welcome, like an option to set a maximum voltage to avoid the board from being too overzealous with the voltage. For those who are interested in extreme overclocking, there’s a CPU_OV jumper to raise the Vcore limit from 1.7V to 2.1V.
ASUS also offers USB BIOS Flashback with the ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming, letting you update the BIOS even when you don’t have a supported CPU. Of course with Intel’s habit of requiring new sockets and new boards to be paired with their CPUs, you might never run into that that issue.
Overclocking

While ASUS has decided to not include any of the OC-friendly features like the very useful ReTry or Safe Boot buttons, troubleshooting a bad overclock will be relatively easy with this POST code readout LED display. There’s also no onboard power buttons, which makes using the ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming on an open bench that forgoes the case headers a touch more challenging.
With that said, taking the Intel Core i5-10600K (ES) to 4.9 GHz was very easy, with me only dialing in the voltage to 1.35V and the multiplier to 49x. RAM overclocking was done with just the XMP profile, which proved easy enough with the board booting the DDR4-3600 CL14 XMP profile without a hiccup.

The VRMs run rather cool too when overclocking, with it hitting no more than 40°C without the fan, over 1 hour of Realbench’s stress test in which we see the Core i5-10600K pulling about 140W. Of course 140W is nothing for this 14 power stage VRM design, but unfortunately we didn’t get the opportunity to test the VRM’s performance with a Core i9-10900K. Something worth noting is that ASUS doesn’t offer a VRM temperature readout directly, and the temperatures are obtained via the VR VCC Temperature readout available in HWiNFO. That information is obtained from the CPU’s communication with the power delivery system, and thus might not be directly comparable to other boards.
Software
          Armoury Crate: AURA Sync            Armoury Crate: AURA Sync options            Armoury Crate: board RGB options              GameFirst VI            RamCache III          ASUS Dual Intellgent Processors 5: Home Screen              ASUS Dual Intellgent Processors 5: Power Tuning            ASUS Dual Intellgent Processors 5: Overclocking
There’s a pretty awesome package of software that the ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming supports, allowing you to do everything from throwing on an overclock in Windows with Dual Intelligent Processor 5, to prioritizing the network traffic of with GameFirst VI. For those who want to try out RAM caching, ASUS also bundles RAMCache utility to allow you to set aside some RAM to be used as storage. There’s also Armoury Crate which now handles all the RGB effects, which is customizable even when the board is off.
Conclusion
ASUS is asking for quite a princely sum for the ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming, or RM1876 to be exact. For a bit more money, you can opt for the ROG Maximus XII Hero (WiFi), which will give you quite a lot more for just an additional RM213. The ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming is one of the best ROG Strix boards we have seen thus far, but it definitely quite overpriced for what should be a more wallet-friendly offering. Aside from the questionable pricing, the ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming is a solid board, one which will easily push any 10th Gen Intel Core processor to well beyond their limits.
Our thanks to ASUS Malaysia for sending us the ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming for review.
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Huawei MediaPad M3 and Nova Plus available in Malaysia now!

After Huawei announced the MediaPad M3 and Nova Plus at IFA 2016, they are finally available in Malaysia at all authorized Huawei dealers!

Huawei MediaPad M3

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The Huawei MediaPad M3 is designed in partnership with HARMAN International, giving it premium audio and multimedia capabilities for the best sound experience you can get from a tablet. With its success in Europe, the MediaPad M3 is expected to impress consumers here in Malaysia too.
An 8.4″ display delivering vivid colors and sharp details with an 82% screen to body ratio dominates the front, offering users an immersive viewing experience like no other. Coupled with the Harman Kardon audio system developed and fine-tuned by Harman Kardon engineers, you are in for a great time.
Performance is handled by the capable Kirin 950, which proved its mettle in the Huawei Mate 8 we reviewed earlier this year. Paired with a 5100 mAh battery, the MediaPad M3 is set to provide up to 11 hours of FHD video playback, 6 hours of continous 3D game playing and nearly 2 days of music playback.
Users who purchase the MediaPad M3 will receive a free pre-installed Microsoft Office package, which includes Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint. Additionally Huawei Malaysia will be offering the MediaPad M3 users a one-to-one device exchange within the 12-month warranty period, limited to hardware defects only. The Huawei MediaPad M3 will be available in two variants. The first comes with 4GB RAM and 32GB of storage, finished in Moonlight Silver for RM1699. If you want more storage, you can go for the Luxurious Gold variant priced at RM1999, which will up the storage to 64GB.

Huawei Nova Plus

The Huawei Nova Plus is a decidedly mid-range device, and features a 16 MP rear camera with tri-axis OIS, hybrid phase detection AF and contrast detection AF and 4K video recording for the younger generation of smartphone users to record their precious moments with.
Youths and selfies are inseparable, and the Nova Plus comes with an 8 MP front camera, packed with powerful features like the proprietary Beauty Makeup 2.0 and Beautiful Skin 3.0, for cosmetic effects without actually applying cosmetics. A time saver for the girls who take forever to get ready?
A Snapdragon 625 mated to 3GB of RAM provides the processing chops to the Huawei Nova Plus, and the large 3340 mAh battery allows for longer time away from the wall. The next-generation 3D fingerprint sensor supports fast and accurate 360° unlocking for improved security and convenience, while also doubling up as a shutter button for the camera.
The Huawei Nova Plus will pack 32GB of storage and will be available in two colors, Titanium Grey and Prestige Gold, priced at RM1499.

Pokdepinion: I definitely prefer the design of the Huawei Nova, as it closely resembles one of the best phones I have ever touched, the Nexus 6P. I wonder if Huawei Malaysia will bring it in at a later date.
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The First Trailer For Arcane, The New League Of Legends Animated Series Is Out Now

Riot Games has just released a new trailer for their animated series Arcane. It is Riot Games’ first animated series and is based on their popular League of Legends game. Arcane is set to launch globally on Netflix on 6th November, right after the League of Legends Worlds Final.
Watch the first trailer for Arcane

The show is divided into three acts, each with three episodes. The first three episodes, which will premiere on 6th November, will centre on the two sisters’ early years. The second act will be released a week later on 13th November, followed by the third act on 20th November. Check out the brief description of what Arcane is all about:

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Based on the world behind League of Legends, Arcane dives into the delicate balance between the rich city of Piltover and the seedy underbelly of Zaun. Known across Runeterra as the “city of progress,” many of the most brilliant minds call these cities home. But the creation of hextech, a way for any person to control magical energy, threatens that balance. While Arcane holds the backstories of League of Legends champions, the series is designed to stand on its own as a complex world filled with moral decisions, breathtaking animation and suspenseful storytelling.

