Mobile World Congress 2020 (MWC2020) has been cancelled and we are still mourning a little bit. That does not deter brands from launching some of their biggest mobile products of the year though. One of them is HONOR, a familiar name in the smartphone community.
Honestly, we are a fan of the brand with their value proposition. We loved then HONOR 8 and HONOR 9 when it came out. That was because we also agreed with HONOR that flagships should not cost an arm and a leg to own. Smartphones should be a fuss free experience with online marketplaces and great value proposition.
Over the years, the brand has come to more than just a smartphone maker. They are also now a smartwatch maker. For this year, they are also a PC manufacturer.
Source: HONOR
It does make sense, they do know how to make great devices at prices lower than what you can expect from brands like Samsung, for example. So what do they have up their sleeves for the world of notebook PCs? The MagicBook 14 and 15 is here.
Both pack the same things within the lightweight and thin body construction. The only differentiation between the two models are the screen sizes at 14-inch and 15-inch. Of course, different screens also means differing body sizes and slight difference in weight.
The MagicBook is powered by a powerful AMD Ryzen 5 3500U processor. That processor comes with an integrated Vega GPU, which is proven to be quite a performer as well. This means, at the right temperature, the AMD powered MagicBook could work its magic on video editing. To be sure of that though, HONOR fits the MagicBook with up to 8GB of dual-channel RAM for optimum memory usage. You might be able to upgrade that DDR4 module to even more RAM. Its 256GB SSD may not sound like plenty, but because it is SSD, the HONOR MagicBook should feel quick.
Source: HONOR
To top it all of, the 14-inch display is Rheinland certified and is coated with an anti-glare coating. That also helps you work in bright light environments without the lights firing back at you from the display. Keeping everything powered up and ready to get going is a 56Wh battery that is quoted for 10 hours of continuous battery life. It charges via a USB Type-C cable at up to 65W, very fast. Still there is more than just one USB Type-C port on the MagicBook. It also has a USB 3.0 port and a USB 2.0 port for maximum flexibility.
There is one interesting feature on the MagicBook that would really appeal to existing HONOR smartphone owners though. There is something called Magic Link. It works just like HUAWEI Share except for HONOR devices only. With Magic Link though, you can control your smartphone from the display of the MagicBook instead. That also means you can check your messages, reply emails, and open browser on your smartphone but on the notebook PC. The best part, you can just drag and drop files from and to the device without ever needing to connect a cable from the PC to the smartphone.
Source: HONOR
Source: HONOR
Source: HONOR
Source: HONOR
Source: HONOR
Source: HONOR
Source: HONOR
Source: HONOR
The HONOR MagicBook will be available March 2020 onward in selected markets; Malaysia not one of them yet. It will be priced at EU€ 599 in the launching markets. That is about approximately MYR 2,751. While that may not sound like much, we are expecting prices to be a little lower in Malaysia. How much, we do not know for sure yet. There will also be a 512GB storage version of the HONOR MagicBook 14 and 15 later on.
The 2020 HUAWEI MateBook D Series was launched back in November 2019 and in the UK earlier this month. However, the series made its global debut last night.
Let’s not waste time and get down to business then, shall we? The D Series laptop is made for the mass market giving you optimal performance and excellent battery life for a daily all rounder. There is the smaller 14 inch, MateBook D14 and a bigger 15.6 inch MateBook D15. Both laptops have thin bezels that are only 4.8mm and 5.3mm respectively. This would give the laptops a screen to body ratio of 84% and 87% respectively.
The displays are not touch displays unlike the MateBook X Pro which was also launched at the same time. Both D series screens have a 16:9 IPS display and both laptops comes with a hinge angle of up to 178° where you can lay the laptop almost flat.
Now to the workhorse that makes it all happen. The MateBook D will be running on either AMD or Intel’s chipsets. Giving you the your preferred option for the best value for money. For Intel’s chipset both D14 and D15 will only come with the 10th Generation Intel Core i5 processor. This processor will be paired with NVIDIA GeForce MX250 graphics card that has 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM to give you all the power to process what you need.
If you are on the red team instead, there are more goodies for you to choose from. Powered by AMD Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 processor for you to choose from. Coming with AMD Radeon Vega Graphics you will be able to game and work on heavy tasks with ease.
To power this baby up, the D Series uses a multi-purpose 62W Type C charger for the D14 and a 65W Type C charger for the D15. All of the D series laptops feature an overheat protection that will automatically stop charging the laptop once the temperature crosses a threshold to avoid any damages to the laptop.
Last but not least the pricing and the specifications. For Intel’s line up on the D14, we have an Intel Core i5, paired with 8GB of RAM, 512GB SSD of storage and NVIDIA MX250 graphics card which cost €949 (MYR4,357). On AMD’s line up we have either a Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 to choose from with 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD for storage. The AMD variations will be going to go for €699 (MYR3,209) for the Ryzen 5 and €799 (MYR3,668) for the Ryzen 7.
As for the bigger D15, it also runs on the same Intel Core i5, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD storage and a NVIDIA MX250 graphics card. Weirdly enough the D15 will be priced the same as the D14 at €949 (MYR4,357). The D15 for AMD on the other hand will cost €649 (MYR2,980) which will be coming with Ryzen 5, with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. The higher Ryzen 7 will come with also 8GB of RAM but a bigger 512GB SSD going for €799 (MYR3,668).
