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Dell Inspiron 17 5770 (Core i7-8550U, AMD Radeon 530) review – image quality is the strongest and probably the only selling point

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Just another 8th Generation Intel-powered 17-inch notebook from Dell or there’s more to it? It surely is a fine addition in the 17-inch market and Dell’s portfolio if the price wasn’t so high. The Intel Core i7-8550U paired with AMD’s Radeon 530 GPU isn’t something to brag about at the above $1 000 price point, especially when you have powerful 17-inch notebooks like the Acer Aspire 7 or the ASUS ROG Strix GL753VD/VE for roughly the same if not lower price.

But even if horsepower isn’t everything, especially for some users, the Inspiron 17 5770 doesn’t offer anything out of the ordinary in terms of image quality, features and overall build quality. In fact, far less expensive solutions such as the Acer Aspire 5 (17-inch) manages to impress with better screen and similar build quality. So is the Inspiron 17 5770 really worth your hard-earned money? We find out in the review below.

Contents

Retail package

The laptop comes in a standard box containing all of the usual user manuals, AC adapter and power cord.

Design and construction

Most of the competitors try to include aluminum in their build and the Inspiron 17 5770 is no exception although, only the interior is aluminum while the rest of the chassis uses plastic. Unfortunately, this has its impact on overall feel and rigidity and at this price, it’s hard to recommend over some alternatives. Also, it’s not necessarily lightweight (2.79 kg) and it’s 25 mm thick – just what you’d expect from an average 17-inch machine.

As we already stated, the lid uses matte plastic imitating anodized aluminum and it’s susceptible to twists and bends. The middle area of the back bounces quite a bit and but the flex is rather limited. The single hinge design works well to support the lid by providing an excellent grip on the screen. However, this has its downside – the overly tightened hinge requires both hands at all times to open the laptop. And as for the bottom, it has the same plastic finish that we found on the lid.

The sides come with a familiar selection of ports – the 15-inch Inspiron 15 5570 has identical port placement so you won’t really benefit from the bigger form factor in terms of connectivity. At least the port placement is good – on the left you will find the USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1) port, HDMI, two USB 3.0 connectors, and the 3.5 mm audio jack. On the right, you will find only the optical drive, the USB 2.0 port and the SD card reader.

The interior is also pretty similar to the one of the Inspiron 15 5570 – brushed aluminum surface with the only weak spot above the keyboard where the hinge is. But on contrary to the 15-inch variant, this one has a nice and clicky keyboard with rather short key travel although, it feels a bit cheap. The clickpad has suboptimal gliding surface and is a little bit stiff but manages to register swipes and gestures accurately. In any case, we were expecting better input devices given the asking price.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

The hardware is easily accessible by removing the bottom piece. Just make sure you’ve unscrewed all the screws on the bottom and removed the optical drive as well then gently pry it up.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

The notebook features a standard 2.5-inch HDD/SSD bay and an M.2 SSD slot as well. The first one is taken by a Seagate 1TB HDD while the M.2 slot was taken by an SK Hynix 256GB SATA SSD but you can swap it for a PCIe NVMe drive.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
M.2 SSD 2280 slot 1 SK Hynix 256GB M.2 SATA SSD Buy from Amazon.com
2.5-inch HDD/SSD slot 1TB Seagate HDD Buy from Amazon.com

RAM

The motherboard holds two RAM slots and supports up to 32GB of DDR4-2400 memory but in our case, only one of those slots is taken by an 8GB DDR4-2400 chip from Samsung.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
Slot 1 8GB Samsung DDR4-2400 Buy from Amazon.com
Slot 2 Free Buy from Amazon.com

Other components

The Wi-Fi card is placed near the RAM chip slots.

The battery unit is rated at 42Wh and it’s placed under the wrist rest area.

Cooling system

The cooling system consists of just one simple heat pipe going across both heatsinks and a single cooling fan that pushes the hot air out the back of the chassis.

Display quality

The Inspiron 17 5770 appears to have a familiar Full HD (1920×1080) IPS panel manufactured by CHI MEI with model number CMN1738 (N1YPX-173HCE). The panel can be found in Dell’s 17-inch convertible, the Inspiron 17 7773 so we already know what to expect from it. Of course, the usual 127 ppi and 0.1995 x 0.1995 mm pixel pitch are true. It can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from at least 69 cm.

The display has excellent viewing angles.

We’ve recorded a peak brightness of 280 cd/m2 in the center of the screen and 253 cd/m2 as average across the surface with 22% maximum deviation in the lower right corner, which is pretty high. The correlated color temperature at maximum brightness is a bit colder than it should be – 7100K and stays in that range when we go along the grayscale – 7040K. You can see how these values change at 140 cd/m2 (48% brightness) in the image below.

The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center of the screen should be no more than 4.0 and if you are planning to do color-sensitive work, it should be lower than 2.0. But in this case, since the laptop is going to be used mostly for multimedia, office work and web browsing, a deviation of 5.8 in the lower part of the screen can be overlooked by most users but it should be noted that it exceeds the minimally accepted value. The contrast ratio is high – 1260:1 before calibration and 1150:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The display covers 94% of the sRGB color gamut so colors will appear vivid and vibrant.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 28 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Unfortunately, our equipment detected low-frequency PWM (aggressive) at 1 kHz from 0 to 99% brightness and will most probably affect users with sensitive eyes. Our Health-Guard profile, however, will eliminate the screen flickering and help reduce the negative blue light emissions.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

The notebook’s display is pretty good with just small drawbacks that need to be considered. Firstly, the display has significant light bleeding and inconsistent color reproduction across the surface with the lower part being way off. Secondly, our equipment detected aggressive PWM from 0 to 99% brightness which will most surely cause some eye strain after prolonged use. Our Health-Guard, however, can take care of that. Other than that, the display assures pleasant multimedia experience thanks to the decent maximum brightness, wide sRGB coverage, high contrast ratio and wide viewing angles.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for Dell Inspiron 5770 configurations with 17.3″ CHI MEI CMN1738 (N1YPX-173HCE) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
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All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

The sound quality is good – we didn’t notice any significant distortions in the low, mid and high frequencies.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region

Dell Inspiron 5770 technical specifications table

Acer
-1%
Old price $999.00
$989.00
you save $10 (-1%)
from Amazon
Display
17.3”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
1TB HDD, 5400 rpm
M.2 Slot
1x PCIe NVMe M.2 slot (2280, M-key) See photo
RAM
8GB DDR4, 2400 MHz
Dimensions
415 x 279 x 25 mm (16.34" x 10.98" x 0.98")
Weight
2.79 kg (6.2 lbs)
Body material
Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum (Aluminum interior, plastic base and exterior)
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1), Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort, Sleep and Charge
  • 2x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • 1x USB Type-A 2.0
  • HDMI 1.4b
  • VGA
  • Card reader SD, SDHC, SDXC
  • Ethernet lan 10/100 Mbps
  • Wi-Fi
  • Bluetooth
  • Audio jack
Features
  • Web camera 720p@30fps
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone Digital-array microphones
  • Speakers 2x 2W
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slotNoble lock

Dell Inspiron 17 5770 configurations

View more laptops...

Software

We used the pre-installed Windows 10 for the writing of this review but if you wish to perform a clean install of the OS, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from Dell’s official support page.

Battery

Due to the limited 42Wh charge and rather demanding Full HD 17.3-inch IPS display, battery life isn’t the best we’ve seen for sure. Still, it should get you at least a couple of hours away from the plug.

Of course, all tests were run using the same settings as always – Wi-Fi turned on, screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2 and Windows battery saving feature switched on.

42 Wh, 3-cell
$989
price
363 min.
battery
3220 mAh, 4-cell, Li-Ion
409 min.+12.7%
48Wh, 3220 mAh
482 min.+32.8%
56Wh, 4-cell
$1214.49+23%
667 min.+83.7%
250 min.-31.1%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
42 Wh, 3-cell
$989
price
266 min.
battery
3220 mAh, 4-cell, Li-Ion
288 min.+8.3%
48Wh, 3220 mAh
372 min.+39.8%
56Wh, 4-cell
$1214.49+23%
513 min.+92.9%
263 min.-1.1%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
42 Wh, 3-cell
$989
price
83 min.
battery
3220 mAh, 4-cell, Li-Ion
105 min.+26.5%
48Wh, 3220 mAh
131 min.+57.8%
56Wh, 4-cell
$1214.49+23%
278 min.+234.9%
83 min.
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i7-8550U

The Intel Core i7-8550U is part of the new 8th Generation Kaby Lake Refresh and it’s a direct successor to the Intel Core i7-7500U from the Kaby Lake generation and the Intel Core i7-6500U from the 6th Skylake generation. With the latest alteration to the ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors, Intel doubles the core count from 2 to 4 and retaining the so-called Hyper-Threading technology, keeping the same 14nm manufacturing process and feature the same 15W TDP.

However, due to the core count change, the base frequency of the Core i7-8550U is lowered to only 1.8 GHz while Turbo Boost frequencies remain pretty high – somewhere between 3.7 – 4.0 GHz. This ensures considerably higher multi-core and single-core performance during short workloads before going back to more bearable frequencies considering the 15W TDP but most of the other specs and features remain the same.

The chip also incorporates a newer Intel Gen 9.5 integrated graphics called Intel UHD Graphics 620. The support for Google’s VP9 codec and H.265/HEVC Main 10 is still the most notable feature of the iGPU. Intel claims that the new UHD 620 chips improve the overall power consumption compared to the previous one.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-8550u/

$989
price
635
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$989
price
12175
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$989
price
9.96
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

Dell Inspiron 5770 CPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the Dell Inspiron 5770 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which Dell Inspiron 5770 model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.

$699.99
price
601
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$699.99
price
11750
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$699.99
price
11.36
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

Fritz

Fritz is a chess benchmark that tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Core i7-8550U managed to get 12.175 million moves per second. For comparison, one of the most powerful computers, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue even beat the famous Garry Kasparov with 3.5 to 2.5.

GPU – AMD Radeon 530 (4GB GDDR5)

AMD Radeon 530 is made for the entry-level notebooks and can be used for general multimedia and light gaming. The GPU is based on the Sun GCN architecture on the 28nm node and it uses 320 or 384 shaders, depending on the version. The GPU itself operates at a maximum frequency of 1024MHz.

The memory setup consists of 4GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 2250 MHz and it’s connected to the graphics processor using a 64-bit interface. AMD Radeon 530 supports Mantle, DirectX 12, OpenGL, Vulkan and OpenCL 1.2. It also has a DDR3 variant.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook with this GPU that we’ve tested: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/intel-uhd-graphics-620/

$989
price
2105
performance
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$989
price
501
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$989
price
366
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$989
price
280
performance
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Dell Inspiron 5770 GPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the GPUs that can be found in the Dell Inspiron 5770 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which Dell Inspiron 5770 model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different GPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / GPU.

$699.99
price
820
performance
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$699.99
price
253
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$699.99
price
190
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$699.99
price
192
performance
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gaming tests

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) HD, Low (Check settings) HD, Medium (Check settings) HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 60 fps 26 fps 13 fps

Temperatures

The stress tests that we perform don’t represent real-life usage scenarios but they remain the most reliable way to assess the overall stability and effectiveness of the cooling system.

We started with 100% CPU load for about an hour and the system was able to fully utilize the CPU’s performance at first. The Core i7-8550U reached about 3.4 GHz for the first few seconds before settling at 2.6 GHz for good. This suggests of a good CPU utilization.

Turning on the GPU stress test resulted in pretty high temperatures for the CPU and the GPU. The Core i7-8550U went over 93-94 °C easily while the Radeon 530 reached a toasty 91 °C but none of the chips throttled. Still, such high temperatures are mostly observed in high-performance gaming notebooks and given the undemanding nature of the CPU and GPU, it’s safe to say that the cooling system isn’t as stable as it should be.

Temperatures on the surface were a bit high given the low TDP of the hardware with the warmest point being the center of the keyboard.

42.1°
42.7°
30.2°
38.6°
45.1°
29.3°
29.9°
26.1°
25.5°

Verdict

Unlike its smaller 15-inch sibling (the Inspiron 15 5570), the Inspiron 17 5770 gives you more reasons to consider it as your next mainstream daily driver. However, most of the things that we didn’t like in the 15-inch version are here to stay.

The build quality isn’t exactly impressive or at least good enough to consider it over its cheaper direct competitors. Also, input devices fall short of the competition as well – the touchpad is stiff and has suboptimal gliding surface while the keyboard has that cheap feeling and short key travel. It should be noted, though, that the pleasant clicky feedback of the keyboard compensates to some extent.

And when it comes to hardware, the 17-inch variant offers completely different viewing experience but just about the same performance. The latter once again disappoints due to the rebranded AMD Radeon R7 M460 (now called Radeon 530), which can’t go against the likes of the GeForce 940MX and GeForce MX150, which are often found in this price range. Also, the cooling performance is questionable given the results we got from the stress tests. Luckily, the screen quality is pretty good and provides pleasant viewing experience with just two trade-offs – the bottom part of the screen has significant light bleeding and color deviation compared to the center and also uses aggressive PWM for regulating screen brightness from 0 to 99%. The latter can be avoided by using our Health-Guard profile. Moreover, the use of a 17.3-inch Full HD IPS display is probably the culprit of the unimpressive battery life.

If you look at the notebook’s specs alone, you’d think that it’s a good bargain – it has the latest of what Intel can offer and it also has discrete GPU for your graphically intensive tasks. In addition, you can enjoy your content on a big 17.3-inch crisp 1080p IPS panel but once you look for alternatives, you start to realize that the Inspiron 17 5770 is a bit pricey. Don’t get us wrong, it’s a decent laptop but given the price, we can’t overlook most of the issues this system has. For just about the same price, you can get the Acer Aspire 7 (A717-71G) with 8th Gen Core i5 or Core i7 CPU and GeForce GTX 1050 or for a few bucks less, you can get the Aspire 5 with GeForce MX150 – both variants offer even better image quality than the Inspiron 5770. But compared to the ASUS’ 17-inch X756, then the Inspiron 5770 is probably the way to go.

Pros

  • Excellent IPS display with wide sRGB coverage and high contrast

Cons

  • Shallow keyboard with no LED backlight
  • Hardware runs hot under heavy workload
  • Slow GPU for the asking price
  • Screen uses PWM For regulating screen brightness (our Health-Guard profile takes care of that)
  • Our unit’s screen had significant light bleed and color deviation in the lower section

Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) review – ultra-thin daily driver

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Here comes a device of a brilliantly minimal stylish design – Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52). This is a product for students who need a laptop lighter than a notebook (a paper one, that is). It is also going to appeal to bloggers, that move from place to place faster than Usain Bolt through a tartan track. Its mindblowing thickness and weight of a feather make us sound like we are advertising the product, and yet it is the main selling point of the device.

The stylish shell comes with powerful internals – we have Intel Core i7-8550U on board, accompanied by 8 GB of DDR 4 RAM, running on 2400 MHz. The storage device is a 256 GB SSD. This Swift 5 is equipped with a FHD (1920 x 1080 pixels) touchscreen display with an IPS panel. The one here does lack the Gorilla Glass coating of the Swift 3 (SF315-41), which we reviewed for you earlier.

Acer claims an 8-hour battery life of the Swift 3 (SF514-52), and we can assure you that we’re gonna test these claims.

You can find the prices and configurations in our Specs System: http://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-swift-5-2017/

Contents

Specs Sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region.

Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) technical specifications table Also known as Acer Swift 5 (SF515-52)

Acer
Upcoming
Display
14.0”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
256GB SSD
M.2 Slot
1x 2280 PCIe NVMe M.2 slot
RAM
8GB DDR4, 2400 MHz
Dimensions
329 x 228 x 15 mm (12.95" x 8.98" x 0.59")
Weight
0.97 kg (2.1 lbs)
Body material
Aluminum, Magnesium-Lithium alloy (Magnesium-lithium top & bottom; Magnesium-aluminum palm rest)
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1), Sleep and Charge
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1), Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort, HDMI
  • HDMI
  • Card reader SD, SDHC, SDXC
  • Ethernet lan
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2x2)
  • Bluetooth 4.1
  • Audio jack
Features
  • Web camera HD 720p
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) configurations

Retail package


Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) comes in a nice big black and gold box. Inside you see two compartments. One includes the charger of the device, which is the same that comes with the larger Swift 3. The other on has a cardboard cover branded with Acer’s logo. Underneath we find the always-there manuals and set up guides, accompanied by the Swift 5 (SF514-52) itself, which is placed in a cute white antistatic bag.

Design and construction

The Swift 5 (SF514-52) is a device that surely impresses from the first look. Not only the premium blue aluminum skin but just how thin this laptop is. How light it is! The 14-inch machine is just 15 mm thin, and it weighs less than a kilo – 970 g (2.14 lbs). The stylish shell’s size is 12.95″ x 8.98″ x 0.59″ which translates to 33 cm x 22.8 cm x 1.5 cm, and it houses a 14-inch 1920 x 1080p touchscreen display. On the bottom of the device, we see some vents and the drills underneath which are located the stereo speakers. The hot air vent is pointing towards the decorative hinge panel with the Swift logo.

Opening the Swift 5 (SF514-52) we find pretty a common view – a keyboard, touchpad and a fingerprint reader. Despite the small size of the device, we like the adequate key size, and with the clickiness and the fast response, it is a real pleasure typing on it. Another plus is the backlight presence.

The touchpad here is better than that of the larger Swift 3, but here we also have the likings of a screen that is touch sensitive. The digitizer of the device is well calibrated and responds pretty accurately. We were annoyed, however, by the shakiness of the screen when typing on it in everything else than the flat mode. We would like the hinges to be a little bit sturdier, but we didn’t find many occasions to prefer the touchscreen over the touchpad of the device.

The little guy that we didn’t mention above is the fingerprint reader, which is a conventional one. It works 9 out of 10 and is not the fastest on the planet but it sure does the job.

On the side, we can see the usual stuff found on every laptop – ports! The left one is organized pretty minimally, having only the headphone jack, but there is a couple of blinking lights, that make sure “the Jack” is not bored. The other side sports 4 connectors – an HDMI connector, and three USB 3.0 ports. One of them is an ordinary Type-A, another one is again Type-A, but offers Sleep and Charge, and the last one is Type-C.

Display quality

Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) is equipped with a Full HD touchscreen panel with an IPS matrix. The model number of the display is AUO B140HAK02.0. With an aspect ratio of 16:9 the resolution of the device is 1920 x 1080, and considering the screen size of 14 inches we calculated a pixel density of 157 ppi, making the display “Retina” when viewed from at least 56 cm. The pixel pitch is 0.161 x 0.161 mm.

The screen of Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) has comfortable viewing angles, which is shown in the image below.

The maximum brightness of the device goes up to 213 cd/m2 in the middle of the screen, going down to 200 cd/m2 as an average across the surface of the screen. The maximum deviation is around 21%. The color temperature of the panel when white light is displayed is 6880 K (which is kind of colder than the optimal 6500 K for the sRGB standard). The color temperature of the grey scale before calibration is a little bit colder at 7000 K.
On the next image, we can see the dE2000 values with a reference point of 140 cd/m2. Ideally, these values should be below 4.0 points. The contrast we measured is very good at 1450:1 (1250:1 after calibration).

Color reproduction

Next, we look at the color coverage of the sRGB color gamut (that’s the standard for the Internet and HDTV). We also included the color reproduction limits of the human eye via the “CIE 1975 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram” which gives us the idea of range and accuracy of the colors, your device throws at you. Inside the dark grey triangle, we see the standard colors used by Internet and digital television – rec 709/sRGB.

Being used by millions of people around the world, the colors from the sRGB gamut are the most common and their accurate reproduction is of key importance for the quality of the screen.

Other than sRGB we check the Adobe RGB gamut, used in professional cameras, DCI-P3 – used by the movie studios. We also included UHD Rec.2020, which is hard to achieve by the nowadays displays whatsoever. Lastly, we put the Pointer gamut which consists of the natural colors that usually appear around us.

The yellow dotted line shows the coverage of Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) which is around 95% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Gaming and Web design” profile is designed to show optimal color temperature (6500K) when the luminance is at 140 cd/m2 and in sRGB gamma mode.

In order to test the display, we used 24 color samples, consisting of common founded and easy distinguishable ones like light and dark human skin, blue sky, grassy green and orange.
In the images below you can compare the results of Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) with the default settings and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile.

Coming next we have the gaming experience tool which shows the capabilities of the screen to expose the darkest parts of the image.

The left side tells us the results of the screen at default settings, and the right one shows us the results with “Gaming and Web design” profile installed. The horizontal gives us the levels of grey, and the vertical one – the screen brightness.

You can check how your device displays the first five levels of grey – 1% – 5% White – via the graphics below the charts. The image you see depends on several factors such as the panel of the display you’re currently reading this article on, it’s calibration, your vision, ambient light, viewing angle and more.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

The bottom graph is dedicated to gamers and illustrates the response time of the pixels from Black to White and vice versa, from 10% to 90% and reverse.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

The light emitted by Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) is not PW-modulated for the full range of brightness levels, giving comfortable conditions for long-time usage.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

And so, the touchscreen display of Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) has an IPS panel with Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, a very good contrast and at the same time covering pretty much the whole sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976 at 95%.
The downside of the unit is the relatively high variation in terms of luminance (and a little bit when it comes to color temperature) across the screen. Also, because of the glossy finish of the screen, the display may seem a bit dim when exposed to direct sunlight.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) configurations with 14″ B140HAK02.0 (FHD, 1920 x 1080) IPS screen: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) has an excellent stereo sound. The low, mid and high frequencies partially suffer from deviation in the tones.

Software

Swift 5 (SF514-52) come pre-equipped with 64-bit Windows 10 Home edition operating system. If you decide to reinstall or switch OS here is a link for all the drivers you’ll need potentially: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/7485?b=1

Battery

As usual, we ran our tests using the same settings – Wi-Fi turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 cd/m2 and in Windows power saving mode.

4670 mAh, 2-cell
price
462 min.
battery
41Wh, 3-cell
445 min.-3.7%
420 min.-9.1%
56Wh, 4-cell
$1048.89
443 min.-4.1%
46Wh, 4-cell
$999
350 min.-24.2%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
4670 mAh, 2-cell
price
353 min.
battery
41Wh, 3-cell
310 min.-12.2%
448 min.+26.9%
56Wh, 4-cell
$1048.89
523 min.+48.2%
46Wh, 4-cell
$999
347 min.-1.7%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
4670 mAh, 2-cell
price
158 min.
battery
41Wh, 3-cell
90 min.-43%
153 min.-3.2%
56Wh, 4-cell
$1048.89
176 min.+11.4%
46Wh, 4-cell
$999
132 min.-16.5%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i7-8550U

The Intel Core i7-8550U is part of the new 8th Generation Kaby Lake Refresh and it’s a direct successor to the Intel Core i7-7500U from the Kaby Lake generation and the Intel Core i7-6500U from the 6th Skylake generation. With the latest alteration to the ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors, Intel doubles the core count from 2 to 4 and retaining the so-called Hyper-Threading technology, keeping the same 14nm manufacturing process and feature the same 15W TDP.

However, due to the core count change, the base frequency of the Core i7-8550U is lowered to only 1.8 GHz while Turbo Boost frequencies remain pretty high – somewhere between 3.7 – 4.0 GHz. This ensures considerably higher multi-core and single-core performance during short workloads before going back to more bearable frequencies considering the 15W TDP but most of the other specs and features remain the same.

The chip also incorporates a newer Intel Gen 9.5 integrated graphics called Intel UHD Graphics 620. The support for Google’s VP9 codec and H.265/HEVC Main 10 is still the most notable feature of the iGPU. Intel claims that the new UHD 620 chips improve the overall power consumption compared to the previous one.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – Intel UHD Graphics 620

Intel UHD Graphics 620 is a refresh of the HD Graphics 620 found as an integrated solution in many ULV Kaby Lake processors. UHD Graphics 620 is codenamed “Kaby Lake R U GT2” and it’s a part of the Gen 9.5 generation.

Intel UHD Graphics 620 has roughly the same performance as HD Graphics 620, depending on the other components in the system. UHD Graphics 620’s performance is similar to AMD Radeon R5 M420X and NVIDIA GeForce 910M/920M.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gameplay recordings with Intel UHD Graphics 620

Gaming tests

Even though the Swift 5 (SF512-52) is not a gaming-oriented machine – it can give you some satisfactory gaming experience with titles like Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and if you really pump down the resolution and details you’ll even be capable of playing GTA V.

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GO HD 768p, Low (Check settings) HD 768p, Medium (Check settings) HD 768p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 58 fps 37 fps 22 fps
Min FPS 7 fps 6 fps 3 fps

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) HD 768p, Low (Check settings) HD 768p, Medium (Check settings) HD 768p, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 26 fps
Min FPS 13 fps

Temperatures

The temperature tests go this way. We use Prime95 and FurMark to torture the CPU and the GPU respectively. This won’t give a representation of the real world load, but with our methodology we are trying to give you the most optimal results.

The first values from the test are from the 30th second of running the Prime95 stress test, which simulates a heavy task run on your computer (usually lighter tasks take from a part of the second up to a couple of seconds). Next, we take the ones from the 2nd-minute mark, which imitates a very heavy task, run on the CPU. The last values we give you are the ones at the end of the test, which is 15 minutes, simulating the load of the CPU, when it renders a video.

0-15 min. CPU torture test

As mentioned earlier, the Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) is equipped with a Core i7-8550U processor. Ahead of the tests, we measured the idle temperature of the CPU and it was around 41°C (106°F). After that, we started Prime95 and 30 seconds later the results didn’t seem very promising – the average core frequency was about 2.1 GHz, but what is important here is that in the first couple of seconds (which perfectly represents day-to-day tasks) the clock speeds reached 2.6 to 2.7 GHz, which is a sufficient score, although the average temperature was 91°C (196°F)! Are we having a Swift 5 for dinner?!

Cores frequency (0 – 00:30 sec.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 00:30 sec.)

The second measurement left us disappointed for two reasons – firstly the temperatures stabilized at an average of 79°C (174°F) so we’re staying hungry tonight, and secondly, the frequencies fell even further to an average of 1.7 GHz.

Cores frequency (0 – 2:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 2:00 min.)

The last checkpoint shows us that the slim and beautiful design comes with a sacrifice – terrible thermal effectiveness. Due to that, the average clock speeds for the whole test were under 1.5 GHz at an average temperature of 72°C (161°F).

Cores frequency (0 – 15:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 15:00 min.)

28.7°C
40.2°C
36.9°C
26.3°C
33.6°C
36.0°C
24.0°C
24.7°C
25.7°C

Verdict

Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) is truly an interesting device. It definitely won us with its design, and left us very impressed with its lightness. What we mean is that when you walk around with the laptop in your hand it almost seems unsafe because you don’t feel any weight in your hand. Despite that the aluminum body is sturdy, and the cold touch is very pleasant. This review actually shows us that the benchmarks don’t always give us real representation of the true performance of a device.

The raw CPU benchmarks have created the impression that the Core i7-8550U inside the machine is not optimized at all. Everything except the Photoshop score was easily beaten by the lower class i5-8250U, for example. After having spent a couple of days with this bad boy, we can say with confidence that it is one of the fastest devices we have ever had in our office. The agility it shows going through day-to-day tasks such as browsing, app loading and multitasking is not represented by the benchmark results. 99% of the time the CPU’s maximum capacity is going to be used for not more than a couple of seconds, which the laptop has no problem of providing full 4 GHz for it. Also, the option of using the screen as an input device gives even more versatility to this machine. Not only that, but Acer fulfilled the promise of a lasting battery with almost 8 hours of web-surfing time, close to 6 hours video playback, and more than 2 and a half hours of gaming (even though we doubt you’re going to use this device for games).

The only thing we can complain is the thermal effectiveness of Swift 5 (SF514-52). Even though you will never stress it enough in real life, it is kind of disappointing to see the Core i7-8550U on 100% load having to throttle down to 1.3 GHz in a number of times.

Other than that we are so satisfied with this product that we can give it an “Editors Choice” award. Not only that but we think that this could be a good MacBook challenger – at a better price.

Pros

  • Ultra-thin and lightweight body
  • All-aluminum chassis with good build quality
  • Very fast and responsive device
  • Good IPS display with touchscreen
  • Core i7-8550U onboard
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Good battery life

Cons

  • Lack of an RJ45 port
  • Screen is a bit shaky when using the touchscreen
  • Bad thermal effectiveness (at very high load)

ASUS ROG Strix GL702VI review – high-end hardware, mid-range experience

$
0
0

The ROG Strix GL702VI may be ASUS’ current top-tier gaming notebook with the most powerful GPU on a laptop from NVIDIA but it fails to impress in almost every other aspect while carrying a price tag similar, or even higher in some regions, to its direct competitors – Acer’s Predator 17 X and Alienware 17 R4. Both notebooks have been on the market for quite some time and offer top-notch premium experience so it’s not going to be an easy task for the ROG Strix GL702VI to overtake its rivals.

Even though the laptop sports the latest of what Intel and NVIDIA have to offer, the demanding PC enthusiasts will be disappointed to see that configurations exclude the overclockable Core i7-7820HK from specs list, which is a big surprise since the ASUS ROG G701VI runs on it while Acer’s and Alienware’s alternatives also offer the Core i7-7820HK option. However, we expect ASUS’ variant to offer overall better Full HD IPS display with 120 Hz refresh rate compared to the 120 Hz VA panel on the Alienware 17 R4 and the 75 Hz IPS screen on the Predator 17 X (GX-792). But what about cooling and overall gaming experience? We find out in the thorough review below.

View more laptops...

Contents

Retail package

The notebook comes in a big box containing the huge power brick, power cord and some promotional extras like a gaming headset, carrying bag and a gaming mouse all of which are ROG-branded. We are unsure, however, if these accessories are available worldwide or just in selected regions.

Design and construction

Unfortunately, the GL702VI isn’t anything special in terms of design. In fact, it looks a lot like the mid-range ASUS ROG Strix Gl753VE so we would have been a good idea for ASUS to distinguish its high-end laptop from its low-end configurations a bit better. But the design isn’t the only thing all GL notebooks share – the choice of materials is largely the same as well. Just like the rest of them, the GL702VI features a brushed aluminum lid and all-plastic base. Normally, this isn’t an issue when you are paying around $1 000 for a gaming laptop but becomes on when you are charging a price premium while aiming at customers demanding high-end gaming experience.

On contrary, the Predator 17 X and the Alienware 17 R4 boast more sophisticated build that includes matte plastic finish that feels great to touch and metal inner layer that adds rigidity. In any case, the build quality of the GL702VI isn’t bad by any means. We didn’t find any inconsistencies and protruding or sharp edges. The flex was virtually non-existent around the keyboard area or the palm rest. The lid stood strong during our twisting and bending attempts as well but we just couldn’t get past that prominent “cheap” notion – the bottom of the laptop is made of hard, slightly roughened plastic while the interior features plastic that imitates brushed aluminum. However, fingerprints stick on the surface just as easily as on the matte finish.

In terms of portability, however, the GL702VI impresses with relatively low weight. Tipping the scale at just 3.24 kg, the GL702VI easily becomes the lightest GTX 1080-powered we’ve tested and actually seen. It beats MSI’s TITAN PRO, Acer’s Predator 17 X and Alienware’s 17 R4 by more than a 1 kg. Thickness, however, isn’t exactly its strongest suit but stays within normal range for a notebook like this – 41.5 mm. The Alienware keeps its top spot in this regard.

Input devices and I/O

The input devices on this thing fit well with the overall design – they are not special by any means. The keyboard’s design is more or less familiar and can be found across all GL-branded ROG Strix laptops but ironically, the low-end GL553 and GL753 configurations received the best version with longer key travel. The one presented here has nice and clicky tactile feedback and just enough travel for typing but we doubt all gamers will appreciate the shallow nature of the keys. Also, the arrow keys are a slightly narrower than they should and aren’t well-separated. The 4-zone RGB LED backlight, on the other hand, is discreet and doesn’t distract you.

Once again, the keyboard isn’t bad by any means it’s just that it’s not entirely gaming-centric. Luckily, the touchpad compensates… to some extent. It’s responsive, accurate with a tad stiffer mouse clicks and it does the job pretty well on the go. Nevertheless, it’s a bit wobbly at times – feels like it has two-level click mechanism and also a tad sluggish. In any case, we prefer the dedicated mouse buttons design that’s been around for quite some time on the high-end ROG laptops and its rivals.

When it comes to I/O, the laptop has plenty and checks all the boxes except one – Thunderbolt 3 appears to be missing. It might be a small pitfall for most users but literally, all of the direct rivals offer come with it and it’s not even a USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 – it’s a standard USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 (5 Gbps). Anyway, the rest of the connectors are there and are well-distributed – most of them are on the left. The DC charging port, however, is placed at the back along with the huge exhaust vents

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

Even though the bottom piece doesn’t feature service lids for easy access to some of the internals, the plate comes off easily and you can upgrade, clean or repair with virtually no hassle.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

Of course, the laptop comes with an M.2 PCIe NVMe-enabled SSD slot and a standard 2.5-inch drive bay. The former is taken by a Samsung PM961 PCIe NVMe SSD with 512GB capacity while the 2.5-inch HDD is HGST 1TB spinning at 7200 rpm. Of course, depending on your configuration and region, the storage devices may be different.

Even though this is enough for most users, we can’t miss the fact that the Alienware 17 R4 and the Predator 17 X have two M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD slots configurable in RAID 0.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
M.2 SSD 2280 slot 1 Samsung PM961 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD Buy from Amazon.com
2.5-inch HDD/SSD slot 1TB HGST HDD @7200 rpm Buy from Amazon.com

RAM

The unit we’ve tested came with the maximum allowed memory – 32GB of DDR4-2400 RAM using both of the available slots. The chips we found were Samsung 16GB DDR4-2400.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
Slot 1 16GB Samsung DDR4-2400 Buy from Amazon.com
Slot 2 16GB Samsung DDR4-2400 Buy from Amazon.com

Other components

The Wi-Fi is located near the cooling fan and it’s Intel 8265NGW.

The battery unit is located under the wrist rest area and it’s rated the whopping 88Wh, although we doubt this will be enough to reach some significant web browsing and video playback runtimes.

Cooling system

At first glance, the notebook’s cooling solution appears to be pretty solid – two dedicated heatpipes and a huge heatsink take care of the GTX 1080 while the CPU relies on just one but thick enough heatpipe and a relatively big heatsink. There’s also an additional heatpipe coming from the right cooling fan (with the bottom of the notebook facing upwards) that takes some of the heat away from the GPU.

Display quality

Probably the strongest selling points of the GL702VI is the display. Featuring a Full HD (1920×1080) IPS panel supporting G-Sync and 120 Hz refresh rate, the AUO B173HAN01.1 is not only suitable for gaming but for multimedia as well. And as usual, due to the 17.3-inch diagonal, the screen has 127 ppi, 0.1995 x 0.1995 mm pixel pitch and can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from at least 69 cm.

Viewing angles are excellent.

We’ve recorded a peak brightness 316 cd/m2 in the center of the screen and 309 cd/m2 as average across the surface with just 10% maximum deviation. The correlated color temperature at maximum brightness is a bit colder than it should be – 6890K and gets closer to the optimal 6500K when going along the grayscale. You can see how these values change at 140 cd/m2 (36% brightness) in the image below.

The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center of the screen should be no more than 4.0 and if you are planning to do color-sensitive work, it should be lower than 2.0. But in this case, since the laptop is going to be used mostly for gaming and multimedia, a deviation of 3.3 in the lower left corner isn’t going to be an issue. The contrast ratio is exceptionally high – 1400:1 before calibration and 1380:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

In this case, the display covers 90% of the sRGB color gamut making it ideal for multimedia and gaming. Colors will appear vibrant and mostly accurate.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 23 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

As expected, just like 99% of the G-Sync-enabled displays, this one doesn’t use PWM for regulating brightness as well.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

One of the best displays we’ve tested on a gaming notebook. It checks all the boxes – wide sRGB coverage, high contrast, high maximum brightness, no PWM, supports G-Sync and has fast 120Hz refresh rate. On top of that, the display is pretty well calibrated but if you still want the best possible experience, our profiles will fit perfectly.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for ASUS ROG Strix GL702VI configurations with 17.3″ AUO B173HAN01.1 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

The stereo loudspeakers provide good sound quality with clear low, mid and high frequencies.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region

ASUS ROG GL702VI technical specifications table

Acer
$2629.00
from Amazon
Display
17.3”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), 120 Hz, IPS
HDD/SSD
512GB SSD + 1TB HDD, 5400 RPM
M.2 Slot
M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (2280)
RAM
32GB DDR4, 2400MHz
Dimensions
415 x 280 x 37 mm (16.34" x 11.02" x 1.46")
Weight
3.30 kg (7.3 lbs)
Body material
Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum (Aluminum lid, plastic base)
Ports and connectivity
  • 3x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • HDMI
  • Displayport mini
  • Card reader SD/MMC
  • Ethernet lan 10, 100, 1000 Mbit/s
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2x2)
  • Bluetooth 4.1
  • Audio jack combo audio/microphone jack
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera HD webcam
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone Digital array microphone
  • Speakers 2x 1W stereo speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slotKensington Lock
  • Dual 12V fans
  • 30-key rollover

ASUS ROG Strix GL702VI configurations

View more laptops...

Software

We used the pre-installed Windows 10 for the writing of this review but if you wish to perform a clean install of the OS, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from ASUS’ official support page.

Battery

Obviously, battery life isn’t one of its strongest suits for apparent reasons. Like all high-end gaming laptops, the ASUS ROG GL702VI doesn’t use the integrated graphics for light tasks such as video playback and browsing because NVIDIA’s G-Sync feature still doesn’t support switchable graphics so the GTX 1080 has to do the heavy lifting along with the undemanding tasks. And as you can see from the results below, huge 88Wh battery just isn’t enough to deliver good runtimes.

Of course, all tests were run using the same settings as always – Wi-Fi turned on, screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2 and Windows battery saving feature switched on.

$2629
price
275 min.
battery
6000 mAh, 8-cell
$3017.71+15%
242 min.-12%
242 min.-12%
267 min.-2.9%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
$2629
price
245 min.
battery
6000 mAh, 8-cell
$3017.71+15%
200 min.-18.4%
221 min.-9.8%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
$2629
price
45 min.
battery
6000 mAh, 8-cell
$3017.71+15%
99 min.+120%
54 min.+20%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i7-7700HQ

The Core i7-7700HQ is Kaby Lake’s top-shelf direct successor of the Skylake Core i7-6700HQ offering slightly higher clock speeds on the almost identical architecture and TDP. While Intel markets Kaby Lake’s architecture as “14nm+”, the Core i7-7700HQ is still on the same 14nm node with the only significant update being in the iGPU department. That’s why the slightly altered clock speeds (2.8 – 3.8 GHz vs 2.6 – 3.5 GHz) bring not more than 10% increase in performance compared to the Core i7-6700HQ. We still have the supported Hyper-Threading technology with 4/8 – core/thread design, the same 45W TDP and 6MB cache.

