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VOLUME 17 ISSUE 9

PROTECTED BY

10.60 12.70 (WM) (EM)

PERSONA 5 GIGANTIC GT SPORTS BETA

ASUS ZENFONE 4 SELFIE PRO MOTO Z2 PLAY AMD RYZEN 3

GAMETIME SEPTEMBER 2017

TESTED

SEPTEMBER 2017

CONTENTS

Predator Helios 300

12 14

WIRE Acer Day!

44 49

COVER STORY GIZMOS

16 Staying Connected with ASUS 17

On a Green Mission

18 The Huawei Experience 19 Fashion Goes Digital 20 Mixing Exercise and Music 24 Delighting Us Always 26 Celebrate with Wiko 28 Breakthrough TV Technology

Million Dollar Kickstarters

30 Home Entertainment Excitement 33 zGold-MOLPoints is Here! 34 Kickstart Your Career with Digi 38 Successor to the Orpheus 40 Buying encryption? 42 Huawei Does It Again 2 SEPT 2017

PIXELS

CONTENTS

BIZ2.0

90 Print & Protect 91 Enhancing Power and Precision 95 Reuse and Recycle Printed Paper

TESTED

58 ASUS Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro 60 Moto Z2 Play 62 AMD Ryzen 3 1200 64 Lenovo Legion Y720 66 ROG Rapture GT-AC5300

96 98

SPOTLIGHT INVIEW

67 ROG Rapture GT-AC5300

TESTED

68 nubia M2 69 Huawei Watch 2 70 ASUS ROG Strix X370-F Gaming LG 27UD88W 72 Thermaltake Core G21 TG 73 Sony Mobile Projector MP-CL1A 74 JOI Remix Mini Android PC 75 Cooler Master Masterbox 5t 77 Netgear Baby Arlo Monitor 79 DJI Spark 81 Thermaltake Water 3.0 X120 4 SEPT 2017

102

GAMETIME

102

Stealing Hearts in Style

106

Too Big for its Boots

108

Beta-Testing A Grand Tour

110

First Time for Everything

112

Release the Raider

114

Liquid Have Done It!

116

The Predator Rises

117

AMD Takes it Further

EDITOR’S NOTE

H A WORD FROM THE EDITORIAL TEAM

ello from the team! September marks three quarters of the year and the tech scene isn’t slowing down! One of the biggest announcements this month, we have Samsung launching its long-awaited Galaxy Note 8. Flip to page 36 to find out how the device looks like. With a rumoured price tag of close to RM5,000, the Note 8 seems to be joining the ranks of latest premium smartphones with a price tag breaching the RM 3,000 mark. That is also the topic for our cover story this issue. With the price of premium flagship phones steadily increasing, are the devices really worth its worthy price tag? We break it down on page 44. Besides a wallet slimming price tag, smartphone manufacturers are also competing for camera quality. Well, more than just letting the companies tell us which phone carries the best cameras – we pitched them head to head with a shootout. Wanna know which phones gives you the best photos? Zoom in to page 83 for the Showdown. While the tech giants rake in big money from sales of its latest devices, many startups take to Kickstarter for the next big venture. From wireless speakers to hi-tech jackets, we look at some of the projects worth over a million dollars USD. Curious? Page 49 has it all. Fresh from our labs this month we gave the newly released ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro a spin – all the way from Taiwan! Also featured in Tested this issue we have the mod king – Moto Z2 Play, as well as the Huawei Watch 2 and the DJI Spark. All that and more starting from page 56. On the gaming end, Persona 5 stole our hearts this month. We’d be reluctant to disclose any more than that – just forward to page 102. We also dropped by PSX, the Playstation Experience, to see what Sony has in store for the upcoming season. That and more gaming news from page 110. All that and more, serving right up! P.s. If you’re curious about who are the winners of our Wiko Merdeka Contest, head over to page 26.

Editor’s Review pg.58

ASUS Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro

6 SEPT 2017

CMY

THE M TEA

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Mailbox From

Aaron Amir

Subject

Selfie Smartphone

If I’m looking for a selfie smartphone, which should I go for?

LETTER OF THE MONTH

Hello Aaron, great to hear from you! You could try to go for the vivo V5s, the ASUS ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro or the Huawei Nova 2 Plus. You can also read our review on the ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro and Nova 2 Plus in our ‘Tested’ section for this month. From

Cheong Sher-lee

Subject

Puchasing Gizmos Items

Hi, I’m interested in your Gizmos section. Can I purchase any of the items from Malaysia or is there a distributor here?

Sorry Sher-lee, all the items listed in our Gizmos section can only be purchased online. Fortunately, we provided the links to the products as well as the pricing. Hope this helps!

From

Sharlini M.

Subject

Samsung Note 8 or iPhone 8?

CMY

Is the Samsung Note 8 worth buying or should I wait for the iPhone 8? I’m currently using the iPhone 7. If you’re a long-time iPhone user, it would be best to stick with the iPhone 8 as you are already familiar with how the device works whereas switching from the iOS to Android platform would definitely take some getting used to. In the end, it’s all about your personal preference and which you’re comfortable with. Happy shopping Sharlini!

STALK US ON

10 SEPT 2017

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WIRE

Up Your Selfie Game ASUS launches their ZenFone 4 series

SUS launches its ZenFone 4 series in Taiwan, showing off five new smartphones for the line-up. Apart from the flagship ZenFone 4 and ZenFone 4 Pro, ASUS also launched two smartphones focusing on its front camera capabilities, aptly named ZenFone 4 Selfie and ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro. As per previous iterations, the ZenFone 4 comes in a battery priority version as well â&#x20AC;&#x201C; ZenFone 4 Max Pro. Smartphones that will be landing on Malaysian shores will be the ZenFone 4 Max Pro, the ZenFone 4 Selfie and the ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro. All devices will come with a 5.5-inch screen, running Android 7 with ZenUI 4.0 out of the box. The ZenUI 4.0 has been upgraded with new features from its predecessor, with much less bloatware.

12 SEPT 2017

The flagship ZenFone 4 (priced at US$399) is set to come later in the year, while the ZenFone 4 Pro (priced at US$599) might join the Malaysian retail shelves a few weeks after the availability of the Selfie. No local prices have been announced for Malaysia yet. Rumour has it, the ZenFone 4 variant in Malaysia will be sporting a Snapdragon 630 with 64GB storage and 6GB RAM. Headlining the series is the ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro. With a mid-range Snapdragon 625 Octa Core processor, it will be stocked with 64GB storage and 4GB RAM. The Selfie Pro uses dual front camera giving 24-megapixel

resolution. The rear camera brings 16-megapixel at F2.2. ZenFone Selfie will be priced at RM1,299, sporting a Snapdragon 430, 64GB storage, 4GB RAM and 3,000mAh battery. The dual front camera combines a 20-megapixel resolution with 120-degree wide angle lens. As per the Pro version, the rear camera comes in at 16-megapixel. The Zenfone 4 Max Pro will be sporting the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 Quad Core processor. Coming with 32GB storage and 3GB RAM, it is fitted with a massive 5,000mAh battery. Like its siblings in the line-up, it will feature a 16-megapixel front camera along with a dual rear camera. The devices are available for sale in Malaysia from 25 August onwards. ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro retails with bundle gifts including selfie sticks, an OTG cable, micro USB cable, screen protector, 16GB micro SD card and a 10,050mAh ASUS ZenFone powerbank worth RM99. The Zenfone 4 Selfie and ZenFone 4 Max comes with the same bundle, sans the 16GB micro SD card. ASUS guaranteed that all ZenFone 4 will be upgraded to the latest announced Android 8.0 Oreo. ASUS ZenFone 3 will also receive ZenUI 4.0 upgrade, with Android O upgrade as well.

13 SEPT 2017

WIRE

Acer Day Acer launches brand new products alongside updates on its older machines

From left to right: Elsie Chong, Johnson Seet, Karen Chiang, Chan Weng Hong and Jeffrey Lai showing off the newly launched Acer devices

Model posing with the newly launched Acer Switch 5 featuring the patented auto-retracting kickstand

14 SEPT 2017

cer launches its new fleet of machines, which include a mixture of both lifestyle and gaming to join its already extensive lineup in the market. The first product lends a hand to the entry-level segment as the Acer One 10 arrives with the Intel Atom X5 processor. Sporting a 1280x800 HD IPS touch panel with a magnetic latch-less hinge, the Acer One 10 allows for the unique ability to function in four different modes. It can be used as a notebook while flipping the keyboard will prop up the screen to a tent and the other two modes allows it to be displayed just like a regular tablet.

Although introduced last year, the Acer Swift 3 comes with an update, which compromises of two new colours: Stellar Blue and Salmon Pink. It also now has a 15.-6-inch variation in its line-up. Following up on that, Acer also introduces the Switch 5, using the Switch Alpha 12 as a base. The Switch 5 comes with the latest Kaby Lake processor from Intel alongside Acer’s very own Liquidloop fan-less cooling system. The Switch 5 will also feature an auto-retracting kickstand with a new stylus, which has increased sensitivity to make it more accurate than ever. Meanwhile, Acer’s Aspire series also receives an update in the form of two new all-in-one desktops: a 27-inch U27 and a 23.8-inch Z24. These two new devices will be powered by the 7th Gen. i7 and i5 Intel Core processor respectively. While the U27 will come with Acer’s Liquidloop technology, the Z24 boasts a NVIDIA 940MX GPU with 16GB Intel Optane Memory. Both devices will feature Acer’s ExaColor, BlueLightShield and Flickerless technology, which will increase the overall picture quality of the devices while reducing eye fatigue in the process.

15 SEPT 2017

WIRE

Staying Connected with ASUS

ASUS introduces its new gaming router alongside its new home networking system

ick of dead Wi-Fi spots in your home and looking to fix that problem? ASUS is here to help with Lyra, the new whole-home, tri-band Wi-Fi mesh networking system. This multi-hub system eradicates any dead spots in your home with the help of a central hub and other satellite hubs scattered around your home. The ASUS Lyra is not only fast and efficient, it is also easy-to-use as well as install, all of which can be done through the ASUS Lyra mobile app. Connecting via Bluetooth, the app helps users with the initial setup, gives you full network settings control and even when you want to add more hubs to your networking system. Gaming routers are nothing new, ASUS has finally launched its very own gaming router, the ASUS Rapture GT-AC5300. Featured with the router is the ASUS ROG Gaming Centre, the one-stop, easy-to-use interface that gives you control over all aspects of your home network. You will also be able to check on your current internet status and stability while the Game Radar feature allows users to check on the current server ping speeds for selected games from around the world.

16 SEPT 2017

The ROG Rapture GT-AC5300 also offers tri-band Wi-Fi with two separate 5GHz bands and a 2.4GHz band. This allows users to create a separate network on one of the two 5GHz bands to focus solely on gaming while leaving the other free. At the core of the router is the 1.8GHz quad-core 64-bit CPU, which provides enough power without any deterioration in performance. Aside from two USB 3.0 ports, the GT-AC5300 features an eight-port gigabit-LAN switch to provide all the connections necessary (two of which are dedicated gaming ports to maximise network traffic for gaming).

"It is easy-touse as well as install, all of which can be done through the ASUS Lyra mobile app."

On a Green Mission OKI Data achieves Malaysia’s Green Recognition Scheme, MyHIJAU with printing solutions

n conjunction with the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) Green Day 2017 celebration in PULAPOL, OKI Data announces its success in achieving the MyHIJAU Certificate for its range of eco-friendly printers and multifunction printers (MFP). Working towards a greener environment, PDRM is taking the initiative by using eco-friendly and green products from OKI Data. Approximately 1,800 units of MyHijau certified OKI printers and MFP’s within the country’s police force – touted to OKI Data’s biggest installed base in the region. “Our range of printers and MFPs are eco-friendly and cost-effective;

From left: Dato’ Sri Zulkifli Abdullah, Director of Bukit Aman’s Internal Security and Public Order Department (KDN/KA) CP; Goh Yin Hwang, Country Manager of OKI Data; Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Noor Rashid Ibrahim, Deputy Inspector-General of Police and Nurul Zaleha from OKI Data

these performance-led devices help to preserve and conserve the environment,” says Goh Yin Hwang, Country Manager of Oki Data (S) Pte Ltd – Malaysia Rep Office. “With the MyHIJAU certificates, OKI hopes to set a benchmark for others to make a better choice for the environment.” Mono printers that are certified as green products include B412dn, B431dn+, B432dn, B512dn and B731dnw meanwhile the colour printers are C531dn, C532dn, C612dn, C712dn, C833dn and C911dn. In addition, multifunction printers include MB492dn, MC363dn and MC573dn have been certified under MyHIJAU as well.

"These performanceled devices help to preserve and conserve the environment.” 17 SEPT 2017

WIRE

The Huawei Experience Huawei’s VP of Handset Business talks about all things Huawei and the future

ith this being only his second time in Malaysia and the first ever time stepping foot into Kuala Lumpur, the Vice President of Handset Business for the Huawei Consumer Business Group, Bruce Lee talks about Huawei’s upcoming flagship, amongst other things. Although nothing was neither confirmed nor denied when it came to the eagerly-anticipated flagship, the soon-to-be-revealed Mate 10 will feature Huawei’s latest HiSilicon Kirin 970 chipset. Alongside that, the Mate 10 will come with an increase in performance, endurance and a more compact screen without compromising on size.

