Asus announces new ROG Zephyrus gaming laptops with 10th-gen Intel CPUs

In the wake of Intel’s announcement of their 10th generation H-series processors and Nvidia also announcing new GPUs for laptops, news of new machines have started to pour in. Asus today has announced several new laptops in their Zephyrus lineup of gaming laptops, with one of them being particularly interesting. Let’s take a look at what’s on offer now.

Asus ROG Zephyrus M15

The Zephyrus lineup of gaming laptops from Asus have always been about combining powerful components with an ultra-compact form-factor, but with the Zephyrus M15, the company is also adding good looks to the mix. The ROG Zephyrus M15 will be powered by Intel’s 10th generation H-series processors, configurable with up to an Intel Core i7-10875H (8 cores, 16 threads) and up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super. Gamers can choose between an FHD display with a 240Hz refresh rate or a 4K display with a refresh rate of 60Hz. Both the displays are IPS panels with Pantone validation, while a third option is a near-IPS display with full HD resolution and 144Hz refresh rate. Just like at the Zephyrus machines before it, the M15 will come with 16GB RAM soldered onto the motherboard, while a single SODIMM slot allows you to add another stick of RAM for total support of up to 32GB. Asus has also finally brought Thunderbolt 3 to the Zephyrus lineup, opening up massive avenues for expansion. The Asus ROG Zephyrus M15 packs all the hardware into a chassis that’s just 1.89cm, thick and weighs less than 2 kilos. The M15 will be available in a Prism and Brushed finish.

Asus ROG Zephyrus S15

At first glance, the Asus ROG Zephyrus S15 and M15 may appear to be very similar, but in reality, they are not. While the S15 can be configured with up to an Intel Core i7-10875H (8 cores, 16 threads) processor, the choice of GPU gets bumped up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080. This comes in handy when you factor in the 300Hz display with 3ms response time and Gsync display that you can choose to have on the S15. The Zephyrus S15 continues to employ the bottom-opening design for improved cooling but shares all other specifications with the M15. You still get up to 32GB RAM, Thunderbolt 3,  per-key RGB keyboard and RAID 0 support.

Asus Zephyrus S17

The 17-inch form-factor continues to live in the gaming space, and Asus has announced some exciting updates to its 17-inch gaming laptop. The 17.3-inch display comes in 144Hz and 300Hz flavours, 3ms response time and of course, G-Sync. As with most high-end Asus displays, this one too is Pantone validated. Your choice of CPU is limited to the highest-end Core i7 chip, but the choice of GPUs is between the RTX 2070 Super and the RTX 2080 Super.

Interestingly, Asus has limited the Zephyrus laptops this year to the Core i7 processors from Intel, which makes sense when you consider that the i7-10875H and the i9-10980HK both come with the same core/thread count. The clock speeds vary by a hair, but an unlocked Core i9 might have faced thermal issues in a chassis this thin. The company has also moved the keyboards to a more likeable position on the 15-inch models, something that many people are going to be happy about. Perhaps the most notable improvement with this year's Zephyrus refresh is the use of Liquid Metal for the processor. Liquid metal helps improve thermal performance by a few percentage points in comparison to the traditional thermal paste. Unfortunately, Asus has not announced any availability or pricing for the new Zephyrus laptops in India, but we will update this story once we have an update.

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BSNL launches Rs 693 and Rs 1,212 prepaid plans with up to 500GB Data and 365 days validity

If you are a BSNL user, then there is good news for you, based on where you are. The telecom operator has announced two data-only plans priced at Rs Rs 693 and Rs 1,212 and validity of 365 days. With these recharges, users don't get SMS or voice calls, so you will have to recharge separately for those. The two plans - Rs 693 and Rs 1,212 bring with them 300GB and 500GB data respectively. There is no daily usage limit and the users can consume data as and when they like within the validity period. As of writing this story, the plan is available in Andhra Pradesh & Telangana circles according to TelecomTalk. 

BSNL also recently launched the Rs 551 plan that offered users 5GB data per day and a validity of 90 days. This means the user gets a total of 450GB of data. 

In other telecom related news, due to the Coronavirus outbreak, the TRAI has asked telcos to ensure uninterrupted voice and data services for all users by increasing prepaid plan validity. Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone Idea and BSNL have been asked to increase the validity to ensure uninterrupted services to subscribers. You can read more about that here. 

