Gadgetory

Linus tech tips coverage of Computex 2013 is powered by Western Digital our trusted gaming gear partner is Corsair Vengeance and our trusted retail partner is NCI XCOM now we've showed a couple thin bezel monitors over the last little while but invariably we've ended up disappointed because it turns out that the speck that the manufacturers usually talking about is the slimness of the bezel but then often we're finding out that they have glass front panels that have a dead zone around it that makes the effective bezel not really that much different from any other monitor that's out there this is a little bit different this is the VN 2 7 9 ql b from asus and if you think that that's a mouthful then you're probably gonna think that the image in front of you is an eyeful they run at 1920 by 1080 and you can see that there's a game running on them so these are IPS panels but they are gaming optimized and you might ask why would they do that rather than go with a faster TN panel and the answer is very simple these are 27-inch monitors which means that they're big they're also designed for gaming particularly in surround gaming which means that they're going to be really big TN does not have the optimal viewing angles that would be required to properly get the color fidelity that you're going to need for an enjoyable immersive gaming experience once you surround yourself with these because you won't be able to look directly at every single panel that is why it has been changed now let's have a look at just how slim it is I'll do my trademark cell phone thickness comparison here so you can see it is slightly slimmer on the top and the sides about the thickness of an HTC One R and then on the bottom there is a little bit of extra space for the buttons so there's a power input you know brightness all those usual adjustments that you see but unlike some of the other monitors we've seen in the past with slim bezels as well it's not a dramatic difference I remember the last time I did a five by one portrait display setup on NCIX tech tips we were using a monitor that had a top bezel about like this and a bottom bezel about like that because they had like a speaker on it or something I was like well that's not very optimal so this is looking to change that it's gonna be available in a couple and I think that pretty much wraps it up time to move on to the next cool thing yet another product here at the Asus booth so this is the wireless duo you can get it in either a 500 gig or one terabyte capacity and there's a couple different colors and it's got some unique features compared to other wireless hard drives so first of all we've got a USB 3 interface which ok that's not particularly unique next we've got and these are dummy models so don't mind the fit and finish next we've got an SD card reader so what's cool about this is you can actually hook up your SD card you just plug in your SD card and there's a OneTouch backup you can see on the interface right down here on the tablet all you have to do is click SD yep there you go click OK and you can do a OneTouch backup on that next up on the unit itself you see not a whole lot except that it's actually pretty much sealed so it is not quite something that you'd call waterproof to the point where you throw it in a puddle but it is water resistant and splash proof so you don't have to worry too much about okay you've got your your wireless Drive in your backpack you're riding around on your bike in the rain and if a little bit of rain gets through you don't have to worry about ok the things just gonna die out right so they've got apps available for iOS 5 and above Android 2.3 and above as well as Kindle Fire obviously it works with Windows and Mac as well and I just want to show you guys uh here we go how snappy the interface is because if you've seen any of these wireless devices before you'll know that they're not always the fastest thing in the world now it should be noted we're in the middle of a crowded crowded show floor where there are tons of wireless devices an extremely interference ridden environment but in spite of that the performance of it is what I would consider completely acceptable so you can see it is managing 200 every time you try and demo something it burns you but there you go now it's buffering ahead of the playback speed of the actual content itself not only that but there's some other cool features in here as well so it supports music playback while you are actually viewing big art photo files for example and this is cool so it's got full support for flack media files as well and I've lost track of where those files were so you'll have take my word for it but hold on music whatever we'll just play something else so you can change your music playback to either the condensed one or a full screen if you want to check out your album art and this should be coming when's this coming you guys I put everyone on the spot apparently July but don't take my word for it convergence truly is the name of the game and I'm about to go about that two different ways so number one is the problem with convergence is everyone wants smaller and smaller devices to the point where they do everything but they don't necessarily do everything well so notebooks two of the things that due to the trends are that it's becoming more and more difficult to fit an optical drive into a notebook form factor in a way that will be appealing to a customer and number two is that notebooks have notoriously terrible onboard audio solutions so this is where convergence hurts us but where it helps us is when we get all-in-one devices that can take some of the best engineering talents of a company like someone like a Seuss and turn it into one product so this is the zonar blu-ray station which actually seeks to address that problem so number one it is is it as a high quality hence the zone our branding that you're gonna find on the right side of it here it is a high quality external sound card so we're talking headphone amps up to 16 RS has a headphone amp so it can handle headphones up to 600 ohms of impedance a/c media audio processor as well as a cirrus logic deck around at the back you're gonna find a wide variety of different audio output options including analog as well as digital output so it is a USB 3 interface to the computer itself and it does require external power in order to deliver the power you need for that amplitude as well as an optical drive so it can turn your notebook pretty much into a higher quality sound solution as well as a blu-ray playback station that can support as you can see here in the demo itself a surround sound audio system as well so it takes that notebook that wasn't really good at those things and is an all-in-one solution blu-ray reading blu-ray writing external audio and the nation of all of it