Huge Pedia

ASUS is one of the biggest computer hardware manufacturers around. It makes laptops, desktops, servers and monitors too.

It’s a 19” widescreen monitor with increased number of pixels 1680 x 1050, compared to the standard 16:10 aspect ratio 19” widescreen LCD monitors that have only 1440 x 900 pixels. If we look at the technology, this resolution (1680 x 1050) is far from the maximum for a 19” monitor, because laptops for example are known to have 1920 x 1080 pixels in just 15.4” screens or 1400 x 1024 pixels in 14” monitors.

The best computer speakers are always sold separately, but the potential of integrated speakers shouldn’t be underestimated either. 2 x 1Watt speakers may appear weak, and (between you and me) they are, but from a practical point of view it’s perfect for users that have limited desk space and don’t like to add several cables to the already overpopulated areas behind the computer system and behind the monitor. When you use integrated speakers you only need a stereo audio cable with 3.5mm jacks, because power is drawn from the monitor’s internal power supply.

Some advanced monitors eliminate even the audio cable by using the high quality HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) cable which transports multi-channel digital audio too. According to some speculations you don’t really need a sound card when you use HDMI, because audio is not decoded in the computer, but transmitted directly to the monitor speakers. This solution is only partial, because this way you don’t have a MIC IN or LINE IN port, and also not every game/application supports sending unprocessed digital audio through HDMI.

Please note that not all monitors with HDMI ports are capable of decoding digital audio.

In the case of ASUS VW198T LCD monitors we only have DVI and VGA analog inputs (all cables included in the retail package: power, VGA, DVI and stereo audio). Viewing angle suffered a bit because of the larger concentration of pixels: 170°(H)/160°(V), this is absolutely normal. Contrast ratio is 3000:1, a very acceptable figure, although top LED-backlit monitors have already passed the 10 million to one barrier.

The human eye doesn’t really see the difference between contrast ratios above 40.000:1, but this is also a technical thing, because high contrast ratio means that when two neighboring pixels need to be black and white they will be very strong black and clear white, adding to the energy  efficiency of RGB LED-backlit monitors and OLED monitors, allowing the darker pixel to save power. Truth be told, traditional fluorescent tube and white LED backlit LCD monitors are not capable of that kind of energy saving, because usually the whole screen has the same level of backlighting.

5ms response time is acceptable even for games, while stereoscopic view (3D) isn’t possible (or possible, but with very low frame rate that will most likely hurt your eyes.

Unfortunately this specific ASUS LCD model is very old, you probably won’t find it new in stores, but refurbished or used it’s still a very good solution for office work, games and multimedia.

The Eee keyboard is accompanied by a rather original accessory. The little black monolith  is a wireless transmitter that receives the video output of the Eee keyboard to display a HDMI device (HDTV or monitor). ASUS only guarantees HD on a range of 5 meters. In the absence of ION, one might think that the Eee keyboard is not able to decompress the HD streams.

A Wi-Fi antenna black L-shaped snaps on the back of the keyboard. The latter is used for the internal wireless card and for the dissemination of HD video streams to the receiver black

Apart from the original concept all-in-one, we also note the presence of a touch screen on the right side of the keyboard. The Eee keyboard is equipped with Windows XP . Broadly, the screen provides access to Schedule a widget made by Asus. In bulk, we find a customer MSN, Skype, YouTube, a viewer, audio / video and a host of other gadgets more or less useful.

In addition to the circuit wireless (Wi-Fi network, HD video output), the Eee keyboard is equipped with the usual connectors, with one exception … On the back edge, Asus offers three USB 2.0 ports, two input jacks / audio output, a VGA connector and a RJ45 network jack. There is also a connector for the host adapter as this strange keyboard is a real full-fledged PC. However, the presence of an HDMI port is amazing , the extent the GMA 950 does not support this connection.

The Eee keyboard is equipped with a small touch screen modestly named “Easy Mode” by Asus engineers. This offers several features. It can display a set of widgets (MSN, Skype, weather, etc..) Serve as shortcuts launcher, trackpad (multipoint), or used to play when using the keyboard in standalone mode. You should know that the matrix touchscreen keyboard Asus is seen by the system as a secondary display located on the right side of the primary . Strangely, the system detects a resolution of 1024 x 768 while in reality, the definition of the matrix does not exceed the threshold of 800 x 480. To move the mouse on the touch screen, just drag on the right.

Ergonomics Menu Widgets
The virtual keys that are placed on the blue bar give access to a range of programs that were designed or optimized to overcome the constraints that are associated with reduced dimensions of the touchscreen. According to Asus, the interest is to propose a set of service when the Eee keyboard is connected to a screen, or when used in standalone mode .

ASUS is a well known computer manufacturer, recognized world wide for its outstanding products addressing not only the rich, but the relatively poor too.

The so-called secret behind the success of these great graphics cards is the over sized cooler, and high quality capacitors that can supply additional power to the overclocked card when needed.

ASUS motherboards apply a different strategy when overclocking the processor. Yes, motherboards also use very high quality capacitors and you have to install a high performance CPU cooler, but they have two additional elements: TPU and EPU. These are two additional processors are soldered onto the motherboard and their only purpose is to calculate optimal power and performance parameters for the CPU.

For now this technology is available for Intel’s P55 and H57 chipsets, but if consider the improvement these chips bring to overall system efficiency we can almost certainly state that they will be built into motherboards for every type of processor (until they invent something better of course).