After a long hiatus HUAWEI has launched their flagship laptop, the Matebook X Pro. The Matebook X Pro is a 13.9-inch laptop with thin bezels that gives the laptop an amazing 91% screen to body coverage. The HUAWEI MateBook X Pro pushes 3,000 x 2,000 pixels creating a display with a pixel density of 260ppi. thanks to the super slim bezel you get a true border-less experience.
Processing power of the new Matebook X Pro is courtesy of Intel’s 10th gen Core i7-10510U. There is also a cheaper variant with Intel’s Core i5-10210U. Even the Core i5 version should give you a smooth and snappy experience on The HUAWEI Matebook X Pro.
To complement the power and take full advantage of multitasking, the laptop comes with 16GB of RAM across all variants. 16GB of RAM is copious for you and your laptop to work with. Ample RAM also gives you the ability to run multiple tasks at once without slowing down. The MateBook X Pro also comes with a minimum of 512GB and the top variant comes with a whopping 1TB storage. That also means you may not need to worry about storage needs for a while.
The MateBook X Pro comes with NVIDIA GeForce MX250 with 2GB of GDDR5 to give you a smooth experience in all tasks at hand from video editing to gaming. That is good news for most power users. That is especially if you need to use your notebook PC as a remote video editing rig. You might not want to put Adobe’s After Effects through it though. Then again, After Effects is too heavy to run on plenty of PCs.
The new MateBook X Pro is designed with a metal unibody with a diamond cut edge giving it a sleeker and thinner look. Well, it is only 14.6mm thick. Anyway, the body comes finished with a premium sandblasted finish that feels smooth to the touch and it has three different colours to choose from. They come in Space Grey, Emerald Green and Mystic Silver.
Such Slim, Very Thin, Many Power, Wow. In that small package, HUAWEI still managed to fit a 56Wh battery that could last up to 12 hours of video playback. All these watts, and you still gotta charge them. The MateBook X Pro has a 65W Type-C portable adapter which can be used with a wide variety of charging outputs.
The time has come, for the pricing and its variations. There will be three variants, all of which comes with touch screens. The first two variants will be running on Intel’s 10th Generation Core i5 with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. That is where the similarities end, the only difference is that one comes with a MX250 graphics card and the other does not. The last and final variant gets the same 16GB RAM and MX250 graphics card but it comes with a more powerful Intel Core i7 processor and a bigger storage at 1TB. The prices for all three variants of the laptop are as follow, EU€ 1,499, EU€ 1,699, EU€ 1,999 which translates to about MYR 6,820 , MYR 7,730 and MYR 9,095.
When the ROG Strix RX 7500-series graphics was launched it was HAWT. It seems like they’re taking that pretty literally; the graphics cards have been reported to heat up, even when not overclocked. Imagine what damage it would have done if it was overclocked, you could likely cook an egg.
ASUS posted a statement a week ago stating that the Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) is not getting its optimal thermal performance as more graphical performance is demanded from the GPU. According to ASUS, the GPU’s cooling fans are torqued between 30 to 40 PSI following AMD’s recommended guidelines. This was done as a precaution as the Radeon RX7500-series is the first GPU based on a new 7nm architecture. Thus, ASUS didn’t want to risk completely killing the GPU.
Source: ASUS
To solve the problem, ASUS said they have done extensive R&D testing to find out the best PSI range for the GPU to have the most efficient thermal performance. Form their test ASUS has determined that the optimal pressure for the GPU is almost double from the guidelines ranging from 50 to 60 PSI.
On that account, all ROG Strix Radeon RX-7500 shipped from January onwards will ship defaulted to the new settings for better performance and reliability. If you have bought a ROG Strix Radeon RX5700 series before January of 2020, don’t fret. ASUS has got you covered. Contact your nearest ASUS service centers starting March of 2020 and ASUS would happily perform the upgrade for you.
Even though the upgrade would be free, there is another set back to the the upgrading program. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak, logistics has been affected and necessary shipment of the components would take quite some time. Again do contact your local ASUS service centers for future details.
*This article is a contributed article byRavi Saraogi, Co-Founder and President of Uniphore, APAC *
2020 marks the transition into the great unknown. With the emergence of
new possibilities and challenges ahead of us, successful organisations must be
quick to identify and take advantage of opportunities through the power of emerging
technologies. Specific to the customer service industry, brands that utilise
Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies will improve business
operations and customer experiences.
It is estimated that about 70% of organizations will integrate AI to
assist employee productivity by 2021[1] to
meet the high demand of delivering faster, relevant and holistic services to
today’s customers. More often than not, customers today are frustrated that
broken customer service systems and poorly equipped agents don’t understand
their requests. To fix this, businesses must move away from a siloed experience
and approach service holistically.
Photo by mahdis mousavi on Unsplash
In terms of the adoption of the adoption of AI in Malaysian businesses,
it was revealed that only 26% of companies in Malaysia have actually begun
integrating AI into their operations, according to a survey that was conducted
in 2018. The low adoption rate is attributed to two key barriers that are
related to organizational culture on AI and limited employee skill sets2.
Thus, the time is now to blend the capabilities
of people and AI and better understand conversations in real-time for
businesses to stay ahead of the race.
New Power to Customer Voice
With technological capabilities, it’s about time we start hearing what
customers really want. Customers today are time poor, distracted and empowered
by lots of products and services to choose from. Instant gratification is their
modus operandi. With other factors like price point and product quality being at
par, superior customer service remains challenging and is often a deal breaker.
In a competitive landscape, customers demand a seamless experience when
interacting with a brand.
