ASUS Transformer Book Flip officially lands, starts at Php26,995

Lazada Philippines

ASUS Philippines officially launches one of its newest addition to the array of hybrid devices that the company has uniquely been introducing to its consumers. The new Transformer Book Flip boasts a 360-degree turning hinge that allows you to use it as a laptop, a tablet, or “anything in between”. It comes in three variants with varying internals that start at Php26,995.

Transformer_Book_Flip

ASUS Transformer Book Flip (TP300LA) specs:
13.3-inch IPS HD display @ 1366 x 768 resolution
Intel Core i3-4010U processor
Integrated Intel HD Graphics 4400
4GB DDR3 RAM
500GB HDD
USB 3.0
Bluetooth 4.0
Wi-Fi
SonicMaster audio
32x 23 x 1.90 ~ 2.20cm
1-year global warranty
Windows 8.1
Price: 26,995

asus transformer book flip_2

ASUS Transformer Book Flip (TP300LD) specs:
13.3-inch IPS HD display @ 1366 x 768 resolution
Intel Core i5-4210U processor
NVIDIA GeForce 820 with 2GB DDR3 VRAM
4GB DDR3 RAM
500GB HDD
USB 3.0
Bluetooth 4.0
Wi-Fi
SonicMaster audio
32x 23 x 1.90 ~ 2.20cm
1-year global warranty
Windows 8.1
Price: 39,995

asus transformer book flip_4

ASUS Transformer Book Flip (TP550LD) specs:
15.6-inch IPS HD display @ 1366 x 768 resolution
Intel Core i7-4510U processor
NVIDIA GeForce 820 with 4GB DDR3 VRAM
8GB DDR3 (4GB OnBoard Memory + 4GB Sodimm) RAM
1TB HDD
USB 3.0
Bluetooth 4.0
Wi-Fi
Super-Multi DVDRW
SonicMaster audio
38 x 26.1 x 2.72 ~ 2.72cm
1-year global warranty
Windows 8.1
Price: 49,995

Both the Core i3 and i7 versions are available starting immediately, while the i5 variant is slated to arrive mid-September. All three models are available in black and come with a free notebook bag upon purchase.

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Asus smartwatch to be unveiled at IFA 2014

Just after the report of having an immediate successor to the LG G Watch, Taiwanese-brand Asus now teases us with its upcoming smartwatch.

Asus posted this teaser photo on its Facebook page. As always, a teaser will be a teaser. From what we can tell, the Asus smartwatch has a metallic frame and will come with a square interface.

Details are expected to come soon. For now, we can expect this device to make an appearance at IFA 2014 in Berlin on September 3 so stay tuned.



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Asus ZenFone 4, 5, & 6′s specs and expected local pricing

We just published our Asus ZenFone 5 review recently, but we still haven’t gotten the accurate specs of the model that is arriving locally and the SRP. Now, we have managed to get info about both the specs and the pricing not just for the ZenFone 5, but also its brothers, the ZenFone 4 and the ZenFone 6.

Asus ZenFone 5 (1)

  • The ZenFone 4 is expected to be priced between Php3,000 and Php4,000
  • The ZenFone 5, the one we reviewed, will be at Php8,000 to Php10,000
  • We have not received any range for for the ZenFone 6, but it’s most likely Php10,000 and above.

The Asus ZenFone family has several versions floating around in the market, varying in internal storage capacities, RAM and CPUs. Here are the configurations of what we are expecting to see when they arrive in the Philippines:

ASUS ZenFone 4 specs:
4-inch TFT LCD, 800 x 480 @233ppi
Intel Atom Z2520 1.2GHz multi-core processor with HyperThreading Technology
PowerVR SGX 544 MP2
1GB RAM
8GB internal storage
64GB via microSD
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
3G/HSPA
Bluetooth
5MP rear camera
VGA front-facing camera
1,600mAh battery
Android 4.3
124.4 x 61.4 x 11.2mm
115g