However, the Kaby Lake generation boasts an updated video engine for the iGPU, although, its performance is just about the same. Branded as Intel HD Graphics 630, the GPU offers slightly higher clock speeds (350 – 1100 MHz vs 350 – 1050 MHz) compared to the Intel HD Graphics 530 and support for H265/HEVC Main10 profile at 10-bit color depth and the VP9 codec for full hardware acceleration. In addition, the HDCP 2.2 is also supported allowing Netflix’s 4K video streaming.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-7700hq/

$2629
price
632
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$2629
price
13637
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$2629
price
9.78
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

Fritz

Fritz is a chess benchmark that tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Core i7-7700HQ scored 13.637 million moves per second. In comparison, one of the most powerful chess computers, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue even beat the famous Garry Kasparov with 3.5 to 2.5.

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8GB GDDR5X)

The GeForce GTX 1080 is the top-shelf GPU from NVIDIA’s Pascal generation (except for the Titan X Pascal, of course) built upon 16nm TSMC process, which is a huge leap over the last generation (Maxwell), which featured a 28nm node. Anyway, the new architecture allows better thermals, efficiency and considerably higher clock speeds than its direct predecessor the GTX 980. Also, for the first time, NVIDIA has made the difference between the desktop and the mobile variants of the Pascal GPUs mostly unnoticeable in real-life use, although there’s a slight difference according to synthetic benchmarks.

CUDA cores (2560), ROPs (64) and TMUs (213) are identical to the desktop variant of the GTX 1080 since they are based on the same GP108 chip including the memory controller, which is the highlight of the new graphics card because it features the next generation of GDDR5X memory developed by Micron allowing higher memory bandwidth on a 256-bit interface clocked at 10 000 MHz. However, there’s a small difference in the base clock speeds – 1566 – 1733 MHz for the laptop version and 1607 – 1733 MHz for the desktop variant. Both frequencies can be altered depending on the manufacturer and the cooling system’s performance.

The GPU’s power consumption is rumored to be around 165W making it suitable only for large 17 or 15-inch machines with high-performance cooling system. In addition, the graphics card delivers new and exciting features like DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection, refined H.265 video encoding, etc.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook with this GPU that we’ve tested: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1080-8gb-gddr5x/

Gaming tests

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings) Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 104 fps 76 fps 65 fps

rise-of-the-tomb-raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings) Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 148 fps 92 fps 62 fps

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands Full HD, High (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings) Full HD, Ultra (Check settings)
Average FPS 97 fps 86 fps 60 fps

Temperatures

We recently changed the way we run the stress tests in order to simulate more realistic workloads. First, we start with about 15 minutes of 100% CPU workload then we leave the notebook to rest a few minutes and return to its normal temperatures. Then we run a combined CPU and GPU stress test that consists of 50-60% CPU load and 100% GPU load – a typical usage scenario during a heavy gaming session. Most of the modern games require less processing power and more GPU utilization so we think this is a more practical approach.

We rant the CPU stress test and didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary – the Core i7-7700HQ ran at its maximum frequency for four active cores (3.4 GHz) and temperatures were pretty stable as you can see from the screenshot below. However, the cooling fans were pretty loud even though we still haven’t started the GPU torture test.

As expected, the combined stress test raised the CPU temperatures a little while the GPU remained at around 76 °C during the whole test – an impressive result. The Core i7-7700HQ utilized the maximum clock speeds of around 3.4 GHz while the GTX 1080 ran at stable 1500 MHz – just a tad lower than its base operating frequency of 1566 MHz. Also, keep in mind that the cooling fans got even louder once we ran the combined stress test.

Temperatures on the surface remained pretty stable and surprisingly cool. The only warm spot was the center of the keyboard but still pretty negligible.

29.1°
32.6°
32.5°
27.2°
37.0°
32.6°
24.5°
26.5°
27.0°

Verdict

Top-notch gaming performance but not the best possible user experience overall for sure. That’s our summarized opinion of the GL702VI and we will try to break it down a bit.

Playing in the same ballpark as the Alienware 17 R4 and the Acer Predator 17 X in terms of pricing and performance, there’s a lot to be expected from the GL702VI. And ironically, ASUS has made some rookie mistakes with the current GTX 1080-powered laptop while not so long ago, ASUS was releasing one of the most renown high-end ROG laptops. So what happened?

By the looks of it, the OEM tried to cut on some of the corners to get a better margin while still focusing on some of the key aspects that make a gaming laptop good. This way it can still offer some good selling points compared to its competitors but we still think it’s not the best possible choice overall. So here’s why.

Build materials are definitely sub-optimal giving you that cheap feeling and kind of outdated looks with plastic covering 90% of the whole chassis but we do have to praise it for its quite sturdy build and relatively low weight (it beats the Alienware 17, MSI’s TITAN PRO and Acer’s Predator 17 X by at least 1 kg). Unfortunately, the touchpad constantly reminds you of that cheap feeling we talked about. The keyboard doesn’t make it look better either – it’s comfortable for typing with clicky and pleasant tactile feedback but the rather short travel, the lack of macro keys and unisolated arrow keys don’t fit the high-end gaming profile of the machine.

And even if we sound harsh at times, it’s because the price tag of the laptop allows us to be – charging more than $2 000 for a laptop will definitely draw some nitpicking criticism. Fortunately, not all is bad. In fact, the most important features of a gaming laptop are preserved. The cooling system is excellent – provides good enough airflow for the massive hardware, although at the price of noise emissions, and keeps the interior cool. The display is also one of the best we’ve seen – with the Predator 17 X coming only with 1080p @ 75Hz or 4K @ 60Hz (because the notebook hasn’t received a refresh for a while now) and the Alienware 17 R4 running a QHD VA panel at 120 Hz, it’s easy to say that the ASUS ROG Strix GL702VI has one of the best gaming-oriented screens out there. Not only it’s an IPS but also supports G-Sync and runs at buttery-smooth 120 Hz. We only wished the notebook cost just a little less than the current GTX 1080-powered competitors.

So is it worth your hard-earned money? As always – it depends. If you are looking for solid cooling performance, excellent image quality and portability, the GL702VI will probably be your best shot. However, the Predator 17 X can still offer an excellent UHD or FHD panel but won’t be able to drive all those pixels at 120 Hz. It also does a great job of cooling down the hardware, feels more premium, offers better upgradability in terms of storage and RAM, and offers overclockable CPU for the enthusiasts. And as for the Alienware, it’s more in between but fails to really beat any of the above mentioned in any aspect, except build quality.

View more laptops...

Pros

  • Generally sturdy build
  • Ligther than the competition by at least 1 kg
  • Excellent IPS display with great properties like wide sRGB, high contrast, 120Hz refresh rate, G-Sync support, etc.
  • The screen doesn’t use PWM for regulating brightness
  • Good cooling performance
  • Keyboard with tactile and clicky feedback (only good for typing, though)

Cons

  • Suboptimal choice of materials, cheap feel
  • Shallow keyboard with no macro keys and unisolated arrow keys (not the best for gaming) and unsatisfactory touchpad
  • Loud cooling fans
  • Only one M.2 SSD slot while the competition comes with two
  • Lacks USB-C Thunderbolt 3
  • Short battery life

ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP410UR) review – an excellent Yoga alternative in the mid-range segment

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ASUS has gained a lot of traction with its renewed mainstream VivoBook lineup and apparently, tries to make a breakthrough with the latest refresh of its convertible VivoBook Flip laptops. With the latest Intel 8th Generation processors behind the wheel, the VivoBook Flip makes a compelling argument in the mid-range segment with plenty of features to benefit from.

With the Lenovo Yoga 520 as main competitor, it’s going to be pretty hard to beat, especially with all the attention the Yoga 520 (Flex 5) is getting. Anyway, the VivoBook Flip impresses with elegant and rather sturdy design, powerful Core i5-8250 and Core i7-8550U processors to choose from, bright Full HD touch IPS display and plenty of energy on the go, even though the battery unit isn’t necessarily big. The corners that ASUS had to cut here are obvious – generally plastic construction but fortunately, this hasn’t reflected on the device’s overall sturdiness.

Contents

Retail package

The box contains all the usual user manuals, the AC adapter and the laptop itself. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Design and construction

It should have been clear by know that you can’t expect the same build quality and craftsmanship displayed on the ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 but the VivoBook still has plenty of rigidity to offer in the mid-range spectrum. In terms of mobility, the VivoBook Flip 14 and the Lenovo Flex 5 are pretty similar with the latter being just a few grams heavier than the former. Anyway, 19 mm thickness and 1.6 kg weight is pretty respectable and shouldn’t be an issue when carrying it around or when using it as a tablet.

And even though the only aluminum element here is the lid, the notebook’s chassis holds up pretty well to our twisting attempts. It feels rigid and bending the center of the lid isn’t as prominent as we expected. The hinges feel pretty tight and eliminate most of the wobbling when using the touchscreen in laptop mode. Also, we didn’t find any inconsistencies or protruding edges which is a sign of a decent build quality.

However, the interior feels a bit cheap with the plastic imitating brushed aluminum surface and we would have preferred a more conventional approach but it’s nothing to worry about really.

Input devices and I/O

There’s one important thing that the VivoBook Flip 14 and the ZenBook Flip 14 have in common and that’s I/O. Both are 14-inch ultrabooks with plenty of connectors. On the left, you will find two standard USB 2.0 ports, an SD card reader, the volume rocker and the power button. On the right, you will see the 3.5 mm audio jack, USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1) connector, USB 3.0 and a full-sized HDMI port. The back of the device is reserved for the main exhaust vents.

When it comes to input devices, however, the VivoBook Flip 14 is a mixed bag. The keyboard feels pretty nice with long key travel, clicky feedback and standard layout while the touchpad feels rather inconsistent. The gliding surface is nice, the mouse clicks are responsive and delightfully clicky but we found it to be a bit jumpy and inaccurate at times. It’s not always like that but it was definitely something we’ve noticed.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

Unfortunately, not all of the hardware is easily accessed and it’s a huge pain to even change the M.2 slot or upgrade memory. First, you have to remove all the screws on the bottom and then pry it up gently once you’ve released it from all of the clips. Then proceed by removing the cables. Once you’ve done all of this, you can change the battery and insert a standard 2.5-inch HDD but if you want to access the M.2 slot or the RAM, you have to flip the motherboard around.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

Despite being a relatively compact 14-inch convertible, the VivoBook Flip 14 offers a standard 2.5-inch HDD/SSD bay and an M.2 PCIe NVMe-enabled SSD slot supporting 2280 drives. The unit we’ve tested came with a standard M.2 SATA SSD from Micron with 256GB capacity.

But as we already mentioned, the M.2 SSD is located on the other side of the motherboard while the 2.5-inch drive can be easily accessed.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
M.2 SSD 2280 slot 1 Micron 256GB M.2 SATA SSD Buy from Amazon.com
2.5-inch HDD/SSD slot Free Buy from Amazon.com

RAM

The motherboard comes with 8GB of soldered DDR4-2400 memory and another free slot for upgrade so you can go as high as 24GB of DDR4-2400 RAM. And unfortunately, the chip is on the other side of the motherboard next to the M.2 slot.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
Slot 1 Free Buy from Amazon.com

Other components

The Wi-Fi card can be found right next to the battery and it’s the usual Intel 8265NGW.

The battery unit is rated at 42Wh and it’s L-shaped along the motherboard in order to make the most out of the unused space.

Cooling system

Both chips – the CPU and the GPU – share just one heatpipe that connects them to the cooling fan.

Display quality

The notebook uses a Full HD (1920×1080) IPS touchscreen from BOE with model number NV140FHM-N62. With a 14-inch diagonal, the screen offers 157 ppi and 0.161 x 0.161 mm pixel pitch. The screen can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from at least 56 cm.

The display has excellent viewing angles.

We’ve recorded a peak brightness of 302 cd/m2 in the center of the screen and 284 cd/m2 as average across the surface with 10% maximum deviation. The correlated color temperature at maximum brightness is a bit colder than it should be – 6800K and drops down a little when we go along the grayscale – 6650K. You can see how these values change at 140 cd/m2 (66% brightness) in the image below.

The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center of the screen should be no more than 4.0 and if you are planning to do color-sensitive work, it should be lower than 2.0. But in this case, since the laptop is going to be used mostly for multimedia, office work and web browsing, a deviation of 2.8 in the upper left corner of the screen isn’t an issue. The contrast ratio is high – 1200:1 before calibration and 1150:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

So in this case, the display covers 90% of the sRGB color gamut so colors will appear vivid and rich.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 36 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

This is probably the biggest drawback of the display – it uses PWM from 0 to 99% brightness to control luminance and the frequency of the emitted light is extremely low (200 Hz) and it’s considered aggressive. We highly recommend using our Health-Guard profile or just use the display at maximum brightness all the time to avoid eye strain.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

The notebook’s display is pretty good and checks almost all of the boxes for the general user. It has wide sRGB coverage, high contrast and it’s relatively accurate even without further calibration. However, the maximum brightness and the glossy surface might get in the way when using the device outdoor under direct sunlight. Still, the peak brightness is going to be more than enough for any other usage scenario.

So the only considerable drawback to consider here is the use of PWM for regulating brightness. It’s considered to be aggressive so we strongly recommend using the screen at maximum brightness most of the times or try out our Health-Guard profile, which eliminates the PWM while making the brightness level more bearable.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 configurations with 14.0″ BOE NV140FHM-N62 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

The sound quality is decent with just small distortions in the low, mid and high frequencies.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region

ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP410UR) technical specifications table

Acer
Upcoming
Display
14.0”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
256 M.2 SATA SSD
RAM
8GB DDR4, 2400 MHz
Dimensions
327 x 226 x 15.4 mm (12.87" x 8.90" x 0.61")
Weight
1.50 kg (3.3 lbs)
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.1 (3.1 Gen 2)
  • 1x USB MicroUSB 3.0 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • HDMI
  • VGA
  • DVI
  • Card reader SD
  • Ethernet lan
  • Audio jack headphone/microphone
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Speakers
  • Optical drive

ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP410) configurations

Software

We used the pre-installed Windows 10 for the writing of this review but if you wish to perform a clean install of the OS, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from ASUS’ official support page.

Battery

Even though the laptop comes with a modest 42Wh unit, it scored an impressive result on the web browsing and video playback test. We think the Core i5-8250U is the main contributor to the excellent battery performance.

Of course, all tests were run using the same settings as always – Wi-Fi turned on, screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2 and Windows battery saving feature switched on.

price
511 min.
battery
42Wh, 3-cell
$794.99
467 min.-8.6%
319 min.-37.6%
48Wh, Li-ion, 4-cell
690 min.+35%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
price
423 min.
battery
42Wh, 3-cell
$794.99
362 min.-14.4%
352 min.-16.8%
48Wh, Li-ion, 4-cell
481 min.+13.7%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
price
208 min.
battery
42Wh, 3-cell
$794.99
127 min.-38.9%
94 min.-54.8%
48Wh, Li-ion, 4-cell
191 min.-8.2%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i5-8250U

The Core i5-8250U is one of the first (along with the Core i7-8550U from the same generation) ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors from Intel to feature not two but four cores. It’s part of the 8th Generation (Kaby Lake Refresh) and on contrary to the previous generations, the Turbo Boost range is pretty wide now.

The base frequency is 1.6 GHz and can go up to 3.4 GHz for a short period of time before stabilizing somewhere in between during continues loads. This also means that the single-core performance is really good. The rest of the features and specs, however, remain mostly the same with support for dual-channel DDR4-2400/LPDDR3-2133 memory, 14nm FinFET manufacturing process and the same integrated graphics chip, although re-branded now as Intel UHD Graphics 620.

The whole SoC along with the dual-channel memory is rated at 15W TDP but depending on the usage scenario, cooling capabilities and the configured TDP from the OEM, the TDP can vary from 7.5W up to 25W.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i5-8250u/

Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401) CPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401) models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401) model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.

Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce 930MX (2GB DDR3)

The NVIDIA GeForce 930MX chip is based on the same 28nm process as the whole Maxwell family and uses the GM108 chip as the previous GeForce 930M GPU. However, some alterations have allowed for the GeForce 930MX to perform better than its predecessor.

Now the 930MX GPU supports GDDR5 memory, although not every OEM will use it and the most commonly found versions are with DDR3 VRAM. Furthermore, the GeForce 930MX is clocked higher (1019 – 1176 MHz) and this alone will bring the performance closer to the GeForce 940M. But most of the specs remain the same – 384 CUDA cores, 24 TMUs, 16 ROPs and 64-bit memory interface.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this GPU: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/nvidia-geforce-930mx-2gb-ddr3/

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401) GPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the GPUs that can be found in the ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401) models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401) model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different GPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / GPU.

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GO HD 768p, Low (Check settings) HD 768p, Medium (Check settings) HD 768p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 115 fps 89 fps 68 fps

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) HD, Low (Check settings) HD, Medium (Check settings) HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 76 fps 30 fps 14 fps

Temperatures

Our series of stress tests are not the best representation of real-life use but at the same time, they give us a good glimpse of how the system will perform in the long run. It’s also a good way to determine the stability of the cooling system under heavy load.

We started with 100% CPU load for about an hour and the chip was able to run at around 3.2-3.3 GHz for the first few seconds of the test before slowing down and staying stable at 2.5 GHz. Temperatures were slightly higher than we expected.

Switching on the GPU stress test resulted in minor CPU throttling and the same goes for the GPU as well – 900 MHz, which is around 119 MHz slower than the base frequency. Temperatures on both chips were relatively normal given the size of the machine and the nature of the test.

We didn’t record any alarming temperatures on the surface despite the duration and the nature of the stress test.

27.4°
39.2°
35.3°
26.9°
38.8°
32.5°
24.3°
27.0°
27.4°

Verdict

It’s easy to say that the ASUS VivoBook 14 is probably your best bet in the 14-inch convertible market segment. It comes with a good keyboard, although the touchpad isn’t anything special, decent build quality, plenty of upgrade options and vibrant IPS display.

But not all is good. The main drawback of the device is probably the screen’s PWM from 0 to 99% brightness. Our equipment detected aggressive pulsations that can be avoided by using the display at maximum brightness or using our Health-Guard profile. Also, the peak brightness we’ve recorded won’t be enough for outdoor use under direct sunlight and you should consider this before buying it. In any case, this is probably the best screen in this class in any other aspect like sRGB coverage, contrast ratio and overall screen quality.

When it comes to hardware and performance, the VivoBook 14 Flip gives what the industry’s standard at this price range can offer – latest Intel 8th Generation CPU and the option of a discrete GPU – NVIDIA GeForce 930MX (2GB DDR3). The latter won’t be enough for normal gaming but it should deliver enough performance for other graphically intensive tasks.

Upgradability is also one of its strongest suits – it has an M.2 SSD slot + 2.5-inch HDD/SSD bay and a free RAM slot on top of the soldered 8GB DDR4-2400 memory chip. Unfortunately, half of that isn’t easily accessible and almost complete disassembly is required just to change the M.2 storage or upgrade your RAM. Luckily, the battery can be easily swapped, which, by the way, delivers amazing runtimes. You might be able to get through the day with a single charge depending on your usage.

The final verdict? It’s definitely worth your hard-earned money and easily beats its direct and not so direct competitors in terms of image quality, battery life and upgradability. It beats the Yoga 520 (Flex 5) in its own game and it’s also a much better option than Dell’s overpriced Inspiron 13 5379 in almost every aspect.

Pros

  • Decent build quality
  • Good keyboard
  • Vibrant IPS screen with wide sRGB coverage and high contrast
  • Long battery life
  • Good upgradability for a 14-inch convertible – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD bay, M.2 SSD and RAM slot

Cons

  • Jumpy touchpad at times
  • The screen uses aggressive PWM from 0 to 99% brightness (our Health-Guard profile fixes that)
  • Really difficult to access the M.2 slot and the memory slot

HP ProBook 470 G5 review – redefining the work environment

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The manufacturer markets this computer as a professional’s best friend, whether it would be used in an office or on the go, providing the option of using a dock as well (it’s bought separately). HP also claims that the machine boasts a decent battery life from the 3-Cell 48 Wh unit, located under the bonnet of the laptop. Additionally, the fifth generation of HP ProBook 470 comes in several variants, featuring a Core i5/i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce 930MX GPU. The one that we are going to check out today is equipped with the Core i5-8250U low-voltage CPU from Intel.

The GPU built in the processor allows for a longer battery life, but for more performance-oriented tasks we have GeForce 930MX on-board. This graphics card is not exactly meant to supply a powerhouse, but it will definitely do the job for very light gaming and the day-to-day usage that this laptop is built for. Memory-wise, HP ProBook 470 comes with one 8 GB DDR4 module, running at a top speed of 2400 MHz. The storage device is a 1 TB Toshiba SATA HDD @7200 rpm, and lastly, we have a 17.3-inch HD+ (1600 x 900p) display with a TN panel.

The huge body of the 17.3-inch laptop looks fancy with its silver matte painted body and good choice of I/O ports.

You can find the prices and configurations in our Specs System: http://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-probook-470-g5/

Contents

Specs Sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region.

HP ProBook 470 G5 technical specifications table Also known as 2TT74UT#ABA

Acer
-7%
Old price $781.99
$729.00
you save $53 (-7%)
from Amazon
Display
17.3”, HD+ (1600 x 900), TN
HDD/SSD
500GB, 7200 rpm
M.2 Slot
1x 2280 PCIe M.2 slot (M key) See photo
RAM
8GB DDR4, 2400 MHz
Dimensions
413 x 276 x 22.5 mm (16.26" x 10.87" x 0.89")
Weight
2.50 kg (5.5 lbs)
Body material
Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.1 (3.1 Gen 2), Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort, HDMI
  • 2x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • 1x USB Type-A 2.0, Sleep and Charge
  • HDMI
  • VGA
  • DVI
  • Card reader SD
  • Ethernet lan
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth 4.2
  • Audio jack headphone/microphone
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera
  • Microphone
  • Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

HP ProBook 470 G5 configurations

Retail package

HP hasn’t offered anything else other than the essentials. Inside the box, we found a set of well-packed manuals, as well as the power brick and power cord to connect the adapter to the wall. Of course the most interesting part – the silver giant – comes surrounded by blocks of foam (transportation matters).

Design and construction

Despite the large footprint, the HP ProBook 470 G5 is a rather slim and somehow light device. Its shell is made of the not so premium plastic, which we found to be actually pretty sturdy. Similarly to last year’s ProBook 470 G4 – the only metal part you’ll see is the area around the keyboard, which is made of brushed anodized aluminum. The overall weight of the device is 2.50 kg (5.5 lbs), which is kind of impressive for a 17-inch device, and the dimensions are 41.38 x 27.61 x 2.26 cm (16.29 x 10.87 x 0.89 in), giving the ProBook 470 G5 a thin 23 mm profile.

Speaking of the aluminum material on the ProBook 470 G5’s exterior – it attracts fingerprints as sugar attracts flies. Ever since the first time we laid our fingers on the device it felt like we’re in the police department. Other than that, the base has a good feel and is pretty comfortable in use. The keyboard, surrounded by it, also feels good to touch. HP has used a full-sized keyboard, but strangely they decided not to include proper arrow keys. Why HP?! There is enough space for a second keyboard there! Although it is not that much of a problem once you get used to it, we would love to see the arrow keys as they should be. Other than that, the keyboard is pretty good – with decent key travel and a clicky feedback, the device gives a good feeling and confidence when typing.

Above the keyboard, there is a huge grill for the speakers, and the matte touchpad is located at the front, which we find fairly adequate and well balanced. Last but not least, there is a feature that we can see on more and more new devices – a fingerprint reader, which is located on the right-hand side of the metal panel. At first, the system prompts you to slide your finger on top of the reader a couple of times for the sensor to remember your fingerprint. It is not exactly like the method, used on most smartphones and the majority of laptop sensors, but it gives a pleasant fluid feel when you slide a finger on top of it, and you are given access to the computer. Even though it’s not the fastest, it worked in 100% of the cases for us.

Things are a little bit busier on the right side, where we find two more USB Type-A connectors and one of Type-C, featuring Thunderbolt 3 support and Power Delivery. They are accompanied by video connectors – a single VGA and single full-sized HDMI port. Lastly, we have the Ethernet connector. Essentially, HP gives you the full treatment with this work-oriented device.

ProBook 470 G5’s 17.3-inch HD+ screen is surrounded by medium-sized plastic bezels, from which the top one houses the web camera, some mics, and an ambient light sensor. The hinges of the device feel stable, but it impresses us with the ability to open the “hood” single-handedly. The bottom part of the laptop has a few vents, located in the middle of the device. It is also here that we found а service panel which lets you upgrade the RAM and storage.

Disassembly and maintenance

As previously seen in older models, HP has provided ProBook 470 G5 users with easy access to the internals of the device via a couple of service covers which are held by a screw and some clips. After you open the service panel, you can see every upgradeable part of the laptop.

Looking at the image on the left below, there are the RAM slots, one of which is currently free, while the other one is occupied by an 8 GB DDR4 2400 MHz module. On their left, you can see the Wi-Fi card, and beneath it, there are the heatpipes, where they connect to the CPU. A little to the right we can see where they make contact with the GPU, and finally, in the image on the right, you can see the fancy little turbine (despite the big housing the turbine is small) that draws the hot air from the heatsink out into the wild.

In the next two pictures, you can see the storage upgrade capabilities of HP ProBook 470 G5. The HDD can be changed super easily by unscrewing two screws that hold it in place, and then pulling the strap. Props to HP for giving instructions how to remove the HDD on its plastic cover. On its left, we find the M.2 PCIe slot for super fast SSD drives, which is currently empty but would definitely love to have some company in the future.

Display quality

The display unit of HP ProBook 470 G5 has an HD+ TN panel with a model number BOE BOE0660. The footprint is 17.3 inches, and 1600 x 900 resolution (with an aspect ratio of 16:9). All this contributes to the pixel density of 109 ppi, with a 0.239 x 0.239 mm pitch. The screen can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from a distance beyond 80 cm.

HP ProBook 470 G5 has uncomfortable viewing angles. Here are some images for quality check.

The maximum brightness we measured is 216 nits in the center of the screen and 210 nits average for the whole surface, and a maximum deviation of just 6%. The color temperature of the display is 7060K (white screen and maximum brightness), which is a little bit colder than the sRGB standard of 6500K. The average color temperature, measured on the grey scale before calibration is above 15000K (cold, bluish light, fixed by our profiles).
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs around 140 cd/m2, which translates into 83% brightness with this panel. The dE2000 values should not pass the 4.0 mark, and if the color accuracy is of a big importance to you (multimedia creator), this is the first thing you should check before you buy a device.
The contrast we measured is mediocre – 255:1 (230:1 after calibration).

Color reproduction

The next image shows the sRGB coverage of HP ProBook 470 G5’s display. The color reproduction of the human eye is shown via the “CIE 1976 Unifom Chromaticity Diagram”. In the middle of the dark-grey triangle are located the standard colors used by Internet and digital TV – rec.709/sRGB.

Being used by million people around the world the colors from the sRGB gamut are the most common and their accurate reproduction is of key importance for the quality of the screen.

In addition to the Adobe RGB color space, used in the professional photography, we’ve included the color gamut, used by world-known movie studios – DCI-P3, and UHD-digital television (Rec.2020), which is very hard to achieve by modern display units.

We have drawn the Pointer’s Gamut with a black line. This color space covers all the colors we can see around us.

The HP ProBook 470 G5 coverage is shown by the yellow pointed line. It’s display has 68% of sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Gaming and Web design” profile is designed to show optimal color temperature (6500K) when the luminance is at 140 cd/m2 and sRGB gamma.

In order to test the display, we used 24 color samples, consisting of common founded and easy distinguishable ones like light and dark human skin, blue sky, grassy green and orange.
Beneath you can compare the results of HP ProBook 470 G5 with the default settings, and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile.

The next chart shows us the capabilities of comfortable gaming experience in terms of the darkest parts of the image.

The left side tells us the default settings results of the screen, and the right one shows us the results with “Gaming and Web design” profile installed. The horizontal gives us the levels of grey, and the vertical one – the screen brightness.

You can check how your device displays the first five levels of grey – 1% – 5% White – via the graphics below the charts. The image you see depends on several factors such as the panel of the display you’re currently reading this article on, it’s calibration, your vision, ambient light, viewing angle and more.

Response Time (Gaming capabilities)

The chart below illustrates the response time of the pixels going from Black to White and around for levels of 10% to 90% and vice versa. We measured Fall Time + Rise Time = 15 ms

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

The screen brightness of HP ProBook 470 G5 is not PW-modulated throughout all of the levels, giving comfort to the eyes in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

HP ProBook 470 G5’s screen has a large diagonal, fairly fast panel, and it’s brightness isn’t PW-modulated. The resolution of the screen is acceptable for a workhorse computer, and the sRGB coverage is not bad. Additionally, the panel has its disadvantages though – poor viewing angles which are typical for the TN panel.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for HP ProBook 470 G5 configurations with 17.3″ BOE BOE0660 (HD+, 1600 × 900) TN screen: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

HP ProBook 470 G5 pumps clear sound with a very good quality. Tones are clear for the low, mid and high frequency ranges.

Software

HP ProBook 470 G5 comes with a 64-bit Windows 10 OS on board, so all the drivers you need will be pre-installed. Just in case you need to reinstall/change OS here is the official driver download page: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-probook-470-g5-notebook-pc/17047161

Battery

As always, the battery tests were run with Windows power saving setting turned and Wi-Fi turned on, and the screen brightness adjusted to 120 cd/m2.

48Wh, 3-cell
$729
price
375 min.
battery
250 min.-33.3%
56Wh, 4-cell
$1399.99+92%
667 min.+77.9%
56Wh, Li-Ion, 4-cell
463 min.+23.5%
44Wh, Li-Po, 4-cell
344 min.-8.3%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
48Wh, 3-cell
$729
price
343 min.
battery
263 min.-23.3%
56Wh, 4-cell
$1399.99+92%
513 min.+49.6%
56Wh, Li-Ion, 4-cell
44Wh, Li-Po, 4-cell
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
48Wh, 3-cell
$729
price
89 min.
battery
83 min.-6.7%
56Wh, 4-cell
$1399.99+92%
278 min.+212.4%
56Wh, Li-Ion, 4-cell
44Wh, Li-Po, 4-cell
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

HP ProBook 470 G5’s battery life is not the best out there, but is satisfactory, giving us around 6 hours of Web surfing/Video playback. Once we go into gaming territories you wouldn’t want to roam alone there without a charger.

CPU – Intel Core i5-8250U

The Core i5-8250U is one of the first (along with the Core i7-8550U from the same generation) ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors from Intel to feature not two but four cores. It’s part of the 8th Generation (Kaby Lake Refresh) and on contrary to the previous generations, the Turbo Boost range is pretty wide now.

The base frequency is 1.6 GHz and can go up to 3.4 GHz for a short period of time before stabilizing somewhere in between during continues loads. This also means that the single-core performance is really good. The rest of the features and specs, however, remain mostly the same with support for dual-channel DDR4-2400/LPDDR3-2133 memory, 14nm FinFET manufacturing process and the same integrated graphics chip, although re-branded now as Intel UHD Graphics 620.

The whole SoC along with the dual-channel memory is rated at 15W TDP but depending on the usage scenario, cooling capabilities and the configured TDP from the OEM, the TDP can vary from 7.5W up to 25W.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

$729
price
566
performance
$1399.99+92%
683+8.3%
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$729
price
10854
performance
$1399.99+92%
12939+3.8%
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$729
price
10.67
performance
$1399.99+92%
9.95-0.4%
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

HP ProBook 470 G5 CPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the HP ProBook 470 G5 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which HP ProBook 470 G5 model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.

$729
price
565
performance
$915.48+26%
596+2.2%
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$729
price
11044
performance
$915.48+26%
11559+0.9%
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$729
price
10.68
performance
$915.48+26%
10.35-0.2%
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce 930MX

The NVIDIA GeForce 930MX chip is based on the same 28nm process as the whole Maxwell family and uses the GM108 chip as the previous GeForce 930M GPU. However, some alterations have allowed for the GeForce 930MX to perform better than its predecessor.

Now the 930MX GPU supports GDDR5 memory, although not every OEM will use it and the most commonly found versions are with DDR3 VRAM. Furthermore, the GeForce 930MX is clocked higher (1019 – 1176 MHz) and this alone will bring the performance closer to the GeForce 940M. But most of the specs remain the same – 384 CUDA cores, 24 TMUs, 16 ROPs and 64-bit memory interface.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gaming tests

The GeForce 930MX found in this machine gives a perfectly playable experience in GTA V, although you have to lower the resolution and details. Anyhow, this GPU will be more than enough for playing not so demanding titles. We found no problems to achieve 60 fps on MAX settings and 768p resolution on the CS:GO.

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GO HD 768p, Low (Check settings) HD 768p, Medium (Check settings) HD 768p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 133 fps 86 fps 63 fps
Min FPS 17 fps 14 fps 14 fps

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) HD 768p, Low (Check settings) HD 768p, Medium (Check settings) HD 768p, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 60 fps 24 fps
Min FPS 34 fps 16 fps

Temperatures

The temperature tests go this way. We use Prime95 and FurMark to torture the CPU and the GPU respectively. This won’t give real-life representation but with our methodology, we are trying to give you the most optimal results.

The first values from the test are from the 30th second of running the Prime95 stress test, which simulates a heavy task run on your computer (usually lighter tasks take from a part of the second up to a couple of seconds). Next, we take the ones from the 2nd-minute mark, which imitates a very heavy task, run on the CPU. The last values we give you are the ones at the end of the test, which is 15 minutes, simulating the CPU load when it renders a video, for example.

The Core i5-8250U found on HP ProBook 470 G5 run idle at around 39.5°C. After 30 seconds passed, the average CPU frequency was a little bit over 2.7 GHz, and the temperature average was around 62°C.

0-15 min. CPU torture test

Cores frequency (0 – 00:30 sec.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 00:30 sec.)

The average frequency of the Core i5 for the period of two minutes was a little bit under 2.5 GHz, and the temperatures fluctuated around the 62°C, which is perfectly fine for now.

Cores frequency (0 – 2:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 2:00 sec.)

Lastly, after 15 minutes of pain for the HP ProBook 470 G5, we had mercy and stopped torture test. We found out that the frequency of the CPU cores fluctuated between 2.3 GHz and 2.4 GHz contributing to an average for the whole test of a little bit under 2.4 GHz. Temperature-wise, the CPU went up to 72°C and averaged around 68°C, which is not bad for the tiny fan the device is equipped with.

Cores frequency (0 – 15:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 15:00 min.)

The next graph shows us the clock speeds and temperatures of GeForce 930MX when we made it do some heavy lifting – FurMark. We ran the program for the period of 30 minutes. The idle temperature of the GPU before the test was 39°C, and the average temperature we got at the end of it was 56°C! This speaks really well of the cooling capabilities of the HP ProBook 470 G5. Also, it’s worth mentioning, that the clock and the memory speeds didn’t fluctuate at all – they remained at 1020 MHz and 1001 MHz respectively, during the whole period of the test.

30 min. GPU torture test

33.7°C
34.2°C
30.4°C
31.1°C
35.1°C
32.0°C
25.0°C
23.0°C
24.3°C

Verdict

HP has succeeded in making a good all-rounder. Most of the people looking for a 17-inch portable computer need a fast and reliable companion, which won’t let them down. ProBook 470 G5 utilizes the Core i5-8250U well, and we noticed no stutter in everyday use whatsoever. The NVIDIA GeForce 930MX on-board provides decent gaming experience, and you can play games like GTA V with a decent picture, although you should keep the details low.

Aspects we found very pleasant to work with are the keyboard and the touchpad. The first one being clicky and responsive, but the lack of backlight would be a problem in late hours. The latter is satisfactory and its size is good enough – not being too small nor too big, so you won’t press it accidentally while using the keyboard. As we said earlier this device is equipped with a fingerprint scanner, which is of top-notch quality.

The battery life of the HP ProBook 470 G5 is not bad until you put the discrete GPU into the equation. Being able to give you around 6 hours of Web surfing and Video playback, it seriously drains the battery when you start gaming, although we doubt that you’re going to do that away from the socket.

One of the drawbacks of this device is the contrast ratio of its screen. The 255:1 is low even for a TN panel. Also, the display also has poor color accuracy, but that is fixed by our display profiles. The other thing that may be considered a drawback is that almost the whole shell of the device is made of plastic, but in HP’s defense the plastic is of pretty high quality, and the paint job gives the impression of a more premium material being present.

Pros

  • Slim form factor for a 17-inch laptop
  • Fast and reliable
  • The lid is easily opened with one hand
  • Top notch fingerprint reader
  • Excellent keyboard and touchpad

Cons

  • Plastic design
  • Poor contrast and color accuracy (the latter is fixed by our profiles)
  • Lack of a keyboard backlight

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR Edition (GL503VS) review – immersive gaming with 144 Hz display and GTX 1070 on the go

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ASUS has definitely improved on the GL series with the last few updates and the GL503VS is a living example. Sporting a brand new more portable and minimalistic chassis along with a new high-refresh rate IPS display, the GL503VS offers a complete overhaul over its predecessor but is it all good?

Luckily, the new design offers improvements in both directions over the GL502VS – better portability and better overall build quality. But how has that affected the notebook’s cooling and overall performance? We hope the Core i7-7700HQ and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 won’t suffer from lowered performance or overheat like in the previous version we reviewed. We are also interested to find out how the new 144Hz IPS panel stacks up against its direct competitors in terms of image quality.

View more laptops...

Contents

Retail package

The notebook comes in a ROG Strix-branded box containing all of the usual user manuals, AC adapter and power cord.

Design and construction

When it comes to design, the GL502VS borrows the lines of the ultra-thin and powerful ASUS ROG Zephyrus with GTX 1080 Max-Q GPU and appears quite distant from its GL502VS predecessor. This is a rather good change because a number of users would greatly appreciate the more simplistic approach as not everyone is buying these powerful laptops for gaming. All of that gaming-centric design is too punchy and aggressive.

Anyway, the notebook is mostly made of plastic with the lid being brushed aluminum. Unfortunately, it’s not the sturdiest one we’ve seen around as it twists quite visibly but pressing the back of the panel doesn’t cause ripples on the LCD screen. The hinges help with stability as well – they provide smooth linear travel and opening the machine with one hand is possible.

The most notable change here, however, is the interior. It still has that plastic finish but feels way more premium and robust than before. Fingerprints stick easily but the surface has a strange smooth/matte finish. You can also easily notice the carbon fiber threads beneath the finish reminding us of the Dell XPS series, although the latter has a softer and more rubberized feel. Still, we can’t confirm for sure that the base uses carbon fiber but judging by the sharp edges and corners, and rigidity, it’s very plausible because as some of you know, carbon fiber can’t be wrapped around since it’s not the most flexible material.