That said, poor customer experiences are not difficult to resolve at
all, more so today due to machine learning, AI and automation. This is because AI
is now helping brands to truly listen to the voice of the customer and
understand their needs in order to quickly resolve customer queries, deepen customer
engagement, and deliver superior customer experience at scale.
Making Headway with Conversational Service Automation
Minister of Communications and Multimedia, Gobind Singh Deo emphasises
Malaysia’s potential in the development of AI in both public and private
sectors, and the importance of ensuring the local government and industries
capitalise on the opportunities at hand.[2]
The use of AI is becoming more prevalent in the customer service industry as conversations become more complex. There is a small window of opportunity for brands to deliver personalised customer service, particularly when your engagement happens across diverse channels. Being equipped with an understanding of context, sentiment, behaviour and real intent, and being able to act on such insights in real-time becomes even more crucial.
Photo by Joseph Pearson on Unsplash
Conversational Service Automation is about enabling front office
automation in contact centres. Consider this scenario: A customer starts a
conversation with a chatbot for quick self-service. The bot is able to provide
some quick and valuable updates based on the customer’s previous interactions.
If the conversation gets more complex, the voice bot politely hands the call to
a human agent via a live transfer. The agent is assisted through real-time
analytics and chat transcripts to be able to make the next best offer which the
customer gladly accepts.
This automation backed by real-time analytics is continuously
self-learning, enabling real-time listening of conversations across channels
and then converting them into actionable insights. As a result, a win-win
situation is created where businesses can reduce work pressure on call center
agents, improve accuracy of information and greater customer satisfaction.
Getting Ahead of the Race with Voice and AI
We are in the midst of a customer experience transformation and
conversational AI technology is leading this change. There is a positive acceptance
from both businesses and customers to adopt newer conversational AI
technologies. This is driven by the try-before-you-buy and pay-as-you-go models
offered, which enterprises find appealing and less risky. Brands can take
smaller bets, test-and-learn and then scale up.
Automation has successfully allowed computers to respond to contexts
within queries, monitor customer behaviour and improve overall customer
service. Moreover, contact centre agents can now receive real-time alerts and
recommendations for upsell and cross-sell. The time is now for companies to
leverage conversational AI to deliver a quantum leap in customer service, in an
industry that is full of potential. It is good to note that brands that embrace
conversational service automation will be the ones who stay ahead of the
competition and thrive in the new decade.
Yes, we are riding the waves of the top news today too. If you go on Twitter, there are two quite a number of things that are trending in Malaysia. As of this writing, the top trending topic in Malaysia has nothing to do with the subject. Look further down though and there it is. #Wuhan is number three in Malaysia’s trending topics. Following that is #2019nCoV. Both of these refers to the subject that is also commonly known as the Wuhan virus.
Due to the virus, plenty of life in Asia has grounded to a halt. The official death toll in China has climbed over 400 and will continue to do so. Beyond that, China has also confirmed more than 20,000 cases within their borders. There are reports coming out of the country itself that China has quarantined more than 30 million people and suspects that the confirmed case numbers are closer to 10 million.
In Malaysia itself, there are already 8 reported cases. All of them are now in quarantine though. Still, #Wuhan is the trending topic, not only on twitter but everywhere else too. Air travels has been suspended and trips cancelled left and right. Not to mention, you might not be able to obtain anymore hand sanitisers and face mask now.
The virus though, does not hinder the progress of humanity. Wait, no that is not right. The virus will not hinder Samsung’s progress in their digital conquest. That sounds about right.
Source: Business Korea
You would expect plenty of construction work, or any sort of work in China itself to slowdown. That is not the case with Samsung’s Xi’an plant though. The plant, that is to be operational in the mid of 2020 will be Samsung’s second manufacturing plant in Xi’an and will be focusing on making memory chips.
While that construction is going smoothly and on track, Samsung has not stopped their progress as the world’s most advanced memory chip maker too. They have just announced and introduced their brand new third generation HBM2E fondly named ‘Flashbolt’. HBM stands for ‘High Bandwidth Memory’.
Source: Samsung
The new Flashbolt chip has a capacity of 16GB that is combined through stacking eight 10nm 16Gb DRAM (that is Gigabit for you) dies on top of a buffer chip. A little technical? Quite a lot actually. While half of us may not understand that process, it is important to note that the HBM2E has an average transfer speed of 3.2Gbps. In some cases, the Flashbolt can hit 4.2 Gbps in transfer speeds.
The current high performance memory module, the Aquabolt has a bandwidth of 307 GBps. With the new Flashbolt, that number goes up to 410 GBps per stack or up to 538GBps, if you might. Technically this does not mean that much to us as consumers.
Thing is, research labs all over the world needs all these stuff in their super computers. Plenty of these highly advanced labs uses Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) or Machine Learning (M.L.). Those applications eventually reach us, the users. With the advanced of a high speed and bandwidth chip like this, A.I. and M.L. algorithms and application can be more powerful than ever before. In that sense, no one will argue for a more powerful Google Assistant or Siri then.
Adobe Premiere Pro is quickly becoming one of the most popular video editing tools among professionals. If you stay for the credits in movies, you’ll realise that a growing number of them have Adobe’s logo in the credits. As such, the demands on Premiere Pro and its features are slowly evolving to adapt to an ever changing workplace with an increased amount of collaboration.
“Productions” was designed in collaboration with some of the largest producers and editors in Hollywood. The feature was tested on recent films such as “Terminator: Dark Fate” and “Dolemite is My Name” with special builds being used in ongoing projects.