18 SEPT 2017

The focus of the Kirin 970 chipset looks towards doubling on the performance that was set from its predecessor, the Kirin 960, which was used in the Huawei P10, P10 Plus and even the Honor 8 and Honor 8 Pro. Aside from boosting performance levels, Huawei will be looking to reduce the power consumption on its Kirin chipsets, which will benefit Huawei users to have smartphones with longer-lasting battery lifespans. 4G and 5G networks are also a topic for discussion with Lee, who talks about the need for more 4G and 5G networks, which will be able to get the most out of Huawei smartphones. Aside from giving greater speeds and faster downloads, 5G networks will

also feature lower transmission latency and even lower power consumption on Huawei smartphones, making it an ideal choice for consumers. Lee is also looking to leverage on its partnership with Android to ensure future devices will run smoothly on the EMUI 5.0 operating software and beyond. After getting the burning questions about the Mate 10 out of the way, Lee also touches on how Huawei smartphones will be integrated with artificial intelligence (AI) as he hopes to further introduce AI into more aspects in the future. In terms of technological innovation, Lee talks about the rising popularity of Type-C USBs and views it as a potential trend in the future.

Fashion Goes Digital Epson print technology empowers fashion designers during KL Fashion Week

he world of fashion and digital printing collides as award-winning fashion designer Melinda Looi and Espon Malaysia came together on the runway of the Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week (KLFW) 2017. Showcasing an innovative collaboration through THE INTERIORS collection, Looi draws inspiration from the decorative elements and components of interior space, and translating them digital textile printing via Epson’s SureColor F-series digital textile dye sublimation printer. A total of 20 creations were featured during the runway show. The use of Epson printers gave Looi a wide range of flexibility and speed in trying out new print ideas, without the exorbitant cost and time consuming mould or frame-making that is required for conventional textile printing.

Speaking more about how technology makes all these creative impulses possible, Looi says: “I believe that technology adds an incredible advantage to apply innovation in the fashion industry. A number of different technologies are currently being experimented with, such as 3D printing and I did launch Asia’s first 3D printed fashion collection back in 2013. We even have e-textiles nowadays, with circuits built into it.” Addressing the big trend in the fashion industry, which is ‘see now, buy now’, the designer believes that digital printing makes this much easier. She adds: “We do not have to print thousands of meters of fabric, only what is needed, when is needed. In fact, I am most impressed with the quality of prints by Epson’s digital textile dye sublimation printers, which is very clear, beautiful

and durable on a wide range of textiles and surfaces we tried it on.” Danny Lee, General Manager, Sale & Marketing, Epson Malaysia comments: “Working with Melinda Looi, who is known for her signature avant-garde style and her penchant for marrying prints into design, was perfect to showcase the versatility and capabilities of Epson’s digital textile printers and the opportunities it brings to the fashion industry. “This collaboration continues our efforts from last year when we collaborated in a similar fashion with Zang Toi at the Malaysia Fashion Week 2016. As a leader in digital textile printing we want to support the creative industry in Malaysia to easily materialise any possible idea into a reality, and potentially, a business opportunity too.” 19 SEPT 2017

WIRE

Mixing Exercise and Music

Introducing the Jaybird X3 and Freedom Headphones

he active lifestyle deserves good tunes and a proper set of headphones to match. Jaybird is a company that has been manufacturing sports buds for a better part of the decade. Is there a difference between regular earphones and sport earphones? Sweat is probably one of the worst enemies of tech, and for the earphones is no different. Jaybirdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s earphones are designed to be sweat-proof. After its acquisition by Logitech, they are now officially available in Malaysia by way of a new distributor, Funsportz Sdn. Bhd. Jaybird introduces the X3 and Freedom wireless earphones. As we see more headphone jacks disappear from smartphones, wireless communication for audio vital.

20 SEPT 2017

The X3 Sport Bluetooth Headphones brings larger sound, thanks to an enhanced 6mm driver, as well as its smaller size, making it the first in the X-Series to be helmet compatible. The redesigned enhanced-comfort ear fins and selection of ear tips provides a universal snug fit during the toughest of workouts. Thanks to Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity, users can now pair two sets of X3 headphones to one device and even pair the X3 to two devices simultaneously. On a single charge, the battery will last eight hours. With the Jaybird app users can setup the sound profiles for their personal preference. Meanwhile, the Freedom Wireless Bluetooth Buds Headphones combine sophisticated style, incredible sound and

increased comfort in the smallest, advanced wireless earbuds which rivals anything in the wired world. On-the-go charging provides truly infinite battery life, with hour hours on the buds and an additional four hours on the included charging clip. Users can customise your sound settings with the Jaybird app and save them to your buds.

GREEN PRINTERS OKI Data’s unwavering commitment of going green pays off with MyHIJAU certification

B The MyHIJAU certified printers are available at selected authorised OKI partners. To find out more, visit the OKI website (www.oki.com.my) or call 1800-88-1177.

eing environmentally-conscious has always played a big part in OKI Data’s business strategy, whether it is through their services or products. Featuring a wide range of printers and multifunction printers (MFPs) in its repertoire of green products, OKI offers individuals and business owners printing solutions that are both efficient and cost-effective. Through the innovative LED technology in OKI printers and MFPs, which generates ample light on very little power, it allows the company to be energy efficient. The LED Technology enables the brand to also reduce the amount of plastic used in its printers, as well as making them have a smaller physical footprint. Always keeping its users in mind, its printers and MFPs are equipped with features and performance enhancing functions, all while keeping costs low. An example is the duplex printing function, which comes standard in its portfolio of green printers, as it enables users to reduce paper usage. Complementing this feature is its toner saving function that reduces toner consumption – making it possible to lessen the printers’ impact on the environment. Notably, another function that has contributed to OKI’s green efforts is the sleep mode function. By reducing energy consumption when the printers are not in operation, it helps users to save energy. Newer models in the category come equipped with a quiet mode to further reduce noise and energy consumption.

As print speed is correlated with energy consumption, OKI’s micro-capsule toner helps to limit and reduce energy consumption substantially compared to conventional toner. Additionally, OKI’s green products are designed to separate the toner from drum. Each toner has a different replacement schedule; the separation of toners allows users to reduce waste caused by throwing out drums that could still be used. What this means for users is the possibility of fully utilising the lifespan of each toner. With the lengthened lifecycle of its components, parts that traditionally have gone to waste are reduced. Moreover, designs that were created to simplify disassembly and reuse has also helped OKI save resources in constructing its products. Over the years, OKI’s printers and MFPs have achieve the Energy Star 2.0 and Blue Angel certifications. OKI’s consistent effort has once again proven that being green is the way to go. Adding to the list is the Malaysian Green Technology Corporation (GreenTech Malaysia) MyHIJAU Certificate – an accolade that OKI Data obtained recently in conjunction with the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) Green Day 2017 celebration. Among the green products to receive the MyHIJAU Certification include the B412dn, B431dn+, B432dn, B512dn and B731dnw mono printers, as well as the C531dn, C532dn, C612dn, C712dn, C833dn and C911dn colour printers. A range of its MPFs, namely the MB492dn, MC363dn and MC573dn, have also been certified under MyHIJAU. SEPTEMBER 2017

SEPT 2017 51

WIRE

Delighting Us Always Canon Marketing Malaysia turns 30 !

n conjunction with Canon’s 80th anniversary, it’s also the same time Canon Marketing Malaysia celebrates its 30th anniversary with a huge bash known as the ‘Tropical Fruits Fiesta’. Aside from treating the media with an abundance of local fruits like durians, mangosteens, rambutans, longan, jackfruits and coconuts, Canon Marketing Malaysia 24 SEPT 2017

introduces the Canon EOS 6D Mark II Nationwide Tour between the month of August and September. It will provide a photo clinic as well as camera loan services for the 29th SEA Games while also looking to enrol participants into the much-anticipated Canon PhotoMarathon XI 2017. We also got to take a tour of the Canon Marketing Malaysia office in the

Canon Tower, located in UOA Business Park, right beside the Federal Highway. From taking a historic visit of Canon’s 80 years of being in the business, we were also treated to test out the latest cameras in its showroom, which also includes the EOS-1DX Mark II. It came paired with the EF800mm f/5.6L IS USM telephoto lens, the longest telephoto lens.

The Next Step Forward Vivo expands its reach in more than one way

igi Telecommunications partners with VivoTechnologies Sdn Bhd to allow Vivo’s flagship smartphone, the Vivo V5s and V5Plus to be made available at all nationwide Digi outlets. The Vivo V5Plus features a dual selfie camera setup that creates an effect that is even comparable to large aperture DLSR cameras. One of the cameras is composed of a 20-megapixel IMX376 primary front camera that is co-engineered with Sony and an 8-megapixel secondary camera for depth-of-field information. Apart from that, it has a 5.5-inch full HD display and is powered by a 2.0GHz Snapdragon 625 chip with 4GB RAM, 64GB internal storage and complete with a built-in 3,160mAh battery under its hood.

On the other hand, the Vivo V5s comes with a 20-megapixel front camera that is also co-engineered with Sony, allowing users to capture the perfect selfie, even in low-light conditions. The 5.5-inch body is designed using a special mirror grinding technique for a comfortable fit and a display made of the Corning Gorilla Glass 3 with enhanced scratch resistance. In other news, Vivo collaborated with the fifth installation of the Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week ‘Ready To Wear’ (KLFW RTW) 2017 and held an exclusive ‘Vivo Night’, combining both the fashion and technology industry. During the event, Rizman Ruzaini and House of Doll by Fazura took the chance to showcase their new collection. “Being part of KL Fashion Week, it was a great experience engaging with the most stylish and fabulous crowd of Kuala Lumpur! And we are proud that we could share the journey with our followers online through the lens of vivo V5s and V5Plus,” says Mike Xu, Managing Director of Vivo Malaysia. The participation of Vivo in KL Fashion Week 2017 is a testimony to the fact that Vivo sees itself as more than just a device brand, but is also a lifestyle brand that today’s consumers can relate with. 25 SEPT 2017

WIRE

Keeping it Cool Wirelessly

11Street Brings First Fujiaire WiFi Air Conditioner

ue to the increase in demand when it comes to smart home integration, 11street Malaysia is partnering up with Fujiaire Sales and Service Sdn Bhd to reach out to more digital consumers, offering the first Wi-Fi-enabled air conditioner exclusively on 11street. This partnership shines the spotlight to the Fujiaire Shibui Skin Series that epitomises the fine blend of classicism and contemporary innovation, aiming to provide a modern living experience for todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home owners. The air conditioner comes to life with the imbued AC Freedom Control App that allow users to interact with the unit through a mobile device. Users will have the flexibility to monitor, schedule and control the temperature of the room even from a distance, turning the device into the air conditionerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s remote control.

From Left to Right: Chuljin Yoon, Chief Operating Officer of 11street and Tan Poh Ai, Chief Executive Officer of Fujiaire (M) Sales and Service Sdn. Bhd. launching the Fujiaire Shibui Skin Series.

Celebrate with Wiko I

Three lucky winners walked away with Wiko smartphones

n conjunction of the recently Merdeka celebrations, Wiko Malaysia and PC.com gave away not one, not two, but three Wiko smartphones to three lucky winners. Tiffany Ooi, Kwa Ming Shen and Afiz Mohd Noor @ Abd Aziz walked away with a brand new unit of Wiko uFeel Prime, uFeel Fab and uFeel Go respectively. The Wiko uFeel Go brings to the party an affordable price tag, but with above-the-paygrade specs. It has a quadcore processor with 2GB RAM, 4G LTE capable, HD display with a 5-inch screen and a large 4,000mAh battery. The Wiko uFeel Fab is the big boy of the range, thanks to its quad-core processor, HD 5.5-inch screen, 3GB of RAM, 4G LTE and 26 SEPT 2017

a 13-megapixel camera at the back. For something a bit more upmarket, the Wiko uFeel Prime comes with a 5-inch Full HD

display, an octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM, and the 13-megapixel Sony IMX 258 Sensor for incredible photos every time.

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WIRE

Breakthrough TV Technology LG brings forth three new TV’s with breathtaking design and technology

hen it comes to introducing ground-breaking technology and innovation into its TVs, no one does it quite like LG, who introduces no less than three new TVs into the market. The three TVs are the LG Signature G7 OLED 4K TV, the LG Signature W7 OLED TV and the LG Super UHD TV with Nano Cell technology. First up is the Signature G7 OLED 4K TV, which features a picture-on-glass design to give the impression the images are floating on air. Measuring at only 2mm thin, the Signature G7 OLED 4K is the largest OLED TV currently in Malaysia with a 77-inch display panel. The TV itself comes with active HDR and diverse HDR formats, which includes HDR10, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Paired with LG’s OLED technology that promises the Perfect Black and Perfect Colour, it is a cinematic experience like no other. The Signature W7 OLED TV shares similar traits to the G7 but features a different design. The W7 OLED comes with a picture-on-wall design, which allows the TV to virtually blend itself into the wall. Lastly is the LG Super UHD TV with Nano Cell technology, which promises unprecedented colour accuracy compared to conventional TVs. Aside from providing colour accuracy, the LG Super UHD TV ensures colour consistency through wider viewing angles of up to 60°.