The bottom of the notebook is still made of slightly roughened generic plastic but also holds up pretty well to our twisting attempts. In any case, the GL503VS is a huge step forward compared to its predecessor with better build quality, better choice of materials and significantly more portable. Measuring just 23 mm and weighing around 2.5 kg (depending on the configuration of course, give or take a few grams), the GL503VS is one of the most portable GTX 1070-powered laptops out there. We just hope this hasn’t affected the cooling performance in a negative way.

Input devices and I/O

Finally, ASUS got rid of the wobbly trackpad that still ruins the experience of the previous and current GL-series. Now, the GL503VS comes with a standard touchpad with dedicated mouse buttons. It operates really smoothly, it has comfortable mouse buttons and it’s extremely responsive. However, the keyboard is a mixed bag. It’s great for typing with pleasant clicky feedback, standard layout, good key spacing but rather short travel, which isn’t ideal for gaming. Moreover, the navigation keys are a bit crammed up and a bit small. A better separation from the rest of the keys and bigger keycaps would have been greatly appreciated. We have to give ASUS some credit, however, for the additional buttons placed above the keyboard for volume control, fast access to the ROG Gaming Center, which allows you to control your LED keyboard backlight, cooling fans, display profiles and other settings. Anyway, if you are wondering what the grill above the keyboard is for, it’s not for the loudspeakers – it’s for cool air intake for the cooling system. Neat right?

When it comes to connectivity, the GL503VS is a portable workstation. It features more I/O than a normal 15-inch laptop offers and has a healthy port distribution. On the left, you can find the RJ-45 LAN port, mini DisplayPort, full-sized HDMI, two USB 3.0 connectors and a 3.5 mm audio jack. On the right, you can see the other two USB 3.0 connectors and a USB-C 3.1 supporting the Thunderbolt 3 standard.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

Upgradability on the GL503VS is pretty easy as it offers a big service hatch and easily detachable bottom plate. Just make sure you’ve unscrewed the bolt right under the rubber cap in the middle. Anyway, in most cases, the service lid will be enough as it gives access to both RAM slots and storage (M.2 SSD and 2.5-inch HDD)

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

As we already said, the M.2 PCIe NVMe-enabled SSD slot and the 2.5-inch HDD/SSD bay are located under the service lid. The unit we’ve tested shipped with 1TB Seagate FireCuda HDD while the M.2 SSD is a 256GB Samsung PM961 PCIe NVMe drive.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
M.2 SSD 2280 slot 1 Samsung PM961 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD Buy from Amazon.com
2.5-inch HDD/SSD slot 1TB Seagate FireCuda HDD Buy from Amazon.com

RAM

Our testing sample came with just one 16GB DDR4-2400 memory chip and leaving the other one free for upgrade. Keep in mind that you can only get up to 32GB of DDR4-2400 memory.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
Slot 1 16GB Samsung DDR4-2400 Buy from Amazon.com
Slot 2 Free Buy from Amazon.com

Other components

The Wi-Fi module is located near one of the cooling fans and it’s Intel 8265NGW.

The battery unit is located right under the wrist rest area and it offers a generous 62Wh charge but we doubt this will be enough given the demanding hardware.

Cooling system

The cooling design is rather standard with the fans placed on the sides. There’s one big heatpipe going across both heatsinks and connecting the cooling fans and an additional two separate heatpipes dedicated to the CPU and GPU heatsinks. The cool air is drawn from the grill above the keyboard and it’s pushed out from the back of the chassis.

Display quality

The GL503VS offers a unique IPS display that can’t be found on any other notebook currently on the market. It sports an AUO B156HAN07.0 panel featuring a Full HD (1920×1080) resolution, G-Sync support and not 120 but 144Hz native refresh rate. The hardcore gamers will definitely appreciate the extra 24 frames per second compared to the standard 120Hz gaming panels currently on the market. Anyway, with a 15.6-inch diagonal, the pixel density is 142 ppi while the pixel pitch is 0.18 x 0.18 mm. The screen can be considered “Retina” from at least 60 cm.

Viewing angles are excellent.

We’ve recorded a peak brightness 315 cd/m2 in the center of the screen and 311 cd/m2 as average across the surface with just 7% maximum deviation. The correlated color temperature at maximum brightness is a bit colder than it should be – 7260K and stays pretty much the same when going along the grayscale – 7160K. You can see how these values change at 140 cd/m2 (37% brightness) in the image below.

The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center of the screen should be no more than 4.0 and if you are planning to do color-sensitive work, it should be lower than 2.0. But in this case, since the laptop is going to be used mostly for gaming and multimedia, a deviation of 4.79 in the lower right corner isn’t going to be an issue for most users. The contrast ratio is exceptionally high – 1440:1 before calibration and 1260:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

Even though ASUS advertises 100% sRGB coverage, the panel is short of 5%. Nevertheless, this is still an excellent result compared to most panels, which usually score around 90%.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 11 ms. This is an amazing result and we’ve only seen TN laptop panels going under the 20 ms mark.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Just like all G-Sync-enabled displays, this one doesn’t use PWM for regulating brightness as well. It should be safe to use for long periods of time in this regard.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

This is, hands down, one of the best gaming-oriented displays we’ve tested on a laptop. The ASUS ROG GL-series return to its former glory thanks to the exceptionally good high-refresh rated IPS display. At the time of writing this review, you can’t get an IPS G-Sync-enabled 144Hz display on any other laptop. In addition, the panel offers just 11 ms response time making it one of the fastest (probably the fastest IPS) panel we’ve tested making up for even smoother gaming experience.

But the display isn’t just for gaming. Thanks to its high maximum brightness, wide sRGB coverage (95%) and high contrast ratio, the screen can potentially be used for color-sensitive work once you tweak color accuracy a bit. Our Design and Gaming profile should be enough for that. And, of course, the lack of PWM is always a big plus to consider.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for ASUS ROG Strix GL503VS configurations with 15.6″ AUO B156HAN07.0 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

The stereo loudspeakers are loud, punchy and clear. We didn’t notice any distortions in the low, mid and high frequencies.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region

ASUS ROG GL503VS technical specifications table

Acer
-0%
Old price $1899.00
$1894.99
you save $4 (-0%)
from Amazon
Display
15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), 144 Hz, IPS
HDD/SSD
256GB SSD + 1TB SSHD
M.2 Slot
1x PCIe NVMe M.2 slot (2280, M-key) See photo
RAM
16GB DDR4, 2400MHz
Dimensions
385 x 262 x 2.45 mm (15.16" x 10.31" x 0.10")
Weight
2.50 kg (5.5 lbs)
Body material
Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum (Aluminum lid, plastic base)
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.1 (3.1 Gen 2), Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort, HDMI
  • 4x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • HDMI 2.0
  • Displayport mini
  • Card reader
  • Ethernet lan
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac 2x2
  • Bluetooth
  • Audio jack 3.5 mm combo headphone/mic jack
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera HD Web Camera
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot
  • 12V fans
  • Smart AMP
  • N-key rollover
  • Overstroke technology

ASUS ROG Strix GL503VS configurations

View more laptops...

Software

We used the pre-installed Windows 10 for the writing of this review but if you wish to perform a clean install of the OS, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from ASUS’ official support page.

Battery

As like all gaming laptops supporting G-Sync, the ASUS ROG GL503VS also suffers from short battery life due to the absence of integrated GPU. For some reason, G-Sync doesn’t get along with the switchable graphics feature so no matter the task, the system will always rely on the discrete GPU, which in this case is the power-sipping GTX 1070. Too bad you can’t get the most out of the rather generous 62Wh battery unit.

Of course, all tests were run using the same settings as always – Wi-Fi turned on, screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2 and Windows battery saving feature switched on.

$1894.99
price
167 min.
battery
64Wh, Li-ion, 4-cell
223 min.+33.5%
88Wh, 6000 mAh, 8-cell
$2744.17+45%
464 min.+177.8%
450 min.+169.5%
$2699+42%
185 min.+10.8%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
$1894.99
price
142 min.
battery
64Wh, Li-ion, 4-cell
88Wh, 6000 mAh, 8-cell
$2744.17+45%
440 min.+209.9%
425 min.+199.3%
$2699+42%
167 min.+17.6%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
$1894.99
price
41 min.
battery
64Wh, Li-ion, 4-cell
88Wh, 6000 mAh, 8-cell
$2744.17+45%
164 min.+300%
137 min.+234.1%
$2699+42%
38 min.-7.3%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i7-7700HQ

The Core i7-7700HQ is Kaby Lake’s top-shelf direct successor of the Skylake Core i7-6700HQ offering slightly higher clock speeds on the almost identical architecture and TDP. While Intel markets Kaby Lake’s architecture as “14nm+”, the Core i7-7700HQ is still on the same 14nm node with the only significant update being in the iGPU department. That’s why the slightly altered clock speeds (2.8 – 3.8 GHz vs 2.6 – 3.5 GHz) bring not more than 10% increase in performance compared to the Core i7-6700HQ. We still have the supported Hyper-Threading technology with 4/8 – core/thread design, the same 45W TDP and 6MB cache.

However, the Kaby Lake generation boasts an updated video engine for the iGPU, although, its performance is just about the same. Branded as Intel HD Graphics 630, the GPU offers slightly higher clock speeds (350 – 1100 MHz vs 350 – 1050 MHz) compared to the Intel HD Graphics 530 and support for H265/HEVC Main10 profile at 10-bit color depth and the VP9 codec for full hardware acceleration. In addition, the HDCP 2.2 is also supported allowing Netflix’s 4K video streaming.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-7700hq/

$1894.99
price
733
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$1894.99
price
13955
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$1894.99
price
9.77
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB GDDR5)

2016-06-02-image-33The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is the second fastest mobile GPU after the GTX 1080. It’s part of NVIDIA’s Pascal generation of GPUs and unlike previous releases, the company finally closes the gap between mobile and desktop graphics processors and that’s why there’s no “M” in the branding of Pascal GPUs. All thanks to the 16nm TSMC manufacturing process of the GPU, which allows better thermals and overall performance in a smaller form factor. That’s a big technology jump compared to the 28nm Maxwell generation.

Compared to its desktop counterpart, the GTX 1070 doesn’t differ too much. They share an identical number of ROPs (64) and identical memory – 8GB GDDR5 with 256-bit bus clocked at 8000 MHz. However, there’s a minor difference in clock speeds – the laptop GPU ticks at 1443 MHz and can go up to 1645 MHz while the desktop variant is running at 1506 MHz – 1683 MHz. To compensate to some extent, the laptop 1070 carries more CUDA cores (2048 vs 1920) and slightly more TMUs (170 vs 120).

Due to its performance, thermals and power consumption, which is believed to be 10W more than the GTX 980M, the GPU is suitable for large 17-inch laptops with the appropriate cooling solution.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this GPU: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-8gb-gddr5/

$1894.99
price
16278
performance
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$1894.99
price
4806
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$1894.99
price
3886
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$1894.99
price
3368
performance
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gameplay recordings with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB GDDR5)

Gaming tests

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings) Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 111 fps 71 fps 54 fps

rise-of-the-tomb-raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings) Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 115 fps 74 fps 49 fps

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands Full HD, High (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings) Full HD, Ultra (Check settings)
Average FPS 74 fps 67 fps 49 fps

Temperatures

We recently changed the way we run the stress tests in order to simulate more realistic workloads. First, we start with about 15 minutes of 100% CPU workload then we leave the notebook to rest a few minutes and return to its normal temperatures. Then we run a combined CPU and GPU stress test that consists of 50-60% CPU load and 100% GPU load – a typical usage scenario during a heavy gaming session. Most of the modern games require less processing power and more GPU utilization so we think this is a more practical approach.

Before we started the test, we’ve recorded 45 °C average during idle and noticed that the fans don’t turn off when the system is idle or while doing normal office work. Anyway, we’ve started the CPU stress test and observed 3.4 GHz average CPU frequency at 81 °C for the first 15 seconds. The temperature climbed up to 84 °C for the first two minutes while maintaining the same core clock and peaked at 86 °C for the full duration of 15 minutes.

Turning on the combined test of 50-60% CPU usage and 100% GPU usage showed that the CPU is able to retain maximum clock speeds of about 3.4 GHz while the GPU ran at the respectable 1598 MHz on average. However, this comes at a cost – the Core i7-7700HQ reached 95 °C while the GTX 1070 ran at toasty 82 °C on average. Both temperatures are pretty high but we have to give credit to the GL503VS of utilizing both chips to the maximum.

Interestingly, the inner temperatures didn’t result in high outer temperatures as you can see from the heat map below.

30.7°
35.8°
30.3°
33.5°
40.2°
34.3°
27.4°
30.7°
26.7°

Verdict

Compact, powerful, elegant and immersive. Those are the key selling points of the ASUS ROG GL503VS. The laptop excels in many areas and fails to impress in just a few of them that can be overlooked by the majority of users.

In any case, the notebook stands out from the crowd with excellent build quality, good choice of materials (this time around) and impressively low weight and thickness. And despite its compact dimensions, the device impresses with above average number of I/O including 4x USB 3.0, mini DisplayPort and USB-C 3.1 (Thunderbolt 3) connectors. Our only complaint is towards the keyboard – not fully optimized for gaming due to its short key travel and small and crammed up arrow keys. Good for typing, though.

The compact chassis has, of course, resulted in rather poor cooling performance. Our stress tests indicate higher than usual inner temperatures and the cooling fans don’t stop spinning even when idle but the good news is that the fans aren’t all that loud and the interior feels pretty cool even after prolonged heavy usage.

However, we are willing to ignore the keyboard and the higher temperatures due to the immersive IPS display. This is undoubtedly the best gaming display we’ve ever come across. The AUO panel offers excellent image quality thanks to the wide sRGB coverage, high contrast ratio and high maximum brightness while checking all the boxes that gamers want – 144Hz refresh rate (probably the only one available at the time of writing this review), G-Sync support and fast response time. All of this makes up for a visually stunning and smooth gaming experience. Quite frankly – unmatched at this point.

With all being said, it’s really hard to recommend any other 15-inch GTX 1070-powered laptop. For just about the same price, you can get the Alienware 15 R3 and the Predator 15 (G9-593) but we doubt that you will get the same set of features and advantages as the ROG GL503VS offers. And if you are wondering whether or not the extra cash is worth over the previous generation GL502VS, our answer is yes. Definitely!

View more laptops...

Pros

  • Good build quality, clean aesthetics, better choice of materials than last time
  • Lightweight and thin construction
  • Best in class display with excellent image quality, 144Hz refresh rate, fast response time and G-Sync
  • The screen doesn’t use PWM for regulating brightness
  • The interior remains cool during heavy gaming
  • Wide range of connectivity for a 15-inch system including USB-C Thunderbolt, DisplayPort and 4x USB 3.0
  • High-quality sound

Cons

  • Not the best gaming-centric keyboard out there
  • Inner temperatures tend to get high during heavy gaming
  • Cooling fans spin even when the notebook is idle
  • Extremely short battery life

ASUS VivoBook Pro 17 (N705UD) review – carries the VivoBook Pro name but it’s somehow different… in a good way

$
0
0

The ASUS VivoBook Pro 17 may sound familiar and you are probably expecting just a bigger version of the VivoBook Pro 15 but you are mistaken. It appears that the VivoBook Pro 17 is essentially different than the 15-inch model in a lot of ways and as always, the smaller model offers better price/performance ratio.

However, there are some key selling points to the VivoBook Pro 17 that need to be considered. The main one is the brand new 8th Generation processor from Intel, which outperforms the Core i5-7300HQ in short workloads while being way more energy-efficient. But due to the bigger 17-inch panel, the VivoBook Pro 17 can’t fully benefit from the improved power management. In any case, the VivoBook Pro 17 is immensely better than its direct predecessor, the ASUS N752VX in so many ways so if you are a fan of the multimedia lineup, you will surely like the latest installment as well. The OEM also offers a more budget lineup with GeForce MX150, although it still costs more than Acer’s 17-inch Aspire 5. So what are the benefits from choosing the VivoBook Pro 17 over the 15-inch model and its direct rivals? We find out in the full review below.

Contents

Retail package

The box contains all the usual user manuals, AC adapter and power cord – nothing out of the ordinary.

Design and construction

As we already stated, the VivoBook Pro 17 is essentially different than its 15-inch sibling and the design department is one of those key differences. Yet, the interior and lid are still made of brushed aluminum but the bottom of the base features black, slightly roughened plastic. We would have really appreciated the same color scheme all around like the VivoBook Pro 15 as this one gives it a bit more cheap look. But don’t let this fool you – the VivoBook Pro 17 is pretty sturdy.

The lid is only flexible to some extent and doesn’t give under our twisting attempts very easily. The interior feels pretty solid as well with virtually no flexing. We also didn’t notice any prominent protruding edges or inconsistencies, although we could feel where the interior aluminum sheet and the base plastic cover meet on the sides. Anyway, we would also like to address the hinge design. Despite being made of plastic, they hold the lid pretty stable but are also a bit overly tightened – opening the machine with just one hand is practically impossible.

And finally, a mid-range 17-inch that fits the portable category. Weighing just as 2.1 kg and measuring just around 20 mm in thickness, the VivoBook Pro 17 offers the working space of a 17-incher and the portability of a 15-inch laptop beating all of its competitors in this regard.

Input devices and I/O

When it comes to keyboard and touchpad, the VivoBook Pro 17 surprises with nice and clicky low-profile keys and discreet LED illumination. Also, the layout is pretty standard so most of the users will get used to it fast. The touchpad is also pretty stable – offers light mouse clicks, it’s fairly accurate, registers gestures accordingly and it’s really easy to use on the go when needed.

But what about connectors and interfaces? Well, just like most 17-inch laptops out there, it doesn’t offer a whole bunch of I/O – it actually comes with the bare minimum of ports for a 15-inch device. We also have a healthy port distribution – on the left, you will find two USB 2.0 ports (no USB 3.0 unfortunately), SD card reader and a 3.5 mm audio jack. And on the other side, you can use the RJ-45 LAN port, HDMI, USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1) and a standard USB-A 3.0.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

Unfortunately, upgradability on this thing is a huge nightmare. It does offer all the usual drive slots and memory slots but accessing them is a big hassle. First, you have to remove all the screws on the bottom (there’s one in the middle hiding under a rubber cap), gently pry up the interior and detach all the cables that you encounter – they should be four. Once you’ve removed the interior, you can only reach the 2.5-inch HDD and the battery. For the rest of, you have to flip the motherboard around.

In order to do so, you have to detach the right hinge and be careful not to damage the heatpipes and radiators when pulling the motherboard out. This will give you access to the RAM slots and the M.2 SSD slot.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

As we already said, the motherboard holds a standard 2.5-inch HDD and an M.2 SSD slot with the latter supporting PCIe NVMe drives as well. It has become a standard anyway. The unit we’ve tested, however, was running only a 2.5-inch 1TB Seagate HDD.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
M.2 SSD 2280 slot 1 Free Buy from Amazon.com
2.5-inch HDD/SSD slot 1TB Seagate HDD Buy from Amazon.com

RAM

On the other side of the motherboard you will find two memory slots each supporting up to 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory. Our unit, however, came with just one RAM slot available for upgrade while the other one holds an SK Hynix 8GB DDR4-2400 chip.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
Slot 1 SK Hynix 8GB DDR4-2400 Buy from Amazon.com
Slot 2 Free Buy from Amazon.com

Other components

The battery can be found under the wrist rest area and can be accessed easily. It’s rated at 42Wh so given the 17-inch diagonal, we don’t expect mind-blowing endurance.

Cooling system

The cooling system is rather interesting – it has two heatpipes (one is shared by both heatsinks while the other one is dedicated to the GPU) and two cooling fans – one blowing the air out the back and the other one dispersing it from the left side.

Display quality

The ASUS VivoBook Pro 17 comes with a 17.3-inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS panel from AUO with model number B173HAN01.3. The pixel density is 127 ppi while the pixel pitch is 0.1995 x 0.1995 mm. It can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from at least 69 cm.

Viewing angles are excellent.

We’ve recorded a peak brightness 360 cd/m2 in the center of the screen and 352 cd/m2 as average across the surface with just 9% maximum deviation. The correlated color temperature at maximum brightness is almost identical to the optimal value – 6530K and falls a little lower when going along the grayscale – 6400K. You can see how these values change at 140 cd/m2 (50% brightness) in the image below.

The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center of the screen should be no more than 4.0 and if you are planning to do color-sensitive work, it should be lower than 2.0. But in this case, since the laptop is going to be used mostly for office work, web browsing, multimedia and probably sometimes gaming, a deviation of 2.51 is a good result. The contrast ratio is exceptionally high – 1440:1 before calibration and 1380:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The display covers 92% of the sRGB color gamut so colors will appear vibrant and rich, especially when a good color calibration is applied.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 30 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Our equipment didn’t detect any light pulsations throughout all brightness levels so it should be safe to use in this regard.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

Despite the relatively low price of the VivoBook Pro 17, configurations with 1080p displays offer excellent image quality thanks to the wide sRGB coverage, high contrast, high maximum brightness and relatively accurate color reproduction out of the box. In addition, the panel is PWM-free so it’s safe to use during long working sessions, for example.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for ASUS VivoBook Pro 17 configurations with 17.3″ AUO B173HAN01.3 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
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Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

The stereo loudspeakers provide clear and high-quality sound in the low, mid and high frequencies.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region

ASUS VivoBook Pro 17 N705 technical specifications table

Acer
Upcoming
Display
17.3”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
256GB M.2 SSD + 1TB HDD, 5400 rpm
M.2 Slot
1x 2280 M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD See photo
RAM
8GB DDR4
Dimensions
411 x 270 x 20.9 mm (16.18" x 10.63" x 0.82")
Weight
2.1 kg (4.6 lbs)
Body material
Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum (Aluminum lid and interior, plastic base)
Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-A 2.0
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.1 (3.1 Gen 2)
  • HDMI
  • VGA
  • DVI
  • Card reader SD
  • Ethernet lan
  • Wi-Fi
  • Bluetooth
  • Audio jack headphone/microphone
Features
  • Web camera
  • Microphone
  • Speakers
  • Security Lock slot

ASUS VivoBook Pro 17 configurations

Software

We used the pre-installed Windows 10 for the writing of this review but if you wish to perform a clean install of the OS, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from ASUS’ official support page.

Battery

As expected, the 42Wh battery isn’t enough for any ground-breaking results considering the energy-sipping 17.3-inch IPS display but it did hold up pretty well considering that most 17-inch notebooks on the market offer poor battery life. Let’s just say its a little above average.

Of course, all tests were run using the same settings as always – Wi-Fi turned on, screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2 and Windows battery saving feature switched on.

price
395 min.
battery
3220 mAh, 4-cell, Li-Ion
409 min.+3.5%
250 min.-36.7%
$936
326 min.-17.5%
56Wh, 4-cell
$1399.99
667 min.+68.9%
42 Wh, 3-cell
$998.89
363 min.-8.1%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
price
321 min.
battery
3220 mAh, 4-cell, Li-Ion
288 min.-10.3%
263 min.-18.1%
$936
372 min.+15.9%
56Wh, 4-cell
$1399.99
513 min.+59.8%
42 Wh, 3-cell
$998.89
266 min.-17.1%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
price
101 min.
battery
3220 mAh, 4-cell, Li-Ion
105 min.+4%
83 min.-17.8%
$936
86 min.-14.9%
56Wh, 4-cell
$1399.99
278 min.+175.2%
42 Wh, 3-cell
$998.89
83 min.-17.8%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i7-8550U

The Intel Core i7-8550U is part of the new 8th Generation Kaby Lake Refresh and it’s a direct successor to the Intel Core i7-7500U from the Kaby Lake generation and the Intel Core i7-6500U from the 6th Skylake generation. With the latest alteration to the ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors, Intel doubles the core count from 2 to 4 and retaining the so-called Hyper-Threading technology, keeping the same 14nm manufacturing process and feature the same 15W TDP.

However, due to the core count change, the base frequency of the Core i7-8550U is lowered to only 1.8 GHz while Turbo Boost frequencies remain pretty high – somewhere between 3.7 – 4.0 GHz. This ensures considerably higher multi-core and single-core performance during short workloads before going back to more bearable frequencies considering the 15W TDP but most of the other specs and features remain the same.

The chip also incorporates a newer Intel Gen 9.5 integrated graphics called Intel UHD Graphics 620. The support for Google’s VP9 codec and H.265/HEVC Main 10 is still the most notable feature of the iGPU. Intel claims that the new UHD 620 chips improve the overall power consumption compared to the previous one.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-8550u/

Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

ASUS VivoBook Pro 17 N705 CPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the ASUS VivoBook Pro 17 N705 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which ASUS VivoBook Pro 17 N705 model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.

$949
price
685
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$949
price
13264
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$949
price
11.73
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

Fritz

Fritz is a chess benchmark that tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Core i7-8550U managed to get 12.175 million moves per second. For comparison, one of the most powerful computers, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue even beat the famous Garry Kasparov with 3.5 to 2.5.

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (4GB GDDR5)

The GeForce GTX 1050 GPU for laptops is part of the latest NVIDIA Pascal lineup of GPUs featuring a brand new architecture design but on contrary to the rest of the GPUs from NVIDIA’s lineup, the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti feature a Samsung-made FinFET 14nm chip instead of the TSMC 16nm found in the GTX 1060, 1070 and 1080. The graphics card is based on the GP107 chip paired with 4GB of GDDR5 memory via 128-bit interface.

Since the GTX 1050 is quite dependent on the cooling design, its performance may vary but if the laptop handles the GPU well and shouldn’t be much different from its desktop counterpart. Anyway, the GPU operates at relatively high frequencies (1354 – 1493 MHz) but incorporates the same amount of CUDA cores (640) while the memory is clocked at 7000 MHz (effective). These specs ensure a huge performance boost over the previous generation of Maxwell GPUs. For instance, the GTX 1050 performs better than the GTX 960M and can be compared to the GTX 965M’s capabilities while running at similar to the GTX 960M’s TDP of around 40-50W.

However, along with all the power consumption and performance improvements, the GPU now supports essential features like DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b, HDR, improved H.265 encoding, and decoding.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this GPU: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1050-4gb-gddr5/

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

ASUS VivoBook Pro 17 N705 GPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the GPUs that can be found in the ASUS VivoBook Pro 17 N705 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which ASUS VivoBook Pro 17 N705 model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different GPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / GPU.

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gaming tests

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) Full HD, Low (Check settings) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 99 fps 57 fps 32 fps

rise-of-the-tomb-raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings) Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 63 fps 44 fps 21 fps

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, High (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 34 fps 31 fps 27 fps

Temperatures

The stress tests that we perform don’t represent real-life usage scenarios because even the most demanding games don’t require 100% CPU and 100% GPU load all the time. However, these stress tests remain the most reliable way to assess the overall stability and effectiveness of the cooling system in the long run.

We started off with 100% CPU load for about an hour. At first, the Core i7-8550U ran at about 3.6-3.7 GHz for a few seconds before gradually going down to 2.5 GHz. Shortly after, the chip’s frequency started fluctuating between 1.8 GHz and 3.5 GHz but no thermal throttling occurred. In fact, the chip was running at reasonable temperatures.

Turning on the GPU stress test resulted in CPU throttling at around 1.2 GHz while the GTX 1050 was running at full speed while maintaining a bit higher than usual temperatures – 76 °C.

We’ve recorded stable and relatively low temperatures on the surface around the keyboard.

32.9°
41.9°
30.9°
33.3°
40.0°
28.7°
34.2°
28.1°
26.2°

Verdict

Even though the 17-inch VivoBook Pro and the 15-inch one differ in many ways, there’s one thing in common – they are both well-balanced multimedia notebooks. The VivoBook Pro 17 quickly became one of our favorite mid-range 17-inch notebooks currently on the market. It has good build quality with minor design flaws and exceptionally portable chassis – thinner and lighter than the competition. Input devices are also pretty solid and should serve you fine on the go.

When it comes to performance, the VivoBook offers plenty of configurations combining the 8th Gen Intel CPUs and GTX 1050 or relying on NVIDIA’s less demanding and budget-oriented MX150. Whichever configuration you choose, you will enjoy relatively silent operation, full utilization of the hardware and decent cooling performance. It’s still a bit pricier than Acer’s Aspire 5 and Aspire 7 notebooks, though, but it offers better portability in return. But if price/performance ratio is essential, you might be better off with the Aspire 7 with Core i5-7300HQ processor and GTX 1050 or with the 15-inch VivoBook Pro sporting either Core i5 or Core i7-7700HQ paired with GTX 1050.

When it comes to image and sound quality, the VivoBook Pro 17 proves to be a worthy successor to the legendary multimedia lineup excelling in both areas – clear and punchy sound and a Full HD IPS panel ensuring rich and vibrant image. It’s also PWM-free so it should be safe to use for long periods of time by users with sensitive eyes. There is, however, one aspect that’s not exactly user-friendly and that’s the upgradability. A full disassembly of the device is required just to reach the M.2 SSD and memory slots. Just keep that in mind.

Do we recommend it? For sure! The VivoBook Pro 17 might charge a few extra bucks over some of its competitors but compelling features like rich sound, vibrant screen, portable chassis, solid build quality and comfortable input devices are hard to ignore. If you are looking for any close alternatives, probably the 15-inch version of the VivoBook Pro and Acer’s 17-inch Aspire 5 and Aspire 7 lineups are your best bet.

Pros

  • Good build quality
  • One of the most portable 17-inch notebooks on the market
  • Good input devices
  • A wide range of configurations with various GPUs and CPUs to fit your budget and needs
  • Excellent impage quality
  • Screen doesn’t use PWM for regulating brightness
  • Great sound

Cons

  • Some of the upgradable hardware is really hard to access

ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 review – laptop… tablet… you decide

$
0
0

ASUS is a strong player in the 2-in-1 game. Aimed at artsy people and creators, 2-in-1 devices are getting a lot of attention recently. Ever since all the big manufacturers like HP, Lenovo, Acer, Dell, and ASUS, of course, found out that there is a high demand in this segment, the battle began. The version of VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 we’re going to review today is more budget oriented. It is equipped with the mobile Intel Core m3-7Y30 chip, which consists of two physical and four logical cores working at a base frequency of 1.00 GHz and being able to pump up to 2.60 GHz when boosted. The respective GPU here is Intel HD Graphics 615. When talking about Core m3 we should note that it’s an ultra-low voltage chip. Using this CPU, provides the option of excluding the fan, making the VivoBook Flip 14 completely silent. This promises a good battery life but that also depends on optimization.

Memory-wise the device is set up with 4 GB of LPDDR3 RAM, running at 1866 MHz. The storage here is 128 GB of eMMC. None of the said above though is a major selling point of the computer. Those types of devices focus on their screens. The VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 we have with us today is equipped with a 1366 x 768p screen with a TN panel (16:9 ratio). Of course, the display is touch sensitive and sports an adaptive stylus and Windows Ink support.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: http://laptopmedia.com/series/asus-vivobook-flip-14-tp401/

Contents

Specs Sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region.

ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401C technical specifications table

Acer
-0%
Old price $549.00
$548.00
you save $1 (-0%)
from Amazon
Display
14.0”, HD (1366 x 768), TN
HDD/SSD
128GB eMMC
RAM
4GB LPDDR3, 1866MHz
Dimensions
327 x 226 x 15.4 mm (12.87" x 8.90" x 0.61")
Weight
1.50 kg (3.3 lbs)
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.1 (3.1 Gen 2)
  • 1x USB MicroUSB 3.0 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • HDMI
  • VGA
  • DVI
  • Card reader SD
  • Ethernet lan
  • Audio jack headphone/microphone
Features
  • Web camera
  • Microphone
  • Speakers

ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 Configurations

Retail package

Unboxing a VivoBook Flip 14 is a bit more compelling than that of a conventional laptop. The ordinary cardboard box that meets us at first hides interesting stuff inside. First, of course – the boring manuals, then we have a tiny, tiny charger.

Recently we showed you the charging device of the Acer Swift 3 (SF315-41) and we shared with you that it’s almost the size of an iPad charger… well this one is even smaller. Obviously, the most important thing here is the VivoBook Flip 14 itself, as always put in a small white bag. Lastly, in a small cardboard package, we found the dedicated stylus that comes with the 2-in-1. It has its battery pre-charged so you can start using it right away.

Design and construction

ASUS markets the VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401) with its hardware of a 14-inch device being fit inside of a 13-inch laptop body. The official dimensions are 12.9″ x 8.9″ x 0.6″ (32.7 cm x 22.6 cm x 1.52 cm), which is a slim form factor indeed. The device has some weight to it with its 3.3 lbs (1.5 kilos), evenly distributed between the screen part and the body part.

As every foldable computer, the hinges are a very intriguing part. At first sight, they look like ordinary hinges, but when you look at the details, there’s more to it. Actually, there are two moving parts in each of them – one connected to the screen, and one to the body, and that gives the impression that the middle piece is not moving. The whole device is made of anodized aluminum, looking kind of premium.

Lifting the lid of the device, we notice the hinges to be a little bit tight, but that is obviously for folding purposes. This reveals the good old keyboard plus touchpad configuration. That’s all. No fingerprint reader, no On/Off button. We like how simple and not overpopulated it looks. The keyboard itself is a bit mushy and we miss the num pad keys but nobody would expect to find them on a 14-inch device (in a 13-inch chassis, huh). The touchpad feels good but we have to note that buying this type of device means that you’re going to rely more on the touchscreen.

Speaking of the screen – it can be used in several positions. The most convenient ones for touchscreen input are the tent position and the tablet one since you’re going to get some shaky-shaky time if using the basic laptop form. The panel has a glass protection on top, and the touch sensor is well calibrated. We tried the provided stylus and found it pretty accurate, having good pressure sensitivity. ASUS has implemented the software well but that excludes unintended input when using the stylus – for example when you draw something, and your hand touches the screen. Unfortunately, we lack the artistic skills to take advantage of 100% of the device, so we leave this part to you. Tell us in the comments, if you ever tried the device, what do you think about the touch sensor and the stylus.

Next, we’ll take a look at the sides of the VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401), where we find some unusual peculiarities for a laptop. The speaker grills are found on both sides of this device. Also on the left, we can see the on/off button, and right next to it we have a volume rocker – pretty tablet-like. After that, we can see an SD card slot, and again something unusual – micro USB port. On the other side we see more common stuff – 3.5 mm jack, USB Type-C 3.1 connector, as well as a micro HDMI port, and the DC jack. That pretty much sums up the design part of our review. There are no ventilation grills anywhere to be found on the VivoBook Flip 14, which could result in hotter thermals, despite the mobile chipset used in the device.

Display quality

The Display of ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 has a touchscreen TN panel with а model number BOE NT140WHM-N44. The diagonal measures 14.0 inches and the resolution is 1366 x 768 pixels. This gives a pixel density of 112 ppi, and a pitch of 0.23 x 0.23 mm, making the display “Retina” (the distance from which the eye can’t distinguish the pixels) when viewed from a distance of minimum 80 cm – which is not very good for a 14-inch device.

ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 has uncomfortable viewing angles. The images provided below shows the picture viewed from the most common angles.

We measured a maximum brightness of 219 cd/m2 in the center of the screen and 208 cd/m2 average for the whole surface and a maximum deviation of 14%. Because of the glossy finish, the display will be too dim if used outside with a direct sunlight. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and maximum brightness is 6340K, which is pretty close to the optimal 6500K – not bad! However, the average temperature of the grey scale goes above 10000K – cold, bluish light (corrected by our profiles).
In the image below we can see the dE2000 values (they shouldn’t go above 4.0) of the screen with brightness adjusted to 140 cd/m2 (White level = 143 cd/m2, Black level = 0.48 cd/m2). That gives a mediocre contrast ratio of 300:1 (290:1 after calibration)

Next, we look at the sRGB gamut coverage of the display of ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401. The human color reproduction limitations are represented by the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram, which gives you an idea of the color accuracy of the screen. Inside the dark-grey triangle, we find the standard colors, used in digital television and the Internet – rec. 709/sRGB.

The colors in the sRGB gamut are used practically everywhere by millions of people and the accurate representation is of key importance for the quality of a display.

We have also included the Adobe RGB color gamut, used in professional photography, as well as the gamut used by the world-known movie studios – (DCI-P3), and the one used by UHD-digital television (Rec. 2020), which at this stage is pretty difficult to adapt from the modern day displays. The black line gives us the Pointer Gamut, which represents the visible for the human eye refracted colors.

The yellow dotted line, on the other hand, shows us the coverage of the ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401’s display. It covers 49% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE 1976 – it will show no more than half of the colors available in the web space.

Our Design and Gaming profile is created at 140 cd/m2 luminance, illuminant white point – D65 and sRGB gamut.

Next, we tested the display via 24 colors, including the most common colors, distinguished by the human eye, some of which are dark and light human skin, blue sky, grassy green, and orange. On the image below you can compare the results of ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 in default settings (on the left), and with “Gaming and Web design” profile installed (on the right).

On the next chart, we can see the display’s capabilities of comfortable gaming and movie watching. Precisely we are looking at the darkest parts of the screen.

The left side represents the default settings of the display, and the right one shows us the “Gaming and Web design” profile in action. Vertically we have the screen brightness, and horizontally the level of gray. VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 has a well-calibrated display in this aspect.

The first five levels of Grey (1%-5% White) are demonstrated by the five squares in the bottom part of the chart. Whether you can see it or not, depends on the display on which you’re reading this article right now, its calibration, your vision, the ambient light, and the viewing angle.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

Attention gamers – this part is for you. The diagram below illustrates the response time of the pixels going from White to Black and then backwards, brightness levels from 10% to 90% and vice versa. We calculated Fall Time + Rise Time = 17 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

The PWM adjustment of the brightness from the backlight of an LCD monitor is the alternation of periods of emitting and not emitting light, as well as changing the bright-dark ratio. This is straining the eyes and the brain, especially when the frequency is below 300 Hz. You can find out more about PWM in our dedicated article.

The only occasion when the screen of ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 doesn’t use PWM is when the brightness is set to maximum level.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

The display of ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 is touchscreen, which is probably its one and only positive. Its limited viewing angles don’t combine very well with the 360° flipable screen concept because the display can be looked comfortably at only when standing directly in front of it. In other words, we would suggest upgrading to the more expensive Full HD screen, even though some of the problems are fixed by our profiles.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 configurations with 14″ BOE NT140WHM-N44 (HD, 1368 x 768) TN screen: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 offers a very crisp stereo sound from its side-mounted speakers, which are clear in the whole frequency range.

