Hilmi Pradana

(Editor's Note: The Asus ROG G751 is now available in Malaysia and Singapore at the starting RRP of RM8499 and SGD2898)
How can a high-end gaming laptop like the Asus ROG G751JY-DH72X ($2,999 as tested) beat the competition without dominating the gaming benchmark tests? By being competitive, while coming in for less money, and outclassing its competitors on a feature-by-feature basis. That's how. The G751JY-DH72X comes with a fourth-generation Intel Core i7-4860HQ processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M graphics. To that it adds 32GB of memory, a 512GB solid-state drive (SSD) and a 1TB storage hard drive, a 17-inch In-Plane Switching (IPS) display, and ergonomic features that make gaming more comfortable. The fact that it packs in so much and still comes in at a reasonable price, gives it the oomph to jump to the top of the heap as our latest Editors' Choice for high-end gaming laptops.

 Design and Features
Thanks to the large screen, the system is understandably beefy. Its matte-black chassis measures 53 by 416 by 318 mm (HWD) and weighs 4.8 kg. The 17.3-inch, matte-finish In-Plane Switching (IPS) display gives you the benefit of both a wide viewing angle and reduced reflections from ambient lighting. It's a bright screen with a 1,920-by-1,080 resolution, which on first flush can seem a little small when high-end ultraportables have 4K screens, but 1080p is better for mobile gaming. Smooth animation in 3K or 4K gaming would require at least three GPUs, which is impractical in a laptop. For example, the MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3k has trouble maintaining smooth frame rates at its native resolution of 2,880 by 1,620. The G751JY-DH72X runs fine at native resolution with all the eye candy turned on (more on that below).
The red, backlit, chiclet-style keyboard contrasts with the black chassis, and is quite comfortable to use, with enough space for a full numeric keypad. The spacebar is wider on the left side, to give you a wider area to hit with your left thumb while gaming. The touchpad has two physical mouse buttons, and the cursor keys are offset from the rest of the keyboard. The keyboard deck is also tilted toward the user, which makes it more comfortable during long gaming sessions. Above the function keys are five keys: one to bring up Steam, three customizable macro keys, and a key that can start a game video recording to play back for yourself or friends later. Speakers are loud and clear, with a subwoofer for a little extra low-end sound. The system has dual rear vents, so heated air is channeled away from the user.
Connectivity is excellent: The sides of the system are chock full of I/O ports. You'll find an Ethernet port, a headset jack, an HDMI port, a line-out jack, a Thunderbolt port, four USB 3.0 ports, and a VGA port. For wireless connectivity, there's 802.11ac Wi-FI and Bluetooth. The system comes with a Blu-ray/DVD burner combo drive, so you can install older games and watch movies on disc. Speaking of movies, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M can drive up to four displays simultaneously (the internal display, HDMI, mini-DisplayPort/Thunderbolt, and VGA), allowing you to have game screens, instant messaging, Web browsing, and a movie all playing at once.
The system comes with two drives: a 512GB SSD for bootup and a 1TB 7,200rpm SATA hard drive. That's plenty of space for games, movie files, music, photos, and myriad other programs. There are a few preinstalled programs like Flipboard, Fresh Paint, Line, Music Maker Jam, Netflix, Twitter, and Zinio, but most of the programs on the Windows 8.1 Start screen are the usual Asus and Microsoft utilities. The G751JY-DH72X comes with a one-year warranty with accidental-damage protection, free two-way shipping for that year, and a 30-day Zero Bright Dot guarantee.

Performance
The quad-core Intel Core i7-4860HQ processor runs at 2.4GHz stock speed. Asus includes overclocking utilities to tweak performance of the CPU and GPU, but we tested the system in the stock configuration. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M graphics processor helped the desktop score playable frame rates on our Heaven (55 frames per second) and Valley (59fps) gaming tests at extreme-quality settings at full 1080p resolution. That was a lot smoother than competitors like the Alienware 17 (2014), the Asus ROG G750JZ-XS72, and the Origin EON17-S. The only other competitor we've seen lately that can play at extreme levels smoothly is the $3,676 (as tested) Origin EON17-SLX (2014), which has two Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M GPUs to help with the heavy lifting. The 3DMark scores are likewise close, with the G751JY-DH72X scoring 4,324 points on the Fire Strike Extreme test, just behind the 4,932 points of the Origin EON17-SLX on the same test.

