ASUS PQ321 4K LCD, Memopad 302/HD7, Transformer Book Trio, Zenbook Infinity - Computex 2013
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
2,268 words · ~11 min read
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Linus Tech tips coverage of computex 2013 is powered by Western Digital our
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trusted gaming gear partner is Corsair Vengeance and our trusted retail partner
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is nc.com so it's time to check out some isus systems we're going to be starting
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with a couple of tablets that are very closely related so these are memopad 302
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series tablets both of them and the key difference is okay this one's got LTE
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okay this one is a Wi-Fi only model this one's got eight hours of battery life
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this one has 10 hours of battery life and this threw me for a bit of a loop
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because I wasn't expecting an Android-based tablet to have an Intel
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processor inside it so it's an Atom z2560 Processor running at 1.6 GHz that
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enables ASUS to achieve the battery life that they have on this and it's not
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because of skipping on other components they're both using full 1920x 1200
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resolution displays which I personally love I like having the extra vertical
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even when I'm using it in a horizontal configuration and with a 10-hour battery
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life you're now getting all day Computing out of it now this is something that as spent a lot of time on
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with this tablet and I personally love it I actually preferred the original
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Transformer the 101 to almost anything
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that came after it with the exception of the Nexus 7 and the reason for that is
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because I personally prefer a textured finish on the back so if I could get you
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to check this out they have brought back the golf ball textured experience to the
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back now the great thing about a metal backing is it looks fantastic in
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pictures which is fine and good but at the end of the day you're going to bring
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the thing home you're going to stain it with your fingerprints it's going to get
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warm to the touch and what a plastic backing does is it is more comfortable
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to hold you can easily hold it with one hand and not worry about accidentally
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dropping the thing I think I'm making people nervous shaking the tablet around
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like this but awesome love to see The
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Innovation it's also going to be in a number of different colors so this is a
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black one I think this is the first time we've seen a black backed tablet from
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ASUS at least in my territory so it might not be the first time here but
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it's going to come in a number of different colors including white black
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as well as sort of a pinky peachy color
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I was wrong okay so I'm still happy cuz
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it looks like black and I personally love black tablets but apparently it is
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actually a very dark blue so my bad and
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I also should have mentioned before that both of the tablets have two gigs of RAM
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built in which means you're going to be able to get a much more satisfying
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multitasking experience now my big problem with lowcost tablets in the past
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has always been that you kind of look at the thing and you go okay I guess it's
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kind of built okay and uh you know it's
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fast enough I could probably use this just for some basic functionality but
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the problem is that the screen is always terrible just absolutely terrible so
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this is where the memopad hd7 comes in from ASUS this is a relatively lowcost
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tablet and when I sell okay so I'll reveal the price later but it uses a
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lowcost Qualcomm CPU it's got 1 gig of
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RAM it runs Android Jelly Bean 16 gigs onboard memory 16 gigs of web storage
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it's got the usual expansion so you've got a Micro SD slot here on the left
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side it's quite slim I mean not super slim it's kind of about like a Nexus 7
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Up on the top this is neat you've got USB on the go support so you can plug in
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whatever it is you need to do via USB but this is the kicker it has a 1280 by
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800 IPS display which means you get that viewing angle and that content
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consumption enjoyment that you just can't get from a cheap TN panel and all
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of that is coming in at a price that's below $150 from a brand that you can actually
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trust as opposed to one that you've never heard the name of before you have
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no idea if you can get warranty support the game's pretty much changed now
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because there's going to be no reason to buy a low-end tablet from anyone other
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than as now the first time we saw this
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concept was at CES with the Transformer AIO which was a Windows-based all-in-one
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but when you disconnected the display it
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turned into an Android-based 18 1/2 in tablet now we're seeing what I
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personally find to be a more refined version of that Concept in a very very
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usable form factor so check this out this is the Transformer book Trio which
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Jus is calling the world's first threein one Notebook tablet and desktop PC so
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you can you can use it three different ways right here they've got it demoed
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attached to a keyboard so it is a multi-touch Windows notebook running an
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Intel Core i7 up to a core i7 fourth generation Haswell processor you can
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have up to a 1 tbte hybrid drive inside
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so that gives you that performance that you need from an SSD but with that mass
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storage that you like from a hard drive okay then okay usage case number two you
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detach it from the base and all of a sudden you've got yourself an Android
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tablet now this is running an Intel Atom Processor you can have up to 64 gigs of
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flash base storage on it and you can see right here if I pull out my uh my usual
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phone thickness comparison we can't get these things out of the case but that's
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okay we can make do with what we have it is a very reasonable size tablet in
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spite of having all that extra connectivity that goes into making it
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compatible with the base station now let's move on to use case number three
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you can actually use it Standalone without the dock without the Android
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operating system as a Windows-based PC
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so we've got an ASUS monitor here this is from their MX Series this is the MX