Software

ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 comes with pre-installed Windows Home (64-bit) edition, and as said above – Windows Ink support, for use with active styluses. In case you need to reinstall your computer, you can find the necessary drivers on the official website of the manufacturer: https://www.asus.com/2-in-1-PCs/ASUS-VivoBook-Flip-14-TP401CA/HelpDesk_Download/

Battery

As usual, the battery tests were run with Windows power saving setting and Wi-Fi turned on, as well as screen brightness adjusted to 120 cd/m2.

The 39 Wh battery is enough for 9 hours of web surfing time which is impressive. The numbers go down when we have some graphics processing involved – Video playback time is almost 6 hours, which is neither bad nor impressive, given the mobile chipset. As said above, this is definitely not a gaming laptop but if you want to have some fun, you’ll get a little bit over 3 hours of gaming experience on the VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 which is a pretty long game session only on battery reserves.

$548
price
545 min.
battery
54Wh, Li-Po, 3-cell
543 min.-0.4%
43Wh, Li-Ion, 3-cell
473 min.-13.2%
319 min.-41.5%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
$548
price
353 min.
battery
54Wh, Li-Po, 3-cell
464 min.+31.4%
43Wh, Li-Ion, 3-cell
352 min.-0.3%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
$548
price
200 min.
battery
54Wh, Li-Po, 3-cell
236 min.+18%
43Wh, Li-Ion, 3-cell
94 min.-53%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core m3-7Y30

The Intel Core m3-7Y30 chip is a two core/four thread SoC implementation, and the most budget oriented from all of the ultra low powered Core m line up. It ticks at 1.00 GHz base clock speeds and can go up to 2.60 GHz on demand with the Turbo Boost technology. It can be found in all kinds of portable devices like light laptops, 2-in-1’s and some tablets. Its main advantage is the very low power demand of 7 W for the entire package, which includes the GPU.

Speaking of GPU, the Core m3-7Y30 is equipped with an HD Graphics 615 video controller, which has a base frequency of 300 MHz and a maximum one of 900 MHz. It also supports 4K video output. The chip also supports up to 16 GB of LPDDR3/DDR3L memory with maximum clock speeds of 1866 MHz and 1600 MHz respectively.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$548
price
4651
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$548
price
24.73
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401) CPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401) models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401) model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.

Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – Intel HD Graphics 615

Intel’s HD Graphics 615 is a low-end integrated graphics unit found in Y-series Kaby Lake processors. It incorporates 24 EUs (Execution Units) like all GT2 units and can be clocked at up to 1050 MHz while the base frequency is 300 MHz. With these specs, the chip is integrated into KBL-Y processors rated at 4.5W TDP, including the memory controller.

Since the iGPU is using the same architecture as before, the most noticeable feature would be the full hardware acceleration of the H.265/HEVC Main10 and Google’s VP9 codecs. With this, Intel aims to improve the overall energy efficiency and performance of the iGPU.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401) GPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the GPUs that can be found in the ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401) models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401) model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different GPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / GPU.

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Storage performance

Next, we’ll show you the performance of the storage device found in ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401. Here we have a non-removable eMMC 128 GB drive. The Write speeds we saw here were nothing impressive with a maximum of 78 MB/s. However, the Read speeds of the mobile device made up for the poor writing result – around 300 MB/s, which is close to some of the cheap SATA SSD devices.

Gaming tests

We should note that ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 is strictly not a gaming computer but if you are, let’s say, a CS:GO enthusiast, you can play at very low settings and resolution, without noticing considerable lag, until someone throws a smoke grenade at you…

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GO HD 768p, Low (Check settings) HD 768p, Medium (Check settings) HD 768p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 38 fps 22 fps – fps
Min FPS 6 fps 3 fps – fps

DOTA 2 HD 768p, Low HD 768p, Medium HD 768p, High
Average FPS 33 fps – fps – fps

Temperatures

The temperature tests go this way. We use Prime95 and FurMark to torture the CPU and the GPU respectively. This won’t give a realistic representation of the real-world load but with our methodology we try to give you the most optimal results.

The first values from the test are from the 30th second of running the Prime95 stress test, which simulates a heavy task run on your computer (usually lighter tasks take from a fraction of a second up to a couple of seconds). Next, we take the ones from the 2nd-minute mark which imitates a very heavy task run on the CPU. The last values we give you are the ones from the end of the test which is 15 minutes, simulating the load of the CPU when it renders a video, for example.

30 min. GPU torture test

The VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 graphics card was running idle at 39°C. Here is the moment to say that the base frequency of the Intel Core m3-7Y30 is 1.00 GHz, and it tops out at 2.6 GHz. Also, it’s worth noting that this device has a passive cooling (meaning it lacks a fan that drives the heat out of it). For the first 30 seconds of our test, we got some pretty impressive results from a fanless solution. An average of 2008 MHz for both cores, and what actually caught our eye is that it maintained 2.4 GHz for the first 13-14 seconds, which guarantees that during your daily work you won’t notice any thermal throttling. However, the temps did go up quite high – up to 84°C when the throttling came upon us, resulting in a temperature drop to the high 70’s, giving an average for this 30-second episode of 73.4°C.

Cores frequency (0 – 0:30 sec.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 0:30 sec.)

Going further into the test, we see that the frequency starts to fluctuate between 1.7-1.8 GHz, giving an average for the 2-minute checkpoint of 1792 MHz. The temperatures also rose a little to 72.5°C but that gives us a lower average of 71.5°C because of the peak at the beginning.

Cores frequency (0 – 2:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 2:00 min.)

The next and final results of our temperature test are at the end – the 15th-minute mark. Here we observed that the frequency dropped a little more to around 1.6 GHz, thus giving us an average for the whole test of 1683 MHz for both cores. Additionally, the temperature retained its values around the 74-77°C mark, resulting in an average of 75°C for the test. Once more we have to say that those results are great, given the passive cooling which means that the chassis of the VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 spreads the heat more than well for its purposes.

Cores frequency (0 – 15:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 15:00 min.)

On the image below you can see the exterior temperatures of the VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 at the end of the torture test. The middle top part of the device (right above the keyboard) is the hottest place of the computer with 43.2°C which sounds a lot, however, keep in mind that the purpose of the chassis with a fanless design is to dissipate the heat through the body. The keyboard got a little warm but nothing scary, and the palm rest didn’t heat up at all.

33.6°C
43.2°C
36.6°C
27.8°C
34.0°C
32.1°C
24.1°C
25.5°C
25.3°C

Verdict

The couple of days we spent with the ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 left us with mixed emotions. To capture the 2-in-1 market, ASUS definitely needs to make no mistakes. They have huge competition in the face of HP’s Envy 15 x360 series, Acer’s Spin devices, and even the Inspiron 5379, provided by Dell, as well as the Flex 5 series by Lenovo. Even at the low budget end of the sphere, the competition is real, and every mistake will be penalized. All in all, we liked the VivoBook Flip 14 TP401 – it has a great battery life, especially if you’re going to use it for web browsing and looking for girlfriends on the Internet. Another thing we actually like is the one that defines the device as 2-in-1 – its versatility – nice touch sensor, good hinge design, and stylus which comes with it really serves the purpose. Also, the tiny Core m3-7Y30 won’t let you down at any time.

Although having a lot of merits, there are some downsides worth noting as they could even be a dealbreaker for some. First and foremost – the screen. Even if we close our eyes for the relatively low resolution resulting in a pixel density of just 112 ppi, we can’t skip the poor viewing angles, color accuracy (fixed by our profiles), and less than 50% of sRGB coverage. A screen like that just won’t do the job for a creator who buys this computer for the artistic opportunities it gives you. We don’t really want to hate it, nor can we lie to you. Other than that, there are a few things that are not of such importance. As said earlier, the keyboard is a bit mushy and it doesn’t have a backlight but you can get used to that, and to be honest, if you are going to use the device in tablet mode most of the time you won’t even notice the lack of the latter. Also, there are no USB Type-A ports which are still the most common type of interface but a little cheap dongle can fix that.

And to end this review on a good note – we really loved the design and the cold feel that aluminum body gives, and not only that but also the very good thermal effectiveness that the chassis provides. Props to ASUS for that.

Now the ball is in your hands. Tell us in the comments how you feel about this device. Have you bought it? Share some sketches you have made using the VivoBook Flip 14 TP401.

Pros

  • Cool aluminum design
  • Good stylus usability
  • Stereo speakers of excellent quality
  • Decent mobile CPU
  • 9 hours of Web surfing battery life
  • Very good thermals for a passively cooled laptop

Cons

  • Mediocre screen, not appropriate for a 360° concept
  • Lack of a keyboard backlight
  • Lack of the still most common USB Type-A port
  • Mushy keyboard

ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 (UX461UN-PRO) review – versatile, powerful, elegant

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The ZenBooks from ASUS have been widely renown for their high-performance hardware packed inside a portable and elegant chassis. The specs are always good enough not only for everyday business use but also for multimedia and even light gaming (or some other graphically-intensive workload). Fortunately, the ZenBook Flip 14 is a worthy member of the lineup but along with the price, the ultrabook adds a few notable features that aren’t necessarily inherent to the series.

Sporting the best of what Intel can offer right now – Core i7-8550U paired with NVIDIA’s GeForce MX150 GPU, 8GB of LPDDR3-1866 RAM and 512GB of PCIe NVMe SSD storage, the ZenBook Flip 14 impresses with exceptional performance with little to no compromise in the portability department. The all-aluminum chassis is a great fit for the ZenBook series and the Full HD IPS display will surely make up for a great multimedia experience but there are some troubling design quirks that need to be polished in the upcoming upgrades. These issues are usually non-existent in the rival convertibles such as the Lenovo Yoga series. To be honest, though, we are talking about a really small design flaw that doesn’t undermine the excellent hardware.

Contents

Retail package

The ZenBook Flip 14 comes in a small package containing all the usual user manuals, stylus pen, a leather pack for carrying it around and a USB to RJ-45 dongle if you need a more stable connection.

Design and construction

When it comes to design, the ZenBook Flip 14 is once again almost flawless. It has a stable all-aluminum construction with no inconsistencies – even the lid is resistant to torsion and bending. The same goes for the interior where the flex is barely noticeable and quite frankly, negligible given the size of this thing. Speaking of which, the ZenBook Flip’s hardware is packed in a 1.5 kg shell measuring just 13.9 mm in thickness. That’s really impressive considering the hardware it holds.

Our only complaint at this point is the hinges. Yes, the lid opens quite easily but this also makes the screen rather wobbly in presentation and laptop mode. In addition, when you open it up a little bit further, the lid lifts up the base, the rubber feet lose contact with the surface, the device becomes unstable and it’s easy to slide on the desk. It’s really annoying design flaw mainly because the pins on the back edge of the lid (where the hinges are) are not rubberized and don’t make a good grip.

In any case, the screen features thin side and upper bezels giving the machine a modern look while bringing the 14-inch footprint closer to the 13.3-inch form factor. The concentric brushed aluminum reminds us it’s a ZenBook and the dark gray color that we reviewed doesn’t seem to be a big fingerprint magnet, which is a big plus.

Input devices and I/O

Again, the ZenBook Flip 14 delivers an excellent working experience on the go. The keyboard isn’t very shallow and each keystroke gives you tactile and clicky feedback. Most users should find it quite easy to get used to. The same goes for the touchpad – smooth operations, excellent gliding surface and precise movements. The clickpad’s mouse clicks are light, deep enough and produce the same click along the whole surface. There’s also a fingerprint reader in the upper right corner for extra security.

In terms of connectivity, the ZenBook Flip 14 brings typical for a 15-inch laptop I/O setup. Although a bit overcrowded on the right side, you will find everything you’d probably need – full-sized HDMI, USB 3.0, USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1), 3.5 mm combo audio jack and a microSD card reader. And on the left, you will find the main exhaust vent for dispersing the heat and another USB 3.0 connector. The power button and the volume rocker are right next to the latter – they are easy to reach and distinguish from one another.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

Accessing the hardware inside is pretty easy. Just remove all the screws on the bottom and gently pry up the plate. Be careful not to break any of the clips.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

As expected, the device comes only with an M.2 SSD – there’s no room for a 2.5-inch HDD. Unfortunately, though, the unit we’ve tested came with a 512GB SanDisk X400 M.2 SSD instead of a PCIe NVMe drive. This is disappointing since the price requires a PCIe SSD so be careful from where you buy the laptop. In some cases, the retailer will sell it with a PCIe NVMe SSD.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
M.2 SSD 2280 slot 1 512GB SanDisk X400 M.2 SATA SSD Buy from Amazon.com

RAM

The motherboard doesn’t offer upgradable memory so you are limited to what you you’ve ordered in the first place. The soldered memory chip is 16GB of LPDDR3-2133.

Other components

The battery takes a good portion of the space inside and it’s rated at 57Wh.

Cooling system

The cooling design is rather interesting – two heatpipes (one bigger than the other) wrapping around the cooling fan and connecting both heatsinks.

Display quality

The ZenBook Flip 14 uses a Full HD (1920×1080) IPS touch panel with model number BOE NV140FHM-N62. It offers 157 ppi and 0.161 x 0.161 mm pixel pitch. It can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from at least 56 cm.

The display has excellent viewing angles.

We’ve recorded a peak brightness of 284 cd/m2 in the center of the screen and 280 cd/m2 as average across the surface with 13% maximum deviation in the lower left corner. The correlated color temperature at maximum brightness is a bit colder than it should be – 7280K and remains pretty much the same when we go along the grayscale – 7030K. You can see how these values change at 140 cd/m2 (71% brightness) in the image below.

The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center of the screen should be no more than 4.0 and if you are planning to do color-sensitive work, it should be lower than 2.0. But in this case, since the laptop is going to be used mostly for multimedia, office work and web browsing, a deviation of 3.15 in the lower left corner of the screen can be overlooked. The contrast ratio is high – 1050:1 before calibration and 1040:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.
Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

Here, the display covers 90% of the sRGB color gamut so most of the web-basted and HDTV colors can be reproduced.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.
We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.
We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 34 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes.

You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Our equipment detected aggressive low-frequency PWM from 0 to 99% brightness so we strongly recommend using the device only at maximum brightness or consider using our Health-Guard profile.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.
You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

The display is generally fine and offers punchy and vibrant images thanks to the wide sRGB coverage and high contrast ratio. However, the maximum brightness will be a limiting factor when using the notebook outdoors under direct sunlight. The glossy finish of the screen won’t help the situation either. Yet, the biggest issue here is the aggressive PWM we’ve recorded from 0 to 99% brightness. To avoid unwanted eyestrain, we suggest using our Health-Guard profile or just use it at maximum brightness at all times.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 configurations with 14.0″ BOE NV140FHM-N62 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
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All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

The sound quality is surprisingly good given the size of the body. The loudspeakers provide clarity in the low, mid and high frequencies.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region

ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 (UX461) technical specifications table

Acer
-0%
Old price $1299.00
$1295.00
you save $4 (-0%)
from Amazon
Display
14.0”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
512GB PCIe NVMe SSD
M.2 Slot
1x 2280 PCIe NVMe M.2 slot
RAM
16GB LPDDR3, 2133MHz
Dimensions
327 x 226 x 13.9 mm (12.87" x 8.90" x 0.55")
Weight
1.40 kg (3.1 lbs)
Body material
Aluminum (All-aluminum chassis)
Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.1 (3.1 Gen 2)
  • HDMI 1.4
  • VGA
  • DVI
  • Card reader MicroSD
  • Ethernet lan
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2x2)
  • Bluetooth 4.2
  • Audio jack headphone/microphone
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera HD 720p
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone Dual-Array Microphone
  • Speakers Harman / Kardon
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 (UX461) configurations

Software

We used the pre-installed Windows 10 for the writing of this review but if you wish to perform a clean install of the OS, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from ASUS’ official support page.

Battery

Like most ZenBooks, the Flip 14 also impresses with long battery life mainly thanks to the energy-efficient Core i7-8550U processor and the generous 57Wh crammed inside. It easily becomes one of the most enduring 14-inch ultrabooks we’ve tested so far.

Of course, all tests were run using the same settings as always – Wi-Fi turned on, screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2 and Windows battery saving feature switched on.

$1295
price
833 min.
battery
56Wh, 4-cell
443 min.-46.8%
48Wh, Li-ion, 4-cell
690 min.-17.2%
566 min.-32.1%
319 min.-61.7%
1000 min.+20%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
$1295
price
523 min.
battery
56Wh, 4-cell
523 min.
48Wh, Li-ion, 4-cell
481 min.-8%
534 min.+2.1%
352 min.-32.7%
665 min.+27.2%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
$1295
price
131 min.
battery
56Wh, 4-cell
176 min.+34.4%
48Wh, Li-ion, 4-cell
191 min.+45.8%
180 min.+37.4%
94 min.-28.2%
270 min.+106.1%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i7-8550U

The Intel Core i7-8550U is part of the new 8th Generation Kaby Lake Refresh and it’s a direct successor to the Intel Core i7-7500U from the Kaby Lake generation and the Intel Core i7-6500U from the 6th Skylake generation. With the latest alteration to the ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors, Intel doubles the core count from 2 to 4 and retaining the so-called Hyper-Threading technology, keeping the same 14nm manufacturing process and feature the same 15W TDP.

However, due to the core count change, the base frequency of the Core i7-8550U is lowered to only 1.8 GHz while Turbo Boost frequencies remain pretty high – somewhere between 3.7 – 4.0 GHz. This ensures considerably higher multi-core and single-core performance during short workloads before going back to more bearable frequencies considering the 15W TDP but most of the other specs and features remain the same.

The chip also incorporates a newer Intel Gen 9.5 integrated graphics called Intel UHD Graphics 620. The support for Google’s VP9 codec and H.265/HEVC Main 10 is still the most notable feature of the iGPU. Intel claims that the new UHD 620 chips improve the overall power consumption compared to the previous one.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/;

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-8550u/;

Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$1295
price
12182
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$1295
price
10.01
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 (UX461) CPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 (UX461) models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 (UX461) model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.

$949
price
587
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$949
price
11476
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$949
price
11.1
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce MX150 (2GB GDDR5)

The GeForce MX150 is an entry-level mobile card that is part of the latest NVIDIA Pascal lineup of GPUs, based on the GP108 chip paired with 2GB of GDDR5 memory via 64-bit interface. The GPU is the successor of GeForce 940MX and it was announced in Q2 of 2017.

The GeForce MX150 operates at a relatively high base frequency of 1469 MHz, while the Boost frequencies can go up to 1532 MHz. The GPU incorporates 384 shader units (CUDA cores) while the memory is clocked at 6008MHz (effective). These specs ensure a significant performance boost over the previous generation of Maxwell GPUs. The TDP of the GPU is lower than the last generation GTX 950M and even the GTX 1050 – 25W compared to 40W for the two models above. Performance-wise, the GeForce MX150 should be similar to the desktop GeForce GT 1030.

Along with all the power consumption and performance improvements, the GPU now supports essential features like Multi-Projection, VR Ready, G-SYNC, Vulkan and Multi-Monitor.

Check the prices of all notebooks equipped with NVIDIA GeForce MX150: Buy from Amazon.com

Gameplay recordings with NVIDIA GeForce MX150 (2GB GDDR5)

ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 (UX461) GPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the GPUs that can be found in the ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 (UX461) models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 (UX461) model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different GPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / GPU.

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gaming tests

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GO HD 768p, Low (Check settings) HD 768p, Medium (Check settings) HD 768p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 158 fps 95 fps 76 fps

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) HD, Low (Check settings) HD, Medium (Check settings) HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 113 fps 51 fps 26 fps

Temperatures

Of course, the stress tests that we perform don’t represent real-life usage scenarios because even the most demanding games don’t require 100% CPU and GPU load all the time but it’s still the best way to assess the overall stability of the cooling system in the long run.

We kick things off with 100% CPU load for about an hour. Interestingly, the Core i7-8550U reached a maximum of 3.5 GHz for the first few seconds, it went through 2.5 and 2.2 GHz quite fast before settling at 1.9 GHz. No throttling occurred but it’s obvious that the system can’t sustain higher frequencies for some reason.

Switching on the GPU stress test resulted in CPU throttling at around 1.1 GHz but to our surprise, the GPU didn’t throttle as much. It kept fairly high frequencies at 1202 MHz and exceptionally low temperatures – 64 °C. It appears that the BIOS settings prioritize lower temperatures rather than performance because obviously, both chips can go much higher judging by the fairly low operating temperatures.

As expected, temperatures on the surface were a bit warm but nothing alarming. Probably higher inner temperatures would have resulted in higher outer temperatures so that’s why the CPU and GPU tend to keep things cool under the hood. We were also surprised by the low noise emissions – even under full load, the cooling fans were pretty quiet.

33.6°
43.7°
41.6°
34.2°
42.1°
37.6°
35.1°
32.0°
31.9°

Verdict

The ZenBook Flip lineup has been around for a while now but the new generation featuring a familiar, yet fresh design and the best of what Intel and NVIDIA can offer, for now, is a game-changer. Even though the chassis is entirely made of aluminum, it’s impressively thin, light and doesn’t trip the performance of the CPU and GPU, although we found the system struggling to keep Core i7-8550U’s boost frequency for a long time. In short workloads and everyday use, the issue won’t be noticed.

Once again, the device proves to be great traveling companion thanks to the excellent input devices, small dimensions and amazing battery life, even though the issue with the rubber feet can be frustrating. When you open the lid a bit further, the bottom loses contact with the surface and easily slides on the desk. Seems like a rookie mistake and we hope it will get fixed after the first refresh since it’s the only design flaw we’ve encountered.

But what about display quality? Well, on contrary to all ZenBooks we’ve reviewed so far, this one is a mixed bag. It does offer punchy and vibrant images due to the wide sRGB coverage and high contrast but the glossy finish combined with relatively low maximum brightness will pose a challenge when using it outdoors. Also, the aggressive PWM will be tiring to a large number of users, especially to those with sensitive eyes.

Is it worth your hard-earned money? Well, quite frankly, the ZenBook Flip 14 is one of the best convertibles currently on the market successfully challenging Lenovo’s Yoga 720 (13-inch) and easily beating most of its direct competitors. And if the 360-degree rotatable hinge isn’t essential, consider the standard ZenBook UX430 or Lenovo’s Ideapad 720s.

Pros

  • Clean design, robust chassis
  • Lightweight, super thin, slightly bigger than a standard 13-inch device
  • Great keyboard, responsive and accurate touchpad
  • Packs a powerful hardware given the size of the chassis
  • Good image quality (wide sRGB coverage, high contrast)
  • Amazing battery life
  • Plenty of I/O

Cons

  • When opened, the device loses grip with the surface and slides
  • The glossy screen finish and relatively low brightness make it hard to use outdoors
  • The screen uses aggressive PWM 0 to 99% brightness (our Health-Guard profile fixes that)
  • In some regions, the notebook ships with M.2 SATA SSD instead of PCIe NVMe SSD

Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31) review – modestly priced 2-in-1 with a beautiful screen

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Today we are looking at a more different type of product. A tablet computer, to be more precise. These devices are on the top of the size/portability/versatility table, and that’s why we are going to review today a member of the budget Switch series by Acer. Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31) is the exact name of the device. It has a stylish shell that features a mobile chipset, touchscreen and a few presents inside the box.

The mobile chipset we’re talking about is made by Intel – Pentium N4200 – а four core/four thread CPU, working at a base frequency of 1.10 GHz and a burst frequency of 2.50 GHz. The processor also has 2 MB of L2 cache. Additionally, the Switch 3 (SW312-31) is equipped with 4 GB of LPDDR3 RAM, working on speeds of 1866 MHz. As far as the storage of the device is concerned, we are looking at one 128 GB eMMC drive. This results in a very low TDP – the CPU uses only 6W, so the screen will consume the most. In theory, that will contribute to a good battery life, which we are going to test. The display has a 16:10 aspect ratio and a resolution of 1920 x 1200p. Combined with the 12.2-inch size and IPS panel, that gives us a very sharp and crisp image. Not only that but (obviously) the screen is touch sensitive, and it also works with styluses. Another feature that defines the tablet is its camera. The Swift 3 (SW312-31) has a 5MP primary camera, and a 2MP front-facing one.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: http://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-switch-3-sw312-31/

Contents

Specs Sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region.

Acer Switch 3 technical specifications table

Acer
New
$499.99
from Amazon
Display
12.2", FHD (1920 x 1200), IPS
HDD/SSD
128GB eMMC
RAM
4GB LPDDR3 RAM
Dimensions
295 x 201 x 9.95 mm (11.61" x 7.91" x 0.39")
Weight
0.9 kg (2 lbs)
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1), DisplayPort
  • Card reader microSD (SD/SDHC/SDXC)
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth 4.0
  • Audio jack combo audio / microphone jack
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera 2MP (front); 5MP (rear);
  • Microphone
  • Speakers
  • Stylus

Acer Swift 3 (SW312-31) configurations

Retail package

The Switch 3 (SW312-31) comes in a fancy black box which is pretty heavy for its size. To access the internals you have to remove the box from its black housing. Since this is a tablet, we have kind of a different unboxing experience. There are the usual manuals as well as a standard charging unit. Here comes the interesting part. Except for the device itself, Acer has put a detachable (or more accurately said attachable) keyboard + touchpad set. And in a separate mini box, you get the active stylus, as promised on the outside of the box.

Design and construction

Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31) definitely looks more premium than it costs. The outer shell and the stand are made of aluminum, while the strips between the back cover and the front glass are plastic. Additionally, the device measures 29.5 x 20.1 x 9.95 cm (11.6″ x 7.9″ x 3.9″). The computer has some weight to it in tablet form – 900 grams (1.98 lbs), which is not a bad thing because it seems to be of high quality. Also, the 12.2-inch screen has a glass placed on top of it which makes it more durable, of course.

Acer has provided a stand to help you maneuver the device. You can easily adjust its angle to your liking, and we found it to work well in all positions. Although the durability of the stand will be tested by time and the kids of the respective owners.

The design of the Switch 3 (SW312-31) is pretty straightforward – a rectangle with a screen. On the back of that rectangle, we have a cover with the Acer logo in the middle of it. Right above it, there is the lens of the 5 MP main camera. On the opposite side, we find the 12.2-inch Full HD IPS panel with a sticker boasting the technologies supported by the computer. Exactly above it are the stereo speakers.

Moving to the top we find three buttons – Power switch (which as a typical tablet needs to be long-pressed to turn the Switch 3 on), Volume rocker, and a dedicated Windows key. Sliding to the left we find the I/O. Acer has taken care not to put too many holes on their device apparently, as we only find a headphone jack, microSD slot, Power connector, and two USB ports. One is the typical Type-A 3.0, and one of the more futureproof USB Type-C ports.

The bottom part of Switch 3 (SW312-31) has a dedicated space and connectors for the external keyboard that comes with the device. Speaking of the keyboard – we enjoyed the typing experience, given the size of it. The key travel is satisfactory, and we got some pretty nice “click-click” time with it. Moving on, the touchpad is also not bad but one thing that we didn’t like is the surface around it. It’s a complete dust magnet. And if you have a pet at home… well, you’ll take something of your pet with you wherever you go with your Switch 3 (SW312-31) device.

Display quality

Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31)’s display has a model number KD122N0439A04 and is of Full HD resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio, which means a little bit more pixels than the standard FHD screen – 1920 x 1200 pixels. The panel of the device is touch sensitive and is of the IPS type. With a 12.2-inch diagonal, it has a pixel density of 186 ppi and pitch of 0.137 x 0.137 mm, meaning that the distance beyond which the screen can be considered as “Retina” (the distance from which the eye stops perceiving each pixel separately) is 50 cm.

Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31) has comfortable viewing angles, as you can see from the images below.

The maximum brightness that we measured is 325 cd/m2 in the middle of the screen and 318 cd/m2 average for the whole surface, with a maximum deviation of just 5%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and maximal brightness is 7340 K, which is colder than the standard of sRGB (6500 K). The average color temperature for the grey scale though is 7010 K (can be corrected by our profiles).

On the illustration below you can see the performance of the display at the most usual levels of brightness – 140 cd/m2. The dE2000 values above 4.0 are undesirable, and for panels, created for content creators and work with colors (Switch 3 is of universal purpose), this number should not get past the 2.0 mark. This is a very important parameter if color accuracy is important for you.
The contrast ratio of the device is not bad, but neither it is fascinating for an IPS panel – 900:1 (860:1 after calibration).

Color reproduction

Next, we look at the color coverage of the sRGB color gamut (that’s the standard of internet and HDTV). We also included the color reproduction limits of the human eye via the “CIE 1975 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram”, which gives us the idea of the range and accuracy of the colors, your device throws at you. Inside the dark grey triangle, we see the standard colors used by Internet and digital television – rec 709/sRGB.

Being used by million people around the world the colors from the sRGB gamut are the most common and their accurate reproduction is of key importance for the quality of the screen.

Other than sRGB we put the Adobe RGB gamut, used in professional cameras, DCI-P3 – used by the movie studios. We also included UHD Rec.2020, which is hard to achieve by the nowadays displays whatsoever. Lastly, we put the Pointer gamut, which consists of the natural colors that usually appear around us.

The yellow dotted line represents the coverage of the Acer Switch 3. Its display encompasses 86% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Gaming and Web design” profile is designed to show optimal color temperature (6500K) when the luminance is at 140 cd/m2 and sRGB gamma.

Following that, we tested the display via 24 color samples, consisted of the most common colors around us. Some of them are those of dark and light human skin, blue sky, grassy green, and orange.
On the left image you can see the results of Acer Switch 3 with its default settings, and on the right, there is those with the “Gaming and Web design” profile. We find the default settings to be well calibrated.

Coming next we have the gaming experience tool which shows the capabilities of the screen to expose the darkest parts of the image.

The left side tells us the default settings results of the screen, and the right one shows us the results with “Gaming and Web design” profile installed. The horizontal axis gives us the levels of grey, and the vertical one – the screen brightness.

You can check how your device displays the first five levels of grey – 1% – 5% White – via the graphics below the charts. The image you see depends on several factors, like the panel of the display you’re currently reading this article on, it’s calibration, your vision, ambient lights, viewing angle and more.

Response time(Gaming capabilities)

The chart below illustrates the response time of the pixels when displaying Black to White and White to Black for 10-90% brightness and vice versa. We measured Fall Time + Rise time = 23 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

The light levels of Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31)’s display are not PW-modulated only at maximum brightness. However, the pulsations have a very high frequency which drastically reduces the negative effect.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31) has a touchscreen display with an IPS panel and Full HD 1920 x 1200 resolution, comfortable viewing angles, and adequate default settings. It covers 86% of sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 in CIE1976.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31) configurations with 12.2″ KD122N0439A04 (FHD, 1920 x 1200) IPS screen: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.97
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31) has a stereo sound with some deviations in the tone clarity. The chart below shows a peak in the high-frequency range, thus the speakers sound a bit tweety, and lack bass.

Software

Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31) has a pre-installed 64-bit version of Windows 10, with Windows Ink support, so you can use the active stylus, that comes with the device flawlessly. In case you need to reinstall your OS, here is a link for the drivers of this computer: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/7246?b=1

Battery

As always, we ran our tests using the same settings – Wi-Fi turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 cd/m2 and in Windows power saving mode.

Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31) stayed awake for around 6 hours when web-surfing, and proved to be most durable when playing video – 7 hours and 22 minutes. If you consider gaming on this device you’ll get nothing short of 3 hours from the battery – which is not bad.

4670 mAh, 2-cell
$499.99
price
356 min.
battery
$519+4%
545 min.+53.1%
Li-Polymer, 2-cell, 39Wh
333 min.-6.5%
6500mAh, 3.7V, Li-Polymer
438 min.+23%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
4670 mAh, 2-cell
$499.99
price
444 min.
battery
$519+4%
353 min.-20.5%
Li-Polymer, 2-cell, 39Wh
254 min.-42.8%
6500mAh, 3.7V, Li-Polymer
350 min.-21.2%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
4670 mAh, 2-cell
$499.99
price
181 min.
battery
$519+4%
200 min.+10.5%
Li-Polymer, 2-cell, 39Wh
90 min.-50.3%
6500mAh, 3.7V, Li-Polymer
185 min.+2.2%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Pentium N4200

The Pentium N4200 is a low-end quad-core CPU manufactured in a 14nm process part of the so-called Goldmont architecture but its part of the Apollo Lake generation of entry-level chips. The Goldmont architecture is the first totally revamped platform in a few years that promises significant performance and efficiency gains.

The chip integrates four cores clocked at 1.1 GHz but can go up to 2.5 GHz using Intel’s Burst technology. However, the latter strongly depends on the cooling performance, so if implemented right, the chip can maintain the speeds for relatively long periods of time.

Along with the four CPU cores, the chip integrates a reworked Intel HD Graphics 505 (Apollo Lake) GPU based on Intel’s Gen9 architecture supporting DirectX 12. Intel’s Gen9 architecture can be found in the last two generations Skylake and Kaby Lake Intel processors. The TDP of the chip is 6W including the iGPU and the memory controller, which supports dual-channel DDR3L/LPDDR3/LPDDR4 running at 1866 or 2400 MHz.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

$499.99
price
163
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$499.99
price
4326
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$499.99
price
44.79
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – Intel HD Graphics 505

Intel’s HD Graphics 505 is found in the low-end Apollo Lake chips and it’s based on the company’s Gen9 architecture, which is also found in Skylake and Kaby Lake processors. The GPU offers 18 EUs (Execution Units) clocked at up to 750 MHz, although the base frequency is 300 MHz. Since the GPU doesn’t rely on dedicated memory, it uses the available one installed on the system using a dual-channel 64-bit controller – DDR3L/LPDDR3-1866/LPDDR4-2400. Other notable features include the support for DirectX 12 API.

The low power consumption (6W TDP) of the whole SoC, for example, the Pentium N4200, makes it a good fit for low-end systems with a thin and light design. The TDP can be altered and reduced to 4W, which will also affect performance.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

$499.99
price
403
performance
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$499.99
price
128
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$499.99
price
117
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Storage performance

The next test we conducted was that of the storage device which here happens to be a 128 GB eMMC low-power drive. This test is of big importance for Switch 3 (SW312-31) because the storage is soldered into the motherboard and can’t be upgraded. The Write speeds weren’t impressive but the Read performance of this eMMC drive got up to 290 MB/s which is not bad, given the power and the price of the device.

Temperatures

The temperature tests go this way. We use Prime95 and FurMark to torture the CPU and GPU respectively. This won’t give a truthful representation of the real world load but with our methodology, we try to give you the most optimal results.

The first values from the test are from the 30th second of running the Prime95 stress test which simulates a heavy task run on your computer (usually lighter tasks take from a part of the second up to a couple of seconds). Next, we take the ones from the 2nd-minute mark which imitates a very heavy task, run on the CPU. The last values we give you are the ones at the end of the test, which is 15 minutes, simulating the load of the CPU when rendering a video.

0-15 min. CPU torture test

The idle temperature of the Pentium N4200 was 39°C. Here we should note that the Switch 3 (SW312-31) is a passively cooled device, relying only on its outer shell to dissipate the heat generated from the hardware. As we can see, during the first 30 seconds of the torture test, the Pentium N4200 inside the Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31) fared pretty well and maintained a 2.4 GHz frequency of all cores – quite impressive. Temperature-wise it topped at 67°C when a slight thermal throttling occurred.

Cores frequency (0 – 00:30 sec.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 00:30 sec.)

Moving to the 2nd-minute mark, we saw a drop in the frequency department as a result of thermal throttling, which wasn’t that aggressive actually. For most of the time, the CPU stabilized at 2.1 GHz with a couple of drops here and there to under 2.00 GHz. This gave an average of 2166 MHz up for two minutes past. The temperature fluctuated between 62°C and 64°C, again a good result for the Switch 3.

Cores frequency (0 – 2:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 2:00 min.)

For the rest of the torture test the frequencies were bouncing from 2.00 GHz to 2.10 GHz and vice versa, resulting in an average for the whole test of 2075 MHz, and an average temperature of 63°C, never exceeding the 67°C the CPU reached in the first 30 seconds. It’s worth noting that even with 100% load (that will never happen in day-to-day work) the thermals of this passively cooled device remained at reasonable levels. Even though this is not at all a power horse of a CPU, those results are remarkable.

Cores frequency (0 – 15:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 15:00 min.)

Of course, fanless cooling design means a hot outer body. Here the heat was evenly spread throughout the whole surface of the back cover, with the hottest place being on the right of the main camera unit, so we suppose that this is the location of the CPU. We have to point that those temperatures were achieved in extreme conditions at the end of the stress test we talked about above. That means that for most of the time you use the computer it won’t get that hot in your hands.

34.7°C
38.8°C
39.7°C
34.8°C
36.6°C
36.6°C
34.3°C
35.4°C
35.5°C

Verdict

The Acer Switch 3 (SW312-31) is a tablet that really serves its purpose and nothing more. It seems that the mediocre hardware is justified by the low price and the low-power concept of the device. The Switch 3 sees some direct competition in the face of ASUS Transformer Book T101. Also for almost double the price, you can go for the Dell XPS 12 9250.

Perhaps, the reason for this high-price-range competition pool is that in this segment of the market, the main selling point, as said earlier, is the screen. With its 12.2 inches and 16:10 ratio, and 1920 x 1200 resolution it gives us healthy 186 ppi. The touchscreen is on par with more expensive devices. Also, the panel is bright enough so you won’t hesitate using it outside, even under direct sunlight. Additionally, the 86% coverage of the sRGB standard does a fair job in representing the beautiful colorful world. Another strong point of the screen is its color accuracy with dE of 2.8, which is a pretty well-calibrated display, and it improves even further when using our profiles – at 2.0, which is on par with the requirement for color sensitive devices. The only downside of it is the presence of PWM for all brightness levels which is fixed by our Health-Guard profile.

Furthermore, the Switch 3 (SW312-31) is also blessed with a good battery life. Most impressive are the video playback capabilities – 7 hours and 22 minutes. We also liked the presents inside the box that gives you the “Christmas” feeling when you open the packaging. Good key travel and adequate, although small, touchpad, result in a pretty good external keyboard. Acer gives you the full treatment including the “Adaptive Stylus”.

However, the main drawback of this device is the mediocre hardware. A processor that… does the job, and a GPU that stutters even at CS:GO (we tried it but we gave up when we saw the average 11 fps at low settings and 768p resolution). Don’t get us wrong, it will definitely do the job for your day-to-day tasks but don’t expect anything more of it. Also, the sound coming from the stereo speakers is a little bit “sssnaky”, and the storage drive is a little bit slow which is understandable, given its low-power nature.

Pros

  • Aluminum design and sturdy chassis
  • Bright Full HD IPS panel
  • External keyboard and a stylus in the package
  • Good battery life
  • Almost no sign of thermal throttling

Cons

  • Mediocre hardware
  • Poor speakers
  • Brightness is PWМ-controlled for all levels (fixed by our profiles)

ASUS ZenBook Flip S (UX370UA) review – a price premium for top-notch user experience

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Tired of the Lenovo Yoga reign in the convertible segment? Well, ASUS has a nifty solution that has everything that it takes to challenge the Yoga series. However, the ZenBook Flip S that we have with us raises some good questions – is it worth paying a bit extra for the ZenBook Flip S over the comparable Yoga solutions like the Yoga 720 and will the overly-compact chassis be able to provide enough airflow so it won’t cripple the quad-core Core i5-8250U CPU on board?