According to ASUS these processors improve performance by 37% and save 80% of the electric power. We can all agree on the 37% performance increase, because Intel Core i3 and i5 processors are very good overclockers, but the 80% energy saving smells funny. There are at least two situations in which energy saving cannot be achieved as they say. One is when a workstation, server or gaming computer is always under full load. If the graphics card and the processor (CPU), the components with the biggest power consumption are overclocked and used to the max, then there isn’t any wasted power to reduce. In the other situation the computer system has a very efficient processor and graphics card, so they reduce their power consumption to around 10% anyway, without these two additional smart chips. For example a Radeon 5870 graphics card that needs 25Watts on Idle and 185Watts under full load and any laptop processor (paired up with the help of a special desktop motherboard that accepts laptop processors).

There is one more important thing about ASUS TPU and EPU. The 80% power saving is calculated in the most irrational way in order to maximize the perceived potential of this new technology.

Any rational person, when confronted with these two figures 194Watt and 108Watt, would say that the decrease is 40%, in other words the improvement is less than half of 194Watts.

Don’t get me wrong, 37% performance increase and 40% power savings are still very impressive. So why do you think Intel didn’t implement such a technology into its LGA1156 platform ?

Asus completed its line of PC accessories with the launch FrontLinker rather unexpectedly, a peripheral locating in front of your PC and bringing together a multitude of some cool accessories .

As for cables, it will be necessary to connect to the motherboard with no fewer than five in any order: a Serial-ATA cable (conventional hard disk format), USB 2.0 cable (9-pin motherboard connector) cable FireWire 1394a (9-pin motherboard connector), an audio cable (standard connector type AAFP or FPA with female adapter so as not to deprive any of these audio connectors on the housing) but also a special cable for MP3-In Cable to connect the MP3 Magic -In on the Digital Home Motherboards Asus (except models P5LD2-VM DH N4L-VM and HR).

All cables are FrontLinker identified by a color code meant to facilitate their connection, that’s only if the color code is valid for motherboards Asus, it is quite unnecessary for motherboards from other manufacturers, each of them adopting different codes. Once our cables connected, it must also connect a Molex plug in FrontLinker, taken from the time of the power to your computer. If all goes well, a small blue LED lights on the circuit’s internal FrontLinker when starting the system, proof that the unit is powered correctly. He must know that the FrontLinker requires a USB power 5 volts, a prerequisite which may require, on some motherboards, the handling of a jumper (or two).

Using FrontLinker
Sort of super Swiss Army Knife of 5.25 inches, the FrontLinker offers a range of features starting with its many connectors. Thus we find in front of the unit to a USB port, always practical, a FireWire connector and an eSATA port to provide boxes most chick connector input / output directly accessible on the front. Another advantage of FrontLinker, his reader Memory Card integrated, which accepts Compact Flash cards, Secure Digital, SmartMedia / xD, MMC, Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro other. A small green light shows the front of the drive activity when a card is inserted and it is automatically recognized by Windows, either Windows XP or Windows Vista. On the audio side, Asus has just one input for a microphone, via a 6.3mm jack, the shipbuilder apparently deadlocked on the headphone jack.

The FrontLinker seen by Windows Vista
But the greatest novelty of this is certainly FrontLinker retractable cables found behind a small hatch. Asus offers here a total of three cables with a connector cable with a mini-USB cable with an iPod connector and an audio cable to mini jack size. Used on PC, these cables are also operational PC is off and that is what makes all their charm. Because once the PC stopped you can, via the function Magic Charger, USB charging his phone or even an iPod. And the last word comes from the function that allows MagicStereo stream music from their MP3 player directly on their PC speakers, while keeping it off.

Caution, however, the Magic Stereo function is available only with certain motherboards Asus Digital Home series. The functions operate on charging them with any type of motherboard and if we could load our hassle-free USB phone, Qtek S200, this is unfortunately not the case with the iPod. Unable to effect recharging our 5G iPod, and this on two different configurations, one based motherboard Asus P5W-DH Deluxe and the other card-based nForce 680i SLI eVGA signed.

A leader in laptops industry Asus continues to decline its famous Eee PC by incorporating this time the last Intel platform and the new version of the NVIDIA. While Intel Pine Trail has attracted a lot of attention , especially with the help of the low graphics solution proposed (see Pine Trail, the new Intel platform netbook)  we stayed on our hunger with the first version of ION due to the pitiful performance of the Atom processor N270 (see Samsung N510 and HP Mini 311 netbooks ION Dual). Asus  announced at Cebit the last model that combines the new Intel platform and the ION’s next-generation NVIDIA supposed to give the Pine Trail “power” chart that was lacking. The integration of ION in the Pine Trail has been appreciated. As announced in the introduction, the Eee PC 1201PN has the merit of combining two of the latest technologies such as the redesign of the ION and NVIDIA’s latest Intel platform Pine Trail.

They are always 16 stream processors clocked at 1100 MHz that are present here, an operating frequency changes very slightly from 450 to 475 MHz. However, the memory bandwidth is reduced by 1 060 MHz to 750 MHz while the memory interface is limited to 64 bits, so here it was 128 bits on the first solution on this ION Compaq Mini 311 for example. What equipment was used for the Eee PC? Apart from the graphical solution mentioned for the moment, you can find in this laptop an Intel Atom N450 processor, a simple heart supporting HyperThreading running at 1.66 GHz. It is supported by 2 GB of DDR2 RAM running at 667 MHz.

Regarding storage, it is a hard disk with a capacity of 320 GB and 5400 rotating at rpm officiating. Finally, it is a 6 cell battery with a capacity of 5625 mAh which is responsible for ensuring the autonomy of this netbook. The side connector represents a nice surprise for the emergence of HDMI 1.3 that doing so lacking in MSI U135 which was devoid of the solution ION Next Gen NVIDIA. Alongside this HDMI, there is a USB 2.0, left side being also provided with a VGA output. To the right are two more USB ports, an Ethernet port and a memory-card reader that supplements the connection of the Eee PC 1201PN.