The new “Productions” feature in Adobe Premiere Pro allows users to arrange and organise large projects into smaller, bite sized chunks. With these chunks as guides, video editors and videographers are able to divide and upload footage and assets to Adobe Creative Cloud and Premiere Pro in a more organised way. They will be able to create folders within their project files which will sync seamlessly between team members and also allow team members to download updated assets and files to work offline. It will continue to sync once the person goes online.
The more flexible collaborative and management features on “Productions” allow assets and video footage for large productions to be segregated into smaller portions. It also allows larger episodic productions to be organised according to episodes or even more granular divisions. It also allows reused assets to be shared or duplicated across folders seamlessly. You can easily add to project workflows by adding projects to the “Productions” panel within Adobe Premiere Pro. This will then add the project to the larger workflow.
Project locking in “Productions” allows editors to lock their active project. This will prevent collaborators from overwriting or deleting work files or the project. However, it still allows collaborators to seamlessly copy and import assets from the active workflow to their own. Project settings are also synchronised between project files in “Productions”. This allows collaborators to previews rendered by a single editor can be made available to all the editors for smooth playback.
The feature is coming to Adobe Premiere Pro soonon both MacOS and Windows. However, Adobe has not provided an exact date just yet.
CISO stands for Chief Information Security Officer. From that description alone, we believe you would know what this report is about then. If you still do not; Cisco did a study for the cyber security field for 2019 by interviewing about 2,000 Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) or security professionals all over Asia Pacific. You would be glad to know also that about 10% of the participants in the study are Malaysian. While that does not change the nature of the study, the sample size should mean that there is some accuracy in the general scheme of things.
Source: Cisco
The Big Numbers
The big numbers for Malaysia are 44% of threat alerts are investigated, 46% of the recognised threats are neutralised, and 27% have faced downtime of longer than 24 hours due to a cyber security breach or threat. There are some good things about these numbers, and some bad things too. So it is not all roses and rainbows for Malaysia’s cyber security industry in 2019.
The first of the numbers are the investigated threats. This does not mean alerts. Receiving cyber threat alerts and investigating them are two different things. You can have threat alerts of more than 10,000 and still not investigate any of them for a number of reasons. Still, investigated threats are escalated from reported threats.
According to the Malaysian numbers, 44% of threats reported in Malaysia are investigated in 2019. That is 4% more than 2018, Malaysian CISOs are busier by 4% last year 2019 than in 2018 then. That could be due to the raised number of serious threats. It could also mean that awareness to cyber threats have increased in Malaysia. So while it does sound like Malaysia is being attacked more, it also means that Malaysians are now better prepared for cyber threats or breaches.
Out of all the verified threats, nearly half of them were remediated at 46%. That number is higher than plenty of Malaysia’s neighbours and the average in Asia Pacific at 43%. The other half? Maybe those cases could be a little tougher. Still, that also means that Malaysians are capable of handling cyber security issues. This number is also an increase from 2018.
The next big number is 27% of companies declared a downtime of more than 24 hours when they get attacked. This is a large increase from 2018’s 9%. While this may not seem like a good thing, there is a bigger story that than. For one, this also means that Malaysia is plenty more digital in 2019 than 2018. This increase could also be because of the increased threat detection in 2019. The result was also a higher resolution to each identified threat.
More Vendors, More Problems?
It seems only yesterday that having multiple layers of security is a good thing. Like plenty of things, throwing money at something should solve a problem. Those were the days.
There used to be a time when organisations like banks would recommend having about 10 security vendors to layer security in all parts of their organisation. In some sense, it works; but it is very expensive, and very inconvenient for users. That is not yet considering the fact that having multiple vendors and that many layers of security increases complexity in controlling and managing the solutions.
The new way to think about cyber security then is to keep the number of vendors down to as little as required. This reduces not just complexity of workflow and simplifies management, but also increases the efficiency of managing cyber threats.
From the Malaysian numbers though, this seems to be a slightly new concept with more than 35% of the responding organisations having more than 10 vendors. While this is slightly lower than 2018’s 39%, there is still a need to reduce that number even lower. Malaysians realise that too, with 90% of respondents finding it hard to manage that many vendors at the same time. Some experts suggests that having five to six vendors at a time is enough for a holistic cybersecurity system to be in place for any organisation.
The Problem With Cybersecurity Malaysia
There are still looming problems for a country that is going through a major digital transformation though. While the progress toward a digital Malaysia and Industry 4.0 has been a steady one in the region, there are still fundamental problems that might hinder progress or create holes in the cyber armours that the CISOs have put up or tried to put up. One of these enemies to cyber security is budget.
There are times where companies might have a large constraint over budget. For most SMEs and startups, it is quite understandable. They would probably need to pool their money in things that they might find more useful to them in the shorter run. That is not saying that it is not a problem for them or the general cyber security state in Malaysia. It is still a problem, but an inevitable one.
There are cases with large organisations that has restricted their budgets to cyber security because they do not yet see the value in cybersecurity. This becomes a major issue for CISOs. Despite the consensus that more money may not mean more protection, cyber security still needs a pool of money to work with. If not enough money is being poured into the department, not much can be done. With less protection, larger organisations are more vulnerable and thus, might lose even more money.
The biggest problem with cyber security, not just in Malaysia but most of the world, is always personnel; both the lack of skilled workers and awareness of the main issue. Thing is though, CISOs all over Malaysia are also making efforts to reduce this number down with plenty of awareness and skill training of personnel all over the company. The number of skilled personnel in terms of cyber security in Malaysia is also growing continuously, which also means that it is a problem that can be solved in time.
So What do We do in 2020?
