ASUS Lamborghini VX7Sx Notebook Hands-on Review

ASUS makes a lot of laptops but my personal favourite (I bought myself a VX6 last November) is the VX Lamborghini Series. So of course I was pretty excited to get a chance to have some hands-on time with the latest addition to the series, the ASUS Lamborghini VX7Sx.

The VX7Sx is a totally different beast than my Intel Atom platform VX6. This latest model is a 15.6-inch multimedia monster with a quad-core Intel Core i7-2760QM processor and specs that make gaming notebooks blush.

The Lamborghini VX7Sx features a quad-core second generation Intel processor

To start with, the VX7 has a massive 16GB of DDR3 memory (around 4x what you find in the average notebook), two 750GB 7,200rpm hard drives that combine for 1.5TB of storage capacity, and gaming graphics courtesy of an NVIDIA GTX 560M GPU with 3x the normal video memory – 3GB in total.

It doesn’t end there though, the VX7Sx has a ton of nice extras like Windows 7 Ultimate, a Blu-ray drive that’s perfect for movie night, and a high resolution 2 megapixel webcam.

The VX7 is finished in high gloss Carbon Fibre

The real story with the ASUS Lamborghini series has never been specs alone though. What is exciting about the VX7Sx is all the detail that goes into making this one of the most exclusive notebooks on the market.

The most obvious visual add-ons are Lamborghini Murcielago-inspired rear lights and exhaust vents and a high gloss Carbon Fibre lid that reminds me a lot of the hood of the Italian Supercar the VX7 takes its name from.

The traditional power button gets replaced by a "Start Engine" button that gets things going

But my favourite add-ons in this case are found under the lid.  The coolest touch in my opinion is the replacement of the traditional power button with a ‘Start Engine’ button that triggers the Lamborghini engine noise that I’ve come to love from the VX series.

Inside is a trapezoidal glass mouse pad, backlit keyboard, and leather palm rest

I’m also in love with the soft leather palm rest and trapezoidal glass touch pad – both welcome improvements over the typical plastic.  The keyboard too is not only chiclet style but also backlit so it’s easy to find the right keys in the dark.

Included free with the VX7 is a Lamborghini carry case that usually retails for $129

When you buy the VX7 you’ll get a few free add-ons too.  The most useful of these if you’re a student is a carry case that has what seems like dozens of pockets.  You get a padded compartment for the VX7, a second organizer compartment for your pens, textbooks, or whatever else you’re carrying, a front pouch for your wallet or phone, and even a pocket that looks designed to hold your umbrella!

Even better though is the free wireless mouse that comes with the Notebook – the WX-Lamborghini mouse.  This usually retails for nearly $80 and that price starts to make sense when you look at some of the detailing on it.  The WX mouse has a sleek angular look, leather side panels, a Lamborghini crest, and the best touch – a rubber scroll wheel designed to look like the Bridgestone rubber you find on the Murcielago.

The free WX-Lamborghini wireless mouse has a tire-inspired rubber scroll wheel

Sounds good?  The VX7Sx-DH71 retails for $2329.99 but we’ve seen it as low as $2,099.99 from some retailers.  Or, if you love the specs but aren’t a car fan there’s the similarly spec’ed ASUS G74Sx from the Republic of Gamers line-up.

So is the Lamborghini VX7Sx the best yet in the VX Series?  Let us know what you think in the comments.

Lava XOLO X900 review

The first Intel smartphone is here. After years of work, California based Intel announced the first smartphones with its own Atom chips at the Mobile World Congress earlier this year. Not able to secure the support of popular smartphone manufacturers like HTC and Samsung, company went ahead with Chinese tech giant Lenovo and relatively unknown Indian manufacturer Lava to launch the initial smartphones.

The name Lava doesn't inspire much confidence in Indian consumers. While the company launched its first smartphone in India last year, it hasn't been able to generate much buzz. Intel needed hardware partners, and Lava needed a product that would help shed its image of a feature-phone manufactuer. In many ways, XOLO is a partnership of convience for both sides..

X900 is technically the first Intel powered smartphone to ship worldwide; it is based on Intel's Medfield reference design and has been priced at Rs. 21,999. In this review, we will be find out if the first Intel smartphone is capable making a place for Intel in the smartphone chip market.

Hardware
We have seen quite a few beautiful devices in the last few weeks. Coming from Sony's Xperia S, Lava XOLO X900 is a tad less aesthetically pleasing but that shouldn't be taken as a negative for the smartphone.