Fans of League of Legends will recognise familiar characters such as Jinx, Vi, Jayce, and Caitlyn in the new animated series and learn about the events that shaped them into the legendary champions we know today. Players will also meet several new characters, such as Vander and Silco, who are both inhabitants of Zaun and play important roles in moulding the expanding universe.
Check out the trailer below:

Arcane is set to premiere this 6th November on Netflix and stars Hailee Steinfeld as Vi, Katie Leung as Caitlyn, Kevin Alejandro as Jayce, Jason Spisak as Silco, Ella Purnell as Jinx, Toks Olagundoye as Mel, J.B Blanc as Vander and Harry Lloyd as Viktor.
Pokdepinion: Gotta say Arcane looks really interesting. I also really like the fact that the character designs look exactly like all other Riot Games’ projects ie their music videos and such. Good for them sticking to a familiar style and keeping things consistent.
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OnePlus Malaysia’s former distributor stops handling warranty claims

OnePlus devices were distributed in Malaysia by Mi Han Sdn Bhd before this. However as the official distributor of OnePlus in Malaysia has changed hands to XianFeng Technology, Mi Han will be ending their services as the distributor of OnePlus smartphones. This also means that they won’t be handling after-sales service on their previously sold OnePlus smartphones, but instead hand it off to a third party.
The third party service center handling the after-sales on behalf of Mi Han will be MobileTechnic Sdn Bhd, a service center that also handles Black Shark, Lenovo and Moto smartphones, according to their website. MobileTechnic will also continue honoring the extended warranties that OnePlus has previously offered.

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This news comes as the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro has just been officially launched in London. XianFeng Technology will be handling the OnePlus brand here in Malaysia from here on, so let’s see how far can they bring the somewhat ailing brand that has long since diverged from its primary objective which is to bring flagship specifications and price sans the price tag you would usually associate with a top-of-the-line smartphone.

What do you think of OnePlus as a brand, given that their smartphones has gotten a lot more expensive than they were back then?
Pokdepinion: With such an issue, it really makes one wonder… Why don’t we just get AP sets?
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Cooler Master Launches GM27-FQS ARGB and GM32-FQ Gaming Monitors

Cooler Master has officially unveiled the Cooler Master GM27-FQS ARGB gaming display and the GM32-FQ flat monitor which are made for both work and gaming.
Cooler Master GM27-FQS ARGB

The Cooler Master GM27-FQS ARGB has a Power Game Mode with an ultra-high refresh rate of up to 165Hz and a response time of 1ms (GtG). The monitor with Ultra Speed IPS Panel is designed for your everyday life, whether it’s gaming, work, or leisure.

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The display features a QHD 2560 x 1440 resolution and a 90 percent broad colour gamut of DCI-P3. Not only that, the monitor reacts to each vision precisely by providing excellent visuals and vibrant colours with a 2K resolution, and HDR10 which enhances that with brighter visuals and colours.

Game Mode may be accessible by enabling Adaptive Sync, FreeSync, and G-SYNC, which provide smooth and crisp images for a more immersive experience. The monitor has different I/O ports to connect to any device, including DisplayPort, HDMI, USB Type-A, USB Type-B, and USB Type-C.

The GM27-FQS ARGB retail price starts at RM1,799 and is now available in Malaysia.
Cooler Master GM32-FQ

Cooler Master GM32-FQ features an IPS Panel with up to 165Hz ultra-high refresh rate and 1ms response time. With a DCI-P3 colour gamut of 95 percent and a brightness of 400 nits, you can enjoy vibrant and stunning colours on the monitor.
Furthermore, with a 1200:1 contrast ratio and a stunning QHD 2560 x 1440 resolution, your images will come to life. All of these features are housed within a flat display with an ultra-narrow bezel. The Low Blue Light Display Mode minimises the quantity of potentially hazardous blue light and makes you feel more comfortable during long work or play times.
When you enable FreeSync Premium or G-SYNC, you will enter Game Mode, where your graphics will be smooth and error-free. Users can switch between Game, Standard, Graphics, Movie and sRGB modes. In terms of connectivity, the GM32-FQ includes DisplayPort, HDMI 2.0, USB Type-C, USB Type-B, USB Type-A, and a set of stereo speakers.
The monitor provides ergonomic comfort with height adjustment, swivel up to 15°, and tilt levels up to 20°. Users can mount the monitor on the wall with VESA compatibility for a basic, space-saving arrangement.
The GM32-FQ is currently available for RM2,199 and is now available in Malaysia.
For more information about the GM27-FQS ARGB and GM32-FQ gaming monitors, feel free to visit Cooler Master’s official website.
Pokdepinion: Cooler Master brand new monitors with IPS panels. The price point seems a little steep but if you like all the features stated, you can consider getting them!
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The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask Easter Egg Revealed 21 Years After Release

The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask was first launched on 27th April 2000. Fast forward 21 years later and a new easter egg was discovered, and it’s quite an interesting one. Here’s what went down.
The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask New Easter Egg

So last night I discovered that the position of the stars in the sky in Majora’s Mask is randomized based off of… the player’s file name?! Huge thanks to Tharo for helping on this function as well. pic.twitter.com/aIqsZv9qPk
— zel. (@zel640) November 27, 2021

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3D artist and programmer Zel recently discovered that the sky in The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask is actually unique for each player. Apparently, the position of the stars in the sky will differ depending on the player’s save file name.
He shared a screenshot on Twitter showing how the 8 characters for the file name will influence the position of the stars in the sky. This is pretty cool given that a game from two decades ago is capable of giving a view that is unique to them. As for how many different star arrangements you can get, it’s said to be quite a lot of variations.
As for why the developers opted to do this instead of a set skybox is unknown at this point in time. For those of you who aren’t aware, The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask was launched on 27th April 2000 for the Nintendo 64. It’s the sixth main installment of the popular franchise and the sequel to Ocarina of Time, which is also launched on the same platform.
In case you were wondering, this easter egg is not available in the 3DS re-release of The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask. If you want to see it for yourself, you need to play the original Nintendo 64 version of the game.
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Pokdepinion: This is a pretty cool easter egg, especially considering that not many games today have that kind of minute detail being put in by the developers. It also makes me think that there are a lot more things we may have missed with older games.
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Edifier S880DB Hi-Res Audio certified bookshelf speaker review

Introduction

We have been trying a lot of Edifier’s bookshelf speakers here at Pokde.net, but we have yet to set foot into their signature S series of bookshelves. We did get the chance to experience the Edifier S350DB 2.1 speaker system which left our reviewer speechless as he was awestruck by the sound of these speakers. Today we have here the Edifier S880DB bookshelf speakers, the latest addition to the line up. Edifier Malaysia was so excited to share their latest product with us that they decided they couldn’t wait for the international edition to be available and sent us a unit with Chinese text everywhere. We are absolutely honored to be among the first to experience the Edifier S880DB, so here goes.
Unboxing

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The Edifier S880DB comes in a clean white package with black sides instead of the more common maroon sides we have seen with their other bookshelf speakers. As you can see this is the China variant, so we get Chinese everywhere. We can understand that this speaker has a lot of input options though, thanks to the icons at the bottom.

The back is where you find a list of specifications, as well as yet another shot of the Edifier S880DB. Edifier curiously didn’t put a shot from another angle here, instead opting to fill the side panels with close ups of its drivers instead.

Digging through the box took some time, and here are the contents of the box. We get the Edifier S880DB, and a myriad of cables to allow you to use almost every input the Edifier S880DB supports. This is also the first bookshelf speaker from Edifier that I have tried featuring an external power supply. We have seen an external power supply that the Edifier S350DB came with, so I believe this is a engineering decision for Edifier’s higher end lineup to deliver cleaner power to the speakers.