ASUS ZenFone 5 specs:
5-inch IPS display, 1280 x 720 @294ppi
Intel Atom Z2560 1.6GHz multi-core processor with HyperThreading Technology
PowerVR SGX 544 MP2
2GB RAM
8GB internal storage
64GB via microSD
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
3G/HSPA+
Bluetooth
8MP BSI rear camera w/ LED flash
1080p video recording @30fps
2MP front-facing camera
2110mAh battery
Android 4.3
148.2 x 72.8 x 10.3mm
144g

ASUS ZenFone 6 specs:
6-inch IPS display, 1280 x 720 @247ppi
Intel Atom Z2560 1.6 GHz multi-core processor with HyperThreading Technology
PowerVR SGX 544 MP2
2GB RAM
8GB internal storage
64GB via microSD
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
3G/HSPA+
Bluetooth
13MP BSI rear camera w/ LED flash
1080p video recording @30fps
2MP front-facing camera
3200mAh battery
Android 4.3
166.9 x 84.3 x 9.9mm
200g

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Asus ZenFone 5 Review

Asus is not done competing with the low-end smartphone market, as they have a ZenFone family recently announced poised to take over in 4, 5 and 6. What we have here now is the Asus ZenFone 5, the middle-child of the family, not too big, not too small – packing decent specs, good software, a great design and a polishing in almost all places – paired with a really affordable price tag. Does it have what it takes? Read on our full review and find out!

Asus ZenFone 5 (5)

Design and Construction

We let a few people hold the phone and give their impressions on it, and so far, everybody liked it and no bad comment was given about the design. Asus took a lot of work into refining every detail with the ZenFone 5; from the buttons on the left side & the circular design on the bottom bezel of the screen to the curved back, we have no complaints.

Asus ZenFone 5 (6)

As for attracting dirt and debris, Asus has done good as well. The back cover is entirely removable, and everything was easy to wipe off.

Asus ZenFone 5 (8)

Although its body is mostly made of plastic, the handset still looks classy and sophisticated. Despite of being a little thick and bit hefty, it didn’t diminish the overall premium feel of the smartphone.

Display

The display of the ZenFone 5 is, well, 5-inches in size and it’s of the IPS LCD kind. Sadly, we did notice that the ZenFone’s screen still has a few bad angles – but not a serious dealbreaker from what we’ve seen.

Asus ZenFone 5

At first look, we really thought the panel here is full HD – as colors are bright, vibrant and well-contrasted, but it’s actually just 720 x 1280. Nevertheless, text produced still looked sharp, and we’d like to give it to Asus for having a reading mode setting as it helped not straining my eyes using the phone in total darkness.

OS, Apps and UI

Android 4.3 powers the ZenFone, and we’ve received a few updates since we powered up the device already. None of them brought the device to KitKat yet, but we will probably see it in the future.

Asus ZenFone 5 (7)

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again – Asus has done a good job with their skinning here – the Zen UI, It adds lots of features and apps that you’d actually use, and they all look so clean without being too in-your-face all the time. You have organized apps for display and audio settings, and a great set of widgets and apps such as SuperNote. From here, we wish all other manufacturers would take note as this is one of Asus’ big strengths right now in our opinion.

Multimedia & Camera

If you check out the lower back portion of the device, you’ll see a strip of holes dedicated for the speaker, but we find this rather deceptive. Pull off the cover or cover just a specific part of the strip and you’ll find that the speaker is only a small square. Nevertheless, it performs slightly better compared to average phone speakers out there, producing loud and quality audio, but it surely won’t blow anyone away.

Asus ZenFone 5 (3)

The 8 megapixel camera here works great, especially for its caliber. It’s fast and it gives timely suggestions on what photo mode to use in a specific situation, and the modes themselves are really good just like the rest of the software in the ZenFone.

What blows us away is what Asus calls Pixelmaster, a combination of software and hardware that allows you to take bright 2 megapixel photos even in almost no lighting – and it works! We have a gallery of pictures down below covering depth of field, low-light & auto shots, so check those all out for yourself.