For a device that mirrors the reference design, XOLO X900 looks polished and feels nice in hand. The overall design isn't revolutionary but it is some fine work and consumers won't be disappointed.

Featuring a rectangular shape, XOLO X900 reminds of iPhone 4/4S , it is similar in looks with the chrome ring, button placement and even the micro-SIM card slot, which isn't really bad.

The front of the X900 houses a 4.03-inch display with 1024x600p resolution, along with capacitive Android buttons, 1.3MP front camera, earpiece, MIC and a bunch of sensors. The micro-SIM card slot is present on the right side with two-stage dedicated camera button, volume rocker and speaker.

The matching second speaker for stereo sound is present on the left with HDMI-out port. The company hasn't clubbed any HDMI cable in the box, which would certainly have been a nice addition.

Bottom is pretty much clean apart from the Micro-USB cum charging port, while top includes power button and the 3.5mm headphone jack. On the rubberised back, consumers will find the 8MP camera, LED Flash, regulatory symbols, Intel and XOLO branding.

It might not be the thinnest or lightest phone around, but when it comes with real life usage, XOLO X900 works out pretty well.

Display
In the world of HTC One X and Apple iPhone 4S, manufacturers truly need some great work to compete with some really awesome display panels. WVGA no longer cuts and HD is the standard - anything less is simply a dissapointment for a top of the line smartpone.

Intel and Lava have opted something that falls in the middle - 1024x600p resolution; it is not very common for smartphones, but we have seen it in quite a few tablets including Kindle Fire and Samsung Galaxy Tab 620. It might not be 720p HD, but it is not a disappointment either. At its price, X900 will be competing with Motorola Atrix 2, Samsung Galaxy S Plus, which come with qHD and WVGA resolutions - thus X900 surely wins that race.

XOLO X900 features a 4.03-inch display, which is pretty decent and offers nice colour output and viewing angles. Although in comparison with the recent smartphones like HTC One X and Galaxy Nexus, we found it a tad underwhelming. But then that's a battle no one was expecting the X900 to win.

As the display has 295 pixels-per-inch, consumers would hardly notice any individual pixels on the device. Even the touch experience is great and we never had any problems with touch accuracy.

XOLO X900's display is also sufficiently bright and consumers will not have issues while operating the phone directly under the sun.

Camera
Cameras have become an integral part of smartphone experience these days, manufacturers are spending considerable amount of time and effort in bringing something unique and useful to the table. - The ImageSense enhancements in HTC One series of smartphones or Pureview technology in Nokia 808 are testament to the fact.

Intel and Lava have also tried to include their own set of improvements to the camera in X900 - let's see how they worked out.

X900 houses an 8-megapixel camera sensor in the smartphone, which has been clubbed with one of the most comprehensive camera apps we have seen in recent times. It also comes with something called Burst Shot, last seen in HTC One X, that allows consumers to click upto ten pictures in less than a second.

Lava and Intel even had a dancer at the X900 launch to clearly show how effective burst shots can be while taking shots of something that is in motion. It was the first feature that we tried on X900 and it work flawlessly. Overall, even in non-burst mode, the quality of still captures was a tad disappointing. We found it sub-par and looking at the cameras in other modern smartphones, it certainly lacked a bit.

Shots taken from the 5MP camera of Galaxy Nexus were better in colour output, vibrancy and details than shots the 8MP camera of XOLO X900.

The camera app on the smartphone also offers various colour filters like Sepia, BW, Negative, which can be applied directly in the app itself.

The video recording interface on the phone is similar to the still imaging UI and it allows you to shoot up to 1080p video, which is pretty much a standard in high-end smartphones. You can even apply the colour effects while recording a video or set white balance or zoom. The recording output is decent and looks good. Camera maintains auto-focus continuously, which helps in capturing long videos with a lot of movement.

The 1.3MP front camera is decent and you can even record 720p videos with it.

Software/ Interface
Give us some Ice Cream Sandwich - consumers with old Android phones have been shouting the same since November 2011, when ICS source code was publically released. Even if we forgive manufacturers for being super-late in providing updates for old smartphones, how can they launch a new smartphone with old operating system version on-board?

Intel and Lava have done the same with XOLO X900. When manufacturers like HTC could launch their One series of devices with ICS and a comprehensive UI on-board, there is no excuse for Intel or Lava to release X900 with Gingerbread.