Let’s take a closer look at the cables. We get a fat 5-pin speaker interconnect cable which isolates the treble and bass signal transmission while reducing interference, a gold-plated 3.5mm to RCA cable, optical cable, USB Type-A to USB Type-B cable and the power supply.
Appearance

Instead of the more usual woody colors that Edifier applies to most of their speakers, we get a smooth white panel that wraps around the Edifier S880DB from the front to the back. The white wrap makes for a very appealing contrasty effect. The reflective titanium-laminated tweeter and bass driver with a metal diaphragm and an equally shiny metal dust cap looks like these speakers mean serious buiness.

The sides still feature a wooden look. But this time it’s more modern looking with a convex panel and light colored finish. Lines cut through the panel to give off a more dynamic vibe, bumping up the aesthetics a notch.

Over on the back we find the array of inputs, bass and treble dials and the volume dial which also allows you to change inputs with a tap. The rear facing bass port can also make placement a little more finicky, but as long as the material behind it is sufficiently solid, you shouldn’t face an issue at all.
Specifications

Power output:
 RMS 12W + 32W x 2 (88W total)

Signal to noise ratio:
≥ 85 dbA

Frequency response:
55 Hz – 20 KHz (+/- 1dB)

Input Sensitivity:
PC: 800 mV ± 50 mV
AUX: 600 mV ± 50 mV
USB/Optical/Coaxial: 400 ± 50 mFFS
Bluetooth: 600 ± 50 mFFS

Input type:
RCA stereo input (PC and AUX), USB, Optical, Coaxial, Bluetooth AptX

Dimensions:
140 x 235 x 170 mm (per speaker)

Source(s):

Zorloo ZuperDAC connected to a Lenovo Y50-70
Lenovo Y50-70 over USB
Honor 8 over Bluetooth

Using the Edifier S880DB
Inputs galore!

The main thing to do before setting it up is selecting your input. For me, that’s USB and PC inputs as I use it with my laptop anyway. The controls being placed on the back are less accessible than placing it on the sides, but I understand Edifier doing it to keep the wooden panels on the sides clean, and you won’t really need to tweak the bass and treble dials much anyway with the multiple profiles that the Edifier S880DB comes with.

In case you forgot which input you are using, there is a little display panel on the right cabinet. The IR receiver is also here behind this translucent strip of black plastic. A thing to note is that while the Edifier S880DB supports Bluetooth, it supports AptX which should deliver better quality audio. For the wired digital audio inputs, the Edifier S880DB supports up to 24-bit/192 kHz, one of the criteria for Hi-Res Audio certification. It should also be able to reproduce up to 40 kHz, but Edifier lists the Edifier S880DB’s frequency response as 55 Hz to 20 kHz. This discrepancy is similar to what we have seen with the Edifier M3600D THX-Certified 2.1 speakers, as Edifier’s measuring techniques are different from the certification bodies’.
Be in control

It’s nice to see Edifier opt for a more premium IR remote control after seeing a slew of their remote controls which were so easy to scratch with their glossy plastic surfaces. As mentioned earlier, the Edifier S880DB comes with four preset profiles which will give you a different sound signature to suit whatever you are listening to. On the downside, switching between sources takes multiple taps now, unlike with the Edifier S350DB which featured a similar remote control. You are giving up easy switching between sources (which most probably you won’t do that often) for easy access to tuned profiles that fit your listening material (which the Edifier S350DB doesn’t have). Quite a no-brainer there for me.
Volume steps are small, which is good. There is no mute button here though. You can even control playback over Bluetooth with the previous, next and play/pause buttons. Turning off the speaker will cause the speakers to revert to a default volume which may end up being higher or lower than your preferred volume.
Sound

We get a 19mm titanium-dome tweeter and a 3.75″ metal diaphragm driver with a very pretty metal dust cap. The primary role of speakers is to sound good, with good looks are secondary. So how do these pretty drivers sound? Really good.
The first thing I noticed with these speakers was a very wide soundstage. Once again, I was surprised by how wide a soundstage can bookshelf speakers bring to the table (literally?). I realized that I could pinpoint sound cues much more easily in movies and games like Overwatch. Music also felt like they had more space in them than I ever experienced with any other speaker.
Lows
Living up to it’s Hi-Res certification, the Edifier S880DB features a nice flat sound profile, one which can easily be appreciated in the Monitor sound profile. Moving over to the Dynamic profile, the sound is noticeably more fun. Bass is punchier in this mode, with a slight emphasis on the bass. Turning the bass up to 11 on the back of the right cabinet gives you a lot more punch, without bloating up the mid-bass, which is really good to hear.
Mids
The mids are present regardless of which mode you pick, being especially emphasized in the Vocal sound profile. The Vocal sound profile is perfect for watching news or really talky movies. Vocals are clear, detailed and full-bodied. There is no upper-mid hump here, which have a tendency to cause vocals to sound reedy.
Highs
The highs sound quite laidback if you are listening in the Monitor mode. A flat sound signature is not the most fun to listen to, which is why I did most of my listening in the Dynamic profile. While audiophiles may frown upon the Dynamic profile, it is definitely the most appealing to listen to. It boosts the highs along with the lows for a more energetic sound. The Classic profile also gives the highs a slight boost, but not nearly to the same level as the Dynamic profile does.
Loudness
I really doubt you will have an issue with the loudness of these speakers. I believe they are actually overpowered when used with computers as they can go really loud with that RMS 88W of power. They can easily fill a good sized room or even most living rooms with music thanks to the immense power they have. The Edifier S880DB’s volume controls aren’t linked to Windows’ volume control, so you can tweak both to get just the right volume for you.
Wrapping up

The Edifier S880DB sound really amazing for anything I put through it. I thought the Edifier R1280DB offered a lot of inputs, but the Edifier S880DB takes it a notch further with the addition of USB input. The USB input feeds one of the best DACs in the market, the XMOS DAC, while the AptX support means you can enjoy good sound wirelessly. These speakers are also more compact than most of its peers in the higher end bookshelf speakers market, making them ideal for PC users who want a good pair of speakers without sacrificing too much space. Priced at RM899 on Lazada at the time of writing, the Edifier S880DB is a great option for those who prefer compact speakers that look modern without sacrificing on sound quality. It is also perfect for beginners who might not want to go through the trouble of picking their own DACs and amps. The XMOS DAC inside the Edifier S880DB is a really good one, and should be capable of fulfilling most users’ requirements. A standalone XMOS DAC can cost around RM512 on its own, making the Edifier S880DB a really good deal! It is definitely deserving of our Gold Pokdeward!

Our thanks to Edifier Malaysia for the Edifier S880DB in this review.

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New vivo X70 Series With ZEISS Lens Is Coming Soon

vivo has just announced that their new vivo X70 Series is due to make its global debut very soon. The successor to the vivo X60 Series will also feature a built-in gimbal system as well as professional photography and videography capabilities, including ZEISS lenses that come with T* coating.
vivo X70 Series coming very soon

The vivo X70 Series’ camera lenses all include ZEISS T* coating, which reduces ghosting and stray light when shooting in low light. This results in photographs that are crisp and sharp at night, with no distracting lighting aspects. Finally, the vivo X70 series utilises a special Sony IMX766V sensor that is optimised for low-light performance. Owners may now photograph with filters that mimic the look and feel of vintage ZEISS lenses like the Biotar, Planar, Distagon, and Sonnar, thanks to the addition of the ZEISS Portrait Style feature.