Battery life is average for a gaming laptop, at 3 hours 4 minutes on our battery rundown test. That's within a few minutes of the three hours and change garnered by the Alienware 17 (2014) and the Origin EON 17-S. The outliers are the Origin EON17-SLX (1:13) and the battery champ Asus ROG G750JZ-XS72 (5:32). Basically, all of these systems will work untethered for a short period of time. Gaming-oriented processors and large screens tend to drain battery life quickly.
So how does the Asus ROG G751JY-DH72X end up on top? By beating the former Editors' Choice Origin EON17-SLX on price (the Asus rig is $700 less), better ergonomics, double the system memory, and much more storage (1.5TB vs. 990GB). The G751JY-DH72X is also 110 grams lighter than the EON17-SLX, has a more durable power adapter connector, and lasted almost two more hours on our battery rundown test. Sure, the Origin rig is ultimately a bit faster on games, but not always significantly so, and certainly not worth the extra $700 in the balance of features and performance. Simply put, while the Origin EON17-SLX may have the best extreme performance scores, the Asus ROG G751JY-DH72X is still quite competitive, and the money you save can be used to buy a backpack, a gaming mouse, and a lot of games.

resource  :: http://asia.pcmag.com/asus-rog-g751jy-dh72x-1/1279/review/asus-rog-g751jy-dh72x

Asus was one of the players responsible for upending the Indian smartphone market in 2014. After years of missteps entering the smartphone space, the Taiwanese PC component giant finally hit it big with its ZenFone lineup - the ZenFone 4, ZenFone 5, and ZenFone 6. Each of the three served a different market, giving customers plenty of choice under Rs. 20,000.
Now, following plenty of positive reviews and regular appearances in our smartphone buyers' guides, Asus has released a new model to refresh the bottom end of its lineup: the Asus ZenFone C. Given the number of new competitors in the market, it's good to see the company keeping things fresh.

Look and feel
The ZenFone C is pretty similar to its siblings. The most noticeable part of its design is the shiny chin, with Asus' trademark concentric ring pattern that catches the light no matter which way you hold this phone. It's available in black, white and red. Our black review unit looked pretty staid, which should work well for most people.
The capacitive buttons below the screen are printed on in bright silver, which makes them fairly easy to locate even though there's no backlighting. A matching Asus logo above the screen stands out just as prominently. There's nothing else to see on the front other than a camera to one side of the earpiece. Unlike most modern high-end phones, the screen is not bonded to the front glass, so it feels a bit sunken. You might also find the plastic borders around the screen a bit thick by today's standards.

The ZenFone C is pretty chunky and heavy at 150g, but the back is curved nicely and has a matte texture that makes it very easy to grip. It's easy enough to reach all four corners of the 4.5-inch screen with a thumb when using this phone in one hand.
The Micro-USB port is on the bottom, and headset socket is on top. The power and volume buttons are on the right side. The camera lens, flash and speaker grille are all in a line down the centre of the rear, with another Asus logo thrown in for good measure.

Specifications and software
As we expected, the insides of this budget phone aren't exactly cutting-edge. At the heart of it all is a dual-core Intel Atom Z2520 running at 1.2GHz. This is from Intel's previous-generation Cloverview platform and is incidentally the same processor that powered the Asus ZenFone 4. There's 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage space.
The screen has a very low resolution of 480x854 pixels, and its graininess is instantly noticeable. The rest of the basics are covered: Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, support for 64GB microSD cards, and FM radio. The rear camera has a 5-megapixel sensor while the one in front has a barely-there 640x480-pixel VGA resolution. There's an accelerometer, ambient light sensor and proximity sensor, but nothing else. While more than enough for most purposes, these are definitely not pathbreaking specifications for a phone at this price level.

