Mid range Smartphone : Asus Zenfone 5

Asus has been released new smartphone with their new Zenfone series. The new series is available with 4 screen sizes. So here is some review about the Mid range Smartphone : Asus Zenfone 5.

How about the Design ?

Asus has done a great job in the look and built for this Zenfone 5. The Zenfone 5 is built mostly of plastic for retaining a premium look and feel, also it has a simple candy bar design and the covers are changeable. The ports and buttons have good tactile feedback and the placement is pretty ergonomic.

Asus Zenfone 5


Zenfone 5 comes with metallic power and volume keys, and also with a side metal cover that looks great. Overall the Zenfone 5 is well built and designed, many will appreciate its simple aesthetics.

What features that Asus Zenfone 5 have ?

Zenfone 5 comes with HD Display and a 5-inch IPS, the screen is also got a scratch resistant. The colours from the display is quite vivid and fairly punchy. Zenfone 5 also gives you an app for changing the colour temperature of the display to suite your needs.

*Zenfone 5 Zen UI Review

The Zenfone 5 runs Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with Zen UI skin, but Asus has promised it will launch Android 4.4. Kitkat Update as soon as they can. The new theme feel refresh, for all the icons its follow a flat look, which is the trend these days. In Zenfone 5 you can customize the lockscreen with three customisable application shortcuts, there is also app called "What's Next"notification for your upcoming event in the calender when you lock the screen.

Zen UI
The notification view looks very clear and there are a customiseable Quick Settings and each one is use an attractive round icons, also a brightness slider or even you can enable the auto-brightness feature. Zenfone 5 comes with a lot of pre-installed apps, some of them can be either uninstalled or disabled.

What's inside the Asus Zenfone 5 ?

The main processor of Asus Zenfone 5 is Dual Core Intel Atom Z2560 which running at 1.6 GHz for each core. The phone also has 2 GB of RAM which is pretty big for most smartphone now. The phone also have 8 GB and 16 GB of Internal storage for each variants and support Expandable storage for microSD up to 64 GB. With antutu benchmark, most of the test that we found on the net is shown the score 20.000 - 23.000 which is a great score for this Asus Zenfone 5, here is one of the screenshot.

Antutu Benchmark from hardwarezone.com

For connectivity Zenfone 5 support dual-sim function, 3G and 2G, also for Wi-Fi it has support for 'n'. Bluetooth v.4.0 also included on Zenfone 5, also with GPS and GLONASS. The Zenfone 5 Camera is 8MP and with an camera sensor features an aperture value of f/2.2 which is manage to capure low-light shots. The interface is still easy to get around. Below is the full specs for this phone.

Specification



  • Processor: 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Atom Z2560
  • Display: 5-inch capacitive multi touch with Corning gorilla glass 3 protection, 1280×720 pixels
  • RAM: 1GB
  • Memory: 8GB internal, expandable up to 64GB micro SD
  • Camera: Rear 8MP with LED flash/ Front 2MP
  • SIM: Dual with dual standby (micro SIMs)
  • OS: Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with Zen UI
  • Connectivity: 3G HSPA+, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS
  • Battery: 2110mAh
  • What's about the battery life ?

    The battery is 2110 mAh, it came out after 8 hour battery test with quite some juice to spare, stand by time is about 353 hours with 3G, and 18 hours 30 minutes talk time with 3G. Overall the battery is deliver a long battery life and this is great advantage for the Zenfone 5.

    Conclusion

    Zenfone 5 is a superb phone, when you consider the feature-set from this phone it seems like unbeatable. The performance ? Well all we can say is the performance is at High-End Device level. It's very recommended to buy this Asus Zenfone 5.

    Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 : Great Performance, but with poor battery



    Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 is a laptop genuine mobile entertainment hub that powered by 4th Generation Intel Core processor with a dedicated a Nvidia Graphics card which make it is laptop to attract those who looking at a portable gaming PC. Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 is primarly for the home user and focused on multimedia rich features. Do you have old laptop ? If yes, Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 is worthly enough to replace your old laptop. Want some more info about this lenovo ? let's find out.

    How is the Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 Design ?

    On the top flap Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 comes with a matte coloured and on the palm rest area it comeswith a metal-brush finish. On the bottom side of Lenovo IdeaPad Z510, it has four large rubber feet that help for the laptop to get a good grip on a flat surfae. The screen of the laptop allows you to open up until 120 degress. If you are using this laptop on you lap, you will get uncomfurtable because the size of this laptop.