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The vivo X70 Series will also come with 256GB worth of storage space across all devices in the line with 12GB of RAM as well as 4GB of virtual RAM. Additionally, vivo will be launching a brand-new series of TWS earbuds called the vivo TWS 2 series. More information on the vivo TWS 2 series will be unveiled leading up to the launch.
The vivo X70 and X70 Pro was launched earlier this month in China touting a 6.56-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The vivo X70 is powered by a Dimensity 1200 SoC while the vivo X70 Pro is powered by Samsung’s Exynos 1080 SoC. No word if the global version will feature the same chipsets though they are rumoured to come with three different SoCs from three different manufacturers.

To commemorate the imminent debut of the vivo X70 Series, vivo Malaysia has launched ‘The vivo X-perience’ programme, a first-of-its-kind initiative that provides vivo X series fans with a membership card with exclusive perks and advantages. Those who sign up for the programme and pre-order any of the vivo X70 devices will be able to skip the line and pick up their devices before the formal launch.

To learn about ‘The vivo X-perience’ programme, click on the link right here. You can also catch the launch of the X70 Series on 22nd September at 7.30PM over at the vivo Malaysia Facebook page and YouTube channel.
Pokdepinion: I’m surprised at how fast vivo are launching the vivo X70 Series considering the vivo X60 Series came out just earlier this year.
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Apex Legends Tease The Return of Skull Town

It looks like gamers will potentially have big things to look forward to as Apex Legends is teasing the return of the infamous Skull Town.
Skull Town Returning in Apex Legends?

┳┻|
┻┳|
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┻┳|
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┳┻|
┻┳|
┳┻|
┻┳|
┳┻|
┻┳|
┳┻| _
┻┳| •.•) What if we brought back
┳┻|⊂ﾉ Skull Town
┻┳|
— Apex Legends (@PlayApex) June 21, 2021

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In the early seasons of Apex Legends, everyone who played the game at the time has some memory of Skull Town. Whether they had a good time finding precious loot or bad memories of getting killed as soon as they landed, it’s definitely one of the most popular spots in the game.
The developers are aware of this and as such, they took to Twitter to tease the return of Skull Town. The tweet, which also contains text-based art, simply mentions “what if we brought back Skull Town”.
Previously, the place was removed as Respawn Entertainment wanted to keep things fresh and shake things up in the game. As it is the most popular landing spot for most games, it ended up being the spot to be axed and replaced with a new one.
If they do end up bringing Skull Town back to Apex Legends, I’m sure it won’t be the same as its original iteration. There will definitely be a number of changes in appearance and also how we approach the place. As for what these changes could be, that will be hard to say at the moment.
Apex Legends is currently available for free on the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
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Pokdepinion: Personally, I’m a bigger fan of Artillery in the map. I have better luck with loot here than in Skull Town. I won’t complain if the place comes back, I’d be more than happy to throw down as soon as I land there.
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Wi-Fi 7 Devices Should Come In 2023 Says MediaTek

It seems that MediaTek is already in the works for the upcoming Wi-Fi 7 standards, where they expect that the technology will make its way out next year in 2023.
Wi-Fi 7 coming in 2023?

The company has said that the new standard will offer around 2.4x speed boost when compared to the current Wi-Fi 6 connectivity.

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Aside from that, it will be able to utilize 320MHz channels, 4K quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), multi-user resource unit, as well as still work on 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz connections.
Despite suggesting that we will see devices (that offer the standard) in 2023, it is based on a draft specifications as it isn’t certified yet by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer).
For more on the latest tech and gaming news plus reviews, stay tuned to Pokde.net.
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Pokdepinion: So basically it’s not exactly next year that we can use it. We’ll have to wait further for it to be certified first. But oh well, it’s always exciting to know new technology is coming.
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Panasonic and HATCH Presents “HACTION! Shot on Lumix GH5” – Commemorating six decades of Independence

 Malaysia through a camera lens

In honour of Malysia’s 60th National Day, in partnership with HATCH, Panasonic Malaysia held a short film competition called “HACTION! Shot on Lumix GH5” which aims to showcase the journey of Malaysia’s achievements and national pride over the last six decades through the eyes of six Malaysian film makers. HATCH is a YouTube channel under Media Prima’s Studio8 that seeks to showcase original and experimental ideas from aspiring film makers.
Studio8 has a reputable record of producing unique and original Malaysian content that strives to push the boundaries of which stories could be told. With HACTION!, they aim to inspire local film makers into making their own personal take on Malaysia’s achievements and pride.
SIx film makers were chosen for the HACTION! short film competition with each tasked to create a short film not longer than 5 minutes that highlights the beauty of Malaysia and the six decades of unity, peace and harmony. All of these film makers were provided with an RM4,000 production budget and equipped with a Panasonic LUMIX GH5 for audio and visual recording. The short films must be shot, completed and submitted within a given period of 30 days.

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Mr. Hiroyuki Muto, Deputy Managing Director of Panasonic Malaysia said,
The digital camera has revolutionized photography, making it accessible to more people and creating more talents. – We saw this partnership as a good platform to nurture our local filmmakers in creating visually and engaging stories, while showcasing the capabilities of the LUMIX GH5
Mr. Hiroyuki Muto, Deputy Managing Director of Panasonic Malaysia
The panel judges included some very well known faces from the industry, which were, Ahmad Izham Omar, CEO of Primeworks Studios, Mr. Hiroyuki Muto himself, and Low Ngai Yuen, renowned film director and actress as the guest judge. The judging process isn’t entirely down to the judges however, as it is partially up to a public vote which was opened a few weeks prior.
HACTION! winner Sherwynn Victor with the panel judges
The winning short film received a complete set of the Panasonic LUMIX GH5, accessories and cash prize of RM8,000. You can watch the winning short and the entire HACTION! series direct from the HATCH YouTube channel.

Pokdepinion: I love these sort of competitions. Not only is it a good platform for our local film makers to showcase their passion and film making talents, but with the subject matter of HACTION!, it also gives them an opportunity to truly think and reflect on what it means to be a proud Malaysian.
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ASUS Zenfone 2 Launched in Jakarta

Almost a year ago, we published about ASUS launching their Zenfone series in Jakarta for the APAC region. Earning countless awards and becoming one of the most famous mobile phone in the affordable segment, while putting the ASUS brand name in a totally new perspective, ASUS decided to repeat the history again this year – only better. Today marked the end of my 3 days 2 nights journey to Jakarta for the launch and while being totally exhausted, it was one event definitely worth visiting in 2015.
ASUS introduced the Zenfone 2 in Jakarta for the APAC region

Ya see, we at Pokde.net don’t strive for fame nor do we like to flourish a brand with delusional facts. We critic when it’s required and credit when it’s due. Pretty simple. The previous generation of the Zenfone series was indeed a mid-range glory but this time around, ASUS has upped the ante to a whole new level. Yes, we are talking about a device that broke the benchmark scores of my very-new-super-expensive Samsung Note Edge right before our eyes, with our own hands! Oh, and the score that we got, apparently, based on the word from one of our close media friend, is not even optimized!

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See what others can’t see with their rather interesting low-light PixelMaster camera
But of course, I’m keeping more of that for another day. We will be having an up close and personal session with the Zenfone 2 soon, once we get our hands on one of the units. As for now, let’s talk about the event that has left me pondering enough.
The Asus Zenfone 2 is the world’s first 4GB RAM powered smartphone.