Having said that, as a Gingerbread smartphone, XOLO X900 is quite decent as company has kept the interface as well the whole Android experience pretty much stock. There are no extra applications loaded on the smartphone apart from the XOLO Care app and the inclusion of Swype.

Talking about the app compatibility, being the new architecture for Android, there is a lot of confusion on which apps will be compatible with the phone's Intel x86 platforms. While apps like Facebook, Twitter, Barcode Scanner, Astro, Dropbox, and Instagram work flawlessly, several games ,Shadowgun, Deer Hunter, Backstab, Temple Run, and Asphalt 6 amongst them, aren't supported as of date.

We hope Intel is working proactively with developers to get such apps ready for the platform.

Performance /Battery Life
XOLO X900 recently became the first smartphone worldwide to ship with Intel's Atom Z2460 32nm SoC with processor clocked at up to 1.6 GHz. It also comes with a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU at 400 MHz, and a dual channel LPDDR2 memory.

Despite being powered a single-core processor, XOLO X900 performs at par with other smartphones in the same price-bracket, which are powered by dual-core processors. There is no-sluggishness or lag while going through menus or working with the applications.

Even before Intel entered the smartphone arena, a lot of questions were raised around the battery life of any future phones based on Intel processors. x86 has traditionally been seen as a power hungry platform, not suitable for use in smartphones and other devices where battery juice is at a premium.

The x86 power myth also seems busted as X900's battery backup is inline with any other competing high-end Android smartphone. Medium to heavy users will be able to pass the day with the smartphone's 1460 mAh battery.

The gaming performance in pretty good and most casual games worked flawlessly; although, we did miss many popular gaming titles because of incompatibility with the architecture.

Intel has clearly taken a big step with the first smartphone and it is certainly a worthy competitor, but there are few things that it needs work on - like app compatibility.

Verdict
While the Lava XOLO X900 performs pretty well for its price, the positioning as well as the branding might well end up hurting the phone. Although Lava has pitched it under the name XOLO, Indian consumers are very brand conscious and a 'Lava-made Rs. 22,000 phone' factor will surely play a lot of role in their buying decision. But, if you can look beyond the brand, XOLO X900 is worthy of consideration.

Ratings
Design: 3
Display: 3.5
Camera: 3
Performance: 3.5
Software: 3
Battery Life: 3.5
Value for Money: 3
Ecosystem: 3
Overall: 3.5

HTC One S Review

T-Mobile has had it tough over the last couple of years, culminating into a failed takeover bid by mobile networking giant AT&T.

The No. 4 network carrier in the US has since jumped on the LTE bandwagon, while also attempting an image re-branding and focusing on its fast 42MBps HSPA+ network, until the LTE network is ready to roll out in 2013. Strategic marketing aside, the best way to get back into the consumers’ good graces is to provide devices and plans that users actually want.

With this in mind, T-Mobile has added and will continue to add some hugely popular Android devices to its line up, such as the HTC One S, the Samsung Galaxy Note, and now the Samsung Galaxy S3. Today we take a look at one of T-Mobile’s flagship Android devices, the HTC One S.

Form Factor

Whatever complaints users may have about HTC’s One series lineup (no microSD, non-removable battery), the Taiwan-based manufacturer has gone all out in creating elegant and beautifully designed devices. While most manufacturers are leaning towards cheap, glossy plastics for their device bodies, the HTC One S features an unique aluminium unibody design, which was created by the much-talked about “micro-arc oxidization treatment.”

A glossy blue ring surrounds the camera lens at the back of the One S. On removing the SIM card panel, you can see that the blue color extends into the “internals” of the phone as well. There’s only a small cover that is removable at the top of the device for the SIM card. Granted, this means that the battery is non-removable, but it does add a touch of elegance to the design. The AMOLED display protected by a curved Corning Gorilla glass sheet extends into the body and gives a feel of  ”all screen.”
The One S is HTC’s thinnest device, at only 7.8mm thickness and is very light, weighing only 119.5g. While we’re seeing a shift to radically larger screen sizes, the 4.3″ display of the One S is optimal in my opinion. This makes one-handed use of the device very easy, and is a huge plus point for the device. The design is minimalist, with only the camera lens grabbing any attention. For me, simple and elegant has always been the key, and HTC has certainly stepped up with the design of the One S.