28 SEPT 2017

VIVO VIVACONTEST LA VIVO

CONTEST

Continuing Vivo’s legacy of delivering users “Perfect Selfies”, the Vivo V5s takes photo-taking to a whole new level. It is equipped with an advanced 20-megapixels front camera, and further complemented with a revolutionary Selfie Softlight feature – allowing users to achieve clear and vivid selfies that are also natural-looking. One of the advantages of using the new Selfie Softlight feature is being able to create a lighting effect that is comparable to being in front of professional photography lights. Additionally, the function captures radiant complexions even in low-light condition. Offering selfie-lovers ease of use, Vivo’s Face Beauty 6.0 function gives users the ability to beautify selfies in just one click. Furthemore, with the introduction of the Group Selfie feature, you are now able to capture every smile in a group shot without squeezing in or missing anyone. If you’re looking for the “Perfect Selfie”, look no further than the Vivo V5s. This month, PC.com will be giving away one (1) unit of the Vivo V5s to one lucky reader. This contest is brought to you by PC.com and Vivo Malaysia. All you have to do is answer this question: Q: Name one of the features on the Vivo V5s that helps users achieve great selfies. And complete this sentence: I want to win the Vivo V5s because… (in 20 words or less)

The last day to enter the contest is on the 30 September 2017 and all entries must be submitted through postal mail. Winners will be notified after the last submission date by Reach Publishing Sdn. Bhd.

Mail your entries to: Vivo V5s Contest c/o Reach Publishing Sdn. Bhd. 15-3, Block F1, Jalan PJU 1/42, Dataran Prima, 47301, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.

WIRE

30 SEPT 2017

Home Entertainment Excitement

Sony BRAVIA launches a new lineup of home entertainment products

s Sony introduced the BRAVIA A1 HDR OLED TV a couple of months back, it now unveils a new line-up of home entertainment products looking to complement its BRAVIA TV series. With the objective of beautifying the everyday home with state-of-the-art technology, Sony calls its line-up the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Slice of Livingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; concept. With the key component of its Slice of Living concept focusing on minimalism, Sony kept its focus solely on sound bars, like the all-new HT-MT300 and HT-MT500. These 2.1CH sound bars with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi respectively features a subwoofer that is meant to

be placed under a sofa to provide an optimal balance of sound. The HT-RT40 5.1CH Home Cinema System also makes an appearance that comes with tall rear speakers, giving a wholesome, balanced and well-rounded cinematic experience in your own home. Another sound bar to also impress is the HT-CT800 2.1CH sound bar with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD while being able to accommodate 4K. While the BRAVIA A1 is the main highlight, there are other TVs making an appearance, like the X9300E, 65X8500E and X8000E during the Slice of Living showcase.

31 SEPT 2017

WIRE

zGold-MOLPoints is Here! Razer and MOLPay launches its zGold-MOLPoints for all Malaysian gamers

Official Launch ceremony of zGold-MOLPoints in Malaysia which was officiated by special guests Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Vincent Tan, Founder of Berjaya Corporation Berhad, Min-Liang Tan, Co-Founder and CEO of Razer and Preecha Praipattarakul, Group Chief Executive Officer, MOL Group, Inc.

ost gamers would be familiar with Razer’s virtual credit system known as zGold, who are now partnering up with MOL’s MOLPoints to become zGold-MOLPoints. With MOL’s rebranding of its virtual credit system, this will take both brands to new heights for gamers across Malaysia and the rest of the Southeast Asian region. This partnership will not only accelerate the growth of both Razer and MOLPoints, making it the one-stop destination for Southeast Asian gamers to purchase zGold-MOLPoints. It can then be used to purchase over 2,500 content titles from MOL’s network. The launch of zGold-MOLPoints is accompanied by zGold-MOLPoints AFK @ Malaysia, a two-day event where

32 SEPT 2017

even the Co-Founder and CEO of Razer, Min-Liang Tan made an appearance to sign autographs. “Our ultimate vision is to provide a unified virtual credits system for gamers and our partnership with MOL is helping

us to achieve that,” said Tan. “This is all part of our commitment to give value back to the gaming community by offering a universe of digital content, secure and convenient payments and a unique gamer rewards program.”

WIRE

Kickstart Your Career with Digi Year two of the Digi CXO Apprentice Programme

ith the first batch of the Digi CXO Apprentice Programme having already been successful, Digi kickstarts the second year of its programme with seven new candidates from a diverse pool of 1,100 applicants. These seven new apprentices will be paired with their respective CXO mentors from Digi, which includes Kesavan Sivabalan, Chief Technology Officer; Loh Keh Jiat, Chief Marketing Officer; and Albern Murty, Chief Financial Officer to name a few. “It was a challenge to shortlist candidates because they were all well rounded in terms of their academic achievements, internship experience and their involvement in extracurricular activities. This year, we used a game based assessment which gave us an additional data point on filtering the candidates via an aptitude test,” says Haroon Bhatti, Digi’s

Year 1 Digi CXO Apprentices in black, with Year 2 Digi CXO Apprentices in yellow.

Chief HR Officer. “It is important for us to look beyond academic success and to be able to assess each candidates’ abilities in a way that allows us to see their potential

in an everyday business environment. Ultimately, we want every candidate who applies for the programme to have the best possible opportunity to be selected.”

Property Made Easy

Mudah.my aims to be no.1 in property search

he property side of Mudah. my (Mudah Property) is aiming to become Malaysia’s leading property portal by utilising Big Data powered products, and master the power of simplicity by making it easy for customers to fulfil their property needs and more. “The current economic environment presents a tremendous opportunity for us to help Malaysians but a home, find a place to rent, while also helping owners sell or rent out their property,” comments Gaurav Bhasin, CEO of Mudah.my. According to ComScore, 801,000 users in Malaysia accessed Mudah.my from their desktop computers and mobile devices in May alone this year, which accounts to a total of 33 million minutes.

34 SEPT 2017

Gaurav Bhasin, CEO of Mudah.my Sdn. Bhd and Ayda Jebat, who presented a song exclusively for Mudah.my called 'Eazy Peazy'.

With its ‘One-Click Search’ filter tool, Mudah Property allow users to choose from a wide selection of listings from over 290,000 properties for sale and rent. When combined with Big Data powered recommendations, the

platform can help users make betterinformed property decisions. Additionally, Mudah Property also offer various services relating to property, such as home renovations, furnishings and home appliances.

Coming Together to Go Further iPay88 gives support to SMEs and micro eRetailers

n efforts to provide a platform for SMEs and micro eRetailers to contribute to the domestic and export revenue, #MYCYBERSALE 2017 is back for the fourth time, with iPay88 Sdn Bhd as the Premier Payment Gateway Partner. Themed ‘Catalysing Micro Enterprises and Global Trade’, Malaysia’s biggest annual online sale is set to happen from 9 to 13 October 2017, at a larger scale of at least 1,000 eTailers and merchants participating. A collaboration between Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and the National ICT Association of Malaysia (PIKOM), the #MYCYBERSALE 2017 is predicted to lead to another record-breaking year for online sales with the target of RM300 million (mn).

Last year, during the #MYCYBERSALE period, iPay88 recorded a significant spike of 65% online transactions via its payment gateway systems, from RM21.6mn to RM35.6mn. This year, iPay88 is investing more than RM500,000 to cover complementary merchant promotions during the #MYCYBERSALE 2017 period, to further encourage the participation of more SME merchants in the event. There will also be cash prizes of RM3,000, RM2,000 and RM1,000 for the top three merchants with the highest number of successful transactions, along with 0.5% cash rebates of successful transactions. Executive Director of iPay88, Chan Kok Long shares: “To further help drive participation of more new SMEs at this

Co-Founder and Executive Director of iPay88, Chan Kok Long

online sale event, between 1 August and 31 October 2017, 50% of setup fees will be discounted on new SME package sign-ups or new product sign-ups (with exception for mPOS and Alipay Barcode Payment). Micro eRetailer enterprises and SMEs should not miss the opportunity to be part of this significant event.”

Made Specifically for You

iflix’s new feature revolutionises the way we watch TV

ince going live in May 2015, iflix rapidly established a clear leadership position in emerging markets and passionately focuses on local customer experiences. The service has seen extraordinary growth across all segments of the business over the last 12 months, setting a new standard for delivering a world-class streaming entertainment service. Finally, iflix announces its all-new revamped and improved iflix experience and features. The upgrade represents the latest evolution to the service that focuses on individual customer experience. New features such as Channels, Add and Follow will be applied to enable significantly deeper personalised experiences and intuitive ways of discovering new content.

Working with traditional studios and channel providers, the Channels feature showcases many of the world’s best and most exciting entertainment, along with users’ favourite content genres in a dynamic interface that is easy to navigate. This marks the first time the option is available in a digital non-linear service. The personalised engine is based on an internally designed algorithm that considers local cultural nuances in each market and tested over a six-month period. The result is completely personalised to each individual user to allow more content to surface that is in line with their interests. Meanwhile, the Follow function will enable users to follow playlists curated by hundreds of their favourite people, which includes popular influencers and celebrities, to discover new shows and

keep up with what those people have liked, watched or are currently watching. Mark Britt, Co-founder and Group CEO of iflix comments: “This evolution will begin to blur the distinction between traditional video on Demand and Pay Television. We are in the age of TV for viewers, with thousands of great shows and movies available on demand. Our new personalisation features will allow us to deliver recommendations specifically curated for each local user across our business.”

35 SEPT 2017

WIRE

Do Bigger Things Samsung launches their long-awaited Galaxy Note 8

amsung finally launched its long-awaited Galaxy Note 8 in New York. Taking a page out of the Galaxy S8 series, the Note 8 will sport a 6.3-inch Quad HD+ Super AMOLED Infinity Display. It is also the first dual rear camera ever to grace a Samsung smartphone. Fitted with both wide-angle and telephoto lens, both the 12-megapixel lenses sport Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS). It will also feature 64GB of storage and 6GB of RAM, powered by a 10nm processor. Aside from the Live Focus function, which allows users to adjust the depth of field during or after taking a picture, the wide-angle lens also has a Dual Pixel sensor with rapid Auto Focus. The Note 8 will also come equipped with an 8-megapixel Smart Auto Focus front-facing camera. The new S Pen is designed with a finer tip with greater pressure sensitivity and will now allow users to share animated 36 SEPT 2017

texts or drawings across platforms that support animated GIFs. Screen off memo now allows you to take up to 100 pages of notes as soon as you remove the S Pen, pin notes and make edits directly from the Always On Display. The S Pen also comes with new features, including S Pen Translate, letting you hover over text to quickly translate entire sentences up to 71 languages and even instantly convert units and foreign currencies. Not only is the Note 8 IP68 water and dust resistant, it also supports wireless charging. As per the Galaxy S8 series,

the phone will ship with Bixby Assistant and features biometric authentication options â&#x20AC;&#x201C; including iris and fingerprint scanning. The Note will be compatible with Samsung DeX as well. Come 15 September 2017, the Note 8 will be made available and in four colours: Midnight Black, Orchid Gray, Maple Gold and Deepsea Blue, with pre-orders available from 5 to 10 September. The Note 8 will also ship with a pair of Harmon/Kardon headphones. Samsung also confirmed other gadgets in the Galaxy series to be launched on 30 August at IFA.

SHORT FEATURE

Gimbal

Stable Movies Every Time Y

our phones may have either electronic or optical image stabilisation systems in their camera. However, it will not replace a proper three-axis gimbal though. The three-axis stabilisation will ensure smooth images and video, in whatever situation you are in. Which one do you get for yourself though? These two may just be up your alley.

DJI Osmo Mobile

Zhiyun Smooth Q

Three

6.2-inches

6-inches

Yes

Build Material

Plastic

Tripod Mount

Yes, with optional tripod

Yes, on handle

Yes

60 Minutes continuous usage, 6 hours standby

12 hours continuous usage

RM 1,299

RM 899

Axis of Stabilisation Largest smartphone size App control

Removable Battery Battery life Price

37 SEPT 2017

WIRE

Successor to the Orpheus Sennheiser reshapes the way we listen to music

"Eight vacuum tubes consist of quartzglass bulbs to process the incoming signal."

ust when you thought you were fine with listening to music with a regular pair of headphones, Sennheiser is here to blow it all out of the water while re-defining the way we view audiophile sound. A direct successor to the Orpheus, the Sennheiser HE 1 promises an unparalleled audio experience like no other. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s patent-pending amplifier is made entirely out of Carrara marble while its eight vacuum tubes consist of quartz-glass bulbs to process the incoming signal. 38 SEPT 2017

Designed with audiophiles in mind, the Sennheiser HE 1 is made from gold-vaporised ceramic electrodes and platinum-vaporised diaphragms at only 2.4 micrometres. The eight wires are made of oxygen-free copper and plated with silver coatings to provide optimum conductivity to perfect the transmission of the audio signal. Another unique feature of the Sennheiser HE 1 is its transducer

system, which has a frequency response of 8 hertz to more than 100 kilohertz. It is then covered with leather ear cushions crafted in Germany with hypoallergenic and breathable microfibre fabric. For only â&#x201A;Ź50,000 (approx. RM251,997.60), you can pre-order the Sennheiser HE 1, which will be manufactured in its headquarters in Germany and personally shipped to your doorstep.

Redefining the Videogame Industry

MDEC and MPD pushes forward local game development

alaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) is looking to widen the video game developer community, comprising of local and foreign entities, by bringing in Media Prima Digital (MPD) as a key co-development partner. Due to this, the two giants signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to come together and boost the videogames industry from multiple fronts. The collaboration is expected to attract local and international players, spurring all parties to work together with the aim of boosting digital games in Malaysia and around the region. Most of the work includes encouraging collaboration for all, expanding the ecosystem and accelerating the sector’s productivity. According to the agreement, MPD will take on the responsibility of evaluating and publishing

Hasnul Hadi Samsudin, Vice President of Creative Content and Technology of MDEC; Dato’ Ng Wan Peng, Chief Operating Officer of MDEC and Dato' Yasmin Mahmood, CEO of MDEC together with Datuk Kamal Khalid, Group Managing Director of Media Prima Berhad, Rafiq Razali, CEO of Media Prima Digital and Nicholas Sagau, Group General Manager of Media Prima Labs & Operation

digital games that MDEC selected and developed with local publishers. “Publishers that our creators engage with are internationally based with little to no local presence in this space. Bringing MPD on-board will kick start the push for other media houses to consider publishing local videogames. This is a huge step

for Malaysia on the road to becoming a regional gaming hub,” shares Dato’ Yasmin Mahmood, CEO of MDEC. The MoU is also part of getting Kuala Lumpur ready for LEVEL UP KL 2017, the upcoming game development conference, game jam and awards event that will take place in November 2017.