    Lenovo IdeaPad Z510
    On the keyboard you will found a complete number pad on the right hand side, and the margin of the keys are well enough and have a decent amount of travel. For you that didn't get used to a non number pad keyboard, it will take some time to get used to. The keyboard is backlit and you can adjust the brightness of the backlight. Mouse trackpad comes with monolitchic design, in terms of usability, this one will disappoints you as well.

    Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 Keyboard
    Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 Touchpad
    When seen from the side The Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 also comes with slightly tapering design. On the right side, you will found a DVD writer, an USB 2.0 port, 3.5mm audio-jack and an SD card slot. On the left side you will see the air-vent, power port, LAN port, HDMI out, 2 USB 3.0 ports, and a D-sub out, also on the upper side you only have the status indicators

    Lenovo Ideapad Z510 Left Side
    Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 Right Side

    Features

    Z510 comes with two variants first with touchscreen and secondary is without the touchscreen. On the touchscreen version of Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 (59-405848), It has Intel Core i5-4200M with hyper-threading at clock 2,5 GHz and maximum for turbo boost is 3.1 GHz. The Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 houses with 6GB of RAM and with pre-installed Windows 8 on board. It also comes with Intel HD4600 graphics, alsowith QuickSync Video.

    The harddive is 1 TB, and the dedicated graphics card is like what we said before is NVidia GT 750M. The screen size is 15.6 inch monitor with resolution 1366 x 768 pixels. 

    How good is the Performance ?

    The benchmark is tested with PC Mark 8 and got a score 3401 on the home preset and got 4996 on the work preset. With it's dedicated graphics card NVidia GT 740M, we could play some older game titles without any issues with a limited resolution 1366 x 768 pixels, Games that tested on this laptop is Sleeping Dogs on medium settings and the FPS is at 56,9 FPS, and Bioshock infinite on medium settings give 42.1 FPS, according to the FPS it is a reasonable laptop for those like play games.

    In a single room the speaker is quite loud and clear without any external seakers, It can play HD movies with CPU utilization not crossing about 20 %.

    The big disappoinment is the battery, on regular use, the battery will run out after about 3-4 hours, but on heavy load, it will leasted just around 2 hours, which make this Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 is not recommended for mobile users.

    Conslusion

    Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 is good choice for home use, considering the battrey life is really no ideal to the mobile users and as the weight too it's too heavy, but Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 Gives a decent performance for the real life task, example if you want home entertaimnent it is good choice to buy Lenovo IdeaPad Z510.

    After read the review above, what do you think about this Lenovo IdeaPad Z510 ? Do you have a plan to list it to your wish list ? or do you have any recommendation ? Just leave it on the comment below

    Zalman ZM-K500 a Gaming Mechanical Keyboard only for 57,54 $ !


    Zalman ZM-K500 Another Recommended Cheap Gaming Mechanical Keyboard !

    Zalman ZM-K500 top view
    Zalman ZM-K500 top view
    Zalman ZM-K500 is an Gaming Mechmanical Keyboard that does not use MX switches from Cherry, and a much cheaper mechanical keyboard. The Zalman ZM-K500 is a very good looking keyboard that comes with a size that is handy for traveling. This Keyboard doesn't give you a wrist rest, also there is no pipe key or backslash.

    Zalman ZM-K500 Switches
    Kaith switches

    Zalman ZM-K500 also comes with 5 multimedia keys to help improved the functionality of this keyboard a liitle bit. Like the title said the price is just around 57,54 $, one of the ways to manages why it's be so cheap is by not using the popular Cherry MX switches, and instead of using the mechanical switches from Kailh.

    Zalman ZM-K500 5 Multimedia Keys
    5 Multimedia Keys
    From some other review of Zalman ZM-K500, we got that this keyboard looks and feels great and it reasonably quiet (no clicks), Zalman ZM-K500 comes with Compact and Ergonomic design and with high Quality linear type switch, also it comes with Ultra durable laser carved key cap and The lifetime is around 20 million times key life.

    Zalman ZM-K500 side view

    Specification :

    TypeMechanical
    InterfaceUSB
    Key Number92ea
    CarvingLaser
    Dimensions352 x 169 x 36mm
    Cable Length1.5M
    Weight850g
    MaterialABS
    Actuation Force50g
    Key Life
    20 Million Times

    Video :
    Zalman ZM-K500 Unboxing 1

    Zalman ZM-K500 Unboxing 1

    Zalman ZM-K500 Test

    ODROID-C1 : Low Price, High Quality Quad Core Computer only for 35$ !