Specifications

Although the middle brother of the One series, the specifications of the One S is nothing to scoff at. Specs include:

• 4.3″ qHD super AMOLED display
• 960×540 resolution
• 1.5 Ghz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor
• 1GB RAM
• 16 GB internal storage, no microSD expansion
• Android 4.0 with HTC Sense 4.0
• 1,650 mAH battery
• Beats Audio

Display

The HTC One S features a qHD Super AMOLED display, with a resolution of 960×540, which is a notch lower than big brother One X, which features a super LCD 2 display, with a 1280×720 resolution. The debate of AMOLED vs LCD will rage on, but in the case of the One S, the display is bright with (mostly) sharp colors that really pop. Overall, it’s a pleasure to gawk at.

Software

The HTC One S, like all of HTC’s recent devices, features Android 4.0 with HTC Sense 4.0. Let’s take a look at some of the software highlights:

• Not many people prefer manufacturer UI overlays, but if I had to choose one, it would be the HTC Sense 4.0. The latest iteration of Sense allows for a lot of customization, with multiple options for skins and scenes. HTC has also tweaked a lot of stock ICS features, such as the method for closing recent apps, to give a more consistent feel. Also featured is a new lock screen that allows you to directly open up to 4 apps, as well as folders, directly from the lock screen. Beautiful animations and a much faster and lighter feel make Sense 4.o one of the better UI overlays available.
• You know there is a lot of bloatware when you have 4 pages of apps in the app drawer, and only 3 have been downloaded from the Play Store (see video). Apart from the HTC and Android pre-loaded apps, the T-Mobile device includes a lot of additional apps from the carrier, such as 411 & More, Game Base, Lookout Security, T-Mobile Hotspot, My T-Mobile, More for Me, T-Mobile Name ID, Polaris Office, and Where’s My Water. As usual, most of these pre-loaded apps cannot be uninstalled.
• Tapping the Home capacitive button or using a pinch gesture opens up a “top view” of all panels. From there, you can set which panel will be your homescreen and also add panels, if required.
• The Task Manager features RAM management and allows you to end all tasks at once. Settings include Automatic Startup and Memory Use notifications.
• Browser features include “View desktop site” mode, enable/disable flash player, HTML 5 support, and a convenient tab management system.
• Beats Audio integration across the board, for all audio and video needs. Unfortunately, can be used only with headphones.
• Multiple add-on widgets, elegant scrolling and other animations, task management options, easy folder creation, user customizations and tweak options, and fast performance combine to create an amazing user experience.

Performance

The dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor by Qualcomm is the SoC featured in a lot of top devices these days, and in every LTE-capable smartphone released in the US. Although, this is primarily because of the incompatibility issues with LTE radios, the dual-core S4 performs really well in in benchmark tests. The HTC One S features 1GB of RAM, which already seems dated with 2GB RAM becoming the new “minimum” requirement, but does not take away from performance in any way.
As you can see from the Quadrant benchmark, which is a CPU, I/O, and 3D graphics benchmark test, the HTC One S scored a 5073. This is a fairly high score, and in-fact, by a small margin, beat the score of the quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 powered international version of the HTC One X.

Camera

One of the best of the HTC One S features is its amazing camera technology. The One S features an 8MP BSI (back side illuminated) sensor, with a dedicated HTC ImageChip and HTC ImageSense technology. LED flash also allows for enhanced low-light performance. The One S also has a front-facing VGA camera with 720p HD video recording capability.
HTC has completely revamped the camera app, making it very easy and convenient to capture quick, high-quality images. Pressing and holding the camera button enables the burst shot mode, allowing you to capture up to 99 images per minute, with a further option to select a “Best Shot” or have the app select one for you.

Sample Image (Source: HTC)

The camera shutter button and video capture button are available at the same time, which is a time-saver and removes the need for toggling between modes. Even better is the ability to capture images while shooting video, which can also be done after a video shoot is completed.

There are numerous settings, video options, image options, and filters, that provides an amazing camera experience. Truly, with the advances in smartphone camera technology, the need for a point-and-shoot camera is slowly becoming a memory.

Video

Conclusion

HTC has done a lot of things right with the ultra-thin and lightweight HTC One S, with its optimal screen size, elegant design, amazing display, great camera, and software enhancements to complement the powerful hardware. The One S is available exclusively from T-Mobile, but I’m surprised that other network carriers haven’t picked this device up as a mid-range alternative to the HTC One X and its variations. This means that if the HTC One S is the device for you, you will have to switch to T-Mobile’s network. But if you’re an existing customer, you should definitely check out this amazing device.

What are your thoughts? Will you buying the HTC One S? Let us know in the comments section below.