But even if the laptop can’t keep the processor running at its maximum potential, the ZenBook Flip S has some compelling reasons to be your daily convertible. It has a premium all-aluminum chassis that exudes quality, excellent IPS 360-degree rotatable display, surprisingly good input devices, a handful of useful accessories including a portable dongle bringing the conventional I/O at your disposal and, of course, all of this comes in an extremely portable chassis. Some may say it’s an upgraded successor to the ZenBook Flip UX360 but in our opinion, it’s an entirely different product, especially when you consider the price upgrade as well.

Contents

Retail package

The devices comes in a luxurious matte box containing all of the usual user manuals, AC charger using the USB-C standard and an active stylus pen. And since the laptop comes only with USB-C connectors, ASUS has kindly provided a small dongle that comes with a full-sized HDMI, a standard USB-A connector and a USB-C port used for charging.

Design and construction

An all-aluminum chassis painted in “Royal Blue” with gold-colored chamfered edges stand out from the crowd without compromising mobility. The device weighs just 1.1 kg and measures 10.9 mm in height. That’s downright impressive for a 13-inch device, especially for a one packing a ULV (ultra-low voltage) CPU like the Core i5-8250U.

Anyway, the lid is the first thing that gives away the brand of the device – with ASUS’ logo in the middle and the concentric brushed aluminum surface around it, you can’t mistake the convertible for anything else other than a ZenBook. The plate itself feels pretty stable while the whole lid is almost impossible to twist. The hinges provide smooth and linear travel and allow the first few centimeters to be opened with just one hand. And if you open the panel just enough, the lid will lift up the notebook just a little – ASUS calls this ErgoLift hinge design but, to be honest, we barely felt the incline. Anyway, the side bezels are rather thin and allow for smaller than most 13-inch laptops dimensions. And as for the bottom, it’s made of anodized aluminum and provide just four small grills for the loudspeakers.

The sides are where the ZenBook Flip S impresses and disappoints the most. While the device sports incredibly thin 10.9 mm chassis, there are plenty of connectivity options that are left out. On the left, you will find just one USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1) connector also used for charging, a 3.5 mm audio jack and the main grill for dispersing the heat. On the right, you will find another USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1) port along with the fingerprint, which is placed in unusual position but it’s quite comfortable to reach when in tablet mode, and the usual volume rocker and power button. Considering the price, at least one Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C Gen 2 port would have been greatly appreciated. Just two USB-C connectors don’t cut it even for a 13-inch device.

The interior is where the laptop shines and disappoints to some extent at the same time. The anodized aluminum surface is a huge fingerprint magnet – so is the exterior, of course, and the Royal Blue color makes the smudges even more visible – and fails to impress with sturdiness. It’s not necessarily bad or too flexible since it’s an ultra-portable convertible, but pressing the middle of the keyboard and the wrist rest area results in visible deformation. The input devices, on the other hand, fit the device’s price and are surprisingly good given the limited space. The trackpad features light mouse clicks, buttery-smooth gliding surface and excellent responsiveness. In addition, it’s pretty big for a 13.3-inch device. The same kind words go for the keyboard too – it doesn’t feel small at all, the key spacing is nice, the keycaps are fairly big and despite the rather shallow nature of the keys, the tactile feedback of each keypress makes it a great keyboard.

To sum things up, the ZenBook Flip S is a well built and extremely portable premium device that’s definitely an eye-catcher. Along with the comfortable input devices, the ultrabook justifies the slightly higher. However, the fingerprint magnet surface and the flexible interior keep us from giving the ZenBook Flip S a perfect score.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

Accessing the internals is pretty easy, although you can’t really do much with it as the notebook’s one and the only option for upgrade is the storage. Anyway, removing the screws on the bottom and prying up the plate will reveal everything.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

Despite the laptop being able to support PCIe NVMe SSDs, the unit we’ve tested featured a standard SanDisk X400 M.2 2280 SATA SSD. This is rather disappointing given the price point of the product but we assure you, this is a strictly regional issue. Just make sure you are getting the PCIe NVMe version when ordering your unit.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
M.2 SSD 2280 slot 1 256GB SanDisk X400 M.2 SATA SSD Buy from Amazon.com

RAM

As expected, the motherboard comes only with soldered RAM so no further upgrade is possible. Make sure you are getting the configuration that will suit you. The unit we’ve tested came with 8GB of 2133 MHz LPDDR3 memory while the other available option is 16GB.

Other components

The battery on this thing might seem like a big deal as it takes the most of the internal space but it’s actually rated at just 39Wh. This doesn’t mean, however, that the battery life isn’t good as you will see in further in the review.

Cooling system

The cooling design is a blend between a passive and a standard cooling solution. A big copper plate covers the whole chip and takes the heat away to the cooling fan, which pushes it out from the left side of the chassis.

Display quality

The ZenBook Flip S comes with a Full HD (1920×1080) IPS panel with 13.3-inch diagonal, 0.153 x 0.153 mm pixel pitch and 166 ppi. The panel is manufactured by AUO with model numberB133HAN04.2 and can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from at least 50 cm.

The display has excellent viewing angles.

We’ve recorded a peak brightness of 321 cd/m2 in the center of the screen and 314 cd/m2 as average across the surface with just 9% maximum deviation in the upper right corner. The correlated color temperature at maximum brightness is a bit colder than it should be – 7330K and it gets closer to the optimal 6500K as we go along the grayscale – 7040K. You can see how these values change at 140 cd/m2 (58% brightness) in the image below.

The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center of the screen should be no more than 4.0 and if you are planning to do color-sensitive work, it should be lower than 2.0. But in this case, since the laptop is going to be used mostly for multimedia, office work and web browsing, a deviation of 2.66 in the lower right corner of the screen can be overlooked. The contrast ratio is high – 1150:1 before calibration and 1090:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.
Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

In this case, the panel covers 91% of the sRGB coverage so colors will appear rich and vibrant. Most of the web-based colors can be reproduced.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.
We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.
We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 30 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes.

You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

We didn’t detect any light pulsations so the screen should be safe to use for long periods of time in this regard.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

The ZenBook Flip S like most notebooks from the lineup – it impresses with an excellent display. It offers wide sRGB coverage, high contrast, decent maximum brightness and doesn’t use PWM for regulating screen brightness.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for ASUS ZenBook Flip S configurations with 13.3″ AUO B133HAN04.2 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

The sound quality is more than decent with clear low, mid and high frequencies.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region

ASUS ZenBook Flip S UX370UA technical specifications table

Acer
Upcoming
Display
13.3”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
256GB SSD
RAM
8GB LPDDR3, 2133 MHz
Dimensions
313 x 218 x 11 mm (12.32" x 8.58" x 0.43")
Weight
1.10 kg (2.4 lbs)
Body material
Aluminum
Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-C 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • Card reader
  • Ethernet lan
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth 4.1
  • Audio jack combo audio/microphone jack
  • ASUS Mini dock
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera VGA
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone Array microphone
  • Speakers 2-speaker ASUS SonicMaster Premium
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

ASUS ZenBook Flip S (UX370) configurations

Software

We used the pre-installed Windows 10 for the writing of this review but if you wish to perform a clean install of the OS, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from ASUS’ official support page.

Battery

Even though the notebook’s tiny chassis carries a modest 39Wh battery unit, runtimes are downright impressive. Yes, sure, the video playback score is a bit lower than expected but the web browsing time is pretty good probably thanks to the energy-efficient Core i5-8250U CPU and the small 13.3-inch screen.

Of course, all tests were run using the same settings as always – Wi-Fi turned on, screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2 and Windows battery saving feature switched on.

price
764 min.
battery
$1295
833 min.+9%
48Wh, Li-ion, 4-cell
690 min.-9.7%
1000 min.+30.9%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
price
475 min.
battery
$1295
523 min.+10.1%
48Wh, Li-ion, 4-cell
481 min.+1.3%
665 min.+40%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
price
256 min.
battery
$1295
131 min.-48.8%
48Wh, Li-ion, 4-cell
191 min.-25.4%
270 min.+5.5%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i5-8250U

The Core i5-8250U is one of the first (along with the Core i7-8550U from the same generation) ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors from Intel to feature not two but four cores. It’s part of the 8th Generation (Kaby Lake Refresh) and on contrary to the previous generations, the Turbo Boost range is pretty wide now.

The base frequency is 1.6 GHz and can go up to 3.4 GHz for a short period of time before stabilizing somewhere in between during continues loads. This also means that the single-core performance is really good. The rest of the features and specs, however, remain mostly the same with support for dual-channel DDR4-2400/LPDDR3-2133 memory, 14nm FinFET manufacturing process and the same integrated graphics chip, although re-branded now as Intel UHD Graphics 620.

The whole SoC along with the dual-channel memory is rated at 15W TDP but depending on the usage scenario, cooling capabilities and the configured TDP from the OEM, the TDP can vary from 7.5W up to 25W.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i5-8250u/

Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – Intel UHD Graphics 620

Intel UHD Graphics 620 is a refresh of the HD Graphics 620 found as an integrated solution in many ULV Kaby Lake processors. UHD Graphics 620 is codenamed “Kaby Lake R U GT2” and it’s a part of the Gen 9.5 generation.

Intel UHD Graphics 620 has roughly the same performance as HD Graphics 620, depending on the memory in the system. UHD Graphics 620’s performance is similar to AMD Radeon R5 M420X and NVIDIA GeForce 910M/920M.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook with this GPU that we’ve tested: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/intel-uhd-graphics-620/

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gameplay recordings with Intel UHD Graphics 620

Temperatures

The stress test that we perform don’t represent real-life usage but it gives us a good idea of how the system handles the Turbo Clock speeds and how well the cooling design will fare in the long run.

During the 100% CPU load, the system was able to utilize the full performance of the chip before stabilizing at 1.9 GHz, which is still well above the base frequency and still within the Turbo Boost range.

Running the GPU stress test resulted in CPU throttling but this is normal as the processor gives enough headroom for the iGPU to perform.

Interestingly, the ZenBook Flip S gets warm around the wrist rest area on the left and around the “WASD” section of the keyboard. This is due to the positioning of the CPU, the copper heat dispersing plate placed on the top of the chip and the aluminum interior. Still, we doubt it will get uncomfortable unless you put it under the same stress test as we did.

42.1°C
37.1°C
31.2°C
43.8°C
36.8°C
30.7°C
44.1°C
30.9°C
30.7°C

Verdict

The ZenBook Flip S is a typical successor to the lineup inheriting the usual ZenBook features like all-aluminum design, portable dimensions, powerful hardware (given the footprint) and excellent image quality. But not all is perfect.

The build quality is mostly fine with the small exception of the flexible interior and the I/O is limited to just two USB-C connectors. Luckily, one of them supports display output up to 4K UHD.

So if we leave that aside, for a bit higher price than usual, you are getting an excellent display with high contrast, wide sRGB coverage,e no PWM and decent maximum brightness. The device is also exceptionally portable thanks to the slim screen bezels and thin profile, yet delivering great user experience on the go due to the comfortable input devices and versatile nature. You even don’t have to worry about the battery life because the rather small 39Wh unit delivers impressive runtimes.

But it raises the question whether or not is worth over the 14-inch ZenBook Flip given the price tag. For roughly the same price, you can get the powerful version with discrete GeForce MX150 GPU and Core i7-8550U processor. You also get all the versatility and more I/O. Also, the ZenBook Flip 14 with Core i5-8250U will set you back a few bucks less than the Flips S. In any case, we strongly recommend considering the Lenovo Yoga 720 (13-inch) because it’s in the same ballpark and it’s an excellent alternative to the ZenBook Flip S with pretty much the same features. Still, it’s hard to come across such small 13-inch convertible that still utilizes Intel’s 8th Generation processors just as good as the Flip S.

Pros

  • Generally good build, extremely portable, simplistic design
  • Good input devices
  • Rich and vibrant IPS display
  • Screen doesn’t use PWM
  • Good CPU utilization considering the small body
  • Long battery life

Cons

  • A bit flexible interior
  • Limited I/O
  • A bit pricey

Dell XPS 13 (9370) review – portable, yet powerful business machine

$
0
0

At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) we saw a lot of interesting devices. One of them was Dell’s XPS 13 (9370), which was also honored with an “Innovations Award”. The more you look into the device, the more reasons you find for that. The company has set their targets straight – they want to provide you with a device not only to serve your business needs but also your entertainment ones. But for a notebook to be your main entertainment and business device, it needs to cover some requirements first. The most important of them are a crisp display, fast chipset, and good battery life. Of course, Dell markets all of them as a present, but we have yet to check whether this is true. One thing we know for sure is that this device offers the slimmest bezels ever used in a laptop. It is refreshing to see something different amongst a huge sea of identical in this aspect machines.

And so, the stylish design, combined with a Core i7-8550U and promising storage config, throws down the glove at the rivals of Acer, ASUS, HP, and others. The machine we’re reviewing today comes with the fast speeds of an SSD with 256 GB capacity – Samsung PM961. This is the successor of the Samsung PM951, which was found in the previous version of XPS 13 (9370) – XPS 13 (9360)

You can find the prices and configurations in our Specs System: http://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-xps-13-9370/

Contents

Specs Sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region.

Dell XPS 13 9370 technical specifications table

Acer
Upcoming
Display
13.3”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
256GB SSD NVMe
M.2 Slot
1x 2280 PCIe NVMe M.2 slot
RAM
8GB LPDDR3,1866 MHz
Dimensions
302 x 199 x 16.2 mm (11.89" x 7.83" x 0.64")
Weight
1.27 kg (2.8 lbs)
Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-C 3.1 (3.1 Gen 2), Thunderbolt 3, Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort, HDMI
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1), Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort
  • Card reader microSD (SD/SDHC/SDXC)
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth 4.2
  • Audio jack combo audio / microphone jack
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera HD 720p + infrared camera (VGA)
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone Dual-Array Microphone
  • Speakers 2x 2W
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slotNoble lock

Dell XPS 9370 configurations

Retail packaging

From a device of this price range, we expect a lot when it comes to unboxing experience. And here, Dell has taken care of that in a classy way. At first sight, the cardboard box that contains the device is nothing special. It’s not even colored. When you open it up, though, things get more interesting. Inside you can see a small black box, and a compartment, dedicated to the charger. The small box itself is stylish and made of soft material. It looks like as if jewelry is on the inside. Opening the lid of this beautiful container, to us is presented the Dell XPS 13 9370. Undoubtedly it can serve as a marriage proposal tool, throwing away the small, shiny rings, used for thousands of years as a representation of love and infinity. Moving back to the charging device, one of the first things we noticed is it’s a USB Type-C. Yay! You can charge other devices, as well as your smartphone (if it has the proper connector).

Design and construction

The Dell XPS 13 (9370) has a very appealing design. The all-aluminum body is a champion in size for a 13.3-inch device. The classy suit, tailored by Dell measures at 302 x 199 x 16.2 mm (11.89″ x 7.83″ x 0.64″), making it a tiny looking guy. The XPS 13 (9370) is also very fit at 1.27 kg (2.8 lbs). Although cold from the outside, it has a fragile soul on the inside. In other words, when you open the lid of the device you’ll be greeted by rubberized plastic that is soft to the touch and feels comfortable for one’s hands to rest on.

Speaking of this part of the device, we like its rather simplistic design. It consists of a keyboard, touchpad, and an On/Off button. Nothing too much. All of this is surrounded by composite fiber material, which also includes carbon fibers. We must also mention that the keyboard is not the best on the market but it’s quick to get used to. There is also a backlight with three levels of luminance. The touchpad, on the other hand, is one of the most accurate and durable ones you could get your hands on.

Moving our eyes ahead, we see the 13.3-inch panel. It is almost strange to look at something with such small bezels. It’s like someone just put the panel on the hinges and voila – XPS 13 (9370). However, we should note the big chin of the display that houses the Dell logo, and a couple of cameras and sensors, which are there for the face recognition feature.

The hinges have a central cover, going the whole way from left to right (or right to left, whatever suits you best). Speaking of hinges, the device definitely fails the one-hand-open test, but that’s not strictly a bad thing, given that the tough hinges offer better stability and less shakiness.

As usual, you can find the ports of the notebook on its sides. For better or for worse, the XPS 13 (9370) is exempt from the most common type of USBs, so you have to get some dongles or use the ones, provided in the box. Even though they do not belong to the old standard, the USB Type-C ports can be very useful here, given that they are Thunderbolt 3.0 certified. This means that they offer high bandwidth transfer and Display Port connectivity, as well as Power Delivery. They can be found on the left side of the device. On the opposite side are located the USB Type-C 3.0 port, the MicroSD card slot, and the headphone/microphone jack.

Display quality

Dell XPS 13 (9370) is equipped with a Full HD IPS panel, with a model number Sharp SHP1484. The screen measures 13.3″ in diagonal and with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 its pixel density is 166 ppi, while the pixel pitch is 0.153 x 0.153 mm. The display can be considered as “Retina” at 53 cm.

The XPS 13 (9370) is comfortable to view from all angles. Check the image below to see the visibility from some angles.

Next, we measured the maximum brightness of the panel. Dell XPS 13 (9370) has a very bright display, topping at 457 cd/m2 in the middle of the screen and 431 cd/m2 average for the whole surface. The maximum deviation is 13% and it comes from the bottom right part of the screen. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and maximum brightness is 6530K which is exactly at the sRGB standard (6500K). The temperature of the grey scale is also very near at 6620K.

In the illustration below you can see the uniformity of the display and the amount of leaked light from the backlight of the panel, at a common level of brightness (140 cd/m2). We remind you that values above 4.0 are undesirable.
The contrast ratio of this screen is brilliant, even for an IPS panel – 1680:1 (1480:1 after calibration).

The next image shows the sRGB coverage of Dell XPS 13 (9370)’s display. The color reproduction of the human eye is shown via the “CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram”. In the middle of the dark-grey triangle are located the standard colors used by Internet and digital TV – rec.709/sRGB.

Being used by million people around the world, the colors from the sRGB gamut are the most common and their accurate reproduction is of key importance for the quality of the screen.

In addition to the Adobe RGB color space, used in the professional photography, we’ve included the color gamut, used by world-known movie studios – DCI-P3, and UHD-digital television (Rec.2020), which is very hard to achieve by modern display units.

We have drawn the Pointer’s Gamut with a black line. This color space covers all the colors we can see around us.

The coverage of Dell XPS 13 (9370) is shown by the yellow pointed line. Its display almost covers the sRGB gamut fully at 96% of sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Gaming and Web design” profile is designed to show the optimal color temperature (6500K) when the luminance is at 140 cd/m2 and sRGB gamma.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next chart shows us the capabilities for comfortable gaming experience in terms of the darkest parts of the image.

The left side displays the default settings’ results of the screen, and the right one shows us the results with the “Gaming and Web design” profile installed. The horizontal axis gives us the levels of grey, and the vertical one – the screen brightness.

You can check how your device displays the first five levels of grey – 1% – 5% White – via the graphics below the charts. The image you see depends on several factors such as the panel of the display you’re currently reading this article on, its calibration, your eyesight, ambient light, viewing angle and more.

Response time (gaming capabilities)

The chart below illustrates the response time of the pixels going from Black to White and around for levels of 10% to 90% and vice versa. We measured Fall Time + Rise Time = 39 ms. The panel is fairly slow.

PWM (screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while the brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. It can be particularly harmful to the eyes and the brain at levels lower than 300 Hz. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

The brightness of Dell XPS 13 (9370) is not PW-modulated above 35%. This means that in the common case one’seyes won’t be harmed, at least in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

The screen of Dell XPS 13 (9370) has an excellent maximal brightness and pops out with a very good contrast ratio. The Full HD panel can replicate almost every color on the Internet and has comfortable viewing angles.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for Dell XPS 13 9370 configurations with 13.3″ Sharp SHP1484 (Full HD, 1920 x 1080) IPS screen: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

Dell XPS 13 (9370) has a very crisp stereo sound. It’s clear at low, mid, and high frequencies.

Software

Dell have preinstalled 64-bit Windows 10 Pro operating system on the XPS 13 9370. It’s not that one won’t expect that, given the price tag of the device. They also included some house-made software, that’s going to help you experience their “Cinema” platform. Anyhow, in case of a reinstall you can download the appropriate drivers from here: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/xps-13-9370-laptop/drivers

Battery

As usual, the battery tests were run with Windows power saving setting and Wi-Fi turned on, as well as screen brightness adjusted to 120 cd/m2.

price
678 min.
battery
53.9 Wh, 4670 mAh, 6-cell
$899.99
571 min.-15.8%
4670 mAh, 2-cell
462 min.-31.9%
$1249.11
619 min.-8.7%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
price
692 min.
battery
53.9 Wh, 4670 mAh, 6-cell
$899.99
548 min.-20.8%
4670 mAh, 2-cell
353 min.-49%
$1249.11
814 min.+17.6%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
price
111 min.
battery
53.9 Wh, 4670 mAh, 6-cell
$899.99
122 min.+9.9%
4670 mAh, 2-cell
158 min.+42.3%
$1249.11
256 min.+130.6%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i7-8550U

The Intel Core i7-8550U is part of the new 8th Generation Kaby Lake Refresh and it’s a direct successor to the Intel Core i7-7500U from the Kaby Lake generation and the Intel Core i7-6500U from the 6th Skylake generation. With the latest alteration to the ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors, Intel doubles the core count from 2 to 4 and retaining the so-called Hyper-Threading technology, keeping the same 14nm manufacturing process and feature the same 15W TDP.

However, due to the core count change, the base frequency of the Core i7-8550U is lowered to only 1.8 GHz while Turbo Boost frequencies remain pretty high – somewhere between 3.7 – 4.0 GHz. This ensures considerably higher multi-core and single-core performance during short workloads before going back to more bearable frequencies considering the 15W TDP but most of the other specs and features remain the same.

The chip also incorporates a newer Intel Gen 9.5 integrated graphics called Intel UHD Graphics 620. The support for Google’s VP9 codec and H.265/HEVC Main 10 is still the most notable feature of the iGPU. Intel claims that the new UHD 620 chips improve the overall power consumption compared to the previous one.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Dell XPS 13 (9370) CPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the Dell XPS 13 (9370) models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which Dell XPS 13 (9370) model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.

$1321.4
price
664
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$1321.4
price
13090
performance
$1869+41%
13584+0.9%
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$1321.4
price
12.5
performance
$1869+41%
11.96-0.4%
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – Intel UHD Graphics 620

Intel UHD Graphics 620 is a refresh of the HD Graphics 620 found as an integrated solution in many ULV Kaby Lake processors. UHD Graphics 620 is codenamed “Kaby Lake R U GT2” and it’s a part of the Gen 9.5 generation.

Intel UHD Graphics 620 has roughly the same performance as HD Graphics 620, depending on the other components in the system. UHD Graphics 620’s performance is similar to AMD Radeon R5 M420X and NVIDIA GeForce 910M/920M.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Gameplay recordings with Intel UHD Graphics 620

Storage performance

A fast machine is not only driven by a fast CPU, but it also needs an agile storage device. The Dell XPS 13 (9370) is equipped with a Samsung PM961 M.2 PCIe SSD. You may wish to know that the speeds it achieved in the AS SSD Benchmark reached 1004.73 MB/s of sequential Writing, and 2418.58 MB/s of sequential Reading, which is one of the fastest on the market at the moment of writing of this review.

Gaming tests

Since we are talking about a low-voltage built-in graphics solution, we should not expect too much. If you decide to play games on this device, you have to settle for the lowest possible settings, although at Full HD resolution which is a small win by itself. It’s worth noting that Dell XPS 13 (9370) is doing a hair better job at 3D rendering than some of its competitors like Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52), for example.

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GO Full HD, Low (Check settings) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 72 fps 39 fps 18 fps
Min FPS 7 fps 4 fps 1 fps

DOTA 2 Full HD, Low (Check settings) Full HD, Normal (Check settings) Full HD, High (Check settings)
Average FPS 87 fps 40 fps 19 fps

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) HD, Low (Check settings) HD, Medium (Check settings) HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 36 fps
Min FPS 20 fps

Temperatures

The temperature tests go this way. We use Prime95 and FurMark to torture the CPU and the GPU respectively. This won’t give real-life representation but with our methodology, we try to give you the most optimal results.

The first values from the test are from the 30th second of running the Prime95 stress test which simulates a heavy task run on your computer (usually lighter tasks take from a part of the second up to a couple of seconds). Next, we take the ones from the 2nd-minute mark, which imitates a very heavy task, run on the CPU. The last values we give you are the ones at the end of the test, which is 15 minutes, simulating the CPU load when it renders a video, for example.

0-15 min. CPU torture test

Тhe Intel Core i7-8550U, found on the XPS 13 9370 maintains idle temperatures of around 38°C. In the first part of the test, the device sustained an oven toasty temperature of 98°C, and an average for the 30 second period of 96°C! This Dell is running hot! The good news, though is that the CPU ran at 3.2 GHz for 6-7 seconds which means that in everyday work you won’t notice any sluggishness. We can definitely confirm that given the measurements Dell XPS 13 9370 is one of the most responsive devices we have ever tested.

Cores frequency (0 – 00:30 sec.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 00:30 sec.)

Our next stop is at the 2-minute mark. For the next couple of minutes, the frequency managed to level itself in between 2.5 GHz – 2.6 GHz, resulting in an average of 2.66 GHz for all cores. After around 40 seconds of torture the thermal throttling obviously kicked in harder which resulted in a temperature drop from the 98°C to 85°C, and then it slowly reached the 90°C point. All this gave us an average of 90°C for the first 2 minutes.

Cores frequency (0 – 2:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 2:00 min.)

Up until the end of the test, the frequency of the cores gradually dropped to fluctuating between 2.2 GHz and 2.4 GHz. The thermal throttling, of course, resulted in a slight drop in temperatures for a total average of 85.6°C, and 2.46 GHz. Despite the high temperatures, this result is impressive, given the small form factor of the device which is a prerequisite for aggressive thermal throttling.

Cores frequency (0 – 15:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 15:00 min.)

As you can tell from the IR readings below, the surface temperatures of the XPS 13 9370 are a little bit high. Moreover, they are high along the whole surface of the device, with the top left corner being the hottest spot. It also tends to get a bit warm on your hands, but that will never happen in real life since we simulate extreme conditions that stress the CPU at maximum levels.

44.7°C
43.1°C
33.7°C
38.4°C
36.7°C
31.8°C
32.2°C
30.6°C
29.8°C

Verdict

There is a sole leader in the business devices segment and that’s Apple. A lot of manufacturers are trying to copy its design. Yes – some of them have achieved minor success, offering similar specs (and design) for a far lower price. The notebook we talked about today is a successor to the original “MacBook killer” – XPS 13 (9360). Dell channeled their effort and resources at something new – something that’s going to stand out. And they clearly made it. The neat and stylish design hides a device of impressive performance and beautiful screen.

The Full HD IPS display found in the XPS 13 (9370) is clearly one of the major strong points of the device. Besides being one of the brightest out there at 459 cd/m2, it has an excellent contrast (1680:1), an optimal color temperature for the sRGB standard, and in this line of thinking – it covers 96% of the sRGB gamut. Also by means of the “Gaming and Web design” profile, the screen becomes truly suitable for color sensitive work.

Another impressive feature is the battery life of the XPS 13 – with more than 11 hours of video playback and web browsing time, it will surely make it to the end of the day and still have some more juice left. In addition to the that, we are surprised by the super high benchmark results, that we got from such a small device. Dell definitely did some magic here, keeping in mind that the XPS 13 (9370) beat devices with the same CPU such as the Acer Spin 5 (SP512-52) and Swift 5 (SW514-52) by more than 20% in some of the tests. Probably a part of Dell’s magic is the higher temperature thresholds, which leads us to the drawbacks of this laptop.

Pushing the CPU to the limit comes at the expense of high internal temperatures. The processor got an average of 85°C for 15 minutes of the stress test, and on some occasions, it reached around 98°C! Of course, if you stick to the daily work habits it won’t go even close to that number but if you push it to the limit, it will definitely get hot in your hands – literally. Another drawback, albeit virtually eliminated via the dongle included in the package, is the lack of a USB Type-A port. Let’s be honest, all of us prefer the good old method of… not using dongles.

Anyhow, this is still one fascinating, reliable and amazing product. In addition to all of the above, the device is equipped with a super fast fingerprint reader, and face recognition system.

Pros

  • Sturdy design with aluminum and fiber composite materials
  • Blazing performance for a low-voltage CPU
  • Good display quality
  • Thunderbolt 3.0 support
  • Adequate touchpad
  • More than 11 hours of video and web surfing on battery
  • Use of recycled materials (respect our planet)
  • Blazing fast security enhancements (fingerprint reader and face recognition)

Cons

  • Hardware tends to get hot
  • Lack of a USB Type-A port, forcing you to use dongles

Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) review – stylish companion with underperforming hardware

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 Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) aims to be the ultimate business ultrabook. It has a sleek design, touchscreen display and of course – it’s a convertible (hence the name)… Hey, who doesn’t like convertibles?! It definitely has a compelling hardware in the face of the fresh out of the oven Intel Core i7-8550U, and a hefty battery, which promises a lot of screen on time (Acer says up to 12 hours but we’ll check that). Not last on our list is the Active Stylus technology with the Windows Ink support.

Belonging to the Spin series of devices, the Spin 5 (SP513-52) is perfect to use as a presentation tool. Its small, lightweight and stylish design make it the perfect choice for a traveling businessman or even artsy people.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: http://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-spin-5-sp513-52/

Contents

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region.

Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) technical specifications table

Acer
$899.99
from Amazon
Display
13.3”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
256GB SSD NVMe
M.2 Slot
1x 2280 SATA M.2 slot See photo
RAM
8 GB DDR4, 2400 MHz
Dimensions
324 x 226 x 15.9 mm (12.76" x 8.90" x 0.63")
Weight
1.50 kg (3.3 lbs)
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-A 2.0
  • 2x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.1 (3.1 Gen 2)
  • HDMI
  • VGA
  • DVI
  • Card reader SD
  • Ethernet lan
  • Audio jack headphone/microphone
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) configurations

Retail packaging

Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) comes in a nice black box. The insides of this box are divided into two compartments. On the right, we have the charging adapter, and on the left is the device itself. Along with the manuals, Acer has put a stylus to accompany the Spin 5. Additionally, the notebook is neatly pouched in a white antistatic bag and has some cardboard pieces around it for protection against falls or Atomic blasts. We like how more and more manufacturers these days include a stylus device inside their package instead of putting an “Apple” logo and stating that they have it, but you have to buy it separately.

Design and construction

It’s really intriguing how with every new model, the business line devices look sleeker, sturdy, and premium. Here Acer has not aimed at making the Spin 5 ultralight. Instead, they’ve decided to give some weight to it /at 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs)/, and make it more durable using all aluminum design, which is a pleasant improvement over its predecessor – the Spin 5 (SP513-51). It also has a slimmer form factor at 324 x 226 x 15.9 mm (12.76″ x 8.90″ x 0.63″). The 15.9 mm thickness and weight of 1.5 kilos create a feeling of some sturdiness, and we find the all aluminum design very appealing to the eye.

The most notable feature of this device is the ability to flip its display without breaking in two like Titanic. Furthermore, the hinges seem of a very good quality, and although you can almost open the lid singlehandedly, they can stand the weight of the device in any form, and provide an effortless transition from one state to another. Something we found kind of strange until we got used to the device is that when closing the lid, it feels like its going to slap hard on the bottom part, and this is because there are two magnets at the top of the screen that ensure the closing of the lid. It gave us one or two “Oh sh*t” moments in the beginning.

On the way of discussing input devices, we can’t skip the touchscreen. It is utterly precise and combined with the Core i7-8550U it gives a truly remarkable experience. The last thing we can see here is the speaker grills, located just above the keyboard. Also, the Spin 5 (SP513-52) has a few rubber legs here, and the keyboard is laid a little bit lower in the interior. All that aims at more convenient experience when using the device in tablet mode.

Next on the list are the sides of the device, the left one being completely dedicated to ports. We see a pair of full-sized USB 3.0 ports, an also full-sized HDMI port, and in between there is a single USB Type-C connector, which in addition to data transfer can be used as a charging port with a proper charging adapter. Speaking of supplying power, here we can find and the conventional power input jack.

On the other side of the Spin 5, we can see one more, however slower (2.0), USB Type-A port, as well as an SD card reader. In addition to them, we have the undying 3.5 mm jack. In accordance with the convertible form factor of the device, Acer has put the On/Off switch on the side, as well as a volume rocker, so you won’t need to flip the device if you want to switch it off.

The cooling of the 15.9-mm Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) comes from a small fan, blowing away the heat through the vents, which are located between the hinges. On the bottom of the device, we find the grills for air intake.

Disassembly and maintenance

It is pretty easy to disassemble the Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52). In order to get to the internals, you just need to remove the bottom panel of the device. It’s held by 12 Phillips screws. After they’re removed you have to use something to pry the panel open – we used a plastic pry tool.

At first sight, we found something disappointing – the RAM chips are soldered onto the motherboard, hence making it impossible to upgrade. Another thing we noticed is the compact size of the motherboard itself. As you can see from the image below, it takes less space than the battery of the device.

Speaking of battery, on the right you can see the 54 Wh Li-Ion pack. It has a pretty large area, that compensates for the very small thickness. In the left photo, you can see the tiny cooling system placed on top of the Core i7-8550U. One short and fat heat pipe drives away the heat generated from the processor to the ever so microscopic heatsink. Then the heat is dissipated by a fan of a size no larger than a quarter dollar coin.

Next, we should mention the storage device here – we only found one M.2 port, which is already taken by the 256 GB SATA SSD device. Right on top of it is located the Wi-Fi card. Here you can also see the way the hinge is mounted onto the chassis of the Spin 5 (SP513-52). As you can see, it is held in place by three Phillips screws and has some support elements that go through it.

Display quality

Acer Spin 5 is equipped with a Full HD touch-sensitive IPS panel. It’s made by Landmark and has a model number LM133LF1L02. The 13.3-inch diagonal and 1920 x 1080 resolution translate into a pixel density of 166 ppi and a pitch of 0.153 x 0.153 mm, making the screen “Retina” when viewed from a distance greater than 53 cm, which is a usual distance for looking at a notebook.

Typically for an IPS panel, Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) has comfortable viewing angles.

The maximum screen brightness of the panel is good at 294 nits in the middle of the screen and 279 nits, averaged for the whole area. We calculated a maximum deviation of 10% in the lower left corner. At 7070K the Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) has a bit colder than the optimal color temperature for the sRGB standard (6500K). We also checked the temperature throughout the grey scale and we got a 6980K average before calibration.
In the illustration below you can see how much light leaks from the backlight of the panel. We configured our setup at 140 nits which is the most commonly used brightness level. dE2000 values of over 4.0 marks are unacceptable and should not be exceeded.
We measured a very good contrast ratio of 1280:1, dropping slightly after calibration to 1240:1.

The next image shows the sRGB coverage of Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52)’s display. The color reproduction of the human eye is shown via the “CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram”. In the middle of the dark-grey triangle are located the standard colors used by Internet and digital TV – rec.709/sRGB.

Being used by million people around the world the colors from the sRGB gamut are the most common and their accurate reproduction is of key importance for the quality of the screen.

In addition to the Adobe RGB color space, used in the professional photography, we’ve included the color gamut used by world-known movie studios – DCI-P3, and UHD-digital television (Rec.2020), which is very hard to achieve by modern displays.

We have drawn the Pointer’s Gamut with a black line. This color space covers all the colors we can see around us.

Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52)’s coverage is shown by the yellow pointed line. Its display covers a vast amount of the sRGB gamut at 96% of sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Gaming and Web design” profile is designed to show the optimal color temperature (6500K) when the luminance is at 140 cd/m2 and sRGB gamma.

In order to test the display, we’ve used 24 color samples, some of the most commonly found and easy distinguishable ones such as light and dark human skin, blue sky, grassy green and orange.
In the charts below you can compare the results of Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) with the default settings, and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile. The default settings of this panel are very good and are further enhanced by our “Gaming and Web design” profile, providing an average deviation from the real colors of dE under 2.0.

The next chart shows us the capabilities for comfortable gaming experience as regards the darkest parts of the image.

The left side displays the default settings results of the screen, and the right one shows us the results with “Gaming and Web design” profile installed. The horizontal axis gives us the levels of grey, and the vertical one – the screen brightness.

You can check how your device displays the first five levels of grey – 1% – 5% White – via the graphics below the charts. The image you see depends on several factors such as the panel of the display you’re currently reading this article on, it’s calibration, your vision, ambient light, viewing angle and more.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

The diagram below illustrates the response time of the pixels going from Black to White and around for levels of 10% to 90% and vice versa. We’ve measured Fall Time + Rise Time = 37 ms. The panel is not the fastest out there.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. It can be particularly harmful to the eyes and the brain at levels lower than 300 Hz. You can read more about the importance of this issue in our dedicated article on PWM.

Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52)’s screen brightness is not PWM-adjusted at levels above 28%, which translates into 76 nits. This means that in the common case, one’s eyes won’t be harmed but if you use it at night and bring the brightness all the way to the minimum you should check out our Health-Guard profile.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) showed good results in our screen tests. Its touchscreen panel has good contrast, Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, and comes with adequate default settings, and covers almost all of the colors used on the Internet and HD television.

Buy our Profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) configurations with 13.3″ Landmark LM133LF1L02 (Full HD, 1920 x 1080) IPS screen: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) has a loud and clear stereo sound throughout all frequencies.

Software

The operating system preinstalled on the Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) is Windows 10 Home (64-bit architecture). The screen also supports the Windows Ink technology for a better experience with styluses. If you ever need to reinstall the system, you can get your drivers from HERE.

Battery

As usual, the battery tests were run with Windows power saving setting and Wi-Fi turned on, as well as screen brightness adjusted to 120 cd/m2.

The onboard battery of Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) is rated at 53.9 Wh which is a fairly good amount of electrons, for this size of a device. Reasonable enough the laptop showed us a very good battery performance – we got 9 hours and 31 minutes of Web surfing time, and 9 hours and 8 minutes of video playback. The only drawback here is the battery life when gaming. Given the low-power nature of the chipset, we expected more than the 2 hours and 2 minutes we got. Anyhow, we doubt that if you actually decide to game on a business laptop, you’re going to do it away from a charger.