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2798 we've actually checked this out this features their bang and Olson
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speaker technology so this gives you the ability to use it as a dock without
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basically plugging anything into it at all so there's a single cable running
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between the base station here and the ASUS monitor although of course if you
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wanted to use a mouse or something like that you'd have to hook that up
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separately so very very cool product giving you the flexibility to use either
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a Windows or Android operating system and anything from a notebook to a tablet
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to a sitting at a desk type of usage scenario by now you're probably pretty
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familiar with ASUS's Zenbook line of Ultrabooks but this one is a little bit
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new now I whine and gripe and complain
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incessantly about Metal fin es on the backs of tablets on the tops of
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notebooks because the problem with them is that they always get all stained and
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fingerprint and ugly check this out right here this has the same kind of
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circular design hopefully you can get a couple different angles there and you
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can check it out as we've seen on some previous ASUS products such as the
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TF700 but the key difference here is
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that ASUS has Corin Gorilla Glass 3 on
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not only the touch surface of the notebook but also on the back of it so
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what they're calling it as as their tagline is clearly brilliant The
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Notebook that never loses its shine so it will look like that from the day you
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get it to the day you no longer need it anymore for whatever reason and all
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you'll have to do to keep it clean and looking beautiful is give it a wipe down
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so we can't get it out of the case unfortunately but just for the sake of
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size comparison if we can get kind of a look at it it's a pretty familiar form
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factor from what we've seen from ASUS and their Zenbook line it also features
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Intel's new fourth generation Haswell core i7 processor meaning you're going
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to get better battery life better performance and with Gorilla Glass 3
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better durability so it's much more scratch resistant than Gorilla Glass 2
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in fact there have been complaints out there that oh Gorilla Glass 3 doesn't
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improve much over Gorilla Glass 2 from guys that are more interested in phones
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because it can tend to be a little bit more breakable but it is much more
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scratch resistant which personally I don't drop my notebook that often so I'm
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more worried about it getting scuffed up and dinged up when I'm putting it in and
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out of a bag very cool stuff now right now behind us there has to be the most
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obnoxious stage display that I've ever
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seen before in my life but fortunately this product isn't so much about the
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audio experience and is more about the visual experience this is the PQ 321
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ASUS has already teased this so there's a little bit of information that's been
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available already but it is a 4K display
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that means it runs at four times HD 3840
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by 2160 so effectively this is four
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1080p displays stretched out now there
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are some technical complications with 4K
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that do make it inherently more expensive in addition to just the
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increased pixel density because this is only a 31 and A2 in display compared to
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I mean obviously it's a lot easier to put you know in a 24in display only 1920
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x 1080 pixels so there's that there's the increased amount of image processing
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that needs to go on and remember if you're going to Market a display for
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consumers and intend for people to watch movies and play games on it it's going
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to have to have fast enough pixel response time meaning faster processing
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in order to make sure that you don't get any motion blur or ghosting or input leg
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that's going to take away from the experience one of the other challenges
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is inputs it supports a dual HDMI input
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which means you're actually using two HDMI ports in tandem but there are some
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technological limitations there the display interfaces haven't really all
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caught up so the alternative is to use DisplayPort which means you're going to
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be able to run at the full 60 HZ refresh rate of this display without any sort of
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Funky Monkey Business it's using a sharp
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exop panel which means that if you've ever seen one of those you should have
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some idea what to expect in terms of viewing angles as well as color
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reproduction but we might as well play around with it a little bit here so we
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can show you guys it does have pivot it
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has height adjust so yeah whatever it's it's sort of secured so I'm sure they
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won't mind if we move things around too oh okay I see it has height adjust but
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apparently I can't move it right now for whatever reason you can actually see all
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the display inputs here on the side if you want to check it out so ASUS
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generally recommends using DisplayPort in not the dual HDMI input there's also
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an audio in and audio out pass through check out all that cooling on the back
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of the display as well so that should give you some idea what I was talking
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about before with the increased uh with the increased processing that's going on
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here I don't think we're going to get pivot out of this one so it is a bit on the heavy side because that tends to
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happen when you get these large format displays and personally I'm incredibly
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excited about more than anything else the gaming experience that this is going
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to enable on the desktop PC there was a thread on the Linus Tech tips Forum not
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that long ago about how no games support 4K yeah no console games pretty much any
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PC game going back to like you know Quake free you can manually key in a 4K
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resolution you can run that at extremely high res ultra high def 4K so thank you
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for checking out our coverage of the ASUS monitors and notebooks and tablets
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don't miss any of our show coverage from computex 2013 and as always don't forget
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