2020 is meant to be the year of progress, of near complete digital revolution. It is the year of 5G and WiFi 6, the year where data is meant to be all covering and seamless. That potentially means more cyber security risks with bigger data bandwidth and less latency. It gives software less time to react. Which means that a DDoS attack could be a big thing in 2020.
Still, awareness is key to combating cyber attacks. With the availability of data in today’s world, having a VPN no longer cuts it. The only benefit of VPN these days is to ensure that whatever that you have accessed is not tracked by your data or service provider. You are still at risk of a cyber attack even via VPN.
The fact that you have multiple devices that are connected to the internet and each other is already a threat on their own. At every point and turn, you really have to be aware of what you are accessing on the internet and what you are vulnerable to. That allows you to be more alert on things like phishing attacks, malicious links, email scams and what not. That should be enough as the first layer of defense against common cyber attacks, maybe even big ones like ransomware and what not.
If you are planning on getting an Anti-Virus software protection on your PC, consider spending a little more than what you would pay for a generic Anti-Virus program. You might want to look into find an Anti-Virus program that covers the whole lot from spyware, adware, to even malware. That way, you are ensured of a holistic protection, at least on your own end.
The
PC that we know today has evolved leaps and bounds from the old days.
These days, while PC towers are still around, and you can buy a decent
one for less than MYR 2,000, portable PCs are kings. They offer
unrivalled portability and yet still offer you the power to work like
you have never left the office, or your desk. Powerful enough notebook
PCs are even able to allow you to not only work on graphic heavy
applications, they allow you to play games at a level of immersion that
has never been seen before. They are as powerful as your desktop tower
PC at home.
Still, there are some limitations to a notebook PC. The keyboard for one, you cannot change that, and most will never get the benefit of mechanical keyboards, thanks to the bulk in most mechanical keyboard designs. So you end up with less-than-stellar keyboard most of the time. Then there is cooling. A notebook PC will always have the same cooling issues because you try to fit powerful, aluminium melting processors into a space that is not even big enough for your pinky to fit into. Of course, there are going to be heat management problems. Of course, technology have negated those issues and caught the notebook PCs up to the traditional desktop towers.
There
is however, one problem that can hardly be solved when it comes to
notebook PCs – display, or should I say; displays. There is only one
display on a notebook PC, and you cannot upgrade it once you get one. On
a desktop tower, you can choose to get one large display, or two, or
three, or four; depending on your budget and set up requirements. On a
notebook PC you only can have one, thanks to the size. Or is it?
Not according to ASUS though. This is the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo, a dual-display wieldinng
piece of hunk that you call a notebook PC. It has two displays and
still folds the same way any notebook PC does. No this is not some kind
of an e-ink display paired to a normal display like the Lenovo YogaBook
C930. This is a proper coloured LCD display that you get alongside a 4K
resolution OLED display. It is not a concept like the Razer that we saw
a few years ago too. It is real, and it is in our hands. Is it any good
though? Should you spend your money on this? Oh wait, we have not told
you how much it is just yet.
Design
On
the outside, it looks just like any other notebook PC. It is none of
those super slim, super light notebook PC though. It is a properly heavy
notebook PC packing some metal in its sculpted body. Well, then again,
its body is made up of metal as well.
There
is plenty aluminium everywhere, not a lot of plastic; very unlike any
other ASUS notebook PCs that we are used to. While using plastic sounds
cheap, the ones on most ASUS notebook PCs I know are quite high in
quality. The benefit of weight is also a good encouragement for the use
of plastics.
Of course, aluminium and other metal materials are more premium. That is exactly the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo, premium in both feel and build. The downside to that is weight, but you are going to want this to sit on your desk most of the time anyway, it weighs 2.5kg; reminds you of the old days of notebook PCs no?
Still, the ZenBook Pro Duo looks unique. In line with ASUS Anniversary design language, the ZenBook Pro Duo looks sharp, with acute angles and powerful lines. You have the iconic brushed aluminium on the top clam, and multiple grilles on the sides and the edges to cool the rig. It looks, cool in that its metallic blue finish. It looks like a spaceship; otherworldly. It looks cool.
To
be fair though, this is a hate it or love it design. At first, I was
struggling to like the look of the odd notebook PC. It is aggressive in
looks, and if I am being honest, I like more flowy designs with softer
lines. Still, it grew on me.
Open
it up and you see the dual displays. The regular display is a beautiful
OLED, glossing in your eyes. Look down and you see another LCD display
that is put right above the keyboard, a familiar layout (ehem Zephyrus ehem). Oh, and there is an LED outlet too at the bottom part of the clam, under the keyboard. That is strangely cool.
Because typing on this kind of layout can be awkward, there is a palm rest included in the box of the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo, which extends the bottom part of the notebook PC a little bit. No, it is not aluminium just like the rest of the PC, it is plastic constructed with some faux leather top and rubberised strips for better grip on the table and comfortable typing. There is a prism thing going on in the palm rest too reflecting the LED below the keyboard. It glows green when the PC is fully charged, and red while charging. Pretty cool if you ask me.
Unlike the ASUS notebook PCs of the previous generation, you do not get an indented display hinge. It is now a completely seamless hinge that goes from one end to the other end. It does make the notebook PC look cleaner than before. But there is another reason for this completely streamlined hinge. The display part of the notebook PC also acts like the stand to angle the notebook the PC’s bottom part. The benefit of that is the better ergonomics on your keyboard. The downside is cooling because the vents at the back is now pointing to the display. The ZenBook Pro Duo’s cooling though is on the sides, so your main display is not going to be overheated.