53.9 Wh, 4670 mAh, 6-cell
$899.99
price
571 min.
battery
511 min.-10.5%
678 min.+18.7%
4670 mAh, 2-cell
462 min.-19.1%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
53.9 Wh, 4670 mAh, 6-cell
$899.99
price
548 min.
battery
423 min.-22.8%
692 min.+26.3%
4670 mAh, 2-cell
353 min.-35.6%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
53.9 Wh, 4670 mAh, 6-cell
$899.99
price
122 min.
battery
208 min.+70.5%
111 min.-9%
4670 mAh, 2-cell
158 min.+29.5%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i7-8550U

The Intel Core i7-8550U is part of the new 8th Generation Kaby Lake Refresh and it’s a direct successor to the Intel Core i7-7500U from the Kaby Lake generation and the Intel Core i7-6500U from the 6th Skylake generation. With the latest alteration to the ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors, Intel doubles the core count from 2 to 4 and retaining the so-called Hyper-Threading technology, keeping the same 14nm manufacturing process and feature the same 15W TDP.

However, due to the core count change, the base frequency of the Core i7-8550U is lowered to only 1.8 GHz while Turbo Boost frequencies remain pretty high – somewhere between 3.7 – 4.0 GHz. This ensures considerably higher multi-core and single-core performance during short workloads before going back to more bearable frequencies considering the 15W TDP but most of the other specs and features remain the same.

The chip also incorporates a newer Intel Gen 9.5 integrated graphics called Intel UHD Graphics 620. The support for Google’s VP9 codec and H.265/HEVC Main 10 is still the most notable feature of the iGPU. Intel claims that the new UHD 620 chips improve the overall power consumption compared to the previous one.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

$899.99
price
508
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$899.99
price
7766
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$899.99
price
11.20
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) CPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.

$699.99
price
479
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$699.99
price
9456
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$699.99
price
8.9
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – Intel UHD Graphics 620

Intel UHD Graphics 620 is a refresh of the HD Graphics 620 found as an integrated solution in many ULV Kaby Lake processors. UHD Graphics 620 is codenamed “Kaby Lake R U GT2” and it’s a part of the Gen 9.5 generation.

Intel UHD Graphics 620 has roughly the same performance as HD Graphics 620, depending on the other components in the system. UHD Graphics 620’s performance is similar to AMD Radeon R5 M420X and NVIDIA GeForce 910M/920M.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

$899.99
price
1106
performance
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$899.99
price
328
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$899.99
price
237
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$899.99
price
243
performance
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gameplay recordings with Intel UHD Graphics 620

Gaming tests

Despite not being a gaming oriented device, Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) will be able to run some of the most common titles, including Dota 2 and GTA V. Of course, you would need to sacrifice a lot of eye candy in order for the experience to be playable, but still it’s better than nothing.

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) Low (Check settings) Medium (Check settings) Very High (Check settings)
768p, Average (Min) FPS 33 (19) fps – fps – fps
Full HD, Average (Min) FPS 24 (14) fps – fps – fps

DOTA 2 Full HD, Low (Check settings) Full HD, Normal (Check settings) Full HD, High (Check settings)
Average FPS 55 fps 35 fps 15 fps

Storage performance

This part of the review is meant to show the capabilities of the storage device. The Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) we have is equipped with a 256 GB SATA SSD. You may wish to know that the maximum Read speed it reached was 520 MB/s, while the Write speed topped just shy of 500 MB/s. Both of the results are typical for a SATA SSD.

Temperature tests

The temperature tests go this way. We use Prime95 and FurMark to torture the CPU and the GPU respectively. This won’t give real-life representation but with our methodology, we try to give you the most optimal results.

The first values from the test are from the 30th second of running the Prime95 stress test, which simulates a heavy task run on your computer (usually lighter tasks take from a part of a second up to a couple of seconds). Next, we take the ones from the 2nd-minute mark, which imitates a very heavy task run by the CPU. The last values we give you are the ones from the end of the test which is 15 minutes, simulating the CPU load when rendering a video, for example.

0-15 min. CPU torture test

The Core i7-8550U inside this machine was idling at 35°C. 30 seconds after we started the Prime95 torture we got pretty good temperature readings – it topped at 76°C when it aggressively thermal throttled from 3.5 GHz to at around 500 MHz, and this resulted in a temperature drop to 58°C. Despite spending some time at the miserable 500 MHz, the average frequency for the first 30 seconds was 2.8 GHz for two of the cores, and 3.0 GHz for the other two.

Cores frequency (0 – 00:30 sec.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 00:30 sec.)

Moving to the next checkpoint – at the second minute we noticed the pattern to repeat a number of times, which is a strange way to conduct thermal control on a notebook – fluctuating from 500 MHz to 3.5 GHz and resulting in a pretty high average frequency of 2.9 GHz for all cores except the first one, which averaged at 2.4 GHz. Meanwhile, the temperature continued to grow, and then suddenly fell (during the 500 MHz periods) by 20°C, and this time it topped at 85°C. The average at this point was 76.5°C.

Cores frequency (0 – 2:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 2:00 min.)

From the 2nd-minute mark to the end of the test frequencies calmed down and sustained 1.9 GHz for all cores, while the temperature never exceeded 78°C. In conclusion, for this test we should note that the aggressive thermal throttling in the beginning is the main reason for underperforming of the CPU in our CPU tests, but in reality (where tasks don’t take more than a couple of seconds) the Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) is very capable.

Cores frequency (0 – 15:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 15:00 min.)

The device preserves pretty cool surface temperatures that don’t exceed 30 °C along the greater part of the surface area, so your hands won’t be kissed by the hot lips of the CPU.

41.5°C
38.3°C
29.3°C
33.3°C
34.4°C
27.4°C
29.1°C
27.0°C
25.7°C

Verdict

The diversity of laptop models on the market gets greater and greater. One can find standard notebooks, convertibles, laptops with a touch screen, and others. In this harsh market, every manufacturer has a different card up their sleeve. Acer can definitely use the screen of today’s device to their advantage. Its 96% coverage of the sRGB color gamut, combined with good color accuracy, especially with our profiles, is a good plus. In addition to that, the Spin 5 (SP513-52) comes with an adequate touchscreen which with the help of the adaptive stylus can be a deal maker. It’s cheaper than the Swift 5 (SF514-52) and it beats it in the screen department, whilst having the same hardware as the latter.

Another positive feature of this device is the all aluminum design, which feels super sturdy, and has even more weight to it for improved stability. All of that would mean nothing if this convertible laptop had a mediocre battery life. Again Acer’s got your back – you can get more than 9 hours of web surfing and video playback, and while battery life in gaming is not fascinating, we doubt you’re going to play games away from the plug.

On the contrary, the capable Core i7-8550U underperforms in our benchmark due to the weird thermal throttling. You don’t see very often a device which pushes the processor from 3.5 GHz down to 500 MHz in an instant. Also, the touchpad is not bad but we surely have seen better on the market, especially at this price point.

Our final words for the Acer Spin 5 (SP513-52) would be that it perfectly serves its purpose as a convertible device. We liked how the device performed in tablet mode, and if you are an artsy person, you’ll be pleased with this piece of hardware.

Pros

  • Aluminum convertible concept
  • Blazing performance for a low-voltage CPU
  • Accurate display colors
  • Good battery life
  • Responsive backlit keyboard

Cons

  • Aggressive thermal throttling
  • RAM chips are soldered, hence not upgradable
  • Brightness is PWM-adjusted at low levels (fixed by the Health-Guard profile)

HP ProBook 450 G5 review – getting better and better

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HP’s ProBook lineup has always offered one of the best value budget business notebooks and with the latest generation ProBook 450 G5, the OEM wants to set the bar even higher. Sporting the latest generation of Intel Core CPUs but paired with the same GeForce 930MX GPU, which is only useful for light graphically-demanding tasks and multimedia anyway. In addition, the totally revamped chassis now aligns more with today’s modern appearance and more importantly, it’s smaller in size although, not much weight has been dropped.

And despite having only TN panels as an option, the device impresses in all other key areas that are rarely overlooked by the business buyers. In any case, we still want to have strict answers about the display’s quality, presumably improved battery life and performance compared to the previous generation. And at the end, we would like to know if the ProBook 450 G5 was able to set the bar higher or just blend with the rest of the market for now. We investigate in our thorough review below.

Contents

Retail package

The notebook comes in a standard box containing the usual user manuals, AC adapter, power cord and DVD with drivers.

Design and construction

As you’ve already figured it out by yourselves judging by the photos, the new ProBook 450 G5 has gone through major cosmetic changes while keeping the clean and simplistic approach to the design. Plastic, of course, is the main order of the day but the interior still features brushed aluminum and luckily, the overall quality of the build has remained the same. The weight has gone up by merely 60 grams while the height of the device has been reduced down to 20 mm compared to the 24 mm from last year.

Even though the base feels solid, the lid’s back remains somewhat bouncy and susceptible to flexing and twisting. It’s made of slightly roughened plastic imitating anodized aluminum but nothing close to the real thing, of course. The hinge, on the other hand, is perfectly balanced – opening the machine with one hand is easy thanks to the smooth linear travel and successfully keeps the lid firmly in place when opened. As for the bottom, it’s made of the same plastic material, offers two vent openings for cool air intake while the big service lids provide access to almost all of the internals but more on that later.

Thankfully, the decrease in height hasn’t reflected badly on the I/O in any way. In fact, the VGA connector is still here and once again we wonder who is still using this out-dated standard in late 2017. Anyway, right next to the VGA, you will see a pair of USB 3.0 ports, full-sized HDMI, DC charging port, USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1) and an RJ-45 port for wired connection when needed. On the left, you can see the main heat dispersing grill, another USB 2.0 connector, 3.5 mm audio jack and an SD card reader. Although this is a more than satisfactory I/O, the port distribution is rather suboptimal – all of the commonly used connectors are on the right and it might become a bit overcrowded with cables in sometimes.

With the aesthetically pleasing design changes to the interior, there are is one practical issue – the dark gray color of the interior makes the fingerprints and smudges quite visible while the metallic color in the previous two generations didn’t have that problem. Regardless, the brushed aluminum sheet feels pretty robust and we couldn’t find exceptionally weak spots – the slight bending that may occur here and there shouldn’t be of anyone’s concern. The keyboard remains practically the same with some small visual changes to the edges. The key travel is more than satisfactory, the slightly concaved keycaps aid for a more comfortable typing experience and the tactile feedback make it ideal for typing. Also, the layout is pretty standard so users will get used to it pretty fast. Another major change in the current generation is the touchpad – now instead of separate mouse buttons, the touchpad becomes a clickpad. We were worried for a second there since budget laptops’ clickpads tend to be wobbly, stiff and unresponsive. However, this one is none of them. We found it to be pretty stable, responsive and offering light mouse clicks. And while we are on the interior, we would like to point out the new utterly awkward fingerprint reader placement. It has now been moved to the upper left corner of the keyboard right above the ESC key where it’s almost impossible to run your finger through the scanner without pressing the ESC button.

To sum things up, the ProBook 450 G5 holds up to its legacy delivering good build quality, updated and more compact chassis, excellent input devices and a broad range of I/O. Our only complaint is the fingerprint magnet surface of the interior and the fingerprint reader location, yet they shouldn’t be a deal-breaker for most users.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

If you have to upgrade the usual stuff like RAM and storage, a full disassembly isn’t required. The notebook has two big service lids giving you access to all of that. Still, if you need to open the machine for further maintenance or battery change, you are in for a lot of hassle.

After you remove all of the screws on the bottom, you have to take out the keyboard too and take care of the screws under it as well.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

Of course, the notebook comes with a standard 2.5-inch drive and an M.2 SSD.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
M.2 SSD 2280 slot 1 Free Buy from Amazon.com
2.5-inch HDD/SSD slot 1TB Seagate HDD Buy from Amazon.com

RAM

The motherboard supports two RAM chip slots each going up to 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory but our unit had only 8GB of RAM. The chips can be accessed via the big service lid.

Slot Unit Upgrade price
Slot 1 SK Hynix 8GB DDR4-2400 Buy from Amazon.com
Slot 2 Free Buy from Amazon.com

Other components

The Wi-Fi adapter is located under the service lid and it’s Intel 8265NGW.

The battery is rated at 48Wh and can be accessed only by a full disassembly.

Display quality

The version of the notebook we’ve tested comes with a Full HD (1920×1080) IPS display manufactured by CHI MEI (CMN15D3) and offers 142 ppi, 0.18 x 0.18 mm pixel pitch. It can be considered as “Retina” from at least 60 cm.

Viewing angles are excellent.

We’ve recorded a peak brightness 279 cd/m2 in the center of the screen and 256 cd/m2 as average across the surface with 18% maximum deviation. The correlated color temperature at maximum brightness is almost optimal – 6320K and goes up closer to the standard 6500K when going along the grayscale. You can see how these values change at 140 cd/m2 (74% brightness) in the image below.

The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center of the screen should be no more than 4.0 and if you are planning to do color-sensitive work, it should be lower than 2.0. But in this case, since the laptop is going to be used mostly for office work, web browsing, multimedia and office work, a deviation of 4.89 is still high but will remain unnoticable for most users. The contrast ratio is high – 1420:1 before calibration and 1280:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The display covers just 52% of the sRGB color gamut, which means that half of the web-based and HDTV colors are missing.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 30 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

We detected PWM from 0 to 99% brightness and the frequency of the emitted light is too low (1 kHz). It’s considered to be aggressive so we strongly recommend using our Health-Guard profile or use it at maximum brightness all the time.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

It’s a good thing that HP was able to include an IPS panel in some of its configuration given the price tag but the crisp image comes at a price. The panel used here lacks almost half of the sRGB color gamut, has relatively low maximum brightness and uses aggressive PWM from 0 to 99% brightness. While the first two can be overlooked given the price, the latter will be a signal for a plenty of users to steer clear from this configuration.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for HP ProBook 450 G5 configurations with 15.6″ CHI MEI CMND3 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

The sound quality is pretty good without any noticeable distortions in the mid, low and high frequencies.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region

HP ProBook 450 G5 technical specifications table

Acer
Upcoming
Display
15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
1TB HDD, 5400 rpm
M.2 Slot
1x 2280 PCIe NVMe M.2 slot (PCIe SSD not available for Celeron.)
RAM
8GB DDR4, 2400 MHz
Dimensions
376 x 264 x 2.10 mm (14.80" x 10.39" x 0.08")
Weight
2.10 kg (4.6 lbs)
Body material
Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum (Plastic body, aluminum interior)
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.1 (3.1 Gen 2)
  • 2x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • 1x USB Type-A 2.0, Sleep and Charge
  • HDMI 1.4b
  • VGA
  • Card reader SD, SDHC, SDXC
  • Ethernet lan
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth 4.2
  • Audio jack Headphone/microphone combo jack
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera HD 720p
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone Dual-Array Microphone
  • Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

HP ProBook 450 G5 configurations

Software

We used the pre-installed Windows 10 for the writing of this review but if you wish to perform a clean install of the OS, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from HP’s official support page.

Battery

Even though the battery capacity isn’t exactly mind-blowing (just 48Wh), the runtimes appeared to be quite long. Battery life compared to the previous two generations has increased substantially.

Of course, all tests were run using the same settings as always – Wi-Fi turned on, screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2 and Windows battery saving feature switched on.

48Wh, 4000 mAh
price
755 min.
battery
277 min.-63.3%
431 min.-42.9%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
48Wh, 4000 mAh
price
452 min.
battery
220 min.-51.3%
303 min.-33%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
48Wh, 4000 mAh
price
258 min.
battery
73 min.-71.7%
96 min.-62.8%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i7-8550U

The Intel Core i7-8550U is part of the new 8th Generation Kaby Lake Refresh and it’s a direct successor to the Intel Core i7-7500U from the Kaby Lake generation and the Intel Core i7-6500U from the 6th Skylake generation. With the latest alteration to the ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors, Intel doubles the core count from 2 to 4 and retaining the so-called Hyper-Threading technology, keeping the same 14nm manufacturing process and feature the same 15W TDP.

However, due to the core count change, the base frequency of the Core i7-8550U is lowered to only 1.8 GHz while Turbo Boost frequencies remain pretty high – somewhere between 3.7 – 4.0 GHz. This ensures considerably higher multi-core and single-core performance during short workloads before going back to more bearable frequencies considering the 15W TDP but most of the other specs and features remain the same.

The chip also incorporates a newer Intel Gen 9.5 integrated graphics called Intel UHD Graphics 620. The support for Google’s VP9 codec and H.265/HEVC Main 10 is still the most notable feature of the iGPU. Intel claims that the new UHD 620 chips improve the overall power consumption compared to the previous one.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-8550u/

price
569
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
price
10845
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
price
10.59
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

HP ProBook 450 G5 CPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the HP ProBook 450 G5 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which HP ProBook 450 G5 model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.

$635.89
price
202
performance
$741.48+17%
536+23.6%
$874.99+38%
568+25.8%
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$635.89
price
performance
$741.48+17%
10591+19.1%
$874.99+38%
10798+19.5%
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$635.89
price
performance
$741.48+17%
9.97+6.3%
$874.99+38%
9.62+6.1%
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce 930MX (2GB DDR3)

The NVIDIA GeForce 930MX chip is based on the same 28nm process as the whole Maxwell family and uses the GM108 chip as the previous GeForce 930M GPU. However, some alterations have allowed for the GeForce 930MX to perform better than its predecessor.

Now the 930MX GPU supports GDDR5 memory, although not every OEM will use it and the most commonly found versions are with DDR3 VRAM. Furthermore, the GeForce 930MX is clocked higher (1019 – 1176 MHz) and this alone will bring the performance closer to the GeForce 940M. But most of the specs remain the same – 384 CUDA cores, 24 TMUs, 16 ROPs and 64-bit memory interface.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this GPU: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/nvidia-geforce-930mx-2gb-ddr3/

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

HP ProBook 450 G5 GPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the GPUs that can be found in the HP ProBook 450 G5 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which HP ProBook 450 G5 model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different GPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / GPU.

$635.89
price
600
performance
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$635.89
price
197
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$635.89
price
161
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$635.89
price
performance
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GO HD 768p, Low (Check settings) HD 768p, Medium (Check settings) HD 768p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 172 fps 87 fps 63 fps

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) HD, Low (Check settings) HD, Medium (Check settings) HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 60 fps 24 fps 12 fps

Temperatures

Of course, the stress tests don’t represent real-life usage because even the most demanding games don’t require 100% CPU and GPU load at the same time for such long periods of time. However, it’s still the best way to assess the overall stability and effectiveness of the cooling system.

We started off with 100% CPU load for about an hour. The Core i7-8550U hit around 3.5 GHz just for a fraction of a second before stabilizing around 2.6 – 2.9 GHz. We’ve noticed that the chip stayed there for a while before residing at 2.4 GHz for good.

When we started the GPU stress test as well, we saw a significant rise in the CPU temps but just for a short while. After that, the Core i7-8550U started going back and forth between 1.7 and 1.8 GHz, which is right on the borderline of the base frequency. The GPU, on the other hand, ran at 73 degrees Celsius – just within the normal range – while utilizing the full Boost clock speeds – 1020 MHz.

Temperatures on the surface remained cool although, the center of the keyboard felt a bit warm. Still, it will not cause any discomfort at any point.

37.8°
38.7°
32.0°
38.8°
41.0°
33.7°
39.3°
26.8°
25.9°

Verdict

As always, the HP ProBook remains as one of the best budget business solutions on the market and the latest alteration of the lineup is a worthy successor to the previous generations. It has also improved in a number of areas such as the screen, build quality, portability and battery life.

Even though the user experience on the ProBook has remained pretty much the same over the years, there were still some issues that needed to be fixed and the ProBook 450 G5 was able to address most of them. The input devices will serve you well on the go, the battery is big enough to keep things running for quite some time and the discrete GPU will be more than enough for your daily tasks, multimedia and some graphically-intensive work.

Another great plus is the added IPS display but this comes with its drawbacks as well – limited sRGB coverage, low maximum brightness and low-frequency (aggressive) PWM. While the color-deficient and dim nature of the screen is somewhat understandable given the price point, the latter can be hardly overlooked especially by users with sensitive eyes. Would we still recommend it, though? Definitely yes, as long as you can get around the PWM issue.

Pros

  • Decent build quality
  • Good input devices
  • IPS display with good viewing angles and high contrast
  • Long battery life

Cons

  • The display uses aggressive PWM from 0 to 99% brightness (our Health-Guard profile fixes that)

Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-42, Radeon RX 560X) review – not just a facelift, there is a new engine under the bonnet

$
0
0

Acer’s Nitro 5 series has just expanded with one more device and guess what – it is powered by AMD once again. The company replaced the old 28nm AMD FX-9830P APU, which requires 45W of power, with a low-voltage (but very powerful) one, coming from the new “Zen” architecture. The CPU onboard is AMD Ryzen 7 2700U, and works at 2.20 GHz base frequency, and can reach up to 3.8 GHz in Boost mode. What is impressive about it is that it requires three times less energy than the FX-9830P to run, and yet it achieves better results. This is actually the second device we have reviewed with this processor, the first one being Acer – Swift 3 (SF315-41).

Another upgrade over the last generation is the graphics card – for the first time we see the Radeon RX 560X which in theory should perform somewhere between NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti. It is interesting to see the latest budget gaming attempt by AMD, and also a device that marks the marriage of a somewhat gaming GPU to power efficient CPU, rendering a bright future of slimmer laptops, lower temperatures, and more prolonged battery life.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: http://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-nitro-5-an515-42/

Contents

Specs Sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region.

Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-42) technical specifications table

Acer
Upcoming
Display
15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
128GB SSD SATA + 2TB HDD, 7200 rpm
M.2 Slot
1x 2280 PCIe NVMe See photo
RAM
32GB DDR4, 2400 MHz
Dimensions
390 x 266 x 26 mm (15.35" x 10.47" x 1.02")
Weight
2.23 kg (4.9 lbs)
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • 2x USB Type-A 2.0
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • HDMI 2.0a
  • Card reader SD, SDHC, SDXC
  • Ethernet lan
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth
  • Audio jack TRRS audio jack
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera HD 720p
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

Configurations

What’s in the box?

The black retail box features nothing but the essentials – manuals and set-up guides, a 135W power adapter, and the star of the show – the Nitro 5.

Design and construction

If you’ve read our previous generation Nitro 5 review, you are already familiar with the design of this device, since there is change only in a couple of details. The laptop has the same form factor and retains the 27mm thickness and 2.4 kilos (5.3 lbs) weight. While the body of this device is again made of plastic, the lid is no longer aluminum. Instead, it is made of some kind of fiber composite material, which looks super sleek, and is also designed to greatly reduce the chance of nasty fingerprints appearing on the surface.

After we open the lid, which is easy-peasy with a single hand, we can see a few more changes. The biggest one is again the surface of this part of the computer. It has a nice gradient, and according to Acer, it makes use of some kind of oleophobic coating, so no fingerprints here either. However, in the period we used the device we noticed that the change is not that radical. For example, if you’ve just washed your hands everything will be fine, but if you opt to use the device, after a good amount of french toasts or pancakes, the smudges will inevitably appear, and they will stay there for long…

Anyhow, the other difference is very minor, and it’s the “return” key layout. Other than that, the keyboard itself is the same, boasting a good key travel and responsiveness, and also a bad-ass red backlight. Probably Acer hasn’t read our review of the previous AMD combo they offered because they would have known that the device needs LIGHTER CLICKS. It won’t hurt the budget (we believe) if that’s the reason.

Turning our heads to the sides of the computer – on the left we have RJ-45 and HDMI connectors, as well as two USB 3.0 ports – one Type-C and one Type-A, accompanied by an SD card reader. On the right side are located the two USB 2.0 ports, the charging, and the 3.5 mm jacks. If it sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve already seen it in the previous generation.

Disassembly and maintenance

Accessing the internals of the Nitro 5 (AN515-42) is exactly the same as doing so in the older one. Also, there are the familiar service covers that give access to the RAM and the HDD mount, which has to be removed in order to proceed to the disassembly.

On the right image, you can also see the new slightly bigger battery, rated at 50.8 Wh.

The only other thing that has (slightly) changed is the cooling design. While the concept remains the same, there are two smaller heat pipes (instead of one large) collecting heat from the CPU and sending it to the heatsink. We can’t say whether it’s more effective than the older design, but it probably has something to do with the distribution of the space along the chip.

All the other components have not changed their locations.

Display quality

The Acer Nitro 5 uses an already familiar panel – LG LP156WF6-SPK6 – a 15.6-inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS panel also found in the Acer Predator Helios 300 (15-inch). The pixel density is 142 ppi while the pixel pitch is 0.18 x 0.18 mm. The panel can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from a distance equal or greater than 60 cm.

Viewing angles are good.

We’ve recorded a maximum brightness of 286 nits in the center of the screen and 269 nits as an average across the surface with 12% maximum deviation. However, we’ve noticed that the panel gets pretty dim when it’s off the charger – 104 nits to be exact. This is a rather annoying problem that we hope Acer will resolve with a future update or release because we didn’t notice the Predator Helios 300 having the same issue. Anyway, color temperature on white screen at maximum brightness is almost perfect – 6510K but as we go along the grayscale, it’s usually around 6350K. You can see how values change at 142 nits or in other words – 55% brightness.

The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center is 2.8, which isn’t bad as values above 4.0 are usually unwanted. The contrast ratio is excellent – 1180:1 (1090:1 after calibration).

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The display covers just 53% of the sRGB color space so basically half of the web-based colors and those that are used for HDTV won’t be reproduced.

Below you will see practically the same image but with the color circles representing the reference colors and the white circles being the result. You can see main and additional colors with 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% saturation inside the sRGB gamut pre and post calibration.

The “Design and Gaming” profile is created at 140 nits brightness, D65 (6500K) white point and optimal gamma in sRGB mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in the low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 22 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

As expected, the display doesn’t use PWM for regulating screen brightness making it safe to use in this regard.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

While this panel wasn’t a good fit for the considerably more expensive Acer Predator Helios 300, the LG-made IPS display fits well into this budget gaming category of the Acer Nitro 5. Yes, it might be color-deficient but it’s way better than a lackluster TN panel. The bonus here is the high contrast ratio, the absence of PWM and reasonable maximum brightness while plugged in. A big letdown is the panel’s maximum luminance when used off the charger.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Acer Nitro 5 configurations with 15.6″ AUO B140HAN04.2 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

The sound quality is good, there’s enough clarity in the low, mid and high frequencies.

Software

The Acer Nitro 5 we tested came with a 64-bit Windows 10 onboard and all drivers and utilities installed. In case you need to reinstall any software, you can find the latest drivers here: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/drivers

Battery

As always, the battery tests were run with Windows power saving setting turned and Wi-Fi turned on, and the screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits. Strangely enough, when put to the older AMD combo, the new one scores worse when it comes to web browsing time on battery power. The 50.8-Wh unit has enough juice for 6 hours and 36 minutes, which is duplicated in playing videos. However, we doubt that you are going to play games away from the charger, the battery is going to last for a little bit under two hours.

price
396 min.
battery
3-cell, 4605 mAh, Li-ion
375 min.-5.3%
45Wh, Li-Po, 3-cell
$1074.97
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
price
396 min.
battery
3-cell, 4605 mAh, Li-ion
45Wh, Li-Po, 3-cell
$1074.97
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
price
114 min.
battery
3-cell, 4605 mAh, Li-ion
45Wh, Li-Po, 3-cell
$1074.97
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – AMD Ryzen 7 2700U

Ever since AMD got back on the CPU top-shelf market, they started challenging Intel with great performance and low prices. Now “the Reds” come to the laptop world with one of the first Ryzen CPUs of the low-power line found on portable solutions – AMD Ryzen 7 2700U. The new APU is built on 14nm architecture with a TDP of 15 W. The “Zen” Core architecture means that the processor comes with enabled AMD SenseMI Technology.

Ryzen 7 2700U houses 4 cores and 8 threads, which work on 2.20 GHz Base Clock and have a Maximum Boost Clock of 3.80 GHz. It also has a total of 6 MB Cache distributed 2/4 MB for L2/L3 respectively. The processor supports dual channel DDR4 memory modules with speeds up to 2400 MHz

Being an APU, Ryzen 7 2700U also features an embedded RX Vega 10 graphics accelerator. It concludes with 10 Cores, working on up to 1300 MHz, and supports DirectX 12 Technology. The GPU is built on a 14 nm process and offers support of 12_1 feature level of DirectX 12.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
price
12370
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
price
12.90
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – AMD Radeon RX 560X

The RX 560X is an upgraded version of the already known Radeon RX 560M. It is based on the Polaris 11/21 CPU (built through 14nm FinFET manufacturing process) with 1024 shader units, but here the clock speed is boosted to 1275 MHz – 73 MHz higher than the older model.

As its older counterpart, the RX 560X is equipped with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory @6000MHz effectively. GPU-Z reads a Pixel and Texture Fillrate of 20.4 GPixel/s and 81.6 GTexel/s, which is exactly how the desktop version of the RX 560 performs.

As like the rest of the Polaris-based chips from AMD, the Radeon RX 560 supports the same features like DisplayPort 1.3 and 1.4, HDMI 2.0, AMD FreeSync and DirectX 12 renderer, although the latter is only supported on Windows 10.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gameplay recordings with AMD Radeon RX 560X (4GB GDDR5)

Storage performance

Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-42) comes in a configuration with 128 GB SSD and 2TB hard drive for your multimedia and data. The SSD on board is a Kingston made M.2 SATA drive. It reaches unremarkable Read/ Writes speeds with 484.1 MB/s and 388.5 MB/s respectively, although the SSD of choice may differ, depending on the region.

Gaming tests

The Radeon RX 560X and Ryzen 7 2700U combo in the Acer Nitro 5 performs slightly better than older configuration, and since the GPU is brand new, we expect it to have some performance boost in the following driver updates. As we saw from the benchmarks, the RX 560X is on par with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050, but still lags behind in gaming, although it pumps decent frame rate in GTA V. What impressed us more is the Minimum FPS, which is actually more important than the average FPS, as it’s namely the dips in performance that annoy gamers most.

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) Full HD, Low (Check settings) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 100 fps 44 fps 23 fps
Min FPS 55 fps 33 fps 18 fps

Far Cry Primal Full HD, Normal (Check settings) Full HD, High (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 36 fps 33 fps 27 fps

rise-of-the-tomb-raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016) Full HD, Low (Check settings) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 74 fps 49 fps 22 fps

Temperatures

The temperature tests go this way. We use Prime95 and FurMark to torture the CPU and the GPU respectively. This won’t give a real-life representation but with our methodology, we try to give you the most optimal results.

The first values from the test are from the 30th second of running the Prime95 stress test, which simulates a heavy task run on your computer (usually lighter tasks take from a part of the second up to a couple of seconds). Next, we take the ones from the 2nd-minute mark, which imitates a very heavy task run by the CPU. The last values we give you are the ones at the end of the test, which is 15 minutes, simulating the CPU load when rendering a video, for example.

0-15 min. CPU torture test

It’s going to be interesting to see how the Ryzen 7 2700U performs in a device with proper cooling, since the only other test on it we have is with the Swift 3 (SF315-41) unit, which is more of the elegant type, than a performance monster. We remind you that this CPU has a base clock speed of 2.2 GHz and a maximum boost clock of 3.8 GHz. In the very beginning of the stress test, the Ryzen 7 2700U reached a top of 3.2 GHz, which gradually transformed to a 3.0 GHz at the first 30 seconds. Temperature-wise, it performed impressively topping at 55°C up from the 35°C it idles at.

The frequencies at the second-minute-mark were bouncing around 3.0 GHz, while the temperature was always below 56°C.

At the final of the 15-minute torture session, the clock speeds of the Ryzen 7 2700U kept fluctuating around the familiar values, resulting in a total average for the test of 3.0 GHz on all cores, which is a good achievement, especially given the average temperature was 56°C and never exceeding 57°C. Not that it wasn’t expected with the 15W of TDP, but it’s worth noting that the fans of the Nitro 5 were nearly inaudible at all times.

The last statement is irrelevant when we turn our heads to the GPU department. Here the fans ran in bursts, sounding like something between tropical gusts and a typhoon making his way from the Pacific Ocean to the coasts of southern Japan. That’s why the temperature chart resembles the rooftops of the historic district in Prague, Czech Republic. The height of those rooftops capped at 70°C, and the frequency of the new Radeon RX 560X didn’t ever move from 1371 MHz, meaning that the device showed no signs of thermal throttling.

Talking about the thermals, there is good news and bad ones. The good is that even under extreme workloads the palm rest area will always be cool, although the bad one is that in the mid top section, which accidentally is on top (Illuminati probably) of the heatpipes’ location, the temperatures go beyond 50 degrees, which means you can effortlessly burn witches, while playing.

45.9°C
51.5°C
33.7°C
36.5°C
46.7°C
28.7°C
26.2°C
25.5°C
22.5°C

Verdict

Comparing the new Acer Nitro 5 to the older model – it’s definitely a more refined product in every direction, and most notably – the CPU. With its 15W TDP, the Ryzen 7 2700U is miles ahead of the FX-9830P used in the last AMD combo. It has a huge performance boost, thanks to the new “Zen” architecture while using three times less energy to do so – quite impressive. The configuration we tested also came with a GPU that makes a debut on the market – AMD Radeon RX 560X, which is nearly as good as the desktop version of the chip.

After thoroughly testing the graphics card we can place it somewhere between GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti in performance. The device has an excellent battery life for non-graphics intensive work such as web browsing and video playback at which our unit achieved more than 6 hours and a half of screen time. With these results, the facelift of Nitro 5 beats its direct competitors in the face of the Aspire VX15 (VX5-591G) and the pre-facelift Nitro 5, and the major culprit for that is the aforementioned Ryzen 7 2700U.

Screen-wise, the notebook is practically indistinguishable from its predecessor. For better or for worse, both devices share the same flaws and advantages. However, the aspect where Nitro 5 (AN515-42) really shines is the thermals. We never saw thermal throttling and not only that, but the temperatures on the inside were very cool for a gaming notebook, especially given AMD’s reputation of giving homes all around the world a cheap option for heating.

We would like to know whether you like the new AMD configuration, so leave a comment below, and also keep in mind that we tested one of the first facelift Nitro 5 units out there, especially with this GPU, so expect performance upgrades with each following driver update.

Pros

  • Refresh of a good foundation
  • Easy storage upgrade
  • No PWM-adjustment for all brightness levels
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Cool and relatively quiet under high load
  • Anti-smudge exterior
  • Good battery life for a gaming device

Cons

  • Dim display, while on battery power
  • Very resistive touchpad buttons

Lenovo V330 (15″) review – take your business with you

$
0
0

Since Lenovo acquired IBM they have really stepped up their game in the business device segment. The V330 (15″) is marketed as a reasonably priced product which doesn’t set you back on performance and has the flexibility, reliability, and security to you focus on running your businesses. At first sight, all of this makes sense, given the fast low voltage CPU – Core i7-8550U, fast storage device, and the 8 GB of DDR4 memory. All of this comes in a plastic but a rather sleek form factor, and includes a fingerprint reader.

Despite the Full HD resolution of its screen, the TN panel behind it may very well prove to be a major drawback (read the Display quality part of our review for more information). Nonetheless, there are a lot of “business devices” with similar specifications, and we are going to compare the performance of some of them to that of the Lenovo V330.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: http://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-v330-15/

Contents

Specs Sheet

The current specs sheet is for this particular model and configurations may differ depending on your region.

Lenovo V330 (15") technical specifications table

Acer
Upcoming
Display
15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), TN
HDD/SSD
256GB SSD PCIe NVMe
M.2 Slot
1x 2280 M.2 slot See photo
RAM
8GB DDR4, 2400 MHz
Dimensions
375 x 253 x 22.3 mm (14.76" x 9.96" x 0.88")
Weight
2.05 kg (4.5 lbs)
Body material
Plastic / Polycarbonate
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1), Sleep and Charge
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • HDMI
  • VGA
  • Card reader SD, SDHC, SDXC, MMC
  • Ethernet lan Gigabit Ethernet
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth 4.1
  • Audio jack combo audio / microphone jack
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Speakers 2x 2W
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot
  • Physical camera shutter

Lenovo V330 (15″) configurations

What’s in the box?

Opening the box discovers the typical manuals and set up guides, as well as the 45 W power supply, which consists of a power cord plugged into the power brick. The center of our attention though is the Lenovo V330 itself, which is hidden (not very successfully) in a plastic wrap.

Design and construction

If there is a company that is good at building high-quality devices with plastic and not very expensive materials, this is definitely Lenovo. The case with the V330 (15″) is not different at all – the computer has a stylish looking body (nothing excessive, nothing too much – we like that). It measures at 375 x 253 x 22.3 mm (14.76″ x 9.96″ x 0.88″), and weights a tad over 2 kilos (4.5 lbs). Everything in this device screams “business”. Well, there are some setbacks typical of the material like the bendiness of the screen piece, for example, other than that the build quality is good.

Opening the lid, for which you’re going to need two hands, we see the light grey painted keyboard, which kind of attracts the eye. It’s a bit mushy and needs some getting used to, especially if you’re a fast typer. The layout is good except for the ever so annoying arrow keys which here have kind of weird sizing. The left and right ones are too big which makes the up and down arrows seem even smaller. Let’s move away from the arrow drama on to the touchpad, which is also kind of weird – at first, it may seem unresponsive, but when you move your finger faster, it becomes hyperresponsive – again needs some getting used to.

As Lenovo markets this device with being optimized for security – there is one of the most common biometrical security feature – a fingerprint reader. It is placed in front of the bottom right side of the keyboard, and with us worked 10 out of 10. While not being the fastest one, it is definitely very accurate.

As usual, we continue with a look at the connectivity options. A lot is going on here. Both sides are fully taken by I/O. Starting from the left one, we have a charging socket, VGA and RJ-45 connectors, as well as an HDMI port. Following that we have a total of three USB 3.0 ports – one of them is a Type-A Sleep and Charge enabled, while the other two are of a Type-C, one of which can be used as a charging port. On the other side, we observe another USB Type-A port, which has no special enhancements. It is accompanied by a headphone jack and an SD card slot to the south, and a DVD optical drive to the north.

On the bottom we see some ventilation drills which enhance the suction capabilities of the device, while the exhausted heat is pushed out from holes at the back of the device, which sadly intervenes with the hinge cover, most likely lowering the efficiency. On the other side (pun intended) the speakers are facing towards the user, and are slightly bent, so the sound waves will reflect off the surface on which the device is sitting, thus sounding deeper and louder.

Disassembly and maintenance

Next, we are going to take a peek inside Lenovo V330 (15″). The device is fairly easy to disassemble. First, you have to push a switch on the bottom of the device which releases the optical drive from its support mechanism and you can take it off right away. After that, you have to unscrew 11 Phillips-head screws, and the two flathead ones, located where the optical drive used to be. Now you only need a prying tool to lift the bottom, and voila! The guts of the Lenovo V330 (15″) are exposed.

As you can see from the images, the optical drive uses a hell lot of space. At the expense of this, the cooling solution consists of a short copper heatpipe, connecting the CPU to a heatsink where the heat is dissipated with the help of a fan – nothing unusual.