Taking the Next Step Forward

UTP utilises Microsoft’s technologies to enhance education

n line with its 20th anniversary, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) is entering a partnership with Microsoft Malaysia via a Memorandum of Understanding for technology adoption in its teaching, learning, research and operational excellence. The three-year agreement will see UTP leverage Microsoft’s technologies like Cortana Analytics, Power BI, Azure and Machine Learning. This is to enable students and faculty members to connect data across sources, drive intelligent decisions and outcomes and transform processes from end to end. For example, Microsoft Azure will allow students to undertake descriptive analysis, predictive analysis and data visualisation, which will provide them with a better understanding of Big Data Analysis.

Datuk Ir (Dr) Abdul Rahim Haji Hashim, Vice Chancellor, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) with K Raman, Managing Director of Microsoft Malaysia after the MoU ceremony

Datuk Abdul Rahim Haji Hashim, Vice Chancellor of UTP says: “To ensure out students are best prepared to perform in this setup, we need to equip them with the most advanced learning tools and our partnership with Microsoft is a great first step in this direction.”

By the way of this collaboration, all 8,500 students and 900 staff of UTP will have access to various services to help create immersive and inclusive experiences for lifelong learning and stimulate development of essential life skills. 39 SEPT 2017

WIRE

Buying encryption? Five good questions to ask before you do

ersonal data protection act (PDPA), together with the growing number of data breaches are the most pressing reasons why small and medium businesses are implementing data protection technologies – including encryption. However, with limited time and the market flooded by various products, it can be a difficult task for companies’ owners and decision-makers to find the right fit for their needs. If you are faced with the decision yourself, avoid pitfalls in selecting an encryption product by asking the following questions: 1. Which laptops present the greater risk: On-site or off-site? This might seem like a pointless question with an obvious answer; systems are more liable to theft when away from the office. But making this distinction and keeping it in mind is the right place to start and when you have settled on a solution, be sure to test its effectiveness at managing problem scenarios for your remote users. 40 SEPT 2017

2. Does the encryption system suit the needs of your IT department for full remote control of off-site endpoint encryption? All major endpoint encryption products offer the means to manage remote systems, but look carefully at the requirements. Most need either an open incoming connection to a demilitarised zone (DMZ) on your server, or a VPN connection. All involve a higher level of IT skills that can add additional costs and, in order to function, may require the user to initiate the connection; not much use with a rogue employee or stolen laptop. A well-designed product will give you the remote management necessary without creating additional security problems, requiring specialist knowledge, or adding expense to the project. 3. Why is this important? Being able quickly to vary security policy, encryption keys, features and operation of endpoint encryption

remotely, means that your default policy can be strong and tight. Exceptions can be made only when and where they are needed, and reverted just as easily. If you can’t do this you’ll be forced to leave ‘a key under the doormat’, just in case — tearing holes in your policy before deployment is complete. 4. Does the solution allow remote locking and wiping of keys from laptops? The answer might be crucial if a company computer with full-disk encryption gets stolen while in sleep mode or with the operating system booted up. It’s even worse if those systems come with the pre-boot password affixed on a label or tucked in the laptop bag. If a remote lock or wipe function is not available, then the system is either unprotected or secured only by the OS password, with the encryption being bypassed in either case. Similarly, it is important to know whether the solution has

been designed to accommodate the typical use cases that would otherwise unravel a well-designed security policy. 5. Does the solution secure removable media without having to whitelist each item? With an array of writeable devices that people use for their everyday work, it is almost impossible for the admins to whitelist each and every one of them, and decide whether it’s permissible to read from, write to, or not access the device at all. It is much easier to set a filelevel policy – distinguishing between files that need encryption and those that don’t – and keep these protected every time they move from workstation or corporate network to any portable device. In other words, if you connect your own USB stick, it won’t force you to encrypt your private data; anything coming from the company system, however, will be encrypted without the keys being held on your device. It is a simple idea, but one which makes any device safe, without the need for whitelisting. The security was there a long time ago; what will make or break your deployment is flexibility and ease of use. In the end, you need to figure out if the solution you want to use is easy to deploy. If the setup of the solution takes hours or even days and needs additional tools for its operation, it might cause new headaches for company sysadmins and create new security risks. Aim for an easyto-deploy solution that doesn’t require advanced IT expertise and preserves both finances and your human resources. If the user experience mirrors that easy deployment, then IT staff won’t be further taxed by user lockouts, lost data and other frustrations. All validated, commercial encryption products have been more than strong enough for many years, yet a significant

proportion of the recorded data breaches involving lost or stolen laptops and USB drives happened to organisations who had bought and deployed encryption products.

Reading the case notes for these incidents reveals that being able to fit the solution to your environment, working practices and making encryption easy for everyday users as the real challenges.

About ESEt tEchNology: ESET Endpoint Encryption Simple and powerful encryption for organisations of all sizes allowing you to safely encrypt hard drives, removable media, files and email. Hybrid-cloud based management server provides full remote control of endpoint encryption keys and security policies.

NEWS Google pays $10,000 for student’s bug Google has rewarded a Uruguayan student with $10,000 after he exposed a security flaw that could allow hackers to access sensitive data. Ezequiel Pereira discovered the vulnerability in Google’s App Engine server after changing the Host header in requests to the server using Burp. The high-school student explained in a blog post, “I was bored, so tried to find some bug at Google”. Following several failed attempts, he managed to gain access to an internal webpage that did not check his username or require any other security measure. 88% feel vulnerable to data threats Organisations are increasingly aware of the threat posed by data breaches, according to Thales’ 2017 Data Threat Report. A remarkable 88% of respondents also admitted to feeling vulnerable to threats, with 9.1% feeling “extremely vulnerable”. This is significantly higher than the number actually experiencing data breaches. PlayStation social media accounts briefly hacked Sony became the latest entertainment company to suffer at the fingertips of hackers after their PlayStation social media channels were temporarily hacked recently. A group called OurMine claimed credit for the compromise that targeted the company’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. Sony quickly regained control of the accounts but not before the hackers had posted a series of messages on the social media accounts.

Read more about these and other security news at: www.welivesecurity.com

41 SEPT 2017

WIRE

Huawei Does It Again The nova 2 Plus makes its way to Malaysia

Cai Chuen Zhong, Product Director, CBG South Pacific Region and Whisky Wong, President of Product, CBG Huawei Malaysia.

s the P and Mate series are considered Huawei's top-range premium flagships, the nova 2 Plus is the latest smartphone to come out from Huawei's nova line-up of smartphones. Priced at RM1,999, Huawei dubs the nova 2 Plus as its best selfie smartphone, fitted with a 20-megapixel front-facing shooter. The camera also comes with 3D facial recognition with skin enhancement features to better bring out the true you when taking selfies. Its front-facing camera can also take selfies with an added bokeh effect, a much-needed feature to give your Instagram that added dash of glamour and sophistication. Aside from making your selfies look natural and flawless, the nova 2 Plus also comes with a Gesture Shutter feature, which allows you to take a picture without having to press the button. 42 SEPT 2017

As for the rear camera, the nova 2 Plus joins the ranks of many smartphones to carry a dual-camera featuring a 12-megapixel wide-angle lens as well as a long-focus 8-megapixel lens with f/1.8 aperture, which will capture more light into your pictures. Like the front camera, its rear comes with a Professional Portrait mode that keeps the focus on your subject while giving the background that signature bokeh effect. You can also adjust the bokeh level in real-time to achieve the desired results in a snap. In terms of hardware, the nova 2 Plus comes kitted with the Kirin 659 chipset, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage space. It also comes with the Android OS 7.0 Nougat with its own EMUI 5.1, backed up by a 5.5-inch display screen. There's also a dual SIM tray that fits a nano-SIM and a USB Type-C jack that juices up its 3,340mAh battery. Much like the Huawei P10 Lite, the nova 2 Plus places its fingerprint sensor onto the backplate of the

device rather than on its Home button like the P10 and P10 Plus. Interestingly, the depth of the fingerprint sensor on the nova 2 Plus is a lot shallower compared to other Huawei devices, giving it a more flushed and polished look without any indents. The nova 2 Plus also features a new Hi-Fi chip, the AK4376a that can keep audio distortions to a minimum while ensuring the music comes out clean, crisp and crystal clear to your ears. The launch of the nova 2 Plus featured a teaser of another upcoming Huawei device, which is now known as the nova 2i. Although not much has been said about its latest upcoming smartphone, we do know that it will feature a total of four cameras - two on the front and two at the back. Expected to drop sometime in September, the nova 2i comes with a supposed price tag of below RM2,000, which sounds like a steal.

Say, “Malaysia!”

FUJIFILM to hold a photo exhibition to bring printed photos back to life

alaysia is a beautiful country with stunning landscapes and a melting pot of cultures, diversity, heritage, traditions and religions. The participants for FUJIFILM Malaysia’s “Shoot. Print. Share.” Photo Exhibition will have limitless opportunities to capture the ultimate breath-taking photo and submit them for the exhibition. Although this will be FUJIFILM’s first ever photo exhibition, the event is part of the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative to bring together everyone and inculcate a greater sense of love for the country. The exhibition also aims to encourage the participants to showcase their creativity in capturing the allure of Malaysia and its people, based on the theme “My Malaysia Memory”. During the launch, FUJIFILM Malaysia’s Managing Director, Yoshitaka Nakamura states that this photo exhibition

is not a photo contest. “Everybody can participate in the exhibition. We want to encourage public interest in photo printing and to inspire everyone that they too can be photographers. That is the power of photo prints – they have the ability to ignite your passion for photography and bring unforgettable memories to life.” To further promote the photo printing trend, FUJIFILM Malaysia is collaborating with Maxis for the telco’s promotional offering, “Power of One.” The promotion which began in August and enables those who sign up for a MaxisONE plan to purchase an instax printer SP-2 for only RM1. The submission deadline is October 15, 2017. FUJIFILM Malaysia aims to exhibit some 3,000 photos at the “Shoot. Print. Share.” Photo Exhibition” which will be held from 13 to 19 November 2017 at four areas at Sunway Pyramid shopping mall, namely Sunway Orange Atrium, Sunway Orange Avenue, Sunway

Central Avenue and Sunway Main Entrance, Ground Floor. Besides that, 100 entries will be selected as the ‘100 Best Photos’ of the exhibition and the chosen participants will each walk away with a token of appreciation, during the exhibition period. The ‘100 Best Photos’ will be selected based on the quality and creativity of the photo content and its message.

Yoshitaka Nakamura, FUJIFILM Malaysia Managing Director delivering his speech during the “Shoot. Print. Share.” Photo Exhibition launch.

Unlocking the Potential of Ads

Swype On enables meaningful ads to relevant users

esearch has shown that an average smartphone user unlocks his/her phone roughly 110 times a day, spending an average of 3.5 hours on their phone. This behaviour has transformed the mobile screen into a 21st century billboard – on-the-go and always at hand. Because of this, Mobme Asia launches its revolutionary lock screen application, Swype On, which is an Android-enabled lock screen app that enable brands and publishers to inject content straight onto a consumer’s first point of engagement. With a swipe of a finger, the user will be rewarded with cash and other prizes! According to Felix Chu, Co-founder and CEO of Mobme Asia, Swype On aims to put power back into the hands of the users, allowing them to get the right messaging at the right time and place. The messages

can be anything from breaking news in their neighbourhood to news about their favourite football club or even weathercast within the hour. With Swype On, when users swipe left, they will engage directly with the advertisement displayed and transitions the action into direct cash rewards that can be found in the built-in wallet known as Keys. Users will also automatically be entered for a monthly lucky draw of prizes, rebates and promotions. If the user swipes ‘right’ to unlock her/ her smartphone as per usual, the content will be archived for later consumption while still earning cash rewards and chances for the monthly lucky draw. Redemption of cash rewards can only be claimed after RM100 is accumulated every month. To ensure that users are only seeing relevant content, Mobme Asia has partnered

Mobme Asia founders: (left to right) Surin Raj, Felix Chu, and Puvaneswaran Kumar

with Have Halal, Will Travel (HHWT, to create localised and meaningful content pertinent to Malaysians today. “We want to give brands the ability to direct meaningful messages to their consumers that can be acted upon,” adds Chu. To celebrate the launch of Swype On, Chu announced that it will be giving cash rewards and prizes of up to RM5,000 for initial sign-ups during its first three months. Everyone is eligible for the cash reward and lucky draw if they download, install and actively use Swype On. 43 SEPT 2017

COVER STORY

What is Really Worth It?

by Teh Wi-Liam

Is it really worth paying a substantial amount for a smartphone, which you might change in a couple of years?