Following up the bright and sharp photos taken by the device, video works well too. We were tapping to focus in the sample video down below, but other than that, we’re contented with what we got:

Performance & Benchmarks

Asus has stuffed an Intel Atom inside this device. And while the chipset didn’t blow us away, we’re thankful that it’s not one of those processors that showboats the number of processors to woo consumers. In fact, despite being a dual-core CPU, it does more than okay and we didn’t encounter any problems with navigation and the like.

What we did encounter, however, are few crashes from opening up games when power saver mode was on. The handset froze on few occassions and when we had to turn off the screen, the whole device shut down as well. It’s probably some GPU related problem, but it didn’t occur that frequently as we were able to play a few graphic intensive games at normal settings (it starts to lag when it gets heavier).

Asus ZenFone 5 (2)

  • Antutu – 22,808
  • Quadrant – 11,033
  • Nenamark – 60.3

Call Quality & Battery Life

With connectivity in mind, we did not have anything deviating from the usual. There is dual SIM support here, the earpiece is okay, and from places where we usually test our gadgets, it manages to capture our WiFi connection easily.

Asus ZenFone 5 (1)

On standby, the Asus ZenFone 5 did really well lasting us days, but after putting it through our battery test, draining the battery with 50% brightness and 50% audio volume on video playback, we managed to drain the battery in around five hours and 10 minutes, which is to say it’s not bad, but it’s not that impressive either.

Charging the battery takes the usual time here, maybe even slower, but we’ve noted that as we tried using the bundled charger on other phones and it will take so long before we even get to half a charge.

Conclusion

With almost nothing to complain about, the ZenFone 5 is one of those phones that say “premium but affordable devices are possible”. Hardware and software combined, the ZenFone is very polished. However, we do have a few gripes with the overall performance, and we’re hoping an update comes to fix that, but apart from what we mentioned, this is one affordable smartphone that’s greatly put together.

Asus ZenFone 5 (4)

The local pricing of the Asus ZenFone 5, as of the time of writing, is still not set. But it’s already available in some parts of the world for USD149 or estimated 6,500 in our local currency, making it a very interesting proposition for the budget-conscious crowd. Let’s just hope that the local SRP will be somewhere close to what we’re expecting.

ASUS ZenFone 5 specs:
5-inch IPS LCD display, 1280 x 720 @294ppi
Intel Atom Z2580 2GHz dual-core processor
PowerVR SGX 544 MP2
2GB RAM
16GB internal storage
64GB via microSD
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
3G/HSPA+
Bluetooth
8MP BSI rear camera w/ LED flash
1080p video recording @30fps
2MP front-facing camera
2100mAh battery
Android 4.3
148.2 x 72.8 x 10.3 mm
144 grams
Colors: Charcoal Black, Pearl White, Cherry Red, and Champagne Gold

What we liked about it:

  • Vibrant 720p display
  • Premium streamlined design
  • Well-performing camera paired with good software
  • Zen UI is polished
  • Fast UI navigation
  • Loud speaker

What we didn’t like about it:

  • Few performance issues
  • Slow charger included

The post Asus ZenFone 5 Review appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.

ASUS to offer Android Wear smartwatch under Php6.5K?

Looks like ASUS is planning to join in on the fun of wearable devices. It’s recently been reported to be working on its own smartwatch that runs on Android Wear – going up against the LG G Watch, Motorola Moto 360, and Samsung Gear Live.

Mock-up of ASUS smartwatch

Mock-up of ASUS smartwatch

The still-unnamed ASUS smartwatch is rumored to have an AMOLED display, but it was all that’s been revealed for now. One good news, though, is that it should come at a price point lower than the $229 (approx. Php10K) G Watch, $249 (Php11K) Moto 360, and even the more affordable $200 (Php8K) Gear Live. With an alleged price range between $90 to $149 (Php4K – 6.5K), we can expect the ASUS smartwatch to steal a portion in the market of interested buyers once it launches.

We should be seeing it sometime in September if allegations prove true. If you can no longer wait until then, you might want to take a look at the G Watch and Gear Live as they are already up for purchase and pre-orders.

{Source} {Image: androidworld.nl}

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