Asus' offerings stand out most because of the company's ZenUI Android skin. It's one of the more imaginative takes on Android customisation, with useful features all around. The lockscreen has shortcuts to the camera, dialler and messaging apps, and also shows the weather, alarm status and a neat timeline of upcoming calendar events. You can choose different views within the app drawer, and even resize the grid and hide unwanted icons.
There are quite a few preloaded apps. Share Link and Party Link give you different ways of sharing content such as photos and contacts between users. Remote Link and PC Link also offer somewhat overlapping features, letting you control a PC from your smartphone. Omlet Chat is a popular messaging application, Zinio lets you read digital magazines, and SuperNote lets you create notes with pictures and other annotations. AudioWizard and Splendid let you tweak the ZenFone C's audio and screen respectively. Power Saver automatically changes the screen brightness for certain apps and tasks, and Clean Master lets you clear out junk files and scan for malware. There's even more, and it verges on unnecessary clutter.

Performance
We were satisfied with the performance of the ZenFone C, keeping in mind its low-budget positioning. We didn't face any slowdowns in day-to-day usage, but the low amount of available internal storage space, likely due to Asus' software bloat, became apparent fairly quickly. We also found that some of the popup hints, which were meant to be helpful, were in fact confusing because of poor translations from Chinese to English.
The screen is not very good, in terms of resolution and overall quality. Colours are dull and viewing angles aren't all that great. Reflections are harsh, especially under sunlight.

Benchmark results were in line with what we've seen from other recently launched phones at this price level. The ZenFone C gave us scores of 19,088 in AnTuTu and 5,477 overall in Quadrant. Intel's smartphone SoCs have had a slight advantage in terms of graphics processing, and we saw pretty good scores of 15fps in GFXbench and 5,197 points in 3DMark's Ice Storm test. These could also be attributed to the low-res screen which doesn't take much effort to fill up.
The scores were slightly lower than those we recorded with the ZenFone 4 (Review | Photos) and also trailed this market segment's leader, the Xiaomi Redmi 1S (Review | Photos). We also felt the device's rear getting a bit warm after heavy tests were run.

The ZenFone C's camera was perhaps the biggest letdown we encountered. Photos were just dull, grainy and unrealistic. Some phones manage to mask low image quality because high-res photos look better when scaled down, but this device doesn't have even that leeway. Colours are pretty okay in sunlight but compression is way too high and details are missing, so textures are just lost. Only objects that are right in the foreground are captured with any degree of accuracy. You can completely forget about using this camera after dark, unless you're a fan of extreme blur effects. Shots taken even on well-lit roads came out without any definition whatsoever, and the less said about indoor shots, the better.
Video clips taken at 1080p did not look like they had been shot in high-definition at all. Colours were dull and everything was unclear. At least it didn't stutter, though. The front camera is no good for any photos you might want to share or preserve - use it only for video chatting if an urgent need arises.

Interestingly, the ZenFone C managed all our video test clips without any hiccups, including 1080p samples in multiple formats and compression levels. On the other hand, the speaker on the rear is loud and clear even when the phone is lying on a table. Everything from EDM to classical music came out sounding really good. Sadly, Asus doesn't include a headset in the box.
Call quality was pretty good, and we had no complaints. The battery lasted just 6 hours, 5 minutes in our video loop test, which is the bare minimum we would consider acceptable these days. Don't expect to get any more than one day of even moderate usage with each charge.

Verdict
The ZenFone C is somewhat of an update to the ZenFone 4, but isn't very different from it in many ways. The larger screen is nice to have, but even so, Asus will have to do a lot more to be competitive as others release newer and more capable products. The Xiaomi Redmi 1S is still the class leader, though its highly restricted availability leaves a lot of room for companies such as Asus to be successful. If you think the ZenUI might be too confusing, there are also plenty of stock Android One devices in the market at this price level.
We're expecting other major companies to refresh their sub-Rs. 6,000 offerings before too long, but until then, Asus continues to offer a product worth considering. As long as your expectations are in check and you don't plan on any serious camera usage, this is a good phone to buy.

billiography :: http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/reviews/asus-zenfone-c-zc451cg-review-a-minor-entry-level-update-662268