COVER STORY

lthough considered to be a norm in today’s modern smartphone market, many smartphone giants around the world are still pricing its flagship models at gargantuan prices. We as consumers still buy into the whole marketable ploy of it, even going so far as to lining up for days just to be the first in getting the latest smartphone, whether it be from Apple or Samsung. What breeds these modern-day mentalities into thinking that we can be fulfil the emptiness in us with a brand-new smartphone? Or, is there something bigger here at stake that we’re missing? Close to a decade ago was the launch of the smartphone era with the likes of BlackBerry and the Apple iPhones leading the charge. Even then, prices for such luxury smartphones did not breach the RM2,000 limit and some would still contemplate as to whether it’s worth it to pay such an amount for a smartphone.

46 SEPT 2017

Fast forward 10 years later and we’re looking at the likes of Samsung, Sony, Huawei and Apple charging somewhere between RM3,000 and above for its flagship smartphones. To give you a sense of just how much, the latest Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is selling at RM3,999 and the highly-anticipated iPhone 8 is going for US$999 (approx. RM4,267). If you thought that was all, the latest Huawei flagship is the P10 Plus, which goes for RM3,099 while Sony’s latest flagship costs RM3,399. Of course, no one is holding a knife to your throat in saying that you have to purchase the flagship devices with that sort of price; many are happy at purchasing a mid-range device between RM1,000 to RM2,000, even if they are a loyal follower of the big brands. This begs the question: how far does a hardcore fanatic of Apple or Samsung must go to actually own its latest product? In Apple’s case, it’s more

often than not the loyalty towards the brand than anything these days. How does Apple justify its price point for its iPhones? When the iPhone 7 launched last year, the standard iPhone 6 32GB variant was priced at RM3,199 while its 256GB variant was a whopping RM4,199. If that isn’t enough, the iPhone 7 Plus 32GB was RM3,799 and its 256GB variant was RM4,799. Imagine, there are actually people in the world forking out almost RM5,000 for a smartphone. However, this goes just beyond brand loyalty. One can argue that technology and innovation have grown at a rapid rate over the years, making smartphones smarter and giving us everything we need in one destination. One can also argue about the amount of R&D that goes into developing a smartphone as well as the soaring prices of internal components like chipsets and camera sensors. And, this goes just beyond a full-on bashing towards Apple;

Samsung is also on the same boat with the exorbitant pricing of its Galaxy Note 8. Essentially a slightly larger Galaxy S8+ with a stylus (S Pen) and the first of the Note series to carry dual cameras, that isn’t enough to justify its price tag. While the S8+ costs RM3,699, how does Samsung justify the RM300 increase for the Note 8? Surely it can’t be down to the inclusion of the S Pen? Both are using the same Exynos 8895 octa-core chipset and the Note 8 is only a fraction bigger than the S8+ by 0.1-inches. There is also the question of the viability of the Note 8, given its rather disastrous history (which is a story for another time). Would anyone in their right mind be willing to purchase the Note 8 with that sort of track record? I for one, wouldn’t want to. This is by no means a hate message towards the

people over at Samsung; for what it’s worth, I am a fan of the Galaxy S8+ and if it weren’t priced at RM3,699, I would actually consider purchasing one. Now, back to the matter at hand. To a certain extent, you must give it to these tech giants for being able to create a cult following for themselves. Steve Jobs’ charisma and showmanship on stage in selling the first ever iPhone to the last iPad 2 before his untimely demise, you have to applaud Jobs for Apple’s marketing schemes that has managed to capture the hearts of millions from around the world. Samsung is another brand that relies heavily on its marketing strategies to capture audiences, and it has done so in a great way through its commercials. How could one forget about the countless commercials we’ve

seen online about Samsung having a go at Apple? Whether those commercials were authentic or not remains to be seen, but it was enough to turn plenty of heads and soon, change plenty of minds. When it comes right down to it, smartphone shopping is the modern-day equivalent to retail therapy for most men and certainly plenty of women as well. Gone are the days of being able to spend a substantial amount on clothes as the spending power of Malaysians allow them to be able to afford more luxurious goods. Being the first in line to get the latest iPhone or Samsung is nothing more than gaining bragging rights; it isn’t so much about the device anymore but more of the means of how one got it. In the end, this breeds capitalism, which then feeds into consumerism. 47 SEPT 2017

SHORT FEATURE SOURCE

Luno

Rise of Cryptocurrency How Malaysians are using Bitcoin?

According to Luno, there are five main reasons as to why Malaysians buy Bitcoin:

WHY BITCOIN?

2. Speed – Malaysians believe that using virtual currency is a faster and cheaper alternative.

uno – a leading digital currency company – sees improvement in the understanding and adoption of Bitcoin and virtual currencies in Malaysia. As interest continues to increase, the company surveyed its Malaysian customers on just how and why they use Bitcoin.

13. 2% payments 16.3% speed

Reasons

10.5% control 44.7% investing 15.1% trading Respondents 48 SEPT 2017

1. Payments – Bitcoins are better than credit cards, as the payment method reduces fraud and increase privacy significantly as compared.

3. Control – Customers are in control of their virtual currency wallet. It is decentralised, while what they earn is based on how much they mine. 4. Investing – Malaysians are looking for ways to diversify their investment portfolio. Bitcoin is currently seen as a high performing asset. 5. Trading/Speculation – It is a convenient option for those constantly buying/ selling assets, taking advantage arbitrage and day trading.

GIZMOS

Million Dollar Kickstarters With technology advancing so rapidly, trying to predict what the next big thing is anyone’s guess. However, it doesn’t hurt to invest in something that might be a hit in the future. For this month, we’re featuring some cool kickstarter items that are believed to be worth a million dollars and above.

By Tara Yean

49 SEPT 2017

GIZMOS SHINY 1. Ideas in an Instant Cubiio: The most compact laser engraver

2. Looks Like a Job for… Mr Beam II: Desktop Laser Cutter and Engraver

There will always be moments when a fleeting but amazing idea comes to mind, only to be left forgotten – unless if you have one of these handy in your bag. With the Cubiio compact laser engraver, you can easily unleash your creativity in mere minutes. It is easy to use (literally, point-and-engrave) and is able to cut on various materials including paper and cardboards, fabric, felt, leather, wood, non-transparent acrylic and even metal. Just choose a picture, write or draw using the Cubiio App and watch the magic happen.

Speaking of lasers, here’s one that is most suitable on your desk at home or in the office. Mr Beam II is Wi-Fi enabled, allowing users to connect to their PCs, Mac devices or tablets, giving more room for creativity and variety. If you need model buildings, Mr Beam II can help you with that, without the need for scissors and knives. Need to engrave your brand’s logo on your product? Mr Beam II can do that in seconds! With this, users have a wider option of materials to engrave on, including mirrors, foam rubber, kraftplex, basalt fibre, anodised aluminium and more.

Pledges | US$1,068,210 Pledges | US$1,112,495.52

50 SEPT 2017

3. A Modern Work of Art BoXZY Rapid-Change FabLab

4. Turn Up The Heat PolarSeal Heated Tops

If you’re looking to create something a bit more realistic, try the BoXZY that combines a 3D printer, CNC Mill and Laser Engraver all in one. By utilising the quick-change heads, creative thinkers can shape almost anything using a block of aluminium, hardwood, soft metals or plastic and turn it into a work of art with intricate designs. Needless to say, you will easily give Leonardo da Vinci a run for his money.

Whenever you’re feeling like doing some extreme sports in the snow, don’t forget to bring the PolarSeal Top with you. Being incredibly lightweight, flexible and breathable, this piece of clothing can keep you warm up to eight hours, according to three heat levels: Low (40°C/104°F), Medium (45°C/113°F) and High (50°C/122°F). Thanks to its colour-coded temperature control buttons, you can easily tell which heating level you are on at a glance and make any adjustments in seconds.

Pledges | US$1,193,255 Pledges | HK$3,105,455

51 SEPT 2017

GIZMOS SHINY 5. The Only Jacket You Need Apricoat: Zero-Compromise Adventurer Jacket

6. Bringing Back Memories Lofree Poison Wireless Speaker

You can stop carrying around bulky camping bags the next time you go out on an adventure to enjoy the great outdoors. With its 16 pockets for almost everything you need, complete with innovative features, the Apricoatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unique design layout evenly distributes the weight of whatever is in there to feel empty. Other features include an inflatable hood pillow, SafeAnchor emergency clip (capacity 400 lbs/181 kg) and a smart compartment for hydration pack.

Combining the vintage classic aesthetics with modern digital audio technology, Lofree Poison features an enhanced bass driver that pumps out powerful and full-bodied bass at the back without sacrificing mids and trebles in the front. Apart from being able to play up to six hours of music wirelessly via Bluetooth, you can even tune in to the radio.

Pledges | US$1,740,694

Pledges | HK$1,276,815 7. The Best Things in Life Come in Threes TriLens Any professional photographer would agree that timing and the choice of equipment is the key for an amazing photo, and changing lenses is a crucial part of it. Gone are the days where you need to run around with bulky camera bags if you have the TriLens with you. It allows you to carry up to three lenses at the same time and switching between lenses have never been faster. It even has an auto-friction mechanism to keep the TriLens stable even when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re running. Pledges | SEK 949,065

52 SEPT 2017

pixels

5 Key Features oF the eos M6 Packed with more than enough specs to be used as your main camera

he EOS M6 is the latest addition to the EOS M-series line-up and its features rival those of mid-range or higher DSLRs. The EOS M6 boasts enhanced shooting features, as well as an improved design for better operability, thanks to the 24.2-megapixel Dual Pixel CMOS sensor, and the latest DIGIC 7 image processor. The camera can achieve high-speed AF, a maximum normal ISO speed of 25,600 and fast continuous shooting performance of up to 9fps. While the exterior design is reminiscent of vintage cameras, the EOS M6 has improved usability, featuring a grip that makes the camera easier to hold, and a dial design that your fingers can easily adapt to. Moreover, it is equipped with a new Quick Control Dial, with the exposure compensation dial stacked above it, allowing you to conveniently change settings such as the ISO speed without having to remove your hand from the grip. Continuous shooting performance has also been enhanced, improving your chances of capturing photo opportunities as and when they arise. By Kazuo NaKahara for SNaPShoT 53 SEPT 2017

pixels

EOS M6/ EF-M11-22mm f/4-5.6 IS STM/ FL: 22mm (35mm equivalent)/ Aperture-priority AE (f/14, 1/60 sec, EV±0)/ ISO 200/ WB: Auto. Photo by Mayuko Ukawa.

You can also choose to get the lightweight Electronic Viewfinder EVF-DC-2 (sold separately), which matches the design of the EOS M6 and can be mounted externally. This lets you enjoy DSLR-style shooting with a viewfinder. With a compact size that allows you to carry it anywhere, this is one camera I would recommend as you can carry it around with you while going about your day. Next, let’s look at five key features of the EOS M6. 1. High-performance DiGiC 7 imaging processor On mirrorless cameras, the light information obtained by the image sensor is used to control everything from AF to shooting, so the functionality of the camera is directly related to the power 54 SEPT 2017

of the image processor. Compared to previous image processors, DIGIC 7 contributes to improved image quality in various ways. Not only does it deliver improved noise reduction performance when shooting at high ISO speeds, but also through great improvements against diffraction blur, among others. DIGIC 7 also contributes to power savings, enabling the EOS M6 to take up to around 295 shots – at an ambient temperature of 23°C – while using the same battery as that of other models in the EOS M series. 2. Dual pixel CMOs sensor realises high-speed AF The Dual Pixel CMOS sensor performs both imaging and image

80% of the sensor area (horizontally and vertically) can be used for high-speed image plane phase-difference AF.

plane phase-difference detection AF functions simultaneously. This allows the EOS M6 to perform high-speed AF across a wide area of the screen, providing a dramatically increased ability to shoot moving subjects. 3. smartphone pairing with Bluetooth The EOS M6 features Bluetooth low-energy technology, which is not only power-saving, but also enables the camera to maintain a constant connection to compatible smart devices if the camera is switched on - even when in Auto Power Off mode. By using the Camera Connect app on a

Bluetooth-connected smartphone, you can use the phone as a remote-control shutter at any time. Furthermore, the EOS M6 automatically switches to a Wi-Fi connection when appropriate, facilitating the uploading of photos to social media. 4. Deeper grip and additional dials for a more fully-fledged design The EOS M6 has slightly more rounded edges overall for a form that gives a softer impression, while the arrangement of the buttons is virtually the same as other Canon mirrorless cameras. The LCD screen on the rear side of the camera can be smoothly tilted up to 180Â° upwards. The strap mount is smaller so if you want to use an off-the-shelf strap, you will need to use a triangular ring.

If Bluetooth is enabled in the settings, the camera will connect automatically, saving you the hassle of changing the connection settings each time you want to connect.

Deeper grip for an easier hold. The grip has been made deeper for a firmer hold. Even people with larger hands can comfortably hold the EOS M6.

5. The new Quick Control Dial allows you to rapidly change settings even during a shoot The key feature is the new Quick Control Dial with the Exposure Compensation Dial stacked on top. On the EOS M6, it is now possible to assign functions to the Main Dial, Quick Control Dial and Control Dial. The degree of flexibility has been improved, particularly by allowing you to change settings while holding the grip when shooting in Manual mode.

Knurled finish on the Main Dial. The dial has been enlarged, making it easier to grip with your fingers.

Control Dial The Control Dial on the rear of the camera can be rotated clockwise or anti-clockwise for menu selection and for scrolling through images during playback.

Smaller strap mount. The design of the mount follows that of the EOS M5.

Quick Control Dial With dial customisation, you can register various functions such as White Balance and Drive mode for a dial. Because the stacked dial comprises two dials, with the Exposure Compensation Dial stacked on top of the Quick Control Dial, it might take some time getting used to using both dials at once.