If you are using a BSNL broadband connection, then know that there is a BSNL Work@Home plan. The plan offers users 5GB data daily at 10 Mbps speeds and unlimited data at 1 Mbps speeds after reaching the FUP. You can read more about that plan here. 

If you are a Reliance Jio user, then there are some revised data plans that you can check out. The telecom giant has revised the Jio 4G data packs priced at Rs 11, Rs 21, Rs 51 and Rs 101. The data on offer in these packs has doubled. You can check out their details here.

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Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 Dual-Screen Gaming Laptop With 10th Gen Core i9, Nvidia GeForce RTX Super Launched

With a huge secondary screen, Intel 10th Gen CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX Super GPU, the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 wants to redefine slim gaming laptops

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Huawei wants Google to publish its apps on its AppGallery

It’s been a year since Huawei has been banned from doing business with American companies, which also includes Google. As a result, Huawei is not allowed to use Google services for its Android smartphones, something that’s very essential for Android devices to work outside China, especially Google apps.

Google has also pressed for an exception repeatedly from the US government, just like Microsoft has received for allowing the Chinese tech giant to use Windows OS in its notebooks. But for now, Huawei is simply hoping Google would publish its apps on Huawei’s very own app store.

After the US trade ban took effect, Huawei started working on its own app store and mobile services, called “AppGallery” and “Huawei Mobile Services” respectively. And quite expectedly, Google is not a part of it. There are no Google apps and it doesn’t support Google services. Yet, one Huawei executive hopes that might change.

“We hope Google services can be available through our AppGallery, just like how Google services are available through Apple’s App Store.” Eric Xu, Huawei Chairman told CNBC in mandarin.

Despite the optimism, chances of that happening in the present scenario aren’t very high. Because of the legal restrictions in place, just like Google can’t license its Play Services to Huawei, it also can’t work with Huawei to publish an app for Huawei’s AppGallery.

Also, most Google apps are heavily reliant on the Google Play Services framework, so even if Google wanted, it wouldn’t be the same as the deal it has with Apple since Google is legally allowed to work with Apple to enable its services and apps for iOS and macOS devices.

With the new P40 series of smartphones, Huawei has been able to nail the hardware, with claims of competing neck to neck with the best of Apple and Samsung in the flagship range, but it lacks the crucial Google support which weaves a thread of familiarity between all Android devices used outside China. In its latest earnings figures, Huawei revealed that the US trade ban has indeed hurt its business. Huawei's year-on-year revenue grew by 19.1% last year as compared to 25 percent in 2018 and 28 percent in 2017.

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MyGov Corona Helpdesk WhatsApp chatbot gets 17 crore users within 10 days of launch: Report

The government launched a new WhatsApp chatbot called the MyGov Corona Helpdesk back on March 20, and it seems like it has become quite popular. According to a report by Gadgets360, the chatbot has 1.7 crore users in 10 days of launch. The chatbot is made to offer credible information about the COVID-19 Coronavirus. The report notes that the chatbot was initially available only in English, but it soon added support for Hindi. It further adds that the government also recently expanded coronavirus awareness initiatives by launching a MyGov Corona Newsdesk channel on Telegram and a dedicated Corona Helpdesk chatbot on Facebook.

The developers of the chatbot, Haptik, told the publication that the platform reaches the one crore mark and processed over 1.4 crore conversations from users across the country within the first week of launch. By March 20, it was said to have 1.4 crore users and had processed 2.5 crore conversations. 

That chatbot can be accessed by anyone by texting ‘Namaste’ to 9013151515. Users can then chat with the bot to know more about the pandemic ad how they can protect themselves that their community. You can find out more about the helpline here. 

MyGov Corona Helpdesk launched on WhatsApp! Get relevant information by texting Namaste to 9013151515. Please share widely.#IndiaFightsCorona #HealthForAll #SwasthBharat #sankalpandsayyam pic.twitter.com/tyRwii8Pyu

— MyGovIndia (@mygovindia) March 19, 2020

WhatsApp also recently partnered with WHO and UNICEF to create the WhatsApp Coronavirus Information Hub. The lets users access information about the disease. Further, the instant messaging platform also donated $1 Million to the Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). This grant will support fact-checking for the #CoronaVirusFacts Alliance that is spread over 100 local organisations in at least 45 countries.