    ODROID-C1 a Low Price, but a High Quality Quad Core mini Computer only for 35$ by HardKernel ! 

    Don't put up with the slow single core computer anymore because there is ODROID-C1 a powerful ARM devices with ultra low cost and it's available for only $35 !, ODROID-C1 is called as a as a replacement for the Raspberry Pi. The ODROID-C1 has many advantages, it has processor S805 1.5 Quad-core Amlogic ARM® Cortex®-A5(ARMv7) 1.5Ghz quad core CPUs, 1GB of RAM, It has 2x ARM Mali 450 MP2 GPU @ 600MHz.
    ODRIOD-C1 Top
    The ODROID-C1 ships with microSD card slot that support 8GB and 16GB UHS-1 cards that are said to be accessible at double speed than a standar flash card. There is an optinal eMMC storage modules socket for even faster access, eMMC is stated as an alternative to microSD.

    ODROID-C1 Bottom
    The size is nearly the same size as a Raspberry Pi, Size of ODROID-C1 is about 3.35" x 2.2", but ODROID-C1 offers more faster CPU performace. Now, the ODROID project is once again it's sight for the Raspberry Pi users with an almost compatible expansion connector. You need to provide your own storage because the ODROID-C1 doesn't come with any storage, also WiFi and Bluetooth you will need to connect a USB dongle just like on the Raspberry Pi. For some futher information here is the comparison table between ODROID-C1 and Raspberry Pi Model B + :

    Odroid-C1RPi Model B+
    CPUAmlogic S805 SoC 4 x ARM Cortex-A5 1.5 GHz ARMv7 Architecture @28nm waferBroadcom BCM2835 1x ARM11 ARMv6 core @ 700MHz ARMv6 Archiceture @40nm wafer
    GPU2x ARM Mali 450MP @ 600MHz1x VideoCore IV @ 250MHz
    RAM1GB 32bit DDR3 792 MHz512MB32bit LP-DDR2 400MHz
    Flash storagemicroSD UHS-1@100Mhz/SDR50 or eMMC storage optionmicroSD @50MHz/SDR25, without eMMC storage option
    USB2.0 Host4 ports4 ports
    USB2.0 Device/OTG1 port for linux USB gadget drivernone
    Ethernet10/100/1000 Mbps10/100 Mbps
    Video outHDMIHDMI and Composite RCA
    Audio outHDMIHDMI / 3.5mm jack
    Camera InputUSB 720pMIPI CSI 1080p
    40-pin I/O expansion40-pin (GPIO/UART/SPI/I2C/ADC)40-pin (GPIO/UART/SPI/I2C/I2S)
    Dimensions85 x 56mm85 x 56mm
    Weight40g (1.41 oz)42g (1.48 oz)
    Price$35$35

    ODROID-C1 is the first Odroid board that based from Cortex-A5, Four cores of Cortext-A5 is much
    faster than the RPi's 700MHz ARM11-based BCM2835, as indicated by the benchmarks which show a 8x advantage over the Raspberry Pi. The program that uses to benchmark is a popular benchmark tools called Unix-Bench (5.1.3).

    Hardware Details Video for ODROID-C1

    The RPi was clocked at 800MHz using Sandisk UHS-1 8GB SDCard running on the Debian Wheezy OS. The ODROID-C1 was clocked at 1.5GHz using 16GB eMMC. Here is the Benchmark result Comparison Table :

    Benchmarks(Index Score)RPi Model B+ODROID-C1Ratio
    Dhrystone-2 using register variables162.11262.87.8
    Double-Precision Whetstone56.2439.67.8
    Execl Throughput61.6489.47.9
    File Copy 4K bufsize, 8000 maxblocks187.9778.44.1
    Pipe Throughput164.1610.43.7
    Pipe-based Context Switching62.7467.07.4
    Process Creation68.2371.85.5
    Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)117.2874.47.5
    Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)106.2853.88.0
    System Call Overhead290.51999.76.9
    Total Index Score109.8622.35.7

    The result is ODROID is 8 times faster that the Raspberry Pi !

    Some of a video that test the ODROID-C1 :

    Performance Test