A huge highlight of this event was the introduction of Zenny. I guess ASUS just has some weird interest in owls. We already had the Strix, now we have Zenny. From the media perspective, this actually is a pretty solid branding strategy. Zenny features Super Vision capabilities while being able to churn out power efficiently for long lasting endurance, while being the Best Companion for the owner. Though I have my doubts on having an owl as a companion for myself. Hahaha.
The ZenUI is soon going to become the world’s most beautiful mobile UI
ASUS’ CEO, Mr. Jerry Shen, shared so many awards the previous Zenfone had achieved, that if we started listing them here, I might as well just use this space for the awards. Some interesting and notable ones were 35,000 units sold in India on the first day, becoming the No.1 brand in South East Asia, 98% user satisfaction in China, and 10 million units shipped worldwide. Like I said, I’m not going to list them all here.
Just some of the Zenfone 2 features.
We also had an interesting session with Mr. Robby Swinnen, President and General Manager of Intel Asia Pacific and Japan. They have worked hand-in-hand with ASUS in delivering the Zenfone 2 and looking at the results, I have all the reasons to believe in their dedication and innovation. I’m not really an Intel person when it comes to mobile devices – more like I have not been one. But the level of details that they had put into their technology to assist the delivery of the Zenfone 2 is rather significant. From my own perspective, to have made a huge loss in 2014 in the mobile division, but yet still being able not to jeopardize the delivery of their latest line up speaks something indeed. Do wait for our review to find out more on it.
The ASUS Zenfone 2 is treated with 4GB of RAM – one of the first mobile phone in the world to spot this. It uses 64-bit dual-channel RAM for uncompromised performance delivery. It also improved the performance by implementing a mere 60ms touch response time along with the addition of OpenGL 3.0. It also has an innovative Dual SIM Dual Active (DSDA) technology.
Well, that was some highlights from us to share with you on what we have been experiencing for the past few days. Once we get our hands on our very own unit, we wll be writing a rather interesting review on it. Till then, happy surfing on the internet!

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Intel announced upcoming Ponte Vecchio GPU based on 7nm — slated for a 2021 launch

Intel has just announced that their Intel Xe GPU architecture will be an all-encompassing one, with it covering everything from integrated GPUs to high performance computing (HPC) deployments. Of course, there will be multiple alterations to the architecture to allow it to cater to different needs, but Intel is going with a very clear branding this time. Intel Xe.

For high performance computing, Intel has lined up Ponte Vecchio, which will be Intel’s first exascale GPU. Slated for a 2021 launch, it packs all of Intel’s latest innovations including their Foveros 3D packaging and Intel Embedded Multi-Die Interconnect Bridge (EMIB) for inter-chiplet communication. The chips will be built on Intel’s upcoming 7nm process, as well as feature Compute eXpress Link (CXL) interface for inter-GPU bandwidth.

Ponte Vecchio will be part of the Aurora Supercomputer, which will see each node combine two Intel Xeon Scalable processors from the Sapphire Rapids family with six Ponte Vecchio GPUs.

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Pokdepinion: Chiplet-based GPUs sound pretty interesting… Wonder if that will make it to the gaming GPU solutions.
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Prepare your wallets for MSI’s promotions; discounts up to RM1300 on selected MSI gaming laptops!

If you are in the market for a gaming laptop, MSI Malaysia is offering some really insane deals on their laptops. They are actually running two concurrent promotions this weekend, with great deals in Lazada’s Electronic Fair which will end on 11th September, and also at the Malaysia IT Fair held at Mid Valley from 8th to 10th September 2017.

MSI’s promotion on Lazada is really interesting, with up to RM1300 off on the MSI GS43VR Phantom Pro which is usually priced at an eye-watering RM8299. It is now priced at just RM6999 in this promotion. If you want a light and portable laptop while not sacrificing on gaming performance, this is the way to go. If you prefer more screen estate, MSI also offers quite a few options to choose from. Professionals can also opt for the Prestige series wit the PE70-7RD-243MY priced at just RM4499.

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The Malaysia IT Fair will also be graced by MSI’s promotions, offering exclusive bundles featuring the SteelSeries Siberia V2 Gaming Headset (MSI Edition) as well as Limited Edition MSI Lucky figures with selected models of MSI Gaming laptops.
Go get your MSI laptops now!
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CD Projekt Red Contemplated About Having VR For Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 has been on the lips of everyone ever since it was unveiled back in June of 2019. It seems that the folks behind the game, CD Projekt Red was considering in making the game available to play on VR (virtual reality), according to reports.

In an interview, John Mamais of CD Project Red (who also worked on The Witcher 3) has said that they did indeed consider to use VR for the game, even to the extent of experimentation possibly. They then took things into consideration and pulled out, saying that it wasn’t practical.
We tried, we were thinking about VR but, yeah, we’re not doing anything with VR. We got the VR dev kits but some things would work in VR, but I think, it’s not really viable yet. You’re not making a lot of money in VR yet. It’s very experimental and niche, yeah. I would like to. I like VR but we’re not doing anything with it yet. John Mamais, CD Projekt Red
Cyberpunk 2077 is set to release in September of this year. The game has been reportedly to be delayed previously due to the lack of power of current-gen consoles.

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Pokdepinion: It would’ve been cool if the game did offer a VR experience.. but considering how big the game is reported to be, it does seem like a wise move from the company. I’d definitely get dizzy if I was to travel in the huge world in VR.
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realme 3 Pro Malaysian pricing starts from RM899

The realme 3 Pro’s official launching here in Malaysia is tomorrow, but a retailer has already begun collecting pre-orders for the device. And it isn’t one of those blind pre-orders, but Satu Gadget Northern revealed the price as well for the two variants of the realme 3 Pro that’s coming to Malaysia.

The realme 3 Pro will be priced from RM899 here in Malaysia, making it a serious threat versus the affordable mid-range offerings from the competition. Without a Redmi Note 7 Pro here in Malaysia, realme has free reign of the upper mid-range market with the realme 3 Pro and its powerful specifications. Speaking of the specifications:

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realme 3 Pro Specifications

Snapdragon 710, octa-core up to 2.2 GHz, 10nm FinFET
Up to 6GB RAM
Up to 128GB storage (expandable via microSD)
6.3″ FHD+ IPS display
16MP f/1.7 Sony IMX519 + 5MP f/2.4 depth sensor
25MP f/2.0 selfie camera
4045 mAh battery, 20W VOOC Flash Charge 3.0
ColorOS 6.0 based on Android 9 Pie
4GB + 64GB: RM899
6GB + 128GB: RM1099

The realme 3 Pro will be officially launched on 14th May 2019, and we will also be publishing our review of the realme 3 Pro tomorrow. But first, what do you think of the realme 3 Pro and its pricing?
Pokdepinion: That’s really quite good pricing for the specs!
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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series prices continue dropping, while Radeon RX 6000 series prices go up?

This is pretty interesting. Previously, we thought NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series prices were inflated because miners were snapping all of them up. But now, despite there being some signs of life returning in the crypto market, we are apparently still seeing GeForce RTX 30 series cards continue getting closer to MSRP. And the AMD Radeon RX 6000 cards, which are not as good at mining, are actually getting pricier.
On average, NVIDIA’s cards are now 144% of MSRP, while AMD cards are 159% MSRP on average. That marks a 6% drop for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series prices, and a 3% increase for AMD. Based on 3DCenter’s data, we are now back at early 2021 levels of pricing, which is pretty good news. This data is of course only valid in Germany and Austria, but it should reflect an overall global trend as well.