Hardware
The premium ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo is built with aluminium mostly, not as cold and heavy as steel but still very sturdy and high quality. That aluminium build, that we may not be very used to on an ASUS notebook PC, while makes it 2.5kg heavy, makes it a little more special. Yes, it has two displays.
To power two displays though you need some real processing ang GPU power. That is the 9th
Generation Intel Core i7 you find under the hood. That processor is
also paired to a NVIDIA GeForce RTX2060 for good measure. Yes, they
could have gone for an RTX 2080, but that would bring the cost up and
complicate the whole heat management issue. Remember, they have to deal
with dissipating heat from the other display too.
Specifications
ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo UX581GV
As Tested
Processor (clock)
9th Generation Intel Core i7-9750H (2.6GHz ~ up to 4.5GHz)
GPU
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB DDR6 VRAM)
Display(s)
Primary 15.6-inch OLED 4K (3840 x 2160) touch sensitive 100% DCI-P3 Secondary (ScreenPad+) 14-inch 4K (3840 x 1100) touch sensitive
Memory
1TB NVME M.2 SSD 32GB 2666MHz DDR4 RAM
Networking and Connections
1 x Thunderbolt™ 3 USB-C™ (up to 40Gbps and DisplayPort) 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A (up to 10Gbps) 1 x Standard HDMI 2.0 1 x Audio combo jack Intel Wi-Fi 6 with Gig+ performance (802.11ax) Bluetooth 5.0
Battery
71Wh 8-cell Li-Polymer
Operating System
Windows 10 Home
Miscellaneous
ASUS SonicMaster Audio with Harman Kardon Certification Detachable Palm Rest Detachable Laptop Stand ASUS Pen
Features
Its good looks are not all show, no go. This thing packs plenty of tasteful goodies. For starters you see the dual displays.
Doubling Down
The ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo, true to its name, packs two displays. One is a full 15.6-inch display with 4K resolution on board. The other is also 4K in resolution, in width anyway. In height, it is half the size of the 15.6-inch display. It is not the same OLED panel as the main 15-incher display too. It is an LCD panel amd we are guessing that the decision to go LCD was also because of cost. An OLED panel would have made sense though with its minimal heat production and accurate colour reproduction. It would have added quite a little bit to the cost, yes.
Still,
dual displays built into a notebook PC; not the first time we see it
but it is the first that is commercially available. The first we saw of
this was a prototype that came from Razer a few years ago. While that
was an interesting concept, it was not viable mainly because of its
massive weight and estimated cost. It was stolen as well, a day or two
after it was displayed on the biggest electronics show floor.
So,
this the first commercially available and viable dual display notebook
PC for the market. It will still set you back more than MYR10,000 and
that is still a lot of money to be fair. But hey, where eles can you find a notebook with two displays built into it.
The
LCD display on top of the keyboard is mostly used as a control panel
for whatever applications you might think of. Things like Adobe’s
Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and what not can support a
multi-window workflow and the dual display surely benefits users from
that. For example, you can control your timelines and what not on Adobe
Premiere Pro on your secondary display. That way, your preview panel can
be bigger and fuller. I would still be recommending anyone to downscale the preview to half the resolution if they are planning to edit 4K videos though for smoother workflow.
For
gaming, we hardly see the point. But other form of entertainment like
movies, or Spotify, or YouTube, maybe. For Spotify especially, you can
just leave the Spotify window to open on the secondary display and
control music on the secondary display via touch. Yes, both displays are
touch sensitive, so there is that. Of course, you may not extend your
movie watching to go all the way into the secondary display, but you can
pull out your controls and use it on the secondary display.
The
secondary display can also act as your alternative web browser just in
case you need to refer to anything for other things on your main
display. If you do use the pen that comes in the box (we did not have
ours) you can even use the secondary panel as a drawing pad. There is
one thing about the PadScreen (as they call it) though that is a little annoying; its placement.
While
the secondary display is functional, its placement can be a little bit
of a literal pain in the neck. You are craning down on the secondary
display most of the time when you are looking at it. If you are not
using any palm rest for it the keyboard, you are going to have to
prepare yourself for carpal tunnel syndrome too, your wrist is going to
get injured in that kind of prolonged usage. Yes, they have included a
stand out of the box which you can use to raise the keyboard and ScreenPad panel a little bit, which helps; not a lot.
Still, there is definitely use for the ScreenPad. While we do think that you will not miss out that much if you do not have a ScreenPad,
it is a nice thing to have on the go. Still, we would recommend you to
pack the palm rest as well in your bag when you want to work offsite.
Still, it is a heavy piece of kit to be carrying around so you might
want to leave it behind and pack something lighter.
OLED Forever
The
15.6-inch main display is a 4K OLED unit, which also means
ultra-accurate colours with ultra-high contrasts. The numbers speak for
itself though; 100% DCI-P3. You get HDR with this display too for even
better contrasts. Well, it is an OLED panel after all.
Still,
the OLED display is not just important when you want to sit back, kick
back, and enjoy a good movie, or play a video game. It is important for
you as a creator as well. You need highly accurate colours to do colour
correction and editing. You need HDR to correctly tell where your
content is. You need OLED for everything. Yes, we really like OLED
technology.
Still,
beyond your creator and editing duties, you would like to be able to
enjoy contents too. In that case as well the OLED on the ZenBook
Pro Duo does not disappoint. Playing Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon:
Breakpoint definitely highlights the super accurate and vivid colours
that the OLED boasts. Even the slightest in light changes can be noted
on the display thanks to HDR on OLED. Watching Netflix with HDR and 4K
enabled shows is breathtaking and immersive, especially with a good pair of headphones.
