ASUS Booth Part 3, VN279LQ, Wireless Duo, Xonar Blu Ray Station - Computex 2013
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,385 words · ~6 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 now we've showed a couple thin
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bezel monitors over the last little while but invariably We've Ended up
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disappointed because it turns out that the spec that the manufacturer is
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usually talking about is the slimness of
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the bezel but then often we're finding out that they have glass front panels
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that have a dead zone around it that makes the effective bezel not really
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that much different from any other monitor that's out there this is a
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little bit different this is the vn279 qlb from ASUS and uh if you think that
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that's a mouthful then you're probably going to think that the image in front
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of you is an Eiffel they run at 1920 x 1080 and you can see that there's a game
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running on them so these are IPS panels but they are gaming optimized and you
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might ask why would they do that rather than go with a faster TN panel and the
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answer is very simple these are 27in monitors which means that they're big
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they're also designed for gaming particularly in surround gaming which
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means that they're going to be really big TN does not have the optimal viewing
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angles that would be required to properly get the color Fidelity that
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you're going to need for an enjoyable immersive gaming experience once you
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surround yourself with these because you won't be able to look directly at every
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single panel that is why it has been changed now let's have a look at just
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how slim it is I'll do my trademark cell phone thickness comparison here so you
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can see it is slightly Slimmer on the top and the sides about the thickness of
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an HTC1 uh and then on the bottom there is
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a little bit of extra space for the buttons so there's uh Power input you
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know brightness all those usual adjustments that you see but unlike some
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of the other monitors we've seen in the past with slim bezels as well it's not a
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dramatic difference I remember the last time I did a 5x1 portrait display setup
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on NCI X Tech tips we were using a monitor that had a top bezel about like
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this and a bottom bezel about like that because they had like a speaker on it or
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something I was like well that's not very optimal so this is looking to
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change that it's going to be available in a couple months and I think that
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pretty much wraps it up time to move on to the next cool thing yet another
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product here at the ASUS Booth so this is the wireless Duo you can get it in
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either a 500 gig or 1 TB capacity and there's a couple different colors and
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it's got some unique features compared to Wireless hard drivve so first of all
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we've got a usb3 interface which okay that's not particularly unique next
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we've got an these are dummy models so don't mind the fit and finish next we've
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got an SD card reader so what's cool about this is you can actually hook up
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your SD card you just plug in your SD card and there's a OneTouch backup you
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can see on the interface right down here on the tablet all you have to do is
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Click SD y there you go click okay and
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you can do a OneTouch backup on that next up on the unit itself you see not a
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whole lot except that it's actually
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pretty much sealed so it is not quite something that you'd call waterproof to
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the point where you throw it in a puddle but it is water resistant and splash
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proof so you don't have to worry too much about okay you've got your your
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wireless drive in your backpack you're riding around on your bike in the rain
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and if a little bit of rain gets through you don't have to worry about okay the thing's just going to die out right so
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they've got apps available for iOS 5 and above Android 2.3 and above as well as
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Kindle Fire obviously it works with Windows and Mac as well and it's want to
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show you guys uh here we go how Snappy
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the interface is because if you've seen any of these wireless devices before
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you'll know that they're not always the fastest thing in the world now it should
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be noted we're in the middle of a crowded crowded show floor where there
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are tons of wireless devices an extremely interference ridden
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environment but in spite of that the performance of it is what I would
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consider completely acceptable so you can see it is managing to oh oh
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oh every time you try demo something it uh it burns you but there you go now
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it's buffering ahead of the playback speed of the actual content itself not
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only that but there's some other cool features in here as well so it supports
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music playback while you are actually uh viewing uh V or uh photo
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files for example and this is cool so it's got full support for flak media
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files as well and I've lost track of where those files were so you'll have to
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take my word for it but uh hold on music
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whatever we'll just play something else so you can change your music playback to
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either the condensed one or full screen if you want to check out your album art
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and this should be coming when's this coming you
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guys I put everyone on the spot apparently July but don't take my word
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for it convergence truly is the name of the game and I'm about to go about that
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two different ways so number one is the problem with convergence is everyone
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wants smaller and smaller devices to the point where they do everything but they
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don't necessarily do everything well so notebooks two of the things that do two
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of the trends are that it's becoming more and more difficult to fit an
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optical drive into a notebook form factor in a way that will be appealing
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to a customer and number two is that notebooks have notoriously terrible
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onboard Audio Solutions so this is where
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convergence hurts us but where it helps us is when we get all-in-one devices
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that can take some of the best engineering talents of a company like
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someone like ASUS and turn it into one product so this is the Zonar Blu-ray
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station which actually seeks to address
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that problem so number one it is is it is a high quality hence the Zonar
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branding that you're going to find on the right side of it here it is a high
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quality external sound card so we're talking headphone amps up to 16 or it
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has a headphone amp so it can handle headphones up to 600 ohms of impedance a
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c media audio processor as well as a cirrus logic Dack around at the back
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you're going to find a wide variety of different audio output options including
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analog as as well as digital output so it is a usb3 interface to the computer
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itself and it does require external power in order to deliver the power you
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need for that amplitude as well as an optical drive so it can turn your
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notebook pretty much into a higher quality sound solution as well as a
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Blu-ray playback station that can support as you can see here in the demo
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itself a Surround Sound audio system as
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well so it takes that notebook that wasn't really good at those things and
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isn't all one solution Blu-ray reading Blu-ray writing external audio and a
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combination of all of it