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The changes in pricing is most probably due to the supply of the cards. It is known that TSMC is currently overloaded, and AMD is betting their entire lineup on the same 7nm process at TSMC. Meanwhile NVIDIA went with Samsung, which probably sees less work, and is thus able to churn out more Ampere GPUs, which might have helped in bringing prices down closer to MSRP. The LHR cards are also probably helping in this aspect.
Along with the price changes, TechSpot reported a very interesting finding as well: NVIDIA’s flagship GeForce RTX 3090 is apparently more popular than the entire RDNA 2 lineup combined in the latest Steam survey. Either AMD users are really shy when it comes to sharing their data with Steam, or there just aren’t that many Radeon RX 6000 series cards out there in the wild.

Hopefully the situation will improve with the arrival of the Radeon RX 6600 XT. The Radeon RX 6600 XT is based on a much smaller GPU, which should allow AMD to produce a lot more of them, improving availability and lowering the inflation. It is also likely that the fact that many of these cards have really high MSRPs help, despite AMD’s $379 SEP for the Radeon RX 6600 XT.
Source
Pokdepinion: Well, hopefully I can get a GeForce RTX 3080 at their 2020 MSRPs before the GeForce RTX 40 series arrives…
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Samsung’s Be Unbeaten Campaign Winners Revealed — Each Walking Away With A New Galaxy S10!

Previously Samsung Malaysia hosted their ‘Be Unbeaten’ campaign, where they launched 10 units of the new Galaxy S10 80,000 feet up into the sky and the public was invited to make an educated guess about where they would eventually land. The 10 lucky winners has now been revealed and they walked away with a brand new Samsung Galaxy S10.

One of the winners, Ang Li Ern, has said that although it was an educated guess, she didn’t expect to actually win the contest. It turns out that she spent around 4 hours trying to pinpoint the right landing location by using Google Maps.

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Arisha Binti Mohd Adnan (another winner) has also said that she spent a couple of hours to come up with her final answer. Interestingly, she submitted her answer on the last day of the Be Unbeaten contest.
To find out more on the Samsung Galaxy S10 series, you can check out on our previous post by clicking on the link right here.
Pokdepinion: It’s a rather unique contest I’d say. Congrats to the winners! They certainly deserve it after those long hours in figuring out where the phones would land..
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PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 Review – A League Above The Rest

Unboxing the PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16
PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 Review – Box

Starting off the PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 review with the unboxing, the packaging itself is a minimalistic, clean white box similar to their other line of products. When you open the box, the content inside are neatly arranged in for an easier time. Inside, you can expect to find the following items:
PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 Review – Box content

2 x USB-C to USB-C Cable
1 x Mini HDMI to HDMI Cable
1 x Charger
1 x Protective Sleeve
1 x User Guide
1 x PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 portable monitor

Specifications

Panel Size
Wide Screen 15.6″, 16:9

Panel Type
OLED

True Resolution
3840 x 2160

Display Surface
Anti-glare

Colour Support
1064M

Touchscreen
Yes

Pixel Pitch
0.179 mm

Brightness
400 cd/m2

Contrast
100000:1

Viewing Angle (CR≧10)
178°(H) / 178°(V)

Response Time
16 ms (GTG)

HDR Support
No

Refresh Rate
60 Hz

Low Blue Light
Yes

HDCP Support
Yes

Viewing Modes
sRGB, Movie, Standard, Night View, Game, Reading

Adaptive Refresh Rate
No

Signal Input
1 x Mini HDMI
2 x USB-C

Audio
2 x 1W speakers

Battery
Yes, 4 hours

Mechanical Design
Chassis Colours : Dark gray
Slim Design : Yes
Super Narrow Bezel Design : Yes

Dimensions
358 x 233 x 6.8 mm, 0.95 kg

Performance
As part of the PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 review process, we measured the brightness at 100% and found the figure to be 359.9cd/m2, and it was running at this setting by default. Brightness is certainly more than adequate, though I do wish it a was a bit brighter, or come with less reflective display, during sunnier days when I’m using it outdoors.
PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 Review – Screen uniformity test
Running the display uniformity test with a 3×3 grid, the PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 performed superbly. It’s actually even across all areas, practically speaking. In fact, it’s almost perfectly uniformed here, which we’ve only seen recently with the Arzopa G1 portable gaming monitor.

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Colour Accuracy

Standard
Gaming
Movie
Standard mode, calibration with DisplayCAL

Whitepoint
6654K
6590K
6582K
6631K

Average ΔE*00
1.62
0.59
0.35
0.08

Maximum ΔE*00
4.34
2.44
1.23
0.79

Arguably the most important part of the PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 review process, colour accuracy. By default, the colour accuracy on the PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 isn’t particularly good, though I’m surprised it’s a lot better in Gaming and Movie modes. After calibrating it using SpyderX and DisplayCAL, we see significant improvements in average and maximum Delta-E figures. This means it’s actually a viable choice for creative visual work.
Gamut

Gamut
Standard
Gaming
Movie
Standard mode, calibration with DisplayCAL

sRGB
Coverage
100%
99.8%
100%
100%

Volume
169%
164.5%
175.64%
170.3%

Adobe RGB
Coverage
91.6%
91.25%
94.27%
91.8%

Volume
116.5%
114.7%
122.5%
117.3%

DCI-P3
Coverage
99.9%
99.9%
99.9%
99.9%

Volume
119.7%
117.8%
121.8%
120.6%

For the gamut coverage and volume, there were slight improvements after calibration. Overall with 100% sRGB, 94% Adobe RGB, and 99.9% DCI-P3, there’s more than enough colours for you to enjoy with it. This further emphasizes its capabilities for creative visual work, and not going the low-power route certainly helps.