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Intel unveils 10th Gen Comet Lake-H mobile processors with up to 8 cores clocked at 53 GHz Boost

Intel has announced their new 10th Gen Intel Core CPU line-up codenamed, Comet Lake-H. The CPUs announced today are all incremental upgrades to their existing 9th Gen Coffee Lake-R (Coffee Lake-Refresh) CPUs that were announced around the same time last year. The underlying microarchitecture is still Skylake but it now uses the latest iteration of Intel’s 14nm process node. Today’s announcement includes six processors in total, all of whom have a nominal TDP of 45W and feature Hyper-Threading. Other improvements include higher memory support since these new CPUs can handle DDR4 memory clocked at 2933 MHz. Four of the six CPUs also sport Intel’s new Thermal Velocity Boost technology. Here are the SKUs that were announced today.

Intel 10th Generation Core Processors (Comet Lake-H)

At the top of the stack is the Intel Core i9-10980HK which has a similar 8 Core / 16 Thread configuration as the Coffee Lake-R Core i9-9980HK with a 300 MHz bump in Turbo Boost clock thanks to TVB (Thermal Velocity Boost) followed by the Core i7-10875H which sports a base clock of 2.3 GHz and a Turbo or 5.1 GHz. The cache configurations across the stack is the same as what we saw with Coffee Lake-R processors at launch.

It should be noted that four of the top processors in the Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake-H line-up have Intel’s Thermal Velocity Boost feature whereas CLF-R only had two SKUs with TVB. The clock speeds mentioned here include the improvement afforded by TVB. In CFL-R, the TVB increment was 100 MHz but we aren’t certain how much of an improvement TVB has in Comet Lake-H.

Base clock improvements can be seen in the Core i7-10850H, Core i5-10400H and the Core i5-10300H. All of these are high-volume SKUs which are predominantly seen in the vast majority of gaming laptops from all manufacturers. So for gaming workloads, we are going to see a slight improvement in titles which are primarily CPU-bound.

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Nvidia RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2080 Super coming to laptops, but thats not all

Nvidia, today, has made a number of announcements that are bound to make gamers look forward to the lifting of this lockdown. Today’s announcements have three main components; two new GPUs for laptops, improvements to the Max-Q technologies and a price reduction on the RTX 2060 laptops.

Laptops go Super

Nvidia has today announced that some of their Super series of GPUs will now be available on the mobile platform as well. Gamers will be able to pick up laptops with either an RTX 2070 Super or an RTX 2080 Super GPU from later this month. The new Super GPUs come with more CUDA cores in comparison to their non-Super counterparts, but surprisingly, clock speeds that are a hair slower too. Both the RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2080 Super (Review) GPUs for laptops will feature 8GB GDDR6 memory operating at speeds of up to 14GB/s, with a memory bandwidth of up to 448GB/s.

New Max-Q

Nvidia had introduced the Max-Q platform as a means of making gaming laptops more efficient both in terms of power and performance. Nvidia has today announced a new set of improvements to the Max-Q platform that seeks to double the efficiency. The first of these improvements is at the hardware level, where Nvidia says they are now using low voltage GDDDR6 memory modules as a sure-shot way of being more energy-efficient. Additionally, Nvidia is now employing Dynamic Boost, a way for the “system” to shift power between CPU and GPU on a per-frame basis, so that both the CPU and GPU can always have the power they need. Nvidia says that typically the CPU gets limited to 35W of power and the GPU to 85W, but Dynamic Scaling would be able to move power below and over those limits to the components as and when needed. Besides these two features, we also get DLSS 2.0 which is the result of a much improved neural network and can generate imagery at a lower-than-native resolution, which appears to be as good, if not better than the native one.

RTX 2060 Price Drop

Up until now, gaming laptops with the RTX 2060 (Review) GPU have had a starting price of roughly $1200 or more, depending on the OEM. Nvidia has today announced that laptops powered by the RTX 2060 will now start at $999, making it a lot more affordable. According to Nvidia’s press release, “RTX 2060-powered laptops starting at $999 include the Acer Nitro 5, ASUS ROG Strix G15, HP Omen 15, MSI GF65 Thin, the Lenovo Legion Y540 and 5i and the MSI GF65 Thin, with more to be announced later.”

If you have been in the market looking for a new gaming or even a creator laptop, it would be a very good idea to simply wait a few weeks for these new machines to hit the market. Even if you don’t care much for the 2070 Super or the 2080 Super, the newer Max-Q technologies rely on new hardware features such as low voltage GDDR6 memory and new regulators to improve the overall performance of the platform. We expect that new SKUs coming out start mid-April will incorporate these newer hardware improvements, so might be a better idea to just wait a few weeks.

Image Courtesy: Nvidia

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