55 SEPT 2017

Value | Expensive does not always means good. Performance | A measure of how well the product stands up to our testing.

Features | The best gimmicks and flashy parts get the top score.

Design | Aesthetics are important. The nicer it looks, the more points it gets.

Usability | The best for day-to-day tasks are

valued higher.

>7.5

>8.0

>9.0

TESTED

IF IT EXPLODES, WE'LL LET YOU KNOW. reviews by leonard, atifi, wi-liam, satoko, sharil, amir & din

56 SEPT 2017

We are constantly improving our internal testing methodologies for all components and devices. The Editor's Choice Award is an accolade we take very seriously at PC.com. Every month, we identify the crĂ¨me de la crĂ¨me of the lot, from PCs, inkjet printers to smartphones and DSLR cameras.

TEST TOOLS

57 SEPT 2017

TESTED

Wait, Lemme Take a Selfie ASUS Zenfone 4 Selfie Pro

Ready for Oreos

The entire ZenFone 4 series is confirmed to be ready for Android O upgrades.

Dual Front Camera

Unlike many other of its competitors, the dual camera isn’t reserved for the rear camera, but rather the front!

Quick charging

It’s not USB-C, but it does sport fast charge capabilities. You don’t have to wait hours for a full charge.

Double the Lens, Double the Fun! Heavily promoted for its selfie taking capabilities, the ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro comes with a 24-megapixel DuoPixel frontfacing camera at F1.8 with SuperPixel Tech. All that tech babble means you get some really good quality shots, especially when using the front camera. It even shoots video in 4K! The 120° wide-angle camera allows you to fit more people or scenery when taking photos with the front camera. Not forgetting ASUS’ famed beauty mode, giving you blemish-free photos ready for the ‘gram.

Low Light, No Problemo

Not Just the Front

The camera features a flagship Sony IMX362 image sensor with a large 1/2.55” size format and 1.4µm pixel size. Sony has been well known for its superb quality of camera sensors, providing excellent pictures even in low-light. On the ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro, it lives up to that legacy, taking detailed photos, even at night with limited lighting. While adjusting the brightness can be a bit fiddly, for a smartphone camera the UI is intuitive, and the quality is pretty good too.

Sure, the selfie camera gets a lot of attention – it is in the name after all! The rear camera isn’t shabby either. Similarly fitted with a Sony image sensor with ASUS SuperPixel Engine, the rear camera is a powerful 16-megapixels and performs just as well under low-light conditions. While the front camera’s quality might suffer slightly when using the wide-angle lens, the performance of the rear camera is consistently solid, giving clear photos even in low-light settings.

24 HOURS EXPERIENCE HOUR 1

“Ohhhh selfie…. Let’s test out the camera…..”

58 SEPT 2017

HOUR 6

“Hey, it holds up quite decently in lowlight. Also, I barely feel the phone’s weight. It’s so easy to bring around.”

HOUR 12

“Ohh… might be a bit hot after continuously using the camera. Although, the battery is still going strong.”

HOUR 24

“Could consider this as an alternative phone to my current phone. I think I’ll put my spare line and use this phone permanently. ”

Slim Figure

The phone is designed to be slim and classy. Although sporting a 5.5-inch screen, it’s lightweight and comfortable to hold.

Streamlined UI

The updated UI is much more streamlined, minimalistic and less messy. A pleasant change from its previous iterations!

Other Than the Camera Enough about the camera. The performance of the phone itself is very intuitive and quick. The upgraded ZenUI 4 comes with way less bloatware compared to its predecessors, only giving you useful apps, which is a welcomed change. Besides that, the Snapdragon 625 provides a quick and smooth performance, without much lag or seizing up. The ZenUI also comes with some handy security features, including app locks.

Might Want Some Extra Juice With a 3,000mAh battery, it’s by no means the largest. (Its sibling, the ZenFone 4 MaxPro boasts a 5,000mAh battery!) It can comfortably last a full day, but if you are a heavy user, you might want to bring a cable with you – just in case. On the plus side, it isn’t as prone to overheating compared to some others in the market. While overheating is still a slight issue, it cools quickly, with tools in the phone to help clear apps and processes.

BENCHMARK AnTuTu 3D Benchmark – 65144

SPECS

VERDICT:

PCMark Android Benchmark – 5622

3DMark – Slingshot Extreme – 461

“As smartphones go, this is a wonder worker for its price range. Aside the pretty impressive camera, the phone performs well even after heavy usage. ” - Satoko

PRICE: RM1,799 DIMENSIONS (HXWXD): 154.02 x 74.83 x 6.85 mm WEIGHT: 147 g PROCESSOR: Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 Octa-core 14nm processor, 2.0GHz with FinFET LPP (Low Power Plus) powersaving technology MEMORY: 4GB RAM STORAGE: 64GB supports up to 2TB MicroSD card OPERATING SYSTEM: Android 7.0

(Nougat) + ASUS ZenUI 4.0 DISPLAY: 5.5-inch Full HD (1920 by 1080) AMOLED display with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass GRAPHICS: Adreno 506 CONNECTIVITY: WLAN 802.11 b/g/n; Bluetooth 4.2; Wi-Fi direct; GPS, AGPS, GLO, BDS, GALILEO; FDD-LTE, TD-LTE, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA, GSM/GPRS/ EDGE PORTS: USB 2.0

8.8 59 SEPT 2017

TESTED

Mod Your Moto Moto Z2 Play

Locked & Loaded

Aside from using the fingerprint to unlock the Z2 Play, you can now lock the device as well by holding your designated finger down onto the reader.

Easy-to-remember Moto Actions

The Z2 Play comes with Moto Actions, which are easy-to-remember motions to turn on the camera or the flashlight on the device.

Smooth Criminal, it is Not

One design flaw of the Z2 Play is its rear camera, which protrudes out in an odd way, making it look lopsided.

Not Enough Juice

Although it comes with a 3,000mAh battery, the Z2 Play’s battery life is average at best; not something worth spending RM2,000 on.

Speedy and Snappy

Moto Mods are a Must

Easy on the Eye

With the help of the mid-range Snapdragon 625 processor, the Z2 Play has a quick step to its game as it doesn’t get bogged down at all. Unlocking and locking the device takes less than a blink of an eye while swapping between apps is quick, to say the least. Although it only comes with 4GB of RAM, it’s more than enough to get you through your day.

The Moto Mods are key when it comes to the Z2 Play. As a device on its own, the Z2 Play is pretty much your standard smartphone. With Moto Mods, it can become so much more. Sadly, we didn’t receive any Moto Mods with the device so it’s hard to say for sure how great the Z2 Play is, but it has the potential to be a top-notch smartphone.

Although the protruding camera is a turn-off to certain people, the design of the Z2 Play is very thin and feels good in the palm of your hands. It’s sleek unibody design is covered in aluminium, which gives it a premium look and feel; something that is worth its weight in gold. The display screen also gives plenty of bright and consistent colour without looking cheap, another plus point to Moto’s latest flagship.

60 SEPT 2017

More Options Needed

Keeping it Clean Thanks to the help of the stock Android Nougat, the Z2 Play comes with very minimal bloatware. The Moto app works very well with the stock Android OS, giving you great feel and access to the phone for daily usage. Especially if you’re one who could care less about bloatware that many smartphone brands tout, the Z2 Play is one to consider owning as its clean and without the bells and whistles.

With only Lunar Grey or Fine Gold colour options, the Z2 Play lacks in creating original colour schemes for people to choose from.

Fluctuating Camera Performance The Z2 Play comes with a 16-megapixel shooter on the back and 5-megapixels in the front. When trying to focus on close-up shots, the Z2 Play does brilliantly well; but in terms of a much wider audience, the autofocus is atrocious with being able to capture the correct target. Colours do pop during close-up pictures but loses its edge on much wider shots, making it a hit-and-miss.

BENCHMARK AnTuTu v6.2.7 – 69,114

SPECS

VERDICT:

PCMark Work 2.0 – 4,891

3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited – 14,097 Sling Shot Extreme – 470

“While still a great device, the Z2 Play’s camera and battery life lack depth to take it on a home run. Moto Mods are much needed.” - Wi-Liam

PRICE: RM1,999 DIMENSIONS (HXWXD): 156.2 x 6 x 76.2mm WEIGHT: 145 grams PROCESSOR: Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 MEMORY: 4GB RAM STORAGE: 64GB (upgradeable via microSD, 256GB)

OPERATING SYSTEM: Android 7.1.1 OS (Nougat) DISPLAY: 5.5-inch Super AMOLED GRAPHICS: Adreno 506 CONNECTIVITY: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot, Bluetooth v4.2 PORTS: USB 3.1 Type-C 1.0 reversible connector

7.8 61 SEPT 2017

TESTED

Three is the Magic Number AMD Ryzen 3 1200

Full Ecosystem Support

As the Ryzen 3 is part of the Zen architecture, you get full support such as USB 3.1, x16 PCIe lanes and overclocking.

Bank Account Friendly

4 Cores 4 Life

Unlock Your Potential

Rounding up its range, AMDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s newest Ryzen 3 completes the family where it now has processors available for every mainstream need out there (apart from Threadripper, which is slated to arrive sometime later this year). Ryzen 3 fills the needs of starter computer users, who are looking for something powerful, yet at the same time, economical. Priced at RM519, it is the cheapest quad-core processor in the market now!

If power is what you need, the Ryzen 3 has enough to dish out to resource-hungry applications. The four cores and four threads in the CPU ensure your processing needs are fulfilled, be it something as simple as web browsing or intensive as 3D gaming. While it does not support multi-thread processing, the four built-in cores do give it a leg-up when compared to the competitorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dual-core offerings.

Thanks to the nature of the Zen architecture, AMD made the Ryzen cores unlocked, which means that overclocking is the flavour of the day, rather than just for the select few. The chip can be easily overclocked to 4GHz, even with the standard cooler so it is quite stable on a full load.

62 SEPT 2017

Cooler Included Work or Play – Your Choice The power of the Ryzen chips makes it great for work, multicore processing to render videos or even play as games are optimised. The Ryzen 3 offers 10% more frames in AAA games as opposed to the chips from the boys in blue.

AMD supplies the Ryzen 3 1200 with the Wraith Stealth cooler in the box for out-of-the-box builds. That’s value for money right there.

Power Sipper One feature about the Zen architecture is its ability to consume power sparingly. As the Ryzen 3 comes with 65W TDP, which saves on power, making it more impressive that even at full load using AIDA64, the temperature doesn’t rise above 40°C. This is with the stock cooler and stock speeds with no overclocking. With the right motherboard, the Ryzen 3 can be overclocked, thanks to its generous temperature and power overhead.

RGB Is ON

Yes, the Ryzen family of chips and chipset supports RGB lights, so plug in your favourite RGB-enabled peripherals to light up your day. BENCHMARK PCMark Work (Accelerated): 4894 Cinebench - Multicore: 461 Geekbench - Multicore: 10181

SPECS

VERDICT:

Creative (Accelerated): 4799 Single Core: 129 Singlecore: 3708

Home (Accelerated): 4124

“Starting a PC build? This is a good chip to get you going.” - Sharil

PRICE: RM519 PROCESSOR: AMD Ryzen 1200 CORE/THREAD: 4/4 SPEED: 3.4Ghz SOCKET: AM4 TDP: 65W

8.8 63 SEPT 2017

TESTED

The Legion Comes Lenovo Legion Y720

Fire Them Up

The Lenovo Legion Y720 comes equipped with JBL speakers and a Dolby Atmos subwoofer, ensuring your music, movies and games come with top-quality sound.

Four Ports Galore

With three USB 3.0 and one USB 3.1 Thunderbolt 3 ports, the Lenovo Legion is capable of handling crazy transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps without breaking a sweat.

Mid-Range Monster

Lenovo Nerve Sense

Previously known only as the Lenovo Y Series, Lenovo has since rebranded its gaming division by renaming it to be known as the Lenovo Legion Y Series. Up steps the Y720, featuring a Kaby Lake processor with NVIDIA GTX 1060 graphics, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. Although it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem like much, Lenovo Legion Y Series keeps its Y720 strictly mid-range with above average specs and a modest price tag.

Coupled with the Lenovo Legion Y720 is the Lenovo Nerve Sense, your one-stop destination to keeping tabs on the laptop. From there, you get to choose between four keyboard colour profiles in Light Shift; keeping the laptop performance up and its temperatures down via Extreme Cooling (which gets insanely loud when turned on); and Network Priority, which detects when a game is being run and to ensure its prioritised with the internet connection.

64 SEPT 2017

Another VR-Ready Gaming Machine For fans of virtual reality (VR) games, the Lenovo Legion Y720 comes with the bare minimum requirements to run all your favourite VR games. With the help of having more at least two USB 3.0 ports, a HDMI port and the GTX 1060 GPU to boot, the Lenovo Legion can keep you entertained for hours. However, you would need to invest more into owning a VR set, which could set you back quite a bit.

Fit For Xbox One Gamers

Upgradeable RAM and Storage

If you’re the proud owner of an Xbox One, you can connect its wireless controller to the Lenovo Legion Y720 to game without the use of keyboard and mouse for your RPG games.

The Lenovo Legion Y720 can fit up to 16GB DDR4 RAM as well as 1TB PCIe SSD and a 2TB SATA HDD.