The Good
PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 Review
The PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 is a portable monitor that is easy to bring around. Given how thin and light it is, it’s easy to just chuck it in any bag, even smaller sling bags, and carry it with you. This makes it ideal if you have an ultraportable laptop and want to be as mobile as possible without sacrificing productivity potential. Furthermore, its 4K OLED display brings that possibility to creatives who would like to do visual work on the go as well.
It has a pretty solid build quality as well, which I’m surprised as I thought they would cut corners here. It doesn’t wobble or have any odd flexing whatsoever. Together with the fact that you get a free protective sleeve makes it easy to carry around without worrying about it breaking all of a sudden unless you go out of your way to do some damage to it.
PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 Review – Ports
For a portable monitor, it has a decent array of ports as it comes with two USB-C ports and a mini-HDMI port. It’s enough to offer versatility across a multitude of devices, including smartphones. The necessary cables are also included so you don’t have to worry about purchasing extra accessories. Having a headphone jack would be a nice touch, especially with more devices (especially smartphones) no longer coming with one but it’s unnecessary.
PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 Review – OSD
In terms of performance, apart from what we’ve already measured, the PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 is great but it depends on what you’re using it for. For watching videos, doing work, and casual games, it’s certainly a pleasure to the eyes. It even has touchscreen support, which is also used to navigate through its OSD, further adding to its versatility. It’s not a gaming monitor so don’t expect high refresh rate, ultra-fast response time, adaptive sync, and all of those features.
The PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 does come with a built-in battery, so you do have the option of not plugging in to a power source for it. I’m personally not a fan of built-in batteries for portable monitors but given how well they’ve executed it with this, it’s actually beneficial for this to have it. After all, low-powered ones will lack in brightness and visual clarity severely, and this one does it so well so kudos to them.
PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 Review – Product details
As for how long the battery lasts, I managed to get it to last about 3 hours to 3 hours and 15 minutes per full charge every time. It’s a little ways off from their 4 hour claim but to be fair, I do run it at a higher brightness so with some optimizations, it is possible to reach that long, and it’s decent if I do say so myself.
The Bad
PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 Review – Pretty anime girls, because why not
Of coursed, the PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 review wouldn’t be complete without checking out the drawbacks, and the first one I noticed comes when you empty out the battery or come close to it. While the HDMI can work with just battery without issues, it will have trouble doing so when it’s running really dry.
Essentially, the battery life is effectively slightly shorter on HDMI connection, and you will have to charge it a little longer to get it working again. With USB-C, you can use it as soon as a power source is connected, even at 0%. This is something to keep in mind in case the battery completely dies on you.
PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 Review
Another issue I have is not with the monitor itself, but rather what’s included in it. Sure, they give you a complete set of accessories but both the HDMI and USB-C cables are a bit short for my liking. In a portable setup, you might not need long ones but having a slightly longer one, perhaps 1.5 or 2 meters at most, instead of just 1 meter cables would give a bit more breathing space in how you would want to use it.
The addition of touchscreen is always a good one, but one thing you have to be extra careful of is smudging. If you keep using the touchscreen functionality without thinking too much, you will soon find yourself with an extra dirty monitor. Make sure to bring a microfiber cloth along with it for easy cleaning.
PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 Review – Protective sleeve doubles as a stand
The PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 comes with built-in speakers, which sounds rather subpar so nothing to blow your minds away. Volume could certainly be louder but in all honesty, it’s more than enough for most people. If you need anything more, just bring your own portable audio gear to go along with it.
Lastly, and this isn’t the fault of the monitor itself, is an inherent flaw with OLED panels. By that, I mean that it does have a risk of suffering burn-ins. Given that our time with it is rather short, it’s not something we’re worried about but for those of you who are gonna use it for long-term, make sure you don’t have it display a static image for too long.
PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 Verdict
PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 Review
From a visual perspective, the PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 is one of, if not the best, portable monitors we’ve ever used thus far. Colour accuracy, gamut coverage, and contrast ratio is certainly leaps and bounds higher than its competition, and 4K resolution is just that added cherry on top of a good product. As long as you’re not gaming competitive only it and can stomach its asking price of RM2,999, it’s an excellent buy.
At the end of our PRISM+ Nomad Ultra 4K 16 review, I award this portable monitor with our coveted Gold Pokdeward.

Big thanks to PRISM+ for sending us this portable monitor for the purpose of this review.
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ASUS ROG announces full lineup of 10th Gen Intel Core-powered laptops

If you thought ASUS Malaysia was done with their barrage of 10th Gen Intel Core laptops, then you are quite wrong. ASUS Malaysia has just announced several new choices for you, ranging from the flagship ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 down to the very affordable ROG Strix G15 that’s priced at just RM4399. Interested? Well, here we go.
ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 – RM19 999

The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 packs the flagship Intel Core i9-10980HK and the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Max-Q for the best performance you can get in a laptop today. There’s also a choice of a 1080p 300Hz display or a 4K 60Hz panel. Regardless of which display option you choose, the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 packs a secondary 14.1″ 3840×1100 touch screen that gives you the ability to multitask better than any other laptop. Don’t trust me? Well, read SuperDaddy’s review ;-)

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ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 Specs

ROG Zephyrus Duo 15
ROG Zephyrus Duo 15

Model Name
GX550L-XSHC064R
GX550L-XSHF127T

CPU
Intel Core i9-10980HK @ 2.4GHz (up to 5.3GHz Turbo Boost), 8C/16T, 45W TDP, 16MB Intel Smart Cache, 14nm

RAM
32GB 3200MHz DDR4 (16GB onboard + 1 x 16GB SO-DIMM)

GPU
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Max-Q 8GB GDDR6, 1330MHz Boost Clock

Storage
2 x 1TB Samsung P981a PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe SSD in RAID 0

Connectivity
Intel WiFi-6 AX201 (2×2 WiFi 6 up to 2.4Gbps)
1 x USB 3.2 Gen2 (10Gbps) Type-C with DisplayPort 1.4, Thunderbolt 3 and USB-PD
2 x USB 3.0 (5Gbps)
1 x USB 3.2 Gen2 (10Gbps) Type A
1 x HDMI 2.0b
1 x RJ45

Display
Primary
15.6” Non-glare UHD (3840 x 2160) 60Hz, 100% Adobe RGB, Pantone Validated, G-Sync
Secondary
14.1” (3840 x 1100) touchscreen
Primary
15.6” Non-glare FHD (1920 x 1080) 300Hz/3ms, 100% sRGB, Pantone Validated, G-Sync
Secondary
14.1” (3840 x 1100) touchscreen

Audio
2 x 4W speakers with Smart AMP
High-res certified
Array Microphone
1 x 3.5mm Microphone-in
1 x 3.5mm Microphone-in/Headphone-out combo

Power
240W Power Adapter
Type-C PD 3.0 up to 65W

Dimensions
360 x 268 x 20.9 mm

Weight
2.4kg

Price
RM19 999
RM19 999

Availability
Now
End of Sept.

ROG Zephyrus S15/S17 – from RM10 499

If you are in the market for a more portable laptop, well then the ROG Zephyrus S15 might just be your next laptop. Or perhaps you would rather have one large screen instead of two, you can also check out the ROG Zephyrus S17. Both of these laptops come with 1080p 300Hz displays for that maximum gaming enjoyment. If you choose the ROG Zephyrus S15, you will get a relatively conventional keyboard layout, while the ROG Zephyrus S17 has the keyboard nearer to the user to maximize the intake area for the cooling system.
ROG Zephyrus S15 and S17 Specs

ROG Zephyrus S17
ROG Zephyrus S15
ROG Zephyus S17
ROG Zephyrus S15

Model Name
GX701L-XSHG043T
GX502L-XSHF042T
GX701L-WSHG043T
GX502L-WSFH056T

CPU
Intel Core i7-10875H, 8C/16T @ up to 5.1 GHz, 45W TDP, 14nm

Graphics
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.2 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Max-Q 8GB GDDR6
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.2 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q SUPER 8GB GDDR6
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.2 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8GB GDDR6
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.2 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8GB GDDR6

RAM
16GB DDR4-3200 on-board + 16GB DDR4-3200 SO-DIMM
8GB DDR4-3200 on-board + 8GB DDR4-3200 SO-DIMM

Storage
1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
(1 x M.2 PCIe slot vacant)
2 x 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (RAID 0)
1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
(1 x M.2 PCIe slot vacant)
1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
(1 x M.2 PCIe slot vacant)

Display
17.3″ FHD, 300Hz, 3ms, 100% sRGB Pantone Validated, G-SYNC
15.6″ FHD, 300Hz, 3ms, 100% sRGB Pantone Validated, G-SYNC
17.3″ FHD, 300Hz, 3ms, 100% sRGB Pantone Validated, G-SYNC
15.6″ FHD, 300Hz, 3ms, 100% sRGB Pantone Validated, G-SYNC

Power
240W power adapter
Support USB PD 3.0 up to 65W

Dimensions
399 x 272 x 18.7 mm
360 x 252 x 18.9 mm
399 x 272 x 18.7 mm
360 x 252 x 18.9 mm

Weight
2.6kg
2.0kg
2.6kg
2.0kg

Price
RM16 999
RM15 499
RM13 999
RM10 499

Availability
End of Sept.
Mid of Sept.
End of Sept.
Mid of Sept.