In the next photo, right beneath the CPU, you can see the sole DIMM slot, which is currently occupied by the 8 GB DDR4 2400 MHz memory module.

We like how Lenovo keep a tendency of putting the crucial pieces of hardware right next to each other, as the M.2 PCIe slot follows shortly after the DIMM connector. As you can see from the label, this configuration is equipped with one of the fastest SSDs out there – Samsung PM961.

The battery of the device is not very promising with its mere 30 Wh (spoiler alert) – it indeed is not a long-lasting champion. Right next to the battery is the SATA expansion slot, held in place by another four screws, and is currently occupied by a foam HDD – not the fastest on the market.

Display quality

Lenovo V330 (15″) is equipped with a Full HD TN panel branded as Innolux N156HGA-EAB – the same panel is found in Lenovo ThinkPad L570. It is 15.6 inches in diagonal and has a resolution of 1920 x 1080. This gives a pixel density of 142 ppi, and a pixel pitch of 0.18 x 0.18 mm. Given that information, the screen can be considered as “Retina” when being looked at from further than 60 cm.

The viewing angles of Lenovo V330 (15″) are uncomfortable, as you can see from the illustration below.

We measured a maximum brightness of 244 nits in the middle of the screen (230 nits is the average for the whole surface of the panel), and 16% maximum deviation. The Correlated Color Temperature on White screen and the highest brightness level is 6580 K, which is on par with the optimal value in the sRGB standard of 6500 K – not bad. Additionally, the average temperature for the different grey levels with the default settings comes close to 11000K – cold, bluish light (corrected by our profiles).
On the image below you can see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. In other words the leakage of light from the light source.
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color sensitive work.
The contrast ratio of the panel is mediocre – 270:1 (220:1 after profiling).

The next image shows the sRGB coverage of Lenovo V330 (15″)’s display. The color reproduction of the human eye is shown via the “CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram”. In the middle of the dark-grey triangle are located the standard colors used by Internet and digital TV – rec.709/sRGB.

Being used by million people around the world the colors from the sRGB gamut are the most common and their accurate reproduction is of key importance for the quality of the screen.

In addition to the Adobe RGB color space, used in the professional photography, we’ve included the color gamut, used by world-known movie studios – DCI-P3, and UHD-digital television (Rec.2020), which is very hard to achieve by modern display units.

We have drawn the Pointer’s Gamut with a black line. This color space covers all the colors we can see around us.

Lenovo V330 (15″) has a mediocre coverage, shown by the yellow pointed line. Its display covers 50% of the sRGB gamut of sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Gaming and Web design” profile is designed to show optimal color temperature (6500K) when the luminance is at 140 nits and sRGB gamma.

In order to test the display, we used 24 color samples, consisting of common and easily distinguishable ones such as light and dark human skin, blue sky, grassy green and orange.
Below you can compare the scores of Lenovo V330 (15″) with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The following chart shows us the prerequisites for comfortable gaming experience in terms of the darkest parts of the image.

The left side tells us the default settings results of the screen, and the right one shows us the results with “Gaming and Web design” profile installed. The horizontal gives us the levels of grey, and the vertical one – the screen brightness.

You can check how your device displays the first five levels of grey – 1% – 5% White – via the graphics below the charts. The image you see depends on several factors such as the panel of the display you’re currently reading this article on, its calibration, your eyesight, ambient light, viewing angle and more.

Response time (gaming capabilities)

The chart below illustrates the response time of the pixels going from Black to White and around for levels of 10% to 90% and vice versa. We measured Fall Time + Rise Time = 16 ms – relatively fast, although typical for a TN panel.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. It can be particularly harmful to the eyes and the brain at levels lower than 300 Hz. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

The light, emitted by Lenovo V330’s display flickers (is PWM-adjusted), only at levels lower than 65 cd/m2, and moreover it does it with high enough frequency, which makes it comfortable for extended periods of use.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

The display of this configuration of Lenovo V330 (15″) has a budget TN panel. The light emitted by the backlight does not flicker and respectively doesn’t harm one’s eyesight for a good range of Brightness levels. The panel is fast and has a Full HD resolution. Sadly, the color coverage is limited and the viewing angles – uncomfortable.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for Lenovo V330 (15″) configurations with 15.6″ Innolux N156HGA-EAB (Full HD, 1920 x 1080) TN screen:

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

Lenovo V330 (15″) has crisp tones in the whole spectrum of frequencies. The sound coming from the speakers is clear and has a very good quality.

Software

Lenovo V330 is equipped with a 64-bit Windows 10 operating system and has all the drivers preloaded. Anyhow if you need to reinstall your system, you can find the appropriate drivers here: https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/bg/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/lenovo-v-series-laptops/v330-15isk/downloads.

Battery

As always, the battery tests were run with Windows power saving setting and Wi-Fi turned on, and the screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits. The 30Wh battery unit inside this V330 (15″) falls short of being impressive, providing you with no more than 4 hours and 15 minutes of browsing the web or playing videos. If you decide to game away from the charger, you’ll have to reconsider this after about two hours and 20 minutes.

price
257 min.
battery
3220 mAh, 4-cell
$875.19
324 min.+26.1%
48Wh, Li-ion, 6-cell
676 min.+163%
$599
350 min.+36.2%
431 min.+67.7%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
price
255 min.
battery
3220 mAh, 4-cell
$875.19
260 min.+2%
48Wh, Li-ion, 6-cell
561 min.+120%
$599
348 min.+36.5%
303 min.+18.8%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
price
142 min.
battery
3220 mAh, 4-cell
$875.19
82 min.-42.3%
48Wh, Li-ion, 6-cell
236 min.+66.2%
$599
126 min.-11.3%
96 min.-32.4%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i7-8550U

The Intel Core i7-8550U is part of the new 8th Generation Kaby Lake Refresh and it’s a direct successor to the Intel Core i7-7500U from the Kaby Lake generation and the Intel Core i7-6500U from the 6th Skylake generation. With the latest alteration to the ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors, Intel doubles the core count from 2 to 4 and retaining the so-called Hyper-Threading technology, keeping the same 14nm manufacturing process and feature the same 15W TDP.

However, due to the core count change, the base frequency of the Core i7-8550U is lowered to only 1.8 GHz while Turbo Boost frequencies remain pretty high – somewhere between 3.7 – 4.0 GHz. This ensures considerably higher multi-core and single-core performance during short workloads before going back to more bearable frequencies considering the 15W TDP but most of the other specs and features remain the same.

The chip also incorporates a newer Intel Gen 9.5 integrated graphics called Intel UHD Graphics 620. The support for Google’s VP9 codec and H.265/HEVC Main 10 is still the most notable feature of the iGPU. Intel claims that the new UHD 620 chips improve the overall power consumption compared to the previous one.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

price
579
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
price
11292
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
price
9.58
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – Intel UHD Graphics 620

Intel UHD Graphics 620 is a refresh of the HD Graphics 620 found as an integrated solution in many ULV Kaby Lake processors. UHD Graphics 620 is codenamed “Kaby Lake R U GT2” and it’s a part of the Gen 9.5 generation.

Intel UHD Graphics 620 has roughly the same performance as HD Graphics 620, depending on the other components in the system. UHD Graphics 620’s performance is similar to AMD Radeon R5 M420X and NVIDIA GeForce 910M/920M.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

price
1158
performance
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gameplay recordings with Intel UHD Graphics 620

Storage performance

Lenovo V330 is equipped with a Samsung PM951 PCIe SSD. This device is a beast when it comes to storage performance. It provides 3432.7 MB/s Read and 1317 MB/s Write speeds. It is one of the fastest devices in this aspect that we have ever tested.

Gaming tests

While this is clearly not a gaming device, Lenovo V330 is going to provide you with a totally playable experience in casual titles such as CS:GO and Dota 2, although the framerate dropped to single-digit minimum values in the first one. It can get you good 33 fps with minimum eye candy and 768p resolution in GTA V. Anyway, it scores a bit lower than the XPS 13 (9370) which is powered by the same hardware.

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GO Full HD, Low (Check settings) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 57 fps 34 fps 16 fps
Min FPS 6 fps 4 fps 1 fps

DOTA 2 Full HD, Low (Check settings) Full HD, Normal (Check settings) Full HD, High (Check settings)
Average FPS 77 fps 35 fps 18 fps

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) HD 768p, Low (Check settings) HD 768p, Medium (Check settings) HD 768p, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 33 fps – fps – fps
Min FPS 19 fps – fps – fps

Temperatures

The temperature tests go this way. We use Prime95 and FurMark to torture the CPU and the GPU respectively. This won’t give real-life representation but with our methodology, we try to give you the most optimal results.

The first values from the test are from the 30th second of running the Prime95 stress test, which simulates a heavy task performed by your computer (usually lighter tasks take from a part of the second up to a couple of seconds). Next, we take the ones from the 2nd-minute mark, which imitates a very heavy task run by the CPU. The last values we give you are the ones at the end of the test, which is 15 minutes, simulating CPU load when rendering a video, for example.

0-15 min. CPU torture test

As we’ve found from recent tests of more and more devices with the Core i7-8550U, it idles at around 40°C. Additionally, it has a base frequency of 1.8 GHz and a maximum one of 4 GHz. The V330’s CPU is far from the 4 GHz with a 2.6 GHz in the first seconds of the test. This is kind of weird because the temperatures were a lot lower than this CPU can handle – reaching a maximum of 73°C after which (weirdly enough) it throttled to 2.0 GHz, resulting in an average of 2.4 GHz which is low for this time period.

Cores frequency (0 – 00:30 sec.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 00:30 sec.)

Going to the second checkpoint – the frequencies were bouncing from 2.0 to 2.1 GHz, while the temperatures never exceeded 66°C – we can already draw a conclusion that this device is aimed at keeping stuff cool, which enhances the longevity of the hardware.

Cores frequency (0 – 2:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 2:00 min.)

For the rest of the torture test, the frequencies were fluctuating between 1.9 and 2.0 GHz, which is close to the base clock speeds of the CPU. The total average frequency for the whole session is 2.0 GHz, while the average temperature was 66°C and never reached the 73°C from the first 30 seconds of the test.

Cores frequency (0 – 15:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 15:00 min.)

The surface temperatures of the Lenovo V330 solidify the statement that this is a cool device. The hottest part being in the top-right corner, and while warming your left hand a little bit it cannot be considered as hot. Those temperatures show exactly how a business grade device should perform. What we’ve seen promises an enhanced lifespan of the device.

37.6°C
32.7°C
25.1°C
36.5°C
33.6°C
24.3°C
24.4°C
23.3°C
22.0°C

Verdict

With the population of the business laptop market increasing faster than that of India, the Lenovo V330 had to perform really well to catch the eye. Although this didn’t really happen, there are some areas, in which it performed better than the competition. Speaking of which, we put the AMD – equipped version of Acer Swift 3 (SF315-41) as one of its main rivals. It’s interesting to confront the best low-voltage solution by Intel with its AMD counterpart.

In synthetic CPU benchmarks they performed quite equally but as expected, the V330 (15″) falls short in the GPU compartment. Also, don’t expect the device to get you through the whole working day so bring a charger with you. Another drawback is the plastic design. Although it is very well made and looks sturdy enough, it just can’t compete with the aluminum used in similar laptops.

Sadly, the screen here is the next thing that disappoints which was kind of expected, given the nature of the TN panel, and it is not one of the brightest either. However, there are a couple of things that bring the V330 (15″) back on the road to glory. One of them is the temperature management which results in the device being super cool on the outside. What impressed us most actually is the speed of the Samsung PM961 SSD which is blazing fast with 3432.7 MB/s Read and 1317 MB/s Write speeds. We must mention though that it’s not 100 % sure that the device will come with this particular SSD model, meaning that speeds may vary. It even beats (shockingly) the more “exquisite” XPS 13 (9670), despite being equipped with the same storage device.

Pros

  • A cool device in terms of thermal management, suitable for extended work periods
  • Blazingly fast SSD support
  • Fingerprint reader
  • PWM-adjustment is not aggressive

Cons

  • Budget quality Full HD display
  • Mediocre battery life for a low-voltage device
  • Lack of a keyboard backlight

ASUS ZenBook UX430 review – classy beast with a top-notch display

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Now that we’ve started reviewing business-grade devices, it’s time to turn our attention to the new ASUS ZenBook UX430. Its hardware presupposes a good portable computer for universal tasks. Being equipped with a Core i7-8550U and GeForce MX150, both powerful and power efficient, by itself should be enough of a reason even for content creators to buy this product. Combined with an SSD that comes in three variants – 128, 256 and 512 GB, and what is claimed to be a “work-friendly” Full HD screen, just add up to the excitement about the ZenBook UX430.

All that sounds good, but let’s not forget how huge and diverse the ZenBook lineup is. There are enough devices for comparison only by ASUS, let alone the other manufacturers. Stay with us to see whether the ZenBook UX430 builds upon its predecessor’s (UX410) success, or whether it fails to improve on it.

You can find more information about pricing and specifications of the ZenBook UX430 series here:
http://laptopmedia.com/series/asus-zenbook-ux430/

Contents

Specs Sheet

ASUS ZenBook UX430 technical specifications table

Acer
Upcoming
Display
14.0”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
512GB M.2 SSD
M.2 Slot
M.2 SSD slot
RAM
8GB LPDDR3,1866 MHz
Dimensions
324 x 225 x 16 mm (12.76" x 8.86" x 0.63")
Weight
1.25 kg (2.8 lbs)
Body material
Aluminum
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-A 2.0
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1), DisplayPort, HDMI
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • HDMI
  • Card reader SD
  • Ethernet lan
  • Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth 4.1
  • Audio jack combo audio/microphone jack
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera HD webcam
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone Array microphone
  • Speakers Dual 1.5W speakers
  • Optical drive

ASUS ZenBook UX430 configurations

What’s in the box?

The sleek black box contains all the essentials – a laptop (obviously the UX430), a 65W power adapter, and the usual manuals and guides.

Design and construction

Nowadays all of the manufacturers are trying to put larger screens in smaller devices – something that Dell implemented very well in their XPS lineup. Here we see nothing out of the trend – 80% screen to body ratio. The Full HD screen also has an Anti-Glare coating that enhances the legibility under direct sunlight, but more on that in our next section. ASUS ZenBook UX430’s body is made of anodized aluminum. It measures 324 x 225 x 16 mm (12.76″ x 8.86″ x 0.63″), which is a slim form factor for a 14-inch device indeed, especially when it has to house (and cool) a Core i7-8550U and a GeForce MX150. In addition to that, the laptop is also pretty lightweight at 1.25 kg (2.8 lbs).

On the inside we see a very tactile keyboard, sadly lacking a Numpad section, which is normal for a device of this size though. Beneath it, we can see the centrally located touchpad, which has a glass on top of it that’s going to protect it from wear and tear through the years. We find the touchpad to be fairly adequate, but we don’t like the placement of the fingerprint reader within its surface, rendering the area around it unusable. However, the reader itself is fast and accurate.

An interesting fact is that there aren’t any intake vents anywhere to be seen, except for the speaker grills. The sole ventilation opening of the device is hidden by the hinge cover when the laptop is closed. You can see in our “Temperatures” section whether this would be a setback for the cooling system or a well-calculated solution.

Port-wise, the device is equipped with everything you’ll ever need, except if you’re a fan of the wired internet connection – sorry but you’re not connecting any RJ45 cables to this guy unless you get yourself a dongle. On the left side are located the power input connector, headphone/mic combined jack, a micro HDMI port (dongle is included in the package), as well as two USB 3.1 gen 1 ports. One of them is a Type-C, and has an external display support, while the other one is a regular Type-A. On the opposite side, we only have a USB Type-A port and the beloved SD card reader, which is essential for content creators.

Display quality

ASUS ZenBook UX430 has a Full HD screen with an IPS panel, made by Chi Mei (Innolux) and has a model number N140HCE-EN1. Its 1920 x 1080 screen resolution and 14-inch size translate to a pixel density of 157 ppi, and pitch of 0.161 x 0.161 mm. That makes the screen appear as “Retina” when viewed from more than 55 cm.

ASUS ZenBook UX430 has comfortable viewing angles, as you can see from the images below.

The brightness topped at 379 nits in the middle of the screen and 358 nits average for the whole area of the screen and the maximum deviation was 12%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and maximum brightness is 7630K, which is colder than the sRGB standard (6500K). Meanwhile, the average color temperature throughout the grey scale is 7580K before calibration.
Next, we checked the uniformity of the display which represents the light leakage of the backlight. Values of dE2000 over 4.0 are unpleasant and should not occur. Also, if color accuracy is important to you, the values should not pass the 2.0 mark.
The contrast ratio of ASUS ZenBook UX430’s display is very good – 1290:1 (going down to 1120:1 after calibration)

Color reproduction

The next image shows the sRGB coverage of ASUS ZenBook UX430’s display. The color reproduction of the human eye is shown via the “CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram”. In the middle of the dark-grey triangle are located the standard colors used on the Internet and digital TV – rec.709/sRGB.

Being used by million people around the world the colors from the sRGB gamut are the most common and their accurate reproduction is of key importance for the quality of the screen.

In addition to the Adobe RGB color space, used in the professional photography, we’ve included the color gamut, used by world-known movie studios – DCI-P3, and UHD-digital television (Rec.2020), which is very hard to achieve by modern displays.

We have drawn the Pointer’s Gamut with a black line. This color space covers all the colors we can see around us.

The ASUS ZenBook UX430 coverage is shown by the yellow pointed line. Its screen can display 98% of sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976, which means it will basically show every color used in Internet and HDTV. Primary RGB values match those of sRGB (except a little deviation of the Red), and with our “Gaming and Web design” profile it can almost fully match the Web color standard.

Our “Gaming and Web design” profile is designed to show optimal color temperature (6500K) when the luminance is at 140 cd/m2 and sRGB gamma.

In order to test the display, we used 24 color samples, consisting of common founded and easy distinguishable ones like light and dark human skin, blue sky, grassy green and orange.
The default settings (seen on the left illustration) has a pretty good calibration but after installing our “Gaming and Web design” profile the picture becomes astonishingly accurate – average dE of 0.6, which makes the screen perfect for color sensitive work.

Next, we look at the capabilities of comfortable gaming experience in terms of the darkest parts of the image.

The left side tells us the default settings results of the screen, and the right one shows us the results with “Gaming and Web design” profile installed. The horizontal axis gives us the levels of grey, and the vertical one – the screen brightness.

You can check how your device displays the first five levels of grey – 1% – 5% White – via the graphics below the charts. The image you see depends on several factors such as the panel of the display you’re currently reading this article on, its calibration, your eyesight, ambient light, viewing angle and more.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa. We measured Fall Time + Rise Time = 31 ms which is slower than the average but typical for an IPS panel.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

ASUS ZenBook UX430’s screen light is PW-modulated below 100 nits. However, the pulsations are with high frequency (25 KHz), minimizing the negative effect.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

The screen mounted on ASUS ZenBook UX430 managed to replicate the Web and HDTV color standards with an accuracy rarely seen by any of the devices we’ve tested. Moreover, the display has a good contrast ratio, Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles and adequate default settings.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for ASUS ZenBook UX430 configurations with 14″ Innolux N140HCE-EN1 (Full HD, 1920 x 1080) IPS screen: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

ASUS ZenBook UX430’s stereo speakers sound very good although there are some deviations in the low, mid, and high frequencies.

Software

ASUS provides a 64-bit Windows 10 operating system with the ZenBook UX430, and if you ever need to reinstall, you can find the drivers on the official support page of the manufacturer.

Battery

The 50Wh 3-cell battery really impressed us. The device managed to stay alive for 13 hours and 20 minutes of Web browsing. Sadly, NVIDIA’s drivers intervened in the video playback and didn’t let the ZenBook UX430 use its integrated graphics, instead relying on the relatively power-hungry GeForce MX150 which resulted in “just” 7 hours and 4 minutes of video playback time (which is not a bad result either, if we take the online surfing time out of the equation). Lastly, you won’t want to stay away from a charger if you want to play some games because you’ll have not more than an hour and a half to plug it before it dies.

50 Wh, 3-cell
price
800 min.
battery
566 min.-29.3%
51Wh, Li-ion, 3-cell
$1037.45
660 min.-17.5%
4670 mAh, 2-cell
462 min.-42.3%
3220 mAh, 4-cell
$875.19
324 min.-59.5%
$1290.52
833 min.+4.1%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
50 Wh, 3-cell
price
424 min.
battery
534 min.+25.9%
51Wh, Li-ion, 3-cell
$1037.45
677 min.+59.7%
4670 mAh, 2-cell
353 min.-16.7%
3220 mAh, 4-cell
$875.19
260 min.-38.7%
$1290.52
523 min.+23.3%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
50 Wh, 3-cell
price
91 min.
battery
180 min.+97.8%
51Wh, Li-ion, 3-cell
$1037.45
198 min.+117.6%
4670 mAh, 2-cell
158 min.+73.6%
3220 mAh, 4-cell
$875.19
82 min.-9.9%
$1290.52
131 min.+44%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i7-8550U

The Intel Core i7-8550U is part of the new 8th Generation Kaby Lake Refresh and it’s a direct successor to the Intel Core i7-7500U from the Kaby Lake generation and the Intel Core i7-6500U from the 6th Skylake generation. With the latest alteration to the ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors, Intel doubles the core count from 2 to 4 and retaining the so-called Hyper-Threading technology, keeping the same 14nm manufacturing process and feature the same 15W TDP.

However, due to the core count change, the base frequency of the Core i7-8550U is lowered to only 1.8 GHz while Turbo Boost frequencies remain pretty high – somewhere between 3.7 – 4.0 GHz. This ensures considerably higher multi-core and single-core performance during short workloads before going back to more bearable frequencies considering the 15W TDP but most of the other specs and features remain the same.

The chip also incorporates a newer Intel Gen 9.5 integrated graphics called Intel UHD Graphics 620. The support for Google’s VP9 codec and H.265/HEVC Main 10 is still the most notable feature of the iGPU. Intel claims that the new UHD 620 chips improve the overall power consumption compared to the previous one.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

price
651
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
price
10978
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
price
8.95
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

ASUS ZenBook UX430 CPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the ASUS ZenBook UX430 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which ASUS ZenBook UX430 model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.

$1099
price
650
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$1099
price
12354
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$1099
price
11.01
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce MX150

The GeForce MX150 is an entry-level mobile card that is part of the latest NVIDIA Pascal lineup of GPUs, based on the GP108 chip paired with 2GB of GDDR5 memory via a 64-bit interface. The GPU is the successor of GeForce 940MX and it was announced in Q2 of 2017.

The GeForce MX150 operates at a relatively high base frequency of 1469 MHz, while the Boost frequencies can go up to 1532 MHz. The GPU incorporates 384 shaders (CUDA) cores while the memory is clocked at 6008MHz (effective). These specs ensure a significant performance boost over the previous generation of Maxwell GPUs. The TDP of the GPU is lower than the last generation GTX 950M and even the GTX 1050 – 25W compared to 40W for the two models above. Performance-wise, the GeForce MX150 should be similar to the desktop GeForce GT 1030.

Along with all the power consumption and performance improvements, the GPU now supports essential features like Multi-Projection, VR Ready, G-SYNC, Vulkan, and Multi-Monitor.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gameplay recordings with NVIDIA GeForce MX150 (2GB GDDR5)

ASUS ZenBook UX430 GPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the GPUs that can be found in the ASUS ZenBook UX430 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which ASUS ZenBook UX430 model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different GPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / GPU.

$1099
price
907
performance
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$1099
price
267
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$1099
price
200
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$1099
price
205
performance
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Storage performance

The ZenBook UX430 is equipped with a 512 GB SATA SSD. As usual for this type of SSD devices, the speeds were 550MB/s and 510 MB/s – Read and Write respectively.

Gaming tests

While the MX150 on the ASUS ZenBook UX430 is more than a capable of pushing the CS:GO at maximum eye candy, there will be some stutters, mostly if you someone throws a smoke grenade at you, in case you opt to turn v-sync off. The UX430 can also run GTA V at Full HD, low details, and at reasonable fps. Anyhow, once you pump up the graphics, the frame rate drops noticeably, mainly because the 2GB of GDDR5 memory is not enough, and the GPU starts using the operating memory of the system, which is a lot slower, hence losing a vast amount of performance in the process.

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GO Full HD, Low (Check settings) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 121 fps 83 fps 62 fps
Min FPS 12 fps 12 fps 10 fps

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) Full HD, Low (Check settings) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 74 fps 26 fps – fps
Min FPS 17 fps 7 fps – fps

Temperatures

The temperature tests go this way. We use Prime95 and FurMark to torture the CPU and the GPU respectively. This won’t give real-life representation but with our methodology, we try to give you the most optimal results.

The first values from the test are from the 30th second of running the Prime95 stress test, which simulates a heavy task run on your computer (usually lighter tasks take from a part of the second up to a couple of seconds). Next, we take the ones from the 2nd-minute mark, which imitates a very heavy task run by the CPU. The last values we give you are the ones at the end of the test, which is 15 minutes, simulating the CPU load when rendering a video, for example.

0-15 min. CPU torture test

The CPU in the spotlight here is Core i7-8550U. It idled at 40°C but soon after the start of the test the temperature started to gradually grow, reaching 85°C at the 30th-second mark. On the other hand, the frequencies of the cores were fluctuating between 2.7 GHz and 2.9 GHz (which is far from the 4 GHz this CPU is capable of), giving an average score just shy of 2.8 GHz.

Cores frequency (0 – 00:30 sec.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 00:30 min.)

Shortly after the first checkpoint, the CPU started to throttle, going down to 2.2 GHz at the 2nd-minute mark. Obviously, this resulted in a temperature drop to 72 °C and an average for the first two minutes of 76 °C.

Cores frequency (0 – 2:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 2:00 min.)

We are pleasantly surprised that the frequencies of the Core i7-8550U never went lower than 2 GHz, giving us a final average of 2.1 GHz. In addition to that, the temperatures sustained levels of 71-72°C and an average for the whole period of the test of 71.25°C. Those results are impressive, given the form factor of the device.

Cores frequency (0 – 15:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 15:00 min.)

30 min. GPU torture test

The NVIDIA GeForce MX150 started the torture strongly, ticking at 1700 MHz, but that didn’t last long. Next, the temperatures skyrocketed to 74°C from the 39°C it idled at shortly after the beginning and the GPU began to throttle. The first major plummet of the frequencies was around the 4th minute when they dropped from 1400 MHz down to under 400 MHz for some time. After a couple of minutes, the clock speeds rose and remained at almost 1300 MHz for a good period of time. Two minutes before we stopped FurMark, the MX150 decided it needs a break and started to thermal throttle aggressively, dropping to under 200 MHz on some occasions.

As you can see in the image below, the surface temperatures of the ASUS ZenBook UX430 were highest at the center of the keyboard and the top left corner of the device. The design of the internals ensures that in winter conditions you won’t be able to warm your hands on the palmrest.

42.4°C
42.6°C
36.9°C
36.4°C
40.3°C
30.8°C
30.8°C
29.1°C
29.8°C

Verdict

ASUS has clearly produced a very good product. The improvement over the older UX410 is notable and it also stands well against the competition of models from other companies such as HP’s EliteBook 850 G4, and Acer’s Swift 3, and the lightweight champion the Swift 5. From our GPU tests, we also saw that the new MX150 budget low-voltage solution fares well against the GeForce 940M and AMD’s new Vega 10 silicon.

Sadly for the competition, UX430 has one of the best screens we’ve ever tested. It covers almost 100% of the sRGB color gamut, and its panel is super bright, which, when combined with the anti-glare coating, results in perfect readability, even if the sun is staring behind your shoulder. It’s also suitable for color sensitive work thanks to our profiles which push the color accuracy of the screen, giving an average deviation of dE 0.6 (under 2.0 is appropriate for work with colors).

Next, we have the battery which left us with some mixed emotions. First, it went through more than 13 hours of web browsing, and the numbers fell almost twice when playing a video. As we said earlier, 7 hours of video playback still is a good result, but if only ASUS could figure out their drivers better… Anyway, the ASUS ZenBook UX430 made it to the fourth place in our battery performance chart!

Unfortunately, like the older model – UX410, UX430 has one flaw and it’s the cooling. It just doesn’t have the capacity to cool this GPU adequately. If we close our eyes for this, add the pleasant keyboard experience to the equation, the ZenBook UX430 surely is a very good business device. In our opinion, it can satisfy the needs of editors, photographers, and people who need power on the go!

Pros

  • One of the best displays on the market
  • Colors with almost no deviation from the standards (when Gaming and Web design profile is present)
  • Amazing battery life
  • Good keyboard with backlight
  • Fast CPU and GPU combination

Cons

  • The GeForce MX150 throttles aggressively at very high loads

MSI GP62M 7REX Leopard Pro review – the gauntlet has been thrown

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When speaking of MSI, the first thing that comes to one’s mind is gaming. Be it graphics cards, motherboards, or even laptop computers – it doesn’t matter because the company is all-in-gaming. It’s good to say that we finally got our hands on an MSI device, and (spoiler alert) it’s not only one. Today we are looking at the MSI GP62M 7REX Leopard Pro (may the last one close the door) 15.6-inch gaming device. In theory, this computer has all you need if you are into gaming on a budget.

The configuration we are about to review features the Core i7-7700HQ, combined with an NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and 8 GB of DDR4 RAM. Since this is a portable device, the second big thing you need is a proper monitor. MSI markets the one here as an “IPS level”, which we don’t really like because it would surely get some users confused when they receive their device with a TN panel. However, you will see in our Display quality part what MSI really meant by this.

There is other interesting stuff about this device such as the dancing RGB keyboard and the complex cooling solution. Stick with us to find out more!

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: http://laptopmedia.com/series/msi-gp62/

Contents

Specs Sheet

MSI GP62M 7REX Leopard Pro technical specifications table

Acer
-16%
Old price $1099.00
$925.00
you save $174 (-16%)
from Amazon
Display
15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), TN
HDD/SSD
128GB SSD SATA + 1TB HDD, 5400 rpm
M.2 Slot
1 x 2280 PCIe NVMe M.2 See photo
RAM
8GB DDR4, 2400 MHz
Dimensions
383 x 260 x 22-29 mm (15.08" x 10.24" x 0.87")
Weight
2.18 kg (4.8 lbs)
Body material
Plastic
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-A 2.0
  • 2x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • HDMI 1
  • Displayport mini
  • Card reader SD
  • Ethernet lan 10, 100, 1000 Mbit/s
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth 4.2
  • Audio jack 2x 3.5 mm jacks for headset and external microphone
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera 1080p Full HD
  • Backlit keyboard RGB
  • Microphone
  • Speakers 4 x 2W
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

Configurations

View more laptops...

What’s in the box?

As usual for an MSI device, the GP62M 7REX Leopard Pro comes in a graphically appealing black box. The box itself contains the usual manuals and guides, as well as a driver disk. The laptop is placed in a plastic bag and is accompanied by the two parts of the 150W power adapter.

Design and construction

MSI GP62M 7REX Leopard Pro uses a combination of plastic and aluminum. The sleek looking body screams “MSI design” from miles. It has aluminum on top, where you can find the manufacturers logo and badge, glued to the surface. The area around the keyboard is also metal, although the aluminum here is not brushed but rather matte.

In addition to that, the screen frame and the bottom part of the device are made of plastic. The Leopard Pro measures at 383 x 260 x 22-29 mm (15.08″ x 10.24″ x 0.87″) which is typical for a 15-inch laptop, while the weight is 2.18 kg (4.8 lbs), making it fairly lightweight for a gaming device, keeping in mind that it has two fans/heatsinks and the cooling design, as you will see in the next section, features more heat pipes.

The lid itself requires two hands to open and allows a little bit of bend but nothing scary. Moving our attention to the face of the device, we can see the beautiful keyboard and the manufacturer definitely wants you to know that it’s made by SteelSeries (badges everywhere). It has a full-size layout and features RGB backlight, which offers some funny modes that resemble an equalizer, waves splashing and other common eye candy.

While not meant for fast typing, the keyboard seems to be perfect for gamers, as it gives a little soft feedback, while the key travel is relatively long. The touchpad here is adequate and responsive, and we very much appreciate the stand-alone keys, meaning the touchpad won’t wobble when you press the keys, which we highly appreciate. An interesting feature of this device is the three dedicated keys in the top right corner. The one on the right is the power button, while the other ones can be modified, as by default they are assigned as a cooler boost one and a shortcut to the “Dragon Center” utility.

Port-wise the device has everything you need. On the left side, you’ll find three USB 3.0 ports, two of which are Type-A and one Type-C. In addition to them, here are located the RJ-45 connector and separate jacks for headphones and microphones. This device is also equipped with an HDMI port, which supports a 4K resolution at 30Hz, and a mini-Display Port. On the other side of the Leopard Pro, one USB 2.0 port is sent to keeps company to the SD card slot and the charging port. From this point of view, you can see the design of the back feet, which lift up the device in order to enhance the cooling capabilities.

One thing that takes our attention is the bottom panel of the laptop. It reveals almost all the internals with its huge vents. This obviously enhances the cooling efficiency of the device but also shows off the heat pipe design. Then again on the back, we have some more grills which are dedicated to the exhausted hot air.

Disassembly and maintenance

Getting inside GP62M 7REX happens fairly easily. You need to unscrew some 17 Phillips head screws, which are of the same size – rarely seen on a notebook of any kind. In order to access the last one of them you need to remove the “factory seal”, which ruins your warranty, so keep that in mind.

As you can see from the following image, the cooling solution consists of a total of six heat pipes, leading the heat to two heatsinks that are cooled by two small turbines. It’s interesting to compare the modesty of the CPU cooling, using two small heat pipes, next to the three larger ones placed on top of the GPU. There is also one each, dedicated to the VRMs and the graphics memory chips. In addition to that, you can see the 41Wh battery in all its beauty in the upper part of the image.

Right beneath the whole cooling circus are located the DIMMs for the DDR4 RAM, currently occupied by one 8 GB module, but the laptop supports up to 32 GB. Next to them you can see the M.2 slot which supports PCIe NVMe drives, although the one found here is a more, let’s say, modest one – Samsung PM871B M.2 SSD.

MSI GP62M 7REX supports storage expansions via its old-school SATA port.

Display quality

MSI GP62M 7REX comes with a 15.6-inch Full HD TN panel, with a model number N156HGA-EAL. The resolution of the display is 1920 x 1080, which gives a pixel density of 142 ppi and a pitch of 0.18 x 0.18 mm. The screen can be considered as Retina, when viewed from distance further than 60 cm – adequate for this size of a device.

The viewing angles are uncomfortable, as seen from the illustration below.

We measured a maximum brightness of 230 nits in the middle of the screen and 211 nits average for the whole area, with the highest deviation being 13%. The color temperature on a white screen and full brightness is 7340K, which is a little colder than the sRGB standard of 6500K. In addition to that, the color temperature of the grey scale at default settings goes as far as 11000K, which is a cold, bluish light (corrected by our profiles).
On the image below you can see the uniformity of the display, which represents the amount of leaked light from the light source of the screen.
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 are unacceptable and should not occur.
The contrast ratio we measured was mediocre – 330:1 (270:1 after profiling).

The next image shows the sRGB coverage of Dell Inspiron 15 3567’s display. The color reproduction of the human eye is shown via the “CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram”. In the middle of the dark-grey triangle are located the standard colors used by Internet and digital TV – rec.709/sRGB.

Being used by million people around the world the colors from the sRGB gamut are the most common and their accurate reproduction is of key importance for the quality of the screen.

In addition to the Adobe RGB color space, used in the professional photography, we’ve included the color gamut used by world-known movie studios – DCI-P3, and UHD-digital television (Rec.2020), which is very hard to achieve by modern display units.

We have drawn the Pointer’s Gamut with a black line. This color space covers all the colors we can see around us.

Here we saw why the screen is marketed as “IPS level” – the display not only fully covers the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard), but it also spreads to cover 96% of the DCI-P3 gamut in CIE1976, providing the gamers with saturated and attractive colors, rarely seen on a TN panel.

Our “Gaming and Web design” profile is designed to show optimal color temperature (6500K) when the luminance is at 140 nits and sRGB gamma.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The following chart shows us the capabilities of comfortable gaming experience in terms of the darkest parts of the image.

The left side displays the results of the screen at default settings, and the right one shows us the results with “Gaming and Web design” profile installed. The horizontal axis gives us the levels of grey, and the vertical one – the screen brightness.

You can check how your device displays the first five levels of grey – 1% – 5% White – via the graphics below the charts. The image you see depends on several factors such as the panel of the screen you’re currently reading this article on, its calibration, your eyesight, ambient light, viewing angle, and more.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa. We measured Fall Time + Rise Time = 16 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. It can be particularly harmful to the eyes and the brain at levels lower than 300 Hz. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

The brightness of MSI GP62M 7REX is PWM-adjusted only up to 60 nits and furthermore, it does it with very high frequency, which highly reduces the negative effect, making the device comfortable for use for long periods of time in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

MSI GP62M 7REX’s display in this modification is typical for a gaming device. It has a huge color range. Its backlight doesn’t pulsate and so it doesn’t hurt the eye throughout a wide specter of Brightness levels. The TN panel is fast and has a Full HD resolution. However, the luminance uniformity is unsatisfactory, although it’s not a big deal here since the laptop is meant for gamers. Sadly, but typically for a TN panel, the viewing angles are terrible.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for MSI GP62M 7REX Leopard Pro configurations with 15.6″ Innolux N156HGA-EAL (Full HD, 1920 x 1080) TN screen: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

MSI GP62M 7REX has a good quality sound, although the low, mid and high frequencies have some distortion in the clarity.

Software

While the preinstalled Windows 10 Home edition has everything installed already, and the device comes with a dedicated disk with all the drivers, you can also find those on MSI’s official web page. In addition to that, the GP62M 7REX also has some special software, enhancing the gaming experience, and giving you control over fan speeds.

Battery

As always, the battery tests were run with Windows power saving setting and Wi-Fi turned on, and the screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits. We were not particularly imрessed by the battery life of this laptop. While it gave us 4 hours and 42 minutes of web browsing, the battery life decreased as soon as soon as we started watching movies – 3 hours and 45 minutes. Lastly, despite we really doubt you’re going to play away from the charger, you’ll get no more than half an hour – shame…

$925
price
282 min.
battery
45Wh, Li-Po, 3-cell
$1074.97+16%
3-cell, 4605 mAh, Li-ion
375 min.+33%
768 min.+172.3%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
$925
price
225 min.
battery
45Wh, Li-Po, 3-cell
$1074.97+16%
3-cell, 4605 mAh, Li-ion
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
$925
price
34 min.
battery
45Wh, Li-Po, 3-cell
$1074.97+16%
3-cell, 4605 mAh, Li-ion
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i7-7700HQ

The Core i7-7700HQ is Kaby Lake’s top-shelf direct successor of the Skylake Core i7-6700HQ offering slightly higher clock speeds on the almost identical architecture and TDP. While Intel markets Kaby Lake’s architecture as “14nm+”, the Core i7-7700HQ is still on the same 14nm node with the only significant update being in the iGPU department. That’s why the slightly altered clock speeds (2.8 – 3.8 GHz vs 2.6 – 3.5 GHz) bring not more than 10% increase in performance compared to the Core i7-6700HQ. We still have the supported Hyper-Threading technology with 4/8 – core/thread design, the same 45W TDP, and 6MB cache.