BENCHMARK 3DMark PCMark Cinebench R15 -

Fire Strike Extreme: 5,063 Creative Accelerated: 3,467 OpenGL: 87.99fps

SPECS

VERDICT:

Fire Strike: 9,420

Sky Diver: 23,035

CPU Multi-core: 739cb

CPU Single Core: 162cb

“Great for the casual to mid-heavy gamer, the Lenovo legion Y720 is great for those looking for a sturdy gaming machine..” - Wi-Liam

PRICE: RM6,099 DIMENSIONS (WXHXD): 380 x 29 x 277mm WEIGHT: 3.2kg PROCESSOR: 7th Gen. Intel Core i77700HQ 2.80GHz GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GDDR5 DISPLAY: 15.6-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS Anti-Glare LED Backlit

RAM: 8GB DDR4 RAM STORAGE: 1TB SATA HDD OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10 Home CONNECTIVITY: 802.11 AC (2x2) Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1 PORTS: 3x USB 3.0, 1x HDMI, 1x USB Type-C (Thunderbolt 3), 1x Audio / Microphone combo Jack, 1x RJ45 LAN, 1x DisplayPort

8.7 65 SEPT 2017

TESTED

Cute, with a Punch

Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming Wi-Fi No USB Type-C; boo!

Gigabyte did not include any Type-C USB connectors for USB 3.1 connectivity. Not cool, Gigabyte.

Wi-Fi Inside

Yes, the motherboard comes with Wi-Fi built-in as well as Bluetooth for times you need to connect your Bluetooth peripherals.

Mini but Full

RGB All the Way, Baby

Small Gaming Setup

This is one of the first Mini-ITX motherboards that we got for the AMD Ryzen platform. That said, it has all the required ports and plugs that one would expect in a modern motherboard. One notable feature: the position of its power pins. The 24-pin power socket is not at your typical location, and the 8-pin socket is way at the bottom of the motherboard. Cable routing may be a challenge in smaller cases.

Yes, as this is the Ryzen platform, RGB support is readily available. It even comes with an onboard header to connect your RGB strips or fans to be controlled by Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion software. You only get two headers though, so make full use of the connectors. We do not need to tell you what you can do with the headers, do we?

Thanks to the full 16x PCI slot, you can slot in just about any graphic card that you have your eyes on. The dual DDR4 slots supports up to 32GB of RAM, so you will have more than enough memory to run even your most demanding application. With the addition of the m.2 SATA connector, you just need to slot in a SATA SSD in that slot, and you have a truly compact gaming machine.

BENCHMARK PCMark -

Work (Accelerated): 4098

SPECS

VERDICT:

66 SEPT 2017

Creative (Accelerated): 5356

Home (Accelerated): 3801

“Who says small is not powerful?” - Sharil

PRICE: RM549 PROCESSOR SUPPORT: AMD Ryzen, AMD 7th Generation A-series/Athlon Processors SOCKET: AM4

MEMORY: DDR4 up to 3200MHz GRAPHICS: 1 x 16x PICe slots CONNECTIVITY: 4 x USB 2.0, 8 x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI, 1 x LAN (RJ45) port

8.8

A The Gaming Router Overlord ROG Rapture GT-AC5300

Quick Heat Dissipation

Like a Spider

Striking design with the ROG logo planted right in the middle. Plenty of ventilation to ensure that heat leaves the router quickly.

The ROG is a big heavy router with eight massive antennas surrounding its base. Optional antennas could be an upgrade later.

Never Gonna Let You Down

Ports Galore from ROG

Subheads:

Though it bears resemblance to the RTAC5300, that is where it ends. ASUS ROG has hardware pushed to the very limits of present day technology. It contains the latest chipset from Broadcom with support for MU-MIMO from three separate bands that will deliver up to 5,334Mbps combined. The CPU and RAM are an insane combination of a quad-core 1.8GHz processor with 1GB of RAM. This ensures it will never be bogged down with all the data coming through from the computers and from the internet.

One weakness of the RT-AC5300 was its inclusion of only four LAN ports. The Rapture has remedied this by giving a total of eight LAN ports and one gigabit WAN. In true ROG style, it also included port aggregation on a pair of LAN ports. This allows for data over two LAN ports to be combined, a feature normally found on NAS storage. Dual USB 3.0 ports are on the back and can support a host of connections with hard disk drives as well as a 4G modem for backup.

The software used to control the Rapture is one of the most complete systems to be placed in a router. From the way the Lan port is configured to the type of utilisation for the USB ports, you have a hand in everything. Rog has even added GPN to the Rapture by way of WTFast, which minimises lag while obtaining a quick and stable connection for a specific game.

SPECS

VERDICT:

“A router overkill that does everything beyond great. It will cost you but you won’t be disappointed. ” - Leonard

PRICE: RM2,529 DIMENSIONS (HXWXD): 64.77 x 244.8 x 244.8 mm WEIGHT: 1.87 kg PROCESSOR: Broadcom X64 BCM49408

MEMORY: 1024MB STORAGE: 256MB CONNECTIVITY: 2.4Ghz (1Gbs) 2*5Ghz (2*2167Gbs) 8*Gbs LAN & 2 USB 3.0 ANTENNA: 8

9.0 67 SEPT 2017

TESTED

Pleasantly Surprised nubia M2

Play All Day

Handy Gestures

The phone has a 3,630mAh battery so it holds up comfortably for a day of heavy usage.

You can use different gestures on the edge of the phone to swap between apps, change screen, or even clean out background apps.

USB-C!

For a mid-ranger, we weren’t expecting the m2 to have a USB-C port.

Design Meets Performance

Unique Interface

Shooting Wonder

Unlike many mid-range phones, the nubia M2 sports a sleek design with evenly distributed weight, while still looking elegant. It’s not just the design though, the performance is just as smooth. The phone handles running multiple applications very well. Running games and swapping between surfing the net and navigation – it all runs smoothly. Although, if you are a very heavy user, the phone might occasionally seize up.

Although basing off Android 6, nubia opted for an in-house UI. Instead of recent apps, the third button is a menu button. The settings lives in the menu bar, instead of being shown as a separate app. Besides that, the phone has edge gestures, where you can swap between apps by sliding up or down the edge of the phone, or long tapping the edge to switch screens. The M2 also allows for long screenshots, and even screen recording. Very handy.

With a 13-megapixel Monochrome + 13-megapixel RGB dual camera at F2.2, the rear camera combo gives clear pictures with functions for multiple exposures, timelapse, slow-mo, etc. While the various camera features were fun to play with, the quality might suffer slightly. The 16-megapixel front shooter allows for very clear selfies, as well as beauty modes. There’s a very handy brightness bar to the side of the focus circle on the screen, so you can adjust the brightness easily too.

BENCHMARK AnTuTu 3D Benchmark: 63568 PCMark Android Benchmark: 4904 3DMark: Slingshot Extreme: 466

SPECS

VERDICT:

68 SEPT 2017

“ Very pleasantly surprised by its capabilities and unique features. ” - Satoko

PRICE: RM 1,599 DIMENSIONS (HXWXD): 154.5 X 75.9 X 7 mm WEIGHT: 168 grams PROCESSOR: QUALCOMM MSM8953 SNAPDRAGON 625, OCTA-CORE 2.0 GHZ CORTEX-A53 MEMORY: 4 GB RAM STORAGE: 64 GB, EXPANDABLE UP TO 200GB OPERATING SYSTEM: NUBIA UI 4.0 BASED ON ANDROID 6.0 (MARSHMALLOW)

DISPLAY: 5.5 INCHES AMOLED, 1920X1080P GRAPHICS: ADRENO 506 CONNECTIVITY: GSM 850/900/1800/1900; CDMA 1X&EVDO 800; TD-SCDMA B34/B39; TD-LTE B38/39/40/41; WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100; FDD-LTE B1/3/5/7/8/20; 802.11 B/G/N/AC WIFI; SUPPORTS 5GHZ AND 2.4GHZ; BLUETOOTH 4.1 SUPPORTS BLE PORTS: MICRO USB-C

8.8

A Progressive Upgrade Huawei Watch 2

Bigger is Always Better

Steady and Sturdy

The Huawei Watch 2 looks and feels like a typical sports watch as its thick bezel makes its 42mm screen look huge.

The build is solid and a raised bezel helps to protect the screen from scratches.

Turning to the Gorilla

Instead of sapphire in the first iteration, the Watch 2 comes covered with Corning’s Gorilla Glass.

Sustainable Arm Candy

Giving Everything you Need

Fitness and Fashion Collide

One of the main concerns with smartwatches is the battery life, but the Huawei Watch 2 takes it to a totally different level. With LTE turned off, the Watch 2 can last to at least two days without needing a charge. By turning off all smartwatch features, the Watch 2 will become a regular watch and will last at least 14 to 18 days, on average.

With the help of the Android Wear 2.0 OS, the Watch 2 is capable of highlighting some of the best features of the OS like its direct download of apps and even being optimised for low-power consumption. A nifty feature of the Watch 2 is the ability to customise its face to match the outlook. There is also a built-in LTE, which allows the Watch 2 to function as a standalone device without being tethered.

Not only does the Watch 2 look decently fashionable for any outfit, it even comes with decent fitness features to keep track of your vitals. The heart rate sensor is noticeably faster than its predecessor and its readings were on par with the health tracker on other smartwatches. The lower button on the Watch 2 activates the built-in Activity app, which tracks a variety of exercises from biking to running. Sadly though, the Watch 2 is only splash-proof at best.

SPECS

VERDICT:

“Bright but small screen, Sports design but not water resistant. Features were good. The Watch 2 is a mix of hits and misses.” - Leonard

PRICE: TBC DIMENSIONS (HXWXL): 12.6 x 45 x 48.9mm WEIGHT: 40 grams PROCESSOR: Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 MEMORY: 768MB STORAGE: 4GB OPERATING SYSTEM: Android Wear 2.0 DISPLAY: AMOLED 1.2” Screen CONNECTIVITY: GPS/NFC/LTE

7.5 69 SEPT 2017

TESTED

For the Pros

ASUS ROG Strix X370-F Gaming AURA-fy Your Life

Taking it to the Next Level

ASUS’ AURA Sync RGB technology means that any (supported) RGB peripherals connected to the motherboard will pulse in synchronised beats.

Overclock with ease thanks to the ASUS Pro Clock Technology; you can now go beyond 4.0GHz safely.

A Gargantuan Amount

Multiple USB ports available – to be more specific, a total of 10 ports on the motherboard.

The Pro Gaming Motherboard

Ticking Every Box

To build the ultimate gaming machine, the ASUS ROG Strix X370-F Gaming motherboard should be at the top of your list. Not only is it jam-packed with features, it is ASUS’ top-of-the-line Ryzen motherboard currently on offer. It combines bold aesthetics with premier performance and incredible audio to deliver an unrivaled gaming experience and style.

The motherboard currently brings together many of the features that gamers would like to see in a gaming system. This includes multiple PCIe slots for SLI and Crossfire configurations, four slots of dual-channel DDR4 (with support of up to 3200mHz memory), multiple USB ports (including USB Type-C), SATA ports for storage and M.2 slots for SSD storage on the motherboard.

VR-Ready – Both Sound and Visual ASUS says its motherboard is VR-ready. What does this mean? The ROG Strix X370-F Gaming has been tested thoroughly to ensure all components will work together to deliver a good – if not great – Virtual Reality (VR) experience out of the box. This is also true for the audio, thanks to the SupremeFX audio chip on-board that delivers high quality sound to gamers.

BENCHMARK PCMark Work (Accelerated): 4094 Geekbench - Multicore: 21864

SPECS

VERDICT:

70 SEPT 2017

Creative (Accelerated): 5223 Singlecore: 4058

Home (Accelerated): 3613

“The ultimate Ryzen motherboard to own currently.” - Sharil

PRICE: RM999 PROCESSOR SUPPORT: AMD Ryzen, AMD 7th Generation A-series/Athlon Processors SOCKET: AM4 MEMORY: DDR4 up to 3200MHz GRAPHICS: 3 x 16x PICe slots

CONNECTIVITY: 4 x USB 2.0, 11 x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 (1 x Type A, 1 x Type C), 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI, 1 x LAN (RJ45) port, 1 x Optical S/PDIF out

8.8

All the Colours!

Canon imageCLASS MF633Cdw Easy Access

Users can easily access the control panel through its generous 5-inch coloured LCD touchscreen panel. It’s user-friendly and easy to navigate.

Quick to Print

If you’re not printing a full-colour or graphic-heavy document, the MF633Cdw is nimble in churning out text document printouts that are crisp and bold.

For the Modern Business

Boxy and Compact

Versatile for Any Occasion

No longer are businesses confined to using big, bulky multifunction printers in an office setting. As print technologies advance, these printing workhorses are getting smaller in footprint. Designed for the modern business, the Canon imageCLASS MF633Cdw is ideal for a small- to medium-sized business.

The MF633Cdw is comparatively small and boxy in design, however, it is just as capable as those conventional office printing behemoths. While there is a 150-sheet maximum in its cassette, there is an optional cassette tray available if you need the capacity. Smaller outfits, one that doesn’t need a high print monthly print volume, will appreciate the formfactor, which doesn’t take much space.

Being a coloured laser printer, the MF633Cdw produces vivid coloured printouts that does not bleed or smudge. Having used this printer for both black and white, as well as coloured documents, the MF633Cdw certainly shines for the latter. It would be perfect to print out presentations or A4 posters.