Stay tuned for our review of the ROG Zephyrus S17!
ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 – RM6999

If you are in the market for a portable and stylish gaming beast, well the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 might be right up your alley. While portable, it still sports the Intel Core i7-10750H, which is a six-core, twelve-threaded processor capable of running at up to 5.0 GHz. Mated with a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, you might be surprised to find out that it is mere 1.9kg light and less than 20mm thin.
ROG Zephyrus M15 Specs

ROG Zephyrus M15

Model Name
GU502L-UAZ087T

CPU
Intel Core i7-10750H, 6C/12T @ up to 5.0 GHz, 45W TDP, 14nm

Graphics
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.15 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB GDDR6

RAM
8GB DDR4-3200 on-board + 8GB DDR4-3200 SO-DIMM (running at 2933MHz)

Storage
1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
(1 x M.2 PCIe slot vacant)

Display
15.6″ FHD (1080p) 240Hz, 3ms, 100% sRGB Pantone Validated

Power
230W power adapter
Support USB PD 3.0 up to 65W

Dimensions
360 x 252 x 19.9 mm

Weight
1.9kg

Price
RM6999

Availability
Now

ROG Strix SCAR 15/17 – from RM7499

For a more affordable gaming machine, you can look to the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR series. Being the fourth iteration of the ROG Strix SCAR family, it brings with it an aggressive design that is unmistakably a member of the ROG Strix SCAR family. Along with its unique aesthetics are some fearsome hardware under the hood to ensure that the laptops aren’t all-show-and-no-go. And last but not least, they sport the ROG Keystone II which uses NFC capabilities to serve up some pretty cool features such as a hidden drive to store your private research material.
ROG Strix SCAR 15 and SCAR 17 Specs

ROG Strix SCAR 17
ROG Strix SCAR 15
ROG Strix SCAR 17
ROG Strix SCAR 15
ROG Strix SCAR 17
ROG Strix SCAR 15

Model Name
G732L-XSHG068T
G532L-WSHF083T
G732L-WEV054T
G532L-WAZ085T
G732L-VEV048T
G532L-VAZ069T

CPU
Intel Core i7-10875H, 8C/16T @ up to 5.1 GHz, 45W TDP, 14nm

Graphics
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.2 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8GB GDDR6
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.2 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8GB GDDR6
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.2 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 8GB GDDR6
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.2 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 8GB GDDR6
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.2 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB GDDR6
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.2 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB GDDR6

RAM
2 x 16GB DDR4-3200 SO-DIMM
2 x 8GB DDR4-3200 SO-DIMM

Storage
2 x 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD RAID 0
(1 x M.2 PCIe slot vacant)
2 x 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD RAID 0
(1 x M.2 PCIe slot vacant)
1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
(2 x M.2 PCIe slot vacant)

Display
17.3″ FHD, 300Hz, 3ms, 100% sRGB
15.6″ FHD, 300Hz, 3ms, 100% sRGB
17.3″ FHD, 144Hz, 3ms, 100% sRGB
15.6″ FHD, 240Hz, 3ms, 100% sRGB
17.3″ FHD, 144Hz, 3ms, 100% sRGB
15.6″ FHD, 240Hz, 3ms, 100% sRGB

Power
280W power adapter
230W power adapter

Dimensions
400 x 290 x 26.2 mm
360 x 275 x 24.9 mm
400 x 290 x 26.2 mm
360 x 275 x 24.9 mm
400 x 290 x 26.2 mm
360 x 275 x 24.9 mm

Weight
2.9kg
2.57kg
2.9kg
2.57kg
2.9kg
2.57kg

Price
RM14 499
RM9499
RM8299
RM7999
RM7499
RM7499

Availability
End of Sept.
Early Sept.
Now
Now
Now
Now

ROG Strix G15/G17 – Starting from RM4399

Even more affordable options are available in the ASUS ROG Strix G series. Comprising of the ROG Strix G15 and ROG Strix G17, you get an option of either a 15.6″ display or a 17.3″ display, to fulfill your gaming needs. Under the hood are beefy 10th Gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA’s Turing GPUs.
ROG Strix G15 and G17 Specs

ROG Strix G15
ROG Strix G17
ROG Strix G17
ROG Strix G15
ROG Strix G15

Model Name
G512L-VHN146T
G712L-VEV067T
G712L-UH7082T
G512L-UHN191T
G512L-IAL007T

CPU
Intel Core i7-10750H, 6C/12T @ up to 5.0GHz, 45W TDP, 14nm

Graphics
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.15GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB GDDR6
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.15GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB GDDR6
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.15GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB GDDR6
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.15GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti 4GB GDDR6

RAM
2 x 8GB DDR4-3200 SO-DIMM
(running at 2933MHz)

Storage
1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
(2 x M.2 PCIe slot vacant)
512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
(2 x M.2 PCIe slot vacant)

Display
15.6″ FHD, 144Hz
17.3″ FHD, 144Hz
17.3″ FHD, 120Hz
15.6″ FHD, 144Hz

Power
230W power adapter

Dimensions
360 x 275 x 25.8 mm
399.7 x 293.4 x 26.5 mm
360 x 275 x 25.8 mm

Weight
2.3kg
2.85kg
2.3kg

Price
RM6699
RM6699
RM6199
RM5999
RM4999

Availability
Now
Now
Now
Now
Now

The ROG Strix G15 will also come in two unique color options, Glacier Blue and Electro Punk. No I didn’t spell Pink wrongly… It is Electro Punk. The ROG Strix G15 Electro Punk comes with a matching set of Electro Punk accessories including a ROG Ranger backpack, ROG Mousepad, ROG Impact II mouse, all in the unique Electro Punk color option.
ROG Strix G15 Electro Punk
ROG Strix G15 Glacier Blue and ROG Strix G15 Electro Punk Specs

ROG Strix G15 (Electro Punk)
ROG Strix G15 (Glacier Blue)

Model Name
G512L-IHN156T
G712L-IAL031T

CPU
Intel Core i7-10750H, 6C/12T @ up to 5.0GHz, 45W TDP, 14nm

Graphics
Intel UHD Graphics @ 1.15 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti 4GB GDDR6

RAM
2 x 8GB DDR4-3200 SO-DIMM

Storage
512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
(2 x M.2 PCIe slot vacant)

Display
15.6″ FHD, 144Hz

Power
230W power adapter

Dimensions
360 x 275 x 25.8 mm

Weight
2.30kg

Price
RM5199
RM4399

Availability
Early Sept.
Early Sept.

ROG Strix G15 Glacier Blue
And that’s it for all the laptops announced today. Which one is your pick?
Pokdepinion: The ROG Zephyrus M15 is probably going to be my pick…

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