However, the Kaby Lake generation boasts an updated video engine for the iGPU, although, its performance is just about the same. Branded as Intel HD Graphics 630, the GPU offers slightly higher clock speeds (350 – 1100 MHz vs 350 – 1050 MHz) compared to the Intel HD Graphics 530 and support for H265/HEVC Main10 profile at 10-bit color depth and the VP9 codec for full hardware acceleration. In addition, the HDCP 2.2 is also supported allowing Netflix’s 4K video streaming.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4GB GDDR5)

NVIDIA’s GTX 1050 Ti for notebooks is almost identical to its desktop counterpart but offers different clock rates. What’s more, the Ti variant uses more CUDA cores than the standard GTX 1050 version – 768 vs 640 but both GPUs use the same GP107 chip, which differs from the other NVIDIA high-end solutions. The GP107 chip is manufactured by Samsung, not TSMC, and it’s built on the 14nm node on contrary to the 16nm from TSMC.

Anyway, the GTX 1050 Ti also offers significantly higher clock rates than the normal GTX 1050 versions well 1493 – 1620 MHz vs 1364 – 1493 MHz. This contributes to a significant performance boost over the standard version but the rest of the specs remain the same. The GPU offers 4GB of GDDR5 memory connected via a 128-bit interface and transfer rates as high as 112 GB/s.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gameplay recordings with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4GB GDDR5)

MSI GP62 LEOPARD (7th Gen) GPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the GPUs that can be found in the MSI GP62 LEOPARD (7th Gen) models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which MSI GP62 LEOPARD (7th Gen) model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different GPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / GPU.

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Storage performance

This configuration of MSI Leopard Pro is equipped with a Samsung PM871B M.2 PCIe SSD with 128 GB of storage, although it could be a different drive in other regions of the world. Its speeds are nothing spectacular, explained by the non-NVMe type. The device reached 543 MB/s Read and 524 MB/s Write speeds.

Gaming tests

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) Full HD, Low (Check settings) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 113 fps 74 fps 37 fps
Min FPS 58 fps 43 fps 24 fps

Far Cry Primal Full HD, Normal (Check settings) Full HD, High (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 58 fps 51 fps 43 fps

rise-of-the-tomb-raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016) Full HD, Low (Check settings) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 89 fps 62 fps 42 fps

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, High (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 46 fps 42 fps 37 fps
Min FPS 39 fps 34 fps 30 fps

Temperatures

The temperature tests go this way. We use Prime95 and FurMark to torture the CPU and the GPU respectively. This won’t give real-life representation but with our methodology, we try to give you the most optimal results.

The first values from the test are from the 30th second of running the Prime95 stress test, which simulates a heavy task run on your computer (usually lighter tasks take from a part of the second up to a couple of seconds). Next, we take the ones from the 2nd-minute mark, which imitates a very heavy task, run on the CPU. The last values we give you are the ones at the end of the test, which is 15 minutes, simulating the CPU load when rendering a video, for example.

0-15 min. CPU torture test

The Core i7-7700HQ “ticks” at 2.8 GHz base frequency and goes up to 3.8 GHz in Turbo mode. Before we started the test we measured that the CPU was idling at 38 C. Only 30 seconds after the beginning was scorching at almost 90 C while the average frequency for this period was 3.3 GHz, topping at 3.4 GHz. We have to note that the cooling system on this device favors more the graphics card since it’s cooled by both fans, while the CPU is connected only to the left one.

Cores frequency (0 – 00:30 sec.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 00:30 sec.)

From the next minute and a half of the torture, we saw that the frequencies stabilized at around 3.0 GHz while the temperatures were fluctuating between 85 C and 87 C, after reaching a maximum of 93 C.

Cores frequency (0 – 2:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 2:00 min.)

At the end of the CPU torture test we observed a little rising in the Processor temperatures, giving an average of 88 C for the whole test, which seems a little too high, but the good thing is that – first, no thermal throttling occurred, and second, those are extreme conditions, that will never occur in real life use.

Cores frequency (0 – 15:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 15:00 min.)

0-30 min. GPU torture test

Next, we checked the thermals while torturing the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. It was idling at 37 C. Thermal throttling wasn’t present here either. Not only that, but now it was time for the custom cooling solution of MSI to shine – the maximum temperatures of the GPU core never exceeded 64C, while the clocks sustained just shy of 1700 MHz. Also, it was the perfect moment to test the dedicated button that boosts the fans to 100%. While the temperatures dropped by 6 C, it didn’t come at no cost. When you press the mighty key, the device starts to sound like the turbines of a Boeing 747 taking off to the paradise of the Hawaiian islands.

40.0°C
45.8°C
35.7°C
34.6°C
43.5°C
36.5°C
33.1°C
34.7°C
22.8°C

Verdict

The MSI GP62M 7REX invades a league with a lot of competition, good competition, to be precise. The available GTX 1050 Ti makes the device an optimal gaming-on-a-budget machine. Being a little bit more expensive has its obvious advantages – the build quality of this device is excellent. Aluminum on top, aluminum in the keyboard area, while some of its direct rivals are made completely out of plastic, or have some interesting solutions like the carbon composite material used on the facelift of the Nitro 5.

When compared to one of the most popular notebooks using GTX 1050 Ti on the market – the Lenovo Legion Y520, the Leopard Pro performs very similarly, if not the same. What we liked more was actually the thermals of the GP62M 7REX. Not only it runs cooler than the Y520, but it also offers the possibility of pumping the fans up to 100% for additional cooling headroom.

One thing that got us disappointed was the battery life of this device. Obviously, gaming on a battery is not the smartest thing to do, but here you’ll get just 34 minutes! Even though you can browse the web for around 4 hours and a half, and watch movies for three hours and a half, it is unacceptable to have such low gaming battery life.

Anyhow there was something strange in the first place – the use of a TN panel. Once we tested the unit, we figured out why MSI used such a panel on a gaming notebook. The answer is in the responsiveness – these types of panels are more than twice as fast as the IPS counterpart, which gamers favor. Despite the poor viewing angles, we were impressed by one more characteristic of this screen – the color range is astonishing – it spreads to the DCI-P3 gamut and covers 96% of it. Unfortunately, those colors are not the most accurate ones unless you install our profiles, which bring the dE values from 11 down to just 2.1.

View more laptops...

Pros

  • Good build quality
  • Wide storage options
  • 100% sRGB coverage (96% DCI-P3)
  • RGB programmable keyboard
  • Effective cooling solution

Cons

  • Poor viewing angles for a laptop in this price range
  • Low color accuracy (greatly improved by our profiles)
  • Battery life is far from impressive

MSI GE73VR 7RF Raider review – slim gaming powerhouse

$
0
0

The MSI Raider series of devices is positioned well in the hard-core gaming segment. Today we are going to look at the 17.3-inch GE73VR 7RF which has a pretty slim form factor for a machine that houses a GeForce GTX 1070 with 8GB of GDDR5 memory. It also boasts the almighty Core i7-7700HQ and 16GB of DDR4 RAM. Ok, so far nothing special because every self-respecting gaming device with a GTX 1070 would have the same parameters. MSI, though, has got you covered with two M.2 slots with RAID 0 support for connecting more than one super fast NVMe SSD.

The GE73VR 7RF is also equipped with a playful RGB keyboard that supports different modes via the dedicated utility app found on the disk with drivers. All of this is great but it’s simply not enough to compete with rivals of the class of ASUS ROG Strix GL503VS and its 144 Hz display. MSI themselves give you an interesting display option with this device, and we are reviewing exactly this model – 120 Hz TN panel. At first glance it sounds like they are joking, placing a TN panel in a device like this one. However, you will see later what exactly the reason behind that is, and believe us, you won’t even notice this is not an IPS display with your naked eye.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: http://laptopmedia.com/series/msi-ge73vr-raider/

Contents

Specs Sheet

MSI GE73VR technical specifications table Also known as MSI GE73VR Raider-045

Acer
-13%
Old price $2179.00
$1899.00
you save $280 (-13%)
from Amazon
Display
17.3”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), 120 Hz, TN
HDD/SSD
256GB SSD M.2 SATA + 1TB HDD, 7200 rpm
M.2 Slot
2x 2280 PCIe NVMe M.2 with RAID 0 support
RAM
16GB DDR4, 2400 MHz
Dimensions
419 x 285 x 29 mm (16.50" x 11.22" x 1.14")
Weight
2.80 kg (6.2 lbs)
Body material
Aluminum
Ports and connectivity
  • 3x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.1 (3.1 Gen 2)
  • HDMI 1
  • Displayport mini
  • Card reader SD, SDHC, SDXC
  • Ethernet lan 10, 100, 1000 Mbit/s
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth 4.1
  • Audio jack 2x 3.5 mm jacks for headset and external microphone
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Speakers 2 x speakers + 2 x subwoofers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

Configurations

View more laptops...

What’s in the box?

The box contains a couple of manuals and guides placed in a small plastic bag, where MSI was kind enough to also include a disk with drivers and utilities. The MSI GE73VR 7RF itself is located in an antistatic bag, and to the right of it is placed the huge 230W charger.

Design and construction

All of the manufacturers are looking to make their product design more and more appealing, but some of them go to extents that make the device look childish and unfinished. That’s deffinitely not the case with the MSI GE73VR 7RF. It has an aluminum design that has a slim form factor, which is impressive for a machine that includes a GTX 1070. The laptop measures at 419 x 285 x 29 mm (16.50″ x 11.22″ x 1.14″) and weighs 2.8 kg – again impressive for a 17-inch gaming laptop. When looked from above, the computer resembles a BMW E38’s hood, while the drills on the back make for the aggressive look of the device.

Opening the lid, which is held in place by strong and sturdy hinges, discloses the view of a nice large RGB keyboard. In addition to the full-size layout, it is also pleasant to type on. Nice key travel, combined with a clicky response and tactile feedback, make it close to the desktop-grade keyboard. The touchpad beneath it is also nice and the dedicated buttons prevent it from sinking when pressed. On the right of the keyboard are located the power button and the two utility ones, which are shaped in accordance with the design lines of the device.

The bottom of the MSI GE73VR 7RF has a lot of vents that not only give room for air intake but also reveal a good part of the internals of the notebook. Here is also located the super loudspeaker system, which consists of two 2W speakers and two 3W woofers that make the sound a lot deeper.

Next, we move to the sides of the device. Here the two top corners are dedicated to heatsinks, so there is no way of getting away from the hot air during gaming. Anyhow, on the right, there are two USB ports – one Type-A 3.0 and one Type-C 3.1. They are accompanied by an RJ-45 connector and two aux jacks for headphones and microphone respectively. On the video side, you have an HDMI port, supporting 4K @ 60Hz, and a Mini-DisplayPort. On the right, you can see the charging connector, as well as two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, and an SD card reader.

Disassembly and maintenance

The MSI GE73VR 7RF is super easy to disassemble – you just need to remove the 12 Phillips head screws and you’re done. Keep in mind that in order to access one of them, you have to break through the “factory” seal, which voids your warranty, so do it at your own risk.

Once inside, we were astonished by the size of the cooling system on this device. It’s a real heat pipe maze with a total of four pipes cooling the GPU only. Two of them are meant for the Ryzen 7 2700U, and there is one for the CPU VRM’s and GPU RAM modules.

As you can see from the image above, the 51Wh battery unit on the MSI GE73VR 7RF lacks any branding, and not only that, but the 6 cells are clearly visible.

One of the key features of the GE73VR 7RF is that it has two PCIe NVMe M.2 slots and supports RAID 0 connection of two SSDs, enhancing the speeds of transfer. On our device, only one of them was taken, and you also have to remove a mysterious PCB to be able to access the slots. This circuit board controls the RGB backlight of the separate keys.

Here is how a pair of the “Giant Speakers” looks like.

In the following picture, you can observe an HDD cuddling with the Wi-Fi adapter.

Display quality

The MSI GE73VR 7RF comes with a Full HD (1920×1080) TN panel with 17.3-inch diagonal, 0.1995 x 0.1995 mm pixel pitch and 127 ppi. The panel is manufactured by Innolux with a model number N173HHE-G32 (CMN1747) and can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from at least 69 cm.

Viewing angles are quite uncomfortable, as seen from the images below.

We’ve recorded a peak brightness 287 nits in the center of the screen and 290 nits as an average across the surface with a maximum deviation of just 5%. The correlated color temperature at maximum brightness is a little colder than the standard 6500K at 7150K. Things get even worse when going along the grayscale, but worry not – it’s fixable by our profiles. You can see how these values change at 140 cd/m2 (74% brightness) in the image below.

The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center of the screen should be no more than 4.0 and if you are planning to do color-sensitive work, it should be lower than 2.0. The contrast ratio is excellent, and rarely seen on a TN panel – 1200:1 before calibration and 1190:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

This display is able to show 100% of the colors used in the Internet and HD television. Not only that but it is able to display 97% of DCI-P3 in CIE1976, providing gamers with rich and saturated colors.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 nits luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile. Here you can see a vast improvement in the profile – a drop form dE 9.8 to dE 2.1.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 8 ms. This panel is one of the fastest we ever tested!

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

The brightness level of MSI GE73VR 7RF is PWM-adjusted until 75 nits, although it does it with a very high frequency and hence it is not of major concern and can be used for extended periods of time without a problem.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

We can confidently say that the display of MSI GE73VR 7RF is one of the best gaming screens we’ve ever tested. It has exceptionally high contrast ratio for a TN panel and displays vibrant and punchy colors, extending to the DCI-P3 gamut. Again due to the TN nature of the panel it is one of the fastest responding out there. In addition to that, we didn’t detect PWM in brightness adjustment. The only drawback of this display is the poor viewing angles but in this case it’s inevitable.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for MSI GE73VR 7RF configurations with 17.3″ Innolux N173HHE-G32 (CMN1747) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) TN screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

MSI GE73VR 7RF is equipped with super loud speakers, which in some case can eliminate the need of external speakers, and although there are some deviations in the low specter of frequencies the mids and highs are crisp and clear.

Software

Our review unit came with preinstalled 64-bit Windows 10. If you decide to buy the machine “clean” or you need to reinstall your system, here you can find all the drivers and fancy utilities MSI has for you: https://www.msi.com/Laptop/support/GE73VR-7RF-Raider

Battery

As always, the battery tests were run with Windows power saving setting and Wi-Fi turned on, and the screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits. Although a true gaming device won’t rely on battery life, it is definitely a bonus. Well… that’s clearly not the case with the MSI GE73VR 7RF, considering that it was given a battery with mere 51Wh of juice in it. That’s not enough, not only because of the hardware but also because of the 120 Hz refresh rate of the display. We got around 1 hour and 40 minutes of web surfing and video playback. The battery was enough for just an hour of gaming, making the notebook not suitable for work/gaming away from the charger.

51Wh, 6-cell
$1899
price
103 min.
battery
167 min.+62.1%
6-cell, 90Wh
276 min.+168%
54 Wh, 4670 mAh, 3-cell
84 min.-18.4%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
51Wh, 6-cell
$1899
price
100 min.
battery
142 min.+42%
6-cell, 90Wh
233 min.+133%
54 Wh, 4670 mAh, 3-cell
143 min.+43%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
51Wh, 6-cell
$1899
price
60 min.
battery
41 min.-31.7%
6-cell, 90Wh
81 min.+35%
54 Wh, 4670 mAh, 3-cell
27 min.-55%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i7-7700HQ

The Core i7-7700HQ is Kaby Lake’s top-shelf direct successor to the Skylake Core i7-6700HQ offering slightly higher clock speeds on the almost identical architecture and TDP. While Intel markets Kaby Lake’s architecture as “14nm+”, the Core i7-7700HQ is still on the same 14nm node with the only significant update being in the iGPU department. That’s why the slightly altered clock speeds (2.8 – 3.8 GHz vs 2.6 – 3.5 GHz) bring not more than 10% increase in performance compared to the Core i7-6700HQ. We still have the supported Hyper-Threading technology with 4/8 – core/thread design, the same 45W TDP, and 6MB cache.

However, the Kaby Lake generation boasts an updated video engine for the iGPU, although, its performance is just about the same. Branded as Intel HD Graphics 630, the GPU offers slightly higher clock speeds (350 – 1100 MHz vs 350 – 1050 MHz) compared to the Intel HD Graphics 530 and support for H265/HEVC Main10 profile at 10-bit color depth and the VP9 codec for full hardware acceleration. In addition, the HDCP 2.2 is also supported allowing Netflix’s 4K video streaming.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

$1899
price
676
performance
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
$1899
price
13235
performance
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
$1899
price
10.83
performance
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB GDDR5)

2016-06-02-image-33The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is the second fastest mobile GPU after the GTX 1080. It’s part of NVIDIA’s Pascal generation of GPUs and unlike previous releases, the company finally closes the gap between mobile and desktop graphics processors and that’s why there’s no “M” in the branding of Pascal GPUs. All thanks to the 16nm TSMC manufacturing process of the GPU, which allows better thermals and overall performance in a smaller form factor. That’s a big technology jump compared to the 28nm Maxwell generation.

Compared to its desktop counterpart, the GTX 1070 doesn’t differ too much. They share an identical number of ROPs (64) and identical memory – 8GB GDDR5 with 256-bit bus clocked at 8000 MHz. However, there’s a minor difference in clock speeds – the laptop GPU ticks at 1443 MHz and can go up to 1645 MHz while the desktop variant is running at 1506 MHz – 1683 MHz. To compensate to some extent, the laptop 1070 carries more CUDA cores (2048 vs 1920) and slightly more TMUs (170 vs 120).

Due to its performance, thermals and power consumption, which is believed to be 10W more than the GTX 980M, the GPU is suitable for large 17-inch laptops with the appropriate cooling solution.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

$1899
price
18009
performance
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$1899
price
4851
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$1899
price
3727
performance
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
$1899
price
3459
performance
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gameplay recordings with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB GDDR5)

MSI GE73 RAIDER GPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the GPUs that can be found in the MSI GE73 RAIDER models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which MSI GE73 RAIDER model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different GPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / GPU.

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Storage performance

Samsung PM871A is the SSD of choice in the configuration we have our hands on, but we have to mention that the choice of an SSD may differ, depending on your region. The current device achieves speeds of 543.3 MB/s and 524.1 MB/s of Read and Write respectively, which is far from flagship speeds, although for gaming this is more than enough.

Gaming tests

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings) Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 110 fps 69 fps 53 fps
Min FPS 55 fps 38 fps 28 fps

Far Cry Primal Full HD, High (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings) Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 85 fps 81 fps 77 fps

rise-of-the-tomb-raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016) Full HD, Medium (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings) Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS 122 fps 72 fps 47 fps

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands Full HD, High (Check settings) Full HD, Very High (Check settings) Full HD, Ultra (Check settings)
Average FPS 87 fps 77 fps 51 fps
Min FPS 74 fps 65 fps 44 fps

Temperatures

The temperature tests go this way. We use Prime95 and FurMark to torture the CPU and the GPU respectively. This won’t give real-life representation but with our methodology, we try to give you the most optimal results.

The first values from the test are from the 30th second of running the Prime95 stress test, which simulates a heavy task run on your computer (usually lighter tasks take from a part of the second up to a couple of seconds). Next, we take the ones from the 2nd-minute mark, which imitates a very heavy task, run on the CPU. The last values we give you are the ones at the end of the test, which is 15 minutes simulating the CPU load when rendering a video, for example.

0-15 min. CPU torture test

MSI GE73VR 7RF’s cooling solution consists of two fans, blowing away the heat through a total of four heat spreaders, which are connected to the CPU and GPU via heat pipes, as the Core i7-7700HQ is connected to the left ones, while the GTX 1070 is cooled by all of the heatsinks.

The CPU of MSI GE73VR 7RF was idling at 37°C, and for thirty seconds the average temperature went as high as 72°C, while the core frequencies maintained a good 3.4 GHz for the first time period.

Cores frequency (0 – 00:30 sec.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 00:30 sec.)

After a couple of seconds, we saw the frequencies drop to 2.8 GHz, which coincided with the package reaching 80°C. Not long after that, the clock speeds established at 3.1 GHz, while the temperature kept slightly rising.

Cores frequency (0 – 2:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 2:00 min.)

At the end of the 15-minute torture, the average temperature of the CPU package was around 80°C, with some peaks reaching as high as 88°C. While that seems quite hot, we can assure you that during gaming you’ll never encounter this high of a temperature reading. The frequencies of the cores were fluctuating until the end of the session but were relatively stable, sustaining a 3.2 GHz average clock speed for the whole period.

Cores frequency (0 – 15:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 15:00 min.)

0-30 min. GPU torture test

Moving to the GPU stress test, we have to first note that the GeForce GTX 1070 has a TDP of 110W, which needs a cooler with a big capacity. Here, the MSI GE73VR 7RF proved that it has the guts to cool down this kind of a graphics card. While idling at 42°C, the temperatures never exceeded 74°C, while the average clock speed was 1473 MHz – a hair over the base frequency of 1443 MHz.

Given the hardware, the surface temperatures were at a decent level, with the hottest place being the top middle section. The temperatures are decreasing towards the bottom part of the device, so the palm rest remains cool, even under extreme conditions.

42.5°C
43.4°C
40.0°C
36.5°C
42.0°C
34.1°C
25.7°C
24.9°C
24.7°C

Verdict

First, we have to note how stylish this device looks for a gaming laptop, combining aluminum and plastic to achieve the look of a wild beast, waiting to unleash its power over its victim. Of course, the looks are just a bonus in the category the MSI GE73VR 7RF resides. Of much higher importance in this imaginary realm is the hardware, where the GE73VR 7RF also comes well equipped. However, in the 17.3-inch size segment there is good competition in the face of Lenovo Legion Y920.

Comparing it to the latter, we found the GE73VR 7RF to underperform a little, both in raw benchmarks and in gaming test. Of course, the difference is not crucial, nor will it make any difference while playing but it’s worth mentioning that the Legion Y920 has the edge. Also, for around the same price, the Lenovo is equipped with the unlocked Intel Core i7-7820HK, while the GE73VR 7RF “only” has a Core i7-7700HQ.

However, while it fails in some areas, it excels in others. One of them is the overall size and weight of the device – MSI GE73VR 7RF weighs just 2.8 kilos and has a 29 mm profile, which makes it feel like a prima ballerina compared to the bulkiness and the 4.3 kilos of the Lenovo Legion Y920. It’s worth mentioning that despite being with a TN panel, the more expensive option on the GE73VR 7RF comes with one of the best displays for gaming out there, given the wide color gamut and fast responsiveness of the panel. By default, the colors of this screen are far from the optimal, although when our profiles are present, it was able to drop to the edge of the dE 2.0 mark.

Another factor that would tip the scales in MSI’s favor is the adequate touchpad and cool temperatures during extremely high loads, especially for such a form factor. Adding the possibility of maxing out the fans with one button boosts the thermal effectiveness even further, although you should hold the GE73VR 7RF close, as there is a high possibility of it taking off from your desk.

View more laptops...

Pros

  • Sleek design for a gaming device of this size
  • Support of RAID 0
  • Vivid screen with great responsiveness
  • RGB keyboard
  • No aggressive PWM-adjustment
  • Hardware is easy to upgrade

Cons

  • Unacceptable battery life
  • Poor viewing angles

Dell Latitude 7390 2-in-1 review – tiny performance beast with a brilliant touchscreen display

$
0
0

Today you are going to meet another Latitude device from Dell. Design-wise, the Latitude 7390 comes in two iterations – a regular laptop computer, and a 2-in-1 convertible. We are going to shed some light on the convertible model, the one with Core i5-8250U Ultra-Low voltage processor by Intel and 8GB of LPDDR3 RAM in particular.

This model is designed to enhance your working capabilities and make you more flexible, thanks to the touchscreen display and 2-in-1 nature. This can be super helpful if you work in a factory where you need to monitor the working process and walk around the equipment. You can just get the laptop from your desk and use it as a tablet on the go, while not losing any performance by doing so. We are going to see if it can get you through a whole working day, and if the IPS panel is will be comfortable for the eyes or cause strain at the end of the day.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: http://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-latitude-13-7390-2-in-1/

Contents

Specs Sheet

Dell Latitude 13 7390 2-in-1 technical specifications table

Acer
Upcoming
Display
13.3”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
256GB M.2 SATA
M.2 Slot
1x 2280 SATA M.2 slot See photo
RAM
8GB LPDDR3, 1866 MHz
Dimensions
305 x 210 x 11.75 - 17.85 mm (12.01" x 8.27" x 0.46")
Weight
1.42 kg (3.1 lbs)
Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-C DisplayPort
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1), Sleep and Charge
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1)
  • HDMI 1.4
  • Card reader microSD 4.0
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2x2)
  • Bluetooth
  • Audio jack combo audio / microphone jack
Features
  • Web camera HD 720p
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone 4x Noise reducing integrated array microphones
  • Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slotNoble Wedge Lock slot

Configurations

What’s in the box?

Inside the package, Dell Latitude 7390 is accompanied by the 65W charging unit and some manuals and set-up guides.

Design and construction

The Latitude 7390, as a 2-in-1 device, has some differences from the casual notebook. The most notable, obviously, is the hinge design and the area around it. Its shell is made from hard plastic and has a rubberized coat, making for the premium feel of the notebook. Size-wise, the device is compact, but typical for a 13.3-inch convertible, as it measures 305 x 210 x 19 mm (12″ x 8.26″ x 0.75″) and it weighs 1.42 kg (3.12 lbs).

Latitude 7390 is equipped with an IPS touchscreen display, which is protected by Gorilla Glass 4 and according to Dell – anti-smudge coating. The screen itself is mounted to the body via the regular for a convertible hinge, which moves along the movement of the display. However, these ones have a two-way movement – first they stay motionless until the screen reaches 180 degrees when the display engages the hinges and turns to the back of the device with them.

The touch sensor of the device is not on par with a premium tablet like the iPad Pro, for example. Keep in mind, however, that this is a laptop first, and the touchscreen tablet feature should be considered as secondary. As most popular 2-in-1s, the Latitude 7390 2-in-1 is not the most comfortable device to use handheld in tablet mode due to its thickness, but is perfect in a “tent” mode and if placed flat on a surface.

Looking at the keyboard, you can tell that it is a bit shallower than its base, which is meant to help eliminate accidental pressing of the keyboard in one of the modes. Moreover, the base is equipped with tiny legs that lift up the Latitude 7390 and protect the material from scratches. Although it has such a small form factor, the keystrokes are not terribly short and give very fast feedback. The touchpad feels responsive and the two dedicated keys are a bonus. We also like the fact that the small keyboard is backlit. Dell offers an optional fingerprint reader, but our device is not equipped with such.

Port-wise, on the left we have two USB Type-C ports with optional Thunderbolt 3 support (our unit lacks the Thunderbolt standard), one of which is used to charge the device. Next, to them are located a full-size HDMI connector and a USB 3.0 Type-A port. On the opposite side, we have another USB 3.0 Type-A that features PowerShare. Next to it are a microSD card reader and an optional SIM card slot, which enables LTE connections. Beside them is the 3.5 mm jack. On this side, you can also find the power button and the volume rocker, placed here for convenience when using the device as a tablet.

Disassembly and maintenance

Accessing the internals of Latitude 7390 2-in-1 is as simple as a pie – unscrew 8 Phillips head screws and you’re inside. At first glance, one can tell how big the 45Wh battery is compared to the other components of the device.

As you can see the cooling of the Core i5-8250U is entrusted to a relatively short heat pipe, which leads to a super tiny heat spreader less than an inch away from the CPU, and is blown at by a cute little fan. On the left of it are located the Wi-Fi adapter, as well as the LTE board, and on the right, hidden beneath a plate are the RAM chips, which are soldered onto the motherboard.

In the following image, you can see that all of the excess area, not taken by the board, is dedicated to the battery itself, while right next to it is located the M.2 slot in our case occupied by a 256 GB SK Hynix SC311 SATA SSD. However, the model sports PCIe NVMe support.

Display quality

The 2-in-1 version of Latitude 7390 comes with a Full HD (1920×1080) touchscreen IPS display manufactured by LG (LGD0589) and offers 166 ppi, and a pixel pitch of 0.153 x 0.153 mm. It can be considered as “Retina” from at least 50 cm.

Viewing angles are on point, as it should be for a convertible device.

We’ve recorded a peak brightness 307 nits in the center of the screen and 285 nits as an average across the surface with 11% maximum deviation. The correlated color temperature at maximum brightness is edges the 6500K standard – 6530K, while it goes a shy warmer at 6380K along the grayscale. You can see how these values change at 140 nits (74% brightness) in the image below.

The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center of the screen should be no more than 4.0 and if you are planning to do color-sensitive work, it should be lower than 2.0. In this occasion, the Luminance deviation is a bit higher than the preferable in the bottom left and right corners. The contrast ratio of this screen is high – 1160:1 before and 1130:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

This screen covers 97% of the sRGB gamut in CIE1976. This means that it can display almost every color in the web space, and given the fact that after calibrating with our Gaming and Web design profile the colors have a dE of under 1.0, thus making it compliant with the work of web designers.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 nits luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Next, we look at the capabilities of comfortable gaming experience in terms of the darkest parts of the image.

The left side shows us results of the screen at the default settings, and the right one shows us the results with “Gaming and Web design” profile installed. The horizontal axis gives us the levels of grey, and the vertical one – the screen brightness.

You can check how your device displays the first five levels of grey – 1% – 5% White – via the graphics below the charts. The image you see depends on several factors such as the panel of the display you’re currently reading this article on, its calibration, your eyesight, ambient light, viewing angle and more.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa. We measured Fall Time + Rise Time = 28 ms

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

The light emitted by Dell Latitude 7390 2-in-1’s screen is not PWM-adjusted at all levels, making it appropriate for long periods of use without harming your eyes in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

Dell has equipped the convertible version of Latitude 13 7390 with a very capable screen. It boasts practically full coverage of the colors in Web and HDTV standards, and also good color accuracy, further enhanced by our Gaming and Web design profile. Moreover, it lacks PWM-adjustment of the brightness, so the crisp Full HD screen is more comfortable for your eyes. As everything in this world, this display falls short of being flawless. It has some deviations of the Luminance in the bottom corners, although it won’t be a problem if you’re not doing particularly sensitive work on it.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for Dell Latitude 13 7390 2-in-1 configurations with 13.3″ LG LGD0589 (Full HD, 1920 x 1080) IPS screen: Buy from Amazon.com

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work - screen profile

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96
Buy Now
Design and Gaming - screen profile

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97
Buy Now
Health-Guard - screen profile

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98
Buy Now
All
$9.99
Buy Now

Sound

Dell Latitude 7390 has a crisp stereo sound with the low, mid and high frequencies being clear.

Software

Latitude 7390 2-in-1 comes with a pre-installed 64-bit Windows 10 and all drivers and Dell feature onboard. However, if you need to reinstall the system or you are searching for drivers for this machine, you can find them here: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/latitude-13-7390-2-in-1-laptop/drivers

Battery

As always, the battery tests were run with Windows power saving setting and Wi-Fi turned on, and the screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits. The Latitude 7390 2-in-1 showed exceptional battery life when browsing the web. It got us through 11 hours and 48 minutes of browsing, although the numbers fell a little bit when video codecs kicked in – 7 hours and 13 minutes of video playback, which is still a good result. Finally, if you ever want to game on this laptop, and opt to do it away from the plug, the 45Wh battery will give you about an hour and 45 minutes of gaming.

price
708 min.
battery
511 min.-27.8%
53.9 Wh, 4670 mAh, 6-cell
$899.99
571 min.-19.4%
544 min.-23.2%
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
price
433 min.
battery
423 min.-2.3%
53.9 Wh, 4670 mAh, 6-cell
$899.99
548 min.+26.6%
391 min.-9.7%
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
price
105 min.
battery
208 min.+98.1%
53.9 Wh, 4670 mAh, 6-cell
$899.99
122 min.+16.2%
160 min.+52.4%
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

CPU – Intel Core i5-8250U

The Core i5-8250U is one of the first (along with the Core i7-8550U from the same generation) ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors from Intel to feature not two but four cores. It’s part of the 8th Generation (Kaby Lake Refresh) and on contrary to the previous generations, the Turbo Boost range is pretty wide now.

The base frequency is 1.6 GHz and can go up to 3.4 GHz for a short period of time before stabilizing somewhere in between during continuous loads. This also means that the single-core performance is really good. The rest of the features and specs, however, remain mostly the same with support for dual-channel DDR4-2400/LPDDR3-2133 memory, 14nm FinFET manufacturing process and the same integrated graphics chip, although re-branded now as Intel UHD Graphics 620.

The whole SoC along with the dual-channel memory is rated at 15W TDP but depending on the usage scenario, cooling capabilities and the configured TDP from the OEM, the TDP can vary from 7.5W up to 25W.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)

GPU – Intel UHD Graphics 620

Intel UHD Graphics 620 is a refresh of the HD Graphics 620 found as an integrated solution in many ULV Kaby Lake processors. UHD Graphics 620 is codenamed “Kaby Lake R U GT2” and it’s a part of the Gen 9.5 generation.

Intel UHD Graphics 620 has roughly the same performance as HD Graphics 620, depending on the other components in the system. UHD Graphics 620’s performance is similar to AMD Radeon R5 M420X and NVIDIA GeForce 910M/920M.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)

Gameplay recordings with Intel UHD Graphics 620

Gaming tests

The Latitude 7390 is strictly a business device, but it can also offer some minor gaming capabilities with low-end titles like DOTA 2 for example. In games like GTA V you really need to put down every single setting of the graphics and sacrifice a lot of resolution to be able to run the title at semi-playable 30 fps.

DOTA 2 Full HD, Low (Check settings) Full HD, Normal (Check settings) Full HD, High (Check settings)
Average FPS 60 fps 36 fps 16 fps

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) HD 768p, Low (Check settings) HD 768p, Medium (Check settings) HD 768p, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 31 fps – fps – fps
Min FPS 16 fps – fps – fps

Storage performance

Keep in mind that the storage device choice is region dependent so it may not be the same as the one found in our unit. Our model had SK Hynix SC311 SATA SSD with 256 GB memory. Typically for a SATA device, it reached Read speeds of 561 MB/s and a bit slow Write speeds of 242.1 MB/s.

Temperatures

The temperature tests go this way. We use Prime95 and FurMark to torture the CPU and the GPU respectively. This won’t give real-life representation but with our methodology, we try to give you the most optimal results.

The first values from the test are from the 30th second of running the Prime95 stress test, which simulates a heavy task run on your computer (usually lighter tasks take from a part of the second up to a couple of seconds). Next, we take the ones from the 2nd-minute mark, which imitates a very heavy task, run on the CPU. The last values we give you are the ones at the end of the test, which is 15 minutes, simulating the CPU load when rendering a video, for example.

0-15 min. CPU torture test

To remind you before we dig into the test results, the Core i5-8250U has a base frequency of 1.6 GHz and goes up to 3.4 GHz in Turbo mode. The processor of our unit was idling at 36C. In the first 30 seconds of the torture, we noticed that the frequencies were far from the maximum 3.4 GHz that this CPU is capable of, as it held values of around 2.5 GHz. The temperature was gradually increased to a maximum of 86C.

Cores frequency (0 – 00:30 sec.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 00:30 sec.)

After stabilizing for a couple of seconds at this temperature the core frequencies dropped to 2.1 GHz, resulting in a temperature drop of around 6C, although the decrease lasted for short, as the temps kept climbing.

Cores frequency (0 – 2:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 2:00 min.)

At the end of this 15-minute stress test, we noticed that the frequencies were fluctuating between 2.1 and 2.2 GHz, while the temperatures topped at 91C, giving an average for the entire period of the test of 87C – the Core i5-8250U was sweating like hell in that tiny body. Anyhow, it will never reach temperatures this high with normal usage. Also, we want to note that despite failing to get to maximum operating frequencies the Latitude 7390 was super responsive and we can easily compare it to some Core i7-equipped laptops.

Cores frequency (0 – 15:00 min.)
CPU Temperature (0 – 15:00 min.)

We found that the surface of the convertible was warm, but never too hot for a device of this size and given the high CPU measurements and extreme testing conditions.

44.3°C
45.6°C
37.1°C
33.5°C
37.0°C
30.9°C
25.7°C
26.5°C
23.3°C

Verdict

Although the Latitude 13 7390 2-in-1 is sold with the whole U series range, we are glad that we got our hands on a unit equipped with a Core i5-8250U processor. We found it to be the perfect business solution – being super responsive. Moreover, the CPU in this device performed better than some of its larger competitors, which can rely on bigger and more effective cooling solutions, like the Lenovo IdeaPad 520, for example.

These notebooks, however, are not exactly comparable, as they are meant for a whole different target group. That’s why we need to put it side by side to, let’s say, its predecessor – the Latitude 13 7370. We like how Dell opted to upgrade from the mobile Core m SoCs to the far more capable, although still not very hungry for power, U series. It’s worth noting that despite the drastically increased performance, the Latitude 13 7390 2-in-1 has a lot more battery life. The increase from 34Wh to 45Wh resulted in more than 11 hours and 45 minutes of web browsing, compared to “only” 9 hours and 4 minutes, managed by the older, passively cooled unit.

Turning our heads to the screen, which is (obviously) a very important feature in a convertible notebook, we see another major step forward. As it covers almost fully the sRGB gamut and doesn’t use PWM for its brightness adjustment, we can surely recommend it. Web designers and artists, we are talking to you! With our Gaming and Web design profile, it represents most of the common colors found on the Internet super accurately – with a dE less than 1.0, although it lacks uniformity of the illumination.

In addition to the touchscreen, it has an adequate backlit keyboard and responsive touchpad, which features dedicated mouse buttons, making the input devices of the Dell Latitude 13 7390 2-in-1 on point. All that made this device one of our favorites but it’s worth noting that the product is pricey, and it has some good, cheaper alternatives in the face of Acer Spin 5, and ASUS VivoBook Flip 14 (TP410UR)

Pros

  • Super sturdy build quality
  • Blazing performance for a low-voltage CPU
  • Covers 97% of colors in sRGB
  • Accurate display colors (especially with Gaming and Web design profile)
  • Great battery life
  • Does not use PWM for brightness adjustment

Cons

  • High internal temperatures during extreme load
  • RAM chips are soldered, hence not upgradable
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