Harman Kardon
While it is not the loudest speakers you can find on a notebook PC, it is actually quite good. Thanks to some magic from Harman Kardon, the speakers fires very balanced audio with very clear highs and mids.
The bass needs a little working but it is quite normal for notebook PCs
with no built-in woofers. Then again, not many notebook PCs come with
subwoofers.
Still,
it is loud enough if you are not sharing the speakers with a room full
of people. It is good enough for personal listening and entertainment
purposes. Spotify on the speakers sounds plenty than good enough.
Watching movies with it though is awesome.
Gaming with the Harman Kardon
speakers is a little weak though, mostly because the lows are not that
great here. Still, it is not that you cannot use it for gaming; you can.
Maybe play games that does not include a lot of explosions?
Performance
Power Power Power
The weighty ASUS ZenBook
Pro Duo is bound to be a powerful notebook PC. Especially its packing
of an Intel Core i7 paired to at least 16GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce
RTX 2060 GPU. You can spec this with a Core i9 by the way if you really
wanted, of course you have to pay more for it if you do. The maximum
that they will do for GPU is the RTX2060 though, as we previously
mentioned and as per specified by ASUS; cooling issues.
That
is not to say that the Intel Core i9 produces the same heat as the Core
i7. The more powerful CPU obviously runs hotter than the less powerful
Core i7. Still, the Core i9 does not produce a significantly larger
amount of heat that the fans within the ASUS ZenBook
Pro Duo cannot manage. It is a different story with the GPU though.
While the heat produced from an NVIDIA GeForce RTX2070 is not that much
bigger than an RTX2060 too, it is about choosing between using a lesser
CPU or a more powerful one. In the case of ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo – it is the matter of pure processing power.
The
result, at least on our unit (Intel Core i7), is a fast machine, very
fast with the SSD installed in the machine. While you can expect a
bigger performance to come from the Core i9, we do think that the Core
i7 is plenty capable enough and you may not need to fork out an extra
MYR3,000 price tag that the Core i9 comes with. Yes, the Intel Core i9
option sets you back MYR3,000 more than the regular Core i7 option. You
only need that kind of power in certain situations.
Still,
our Core i7 can cope with plenty that we can throw at it. It handles
video editing without major issue, we pushed 4K videos on it mind you
and downscales it to 1080p. It renders the preview with no more issue or
render time than usual.
Gaming
We seldom push games to extend all the way to the secondary display. Why? What for?
Most
of the time, if you do want a multi-screen gaming experience, you want
to extend the displays horizontally; not vertically like the ZenBook Pro Duo’s dislpay arrangement. In this case, I cannot really think of any use case for the secondary display.
Still, you can game with it and as I have mentioned, the 4K OLED display will not disappoint you. Any games will look gorgeous on the 4K OLED display with great contrast and vivid colours.
Of
course, the powerful Intel Core i7 helped with the generously adequate
NVIDIA GeForce RTX2060 helps with the extra smooth gaming performance
when we play Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: BreakPoint
and The Shadow of the Tomb Raider. While we may not be able to push the
graphics all the way to ultra, we are still able to render them at high
settings at the minimum. We did not try Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on
it yet, but we are pretty sure it will look good.
Would we like to see better GPUs in the ASUS Zenbook Pro Duo? An RTX2070 perhaps? Yes. Would it make sense if we spec it at a mere Core i7? Maybe? Would it make sense cost wise? Maybe not. On its own, we think that the MYR 12,999 asking price is already quite steep if you are just looking to game. We admit that games look really good though.
Still,
if you wish to go all the way to the RTX2080, just remember that the
behemoth of a thing called the Acer Predator Helios 700 with their slide
down keyboard just for more airflow to keep the big GPU from
overheating or melting your hands.
Bringing in the Heat
With any PC build, especially a notebook PC, there is always the consideration of heat management. This is always true when you are trying to have a powerful build. In the case of the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo, there is the problem of powerful internals. Imagine the thought of fitting in an ultra-powerful Intel Core i9 to pair it to a powerful NVIDIA GeForce RTX2060.
While that may not be that much of a scary thought; you have to also think about the extra display that the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo packs. Not only that, ASUS is stacking the display on top of the CPU and GPU placements. That adds a whole slew of cooling problems in itself.
Still,
ASUS manages the heat with their new designed fans to dissipate the
heat mostly from the sides. That is why you see large grilles on the
side of the notebook PC, instead of the usual exhaust toward the back of
the device. In this case, if you aim all the heat to the back of the
device, it will heat up the 4K OLED display instead; not ideal.
Firing
the heat to the sides then is the most ideal way to dissipate the heat
generated by the internals and the additional LCD display; both the left
and right side for the ASUS. You will not believe the heat that is
produced by this thing though. I left a glass of chilled Coke with some
ice in it about 1 meter away from the left side of the notebook PC and
the ice melted within the 10 minutes I left it there. The drink got warm
a little later after that; so, I was left to drink a warm Coca-Cola
after that. To be fair, I was on Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint at
the time.
On normal operations though, you still feel a little bit of the heat coming down to your hands when you use a mouse right next to the notebook PC. While the fan may not be running at full chat, you can still feel the gush of air come out the side exhaust ports when the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo is on. If you have anything that is taxing on the GPU and CPU, you will hear the fan spooling faster and feel more heat on your hand; your mouse hand.
The Workhorse
The main function of the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo though is mostly for an added productivity. Thanks to the dual displays, at least, it should be quite something at that. Of course, with an included stylus, it should be even more intuitive and productive. We did not get to test it with the stylus though, sadly.
Still,
the dual displays do help a little with our video workflow. We use
Adobe’s Premiere Pro quite a lot in our video work process. As we have
mentioned we used the main AMOLED display for previews. The secondary
display is where all our timelines sits. You can put all the assets
there too and use that to enhance your workflow that way; we did
anyway.
Thanks to the colour accuracy of the main AMOLED display and 4K too, colour correcting is much easier to do with the ASUS ZenBook
Pro Duo. Of course, all the controls are pushed to the secondary
display to give more real estate for the preview screen. Larger display
real estate also means you can see more.
It is not all sunshine with the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo though. We do not like the keyboard
too much, we feel that the keyboard travel was a little too short;
uncomfortable to type on. The discomfort is pushed even further with the
keyboard placement; especially when you do not use the palm rest
provided in the box with the notebook PC.
The kind of keyboard layout the ZenBook Pro Duo has does not give us the possibility to use the notebook PC comfortably on our laps too. That, and the heat produced from the Zenbook Pro Duo just makes it uncomfortable after a while. The 2.5kg does not help too, it makes it feel like you are using your legs as ironing boards. You could toast a sandwich there too.
The ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo – Unportable Productivity Machine
The ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo will set you back MYR 12,999. If I am being completely hoinest,
I would tell you not to buy this notebook PC for that kind of money.
For that kind of money, you might get a better deal if you look
elsewhere even in ASUS’ extensive stables. For that kind of money, you
could easily get a large sized gaming notebook with a fast 17-inch
display that is powered by the same sort of CPU and an even more
powerful GPU to work with.
You
lose the AMOLED display, sure. But you get bigger display, lighter
build, and more power. You might not get 4K resolution, but the trade-off is still quite big.
You do not get the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo for gaming though. You get it for the productivity appeal of it. You get it for the dual displays; not because it is practical to bring around. You are most likely to just leave it on your work desk, or home desk, and go to a meeting with a piece of print out or thumb drive you can work with. You really do not want to carry it much, you might break your back with it.
You
get it for work mostly; creative work. You get it because you need
extra flexibility that you get with the dual display. You get it for the
beautiful 4K AMOLED display that you would use to watch movies and make
films out of it. You get it for the touch screens that you would use to
draw something with. You buy it as a creator, you buy it as a creative
professional. Except, you might still not.
If
you are a creative professional and have MYR 12,999 to spend on a
powerful work notebook PC that you will not carry around, why not spend
on a PC tower that you will not even move from your work place? What
about getting two other full-sized monitors with highly accurate colours
as well?
So, who, in their right mind would get this? We still do think that this ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo is made for professionals and those are the guys that would get their hands on this device. Most likely though they might not get it on their own account. The most probable scenario for this is that the companies that they work for get one for them out of whatever necessity they have out of it. Hey, that is still one way to get a notebook PC.
HUAWEI is now more than just a smartphone brand. While they are known for their very compelling and innovative smartphones like their latest HUAWEI Mate 30 series, or the foldable Mate X; they make more than smartphones. In fact, they have made plans to launch smart home products in other markets as of 2020.
Still, the Malaysian market knows the Chinese company not just through their smartphones. We know them through their notebook PC offerings too. We tested the MateBook 13 and we really liked it, to be fair. So not only do they make compelling smartphones, they make compelling PC products too; albeit the odd display ratio.
Source: HUAWEI
Still, they do know how to make great portable productivity devices. The latest to come to the Malaysian market is the new HUAWEI MateBook D15, an MYR 2,499 notebook PC for the working person. Well, you could be a student and enjoy the MateBook D 15 too, we do not discriminate.
It will be available from 18th January 2020 onward at a starting price mentioned above. At MYR 2,499 also you can get a HUAWEI P30 smartphone, just saying. Still, it is an ultra-thin, ultra-light notebook PC that you are looking at here; MYR 2,499 is actually very reasonable.
For MYR 2,499 you are looking at an ultra-thin and light Windows 10 notebook PC that charges via a 65W USB Type-C charger. Of course, you can use that charger on a smartphone too, your HUAWEI smartphone, let us say. The MateBook D 15 also packs 16GB in RAM paired to 256GB of SSD and up to 1TB of HDD, plenty more than enough to work with if you ask me.
Source: HUAWEI
Source: HUAWEI
Source: HUAWEI
Source: HUAWEI
Source: HUAWEI
Getting everything within the petite body of the HUAWEI MateBook D 15 running nicely on the 15-inch display is a Ryzen 5 3500U CPU paired to an integrated RADEON Vega 8 GPU. In plenty of tests, this combination is still great to run games like DOTA 2 or League of Legends when the mood hits you.
You see all these Windows 10 goodness through a 15.6-inch Full HD 1080p display. The thing is though, if you own a HUAWEI smartphone, the MateBook D 15 becomes more than just a notebook PC, it becomes your multi-platform workhorse. You can thank HUAWEI’s One Tap Share feature that we loved so much in the HUAWEI MateBook 13 we tested with the HUAWEI P30 Pro.
Source: HUAWEI
The HUAWEI MateBook D 15 will be available 18th January 2020 onward. You can get your hands on one via HUAWEI official concept stores or any retail partners across the nation. There is only one colour option though, Mystic Silver, at this point. As mentioned, price starts from MYR 2,499.