SPECS

VERDICT:

“An all-in-one printer that shines in colour.” - Atifi

PRICE: RM1,720 DIMENSION (WXDXH): 451 x 460 x 400 mm WEIGHT: 22 kg (with cartridge) LCD DISPLAY: 5-inch WVGA colour LCD touchscreen PAPER SIZE (CASSETTE): A4, B5, A5, B6, Letter, Legal, Statement, Custom

Size (min 100 x 148 mm to max 215.9 x 355.6mm) PAPER INPUT (CASSETTE)T: 150 sheets max CONNECTIVITY: Gigabit Ethernet, Wireless, Direct Connection OTHER FEATURES: Department ID, Secure Print, Mobile Printing

8.6 71 SEPT 2017

TESTED

Core Strength

Thermaltake Core G21 TG Limited Storage Space

Blind Spot

You are only limited to two 3.5-inch storage devices. Two 2.5-inch SSD mounts are also included and can be found on top of the PSU shroud.

We are surprised the PSU is mostly shrouded from the front and top. This does mean that you won’t be able to show off some “bling” PSUs.

Tempered Glass!

Small Matter

Fragility No More

Thermaltake is quite a proven name for PC enthusiasts in terms of producing quality and affordable casings. Its identity of simple-looking but sleek products have been a favourite for years now, and it’s not a surprise when we see their latest product, the Thermaltake Core G21 TG Casing. The “TG” here, if you haven’t guessed, stands for tempered glass. And, it’s not every day you can find a tempered glass casing that is selling for sub RM300.

The case is compact and garnished in matte black all over. Its simple design exudes elegance but it would’ve been nicer if the white Thermaltake logo is blended into the casing rather than being stuck on. The perforated front-end gives lots of room for air to enter and cool the innards, either using air cooling via three 120mm fans (or two 140mm’s) or a maximum 360mm-sized radiator if you’re into water cooling. Fans can be installed either on the top, at the rear or even at the bottom of the casing.

The design of the casing extends to two clips at the bottom that keeps the tempered glass in place so you won’t have to worry about its fragile side panels. Although slightly tinted, it’s clear enough to check on your components. Sadly, this also means that you can see the cables running at the back, which is a double-edged sword if you’re one of those that hates cable management (like me).

SPECS

VERDICT:

72 SEPT 2017

“The casing is one of the best looking and yet affordable tempered glass casing on the Malaysian market right now.” - Din

PRICE: RM 289 TYPE: Mid Tower DIMENSION: 476 x 208 x 471mm (H/W/D) SIDE PANEL: 4mm Tempered Glass x2 COLOR: Black

DRIVE BAYS: 2x SSD mounts, 2x 3.5” or 2.5” mounts CPU COOLER LIMIT: 160mm VGA LENGTH LIMIT: 410mm PSU LENGTH LIMIT: 220mm

8.2

Simply Portable

Sony Mobile Projector MP-CL1A Extra Power

The projector doubles as a power bank in case you need extra juice in a pinch.

Link Up Other Speakers

A bit bummed by the speakers? You can link up other speakers or headsets via Bluetooth.

Mediocre Battery

One disappointing feature is the battery. With a 3,400mAh battery, it lasts for only about two hours. No Marvel movies then?

Elegently Slim

Easy Setup

One-Person Entertainment

The design of the projector is slim and solid without feeling heavy, making it easy to carry. Not much bigger than the size of a 5-inch smartphone, it comes with easy access buttons and ports, all on one side. Fitted with a headphone jack, a USB port and a HDMI port, it’s got just enough for playing any videos from most devices. The USB port also allows the pocket projector to double up as a power bank for your other devices.

The setup is simple. You can detect the pocket projector from any Wi-Fi enabled devices, pair them and the screen will be mirrored. After the screen is mirrored, a single toggle switch allows you to refine the settings, including keystones, colour contrast, brightness, Bluetooth settings, etc. The toggle switch also doubles as a volume control for the in-built speaker.

Being a pocket projector, it’s not meant to give you a cinematic experience. The stand is made so you can angle the projector onto a nearby wall, or onto a ceiling. (You know, when you’re lazy to get out of bed.) The speakers are loud enough, but they won’t be top shelve quality. Supporting up to 1920x720 HD resolution, the visuals turned out to be a bit darker. While you can adjust the settings, it isn’t the best for image quality.

SPECS

VERDICT:

“If you are looking for simple usability, this fits the bill. Don’t expect top-end image or audio quality though. ” - Satoko

PRICE: RM1,799 DIMENSIONS (HXWXD): 149.5 x 77 x 13 mm WEIGHT: 210 g RESOLUTION: 1920x720p HD, 16,770,000 colours PROJECTION DISTANCE: 40 inches at projection distance of 1.15 m

ANSI LUMENS: 40 Lumens (30% White) BULB LIFE: Laser diode/Approx. 10,000 hours CONNECTIVITY: HDMI 1.4b/MHL 2.2 (HDCP 1.4), Screen mirroring (Miracast), Wi-Fi standards supported (indoor use only in India): IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4 GHz/5 GHz), Bluetooth

7.8

73 SEPT 2017

TESTED

Android PC in Your Palm JOI Remix Mini Android PC

Minimalistic Form Factor

Vast Connectivity Options

Minimalistic round pebble-shaped design with no visible buttons or lights except for a single LED indicator.

At the back are full connectivity ports, mainly two USB ports, a LAN ports, a HDMI port and a Micro SD slot.

Android Domination

No Storage, No Problem

Having already been used with TVs, car stereos, smartphones, the Android operating system can now be found in the JOI Remix Mini PC as well, making way for another segment in the market its penetrating. The Remix Mini gives the Android OS a makeover with the Android Play Store pre-installed unlike some Android boxes where it’s absent. Installation and setup is straightforward with no issues in recognizing the mouse and keyboard.

The Remix Mini is capable of processing just about any file you throw at it. However, it was not as consistent in detecting storage devices via the USB ports. But when it comes to decoding 4K videos, the Mali400MP2 GPU is more than capable of doing so. Using any media centre software like Kodi can turn the PC into a very competent TV Box, albeit it must be controlled with a mouse and keyboard. With the right customisation, you could stream any content onto your TV or monitor.

SPECS

VERDICT: “Remix is a good all-rounder and it would have been better if there was a remote controller.” - Leonard

74 SEPT 2017

PRICE: RM299 DIMENSIONS (HXWXD): 88 x 124 x 26 mm WEIGHT: 450 grams PROCESSOR: Allwinner 64-bit, Quad Core Cortex – A53 Processor MEMORY: 2GB DDR3L

STORAGE: 16GB OPERATING SYSTEM: Android 5.1 GRAPHICS: Mali400MP2 CONNECTIVITY: WiFi/BT/LAN 2*USB

8.0

Mid-sized Modularity Cooler Master Masterbox 5t

Carry Handle

A Carry handle that supports up to 30kg of weight makes for relatively easy and upright case transportation. It also doubles as a nice cubby hole to stash USB drives.

Stormguard Bracket

To prevent your lovely peripherals from disappearing to unsavoury types, the chassis has a Stormguard bracket to keep your mind at ease.

Front Fan Bracket

The front bracket supports radiators up to 360mm for those seeking liquid-cooled performance without the need to fuss with brackets or adapters.

Design and Shape

You Decide the Inside

Real-World Airflow & Noise

The Cooler Master Masterbox 5t is a departure from the safe and under-theradar design of its predecessor. The midtower chassis features a red front mesh, a roof dust filter and a motherboard tray that certainly adds more character while still having a practical purpose. The I/O panel now sports a fan controller alongside the dual USB 3.0 ports and audio jacks.

Cooler Master has been focusing on the idea of modular design, giving builders more flexibility in layout and configuration for a more simplified casebuilding experience. The interior of the chassis is spacious enough for pain-free installation of your core components. For clumsy people, the front panel comes off easily for better access to the internals. The interior has enough clearance for the beefier and bigger air coolers as well as the chunkier graphic cards.

While this case was built for gaming, we also intended for it to be our secondary video editing workstation, which meant thermal performance and noise dampening were equally important. Despite not being in the high-end spectrum with a dual-fan configuration, we were able to run an i7-6700K with a minor overclock at reasonable temperatures, rarely peaking over 60°C. Airflow was good with fresh air being pulled from the front panel mesh and exited via the rear and top vents.

“A very capable mid-tower case with all the right features. The colour scheme is an

SPECS

VERDICT: acquired taste.” - Amir PRICE: RM429 SIZE : Mid-Tower Case AVAILABLE COLOUR: Black with Red MATERIALS: Steel body, Plastic mesh bezel. DIMENSIONS(LXWXH MM): 541.2 x 220 x 513.5 MOTHERBOARD SUPPORT: ATX, Micro-ATX,

Mini-ITX EXPANSION SLOTS: 7 DRIVE BAYS: 2 x 3.5in/ 2.5in, 1 x 2.5in I/O PANEL: USB 3.0 x 2, Audio In/Out, Fan Speed Control H/L CABLE ROUTING: 25 - 35mm DUST FILTERS: Front, bottom POWER SUPPLY: Bottom Mount, ATX

8.0 75 SEPT 2017

TESTED

Pro Labeler

Epson LabelWorks LW-Z900FK Look Ma, No Wires

Being an industrial label marker, it comes with a high-capacity battery. The only wire you’ll ever find is for when it needs a charge.

Hands-free Operation

This label maker has an automatic cutter that cuts full or half-size labels. In fact, you could even mount it onto steel surfaces – made possible by its magnatised feet.

Serious Business

Commercial Application

Label All the Things!

When a bright red and black hard-shell case arrived at our test lab, we were curious to see what lies within. Truth be told, neither one of us expected an industrial label maker. The Epson LabelWorks LW-Z900FK is a hefty machine that will suit even the most rugged of environments thanks to its durable design. It certainly weighs quite a bit; thankfully no toes or flooring were hurt during its time here.

As mere consumers, the LW-Z900FK is certainly an overkill for day-to-day labelling of office stationery, which may or may not include our staplers and scissors (you’d be surprised at how many of these disappear from the desk). It is suitable for skilled workers such as contractors, builders and plumbers, who are constantly exposed to the elements – this label maker would be appreciated in such setting.

Truly made for industrial applications, the LW-Z900FK is complemented with an extensive list of label styles, including cable-wrap, die-cut, heat shrink tapes and magnetic tapes. Also, Epson offers users up to seven tape widths, from as narrow as 4mm to as wide as 36mm, in a variety of colours. For our review, we utilised the 12mm standard tape – an all-rounder when it comes to labelling. From text to barcodes, the label maker printed everything clearly and quickly.

SPECS

VERDICT:

76 SEPT 2017

“Heavy-duty label printer at your service. It’ll probably outlast the things you label.” - Atifi

PRICE: RM2,199 DIMENSIONS (WX DXH): 136 x 295 x 97 mm WEIGHT: 1.25kg LCD: 140 x 80 dot back-lit mono LCD INTERNAL MEMORY: Up to 100 files

KEYBOARD: QWERTY / 66 keys TECHNOLOGY: Thermal Transfer TAPE WIDTH: 6 - 36 mm LENGTH: Auto / Custom RESOLUTION: 360 dpi CONNECTIVITY: USB 2.0

8.8

Tech Nanny

Netgear Baby Arlo Monitor

Keeping the Kids Entertained

Shaped like a pet toy, the bunny ears on the Arlo Baby Monitor can be swapped out for other cute animals available as an accessory.

Pivot, Pivot!

The camera is located on the head of the bunny, which can be pivoted and rotated to keep its focus on the baby.

Made for t little oneshe No Power, No Problem

In the event of a power outage, the Baby Arlo Monitor comes with its own in-house battery stored at the base to keep itself working.

Crystal Clear Imagery

Songs to Sleep to

Recording Around the Clock

Equipped with a HD webcam, the Arlo Baby Monitor is great to keep an eye on your little one in both day and night with sharp and clear video quality imagery. You can even zoom in during the live feed and the image stays sharp and distinct throughout the recording. The camera can also capture sound, which was clear as well without any distortions during playback.

Aside from ensuring your baby gets the protection it deserves, the Arlo baby Monitor comes with an embedded music player function that can be used to play back nursery rhymes to soothe your baby to sleep. The duration of the playback can be set in increments, which is something normal MP3 players fail at doing so.

With the Arlo Baby Monitor, you can now schedule the recordings, which the monitor will detect for motion and sound. Once detected, the monitor will save it and store the clip on the cloud. One downside for longer periods of recording, it requires a subscription to the Netgear service for it to be used. There is also a built-in humidity and temperature sensor, which can trigger a warning, should it be over the preset limit.

SPECS

VERDICT:

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Easy to use and setup, Video is sharp in both day and night. Essential tool for parents everywhere.â&#x20AC;? - Leonard

PRICE: RM1,379 DIMENSIONS (HXWXD): CAMERA: 1080HD 30fps CMOS 8X Digital Zoom FOV: 110-130 degrees NIGHT VISION: 940nm LED : Illuminate

up to 15ft CONNECTIVITY: WiFi AC633 BATTERY: 2440mAh

8.0 77 SEPT 2017

TESTED

Free the Monster

Monster iSport Freedom Bluetooth Wireless On-Ear Headphones Touch Me

Sound Off

Use your finger tips to control the audio on the touch-sensing control. You can even receive/ reject calls using it.

There are two sound profiles to choose from: Standard and “Turbo”. The latter is meant to give an enhanced audio experience.

Free to Move

Exercise Companion

High-end Offering

When thinking of sports headphones, you’d mostly think of in-ear ones. Breaking the norm is the Monster iSport Freedom on-ear headphones, which can be used both wired and wirelessly. For those who need music blaring while doing their workouts they will be able to enjoy this particular pair.

Sporting a black and chartreuse colourway, the material used is smooth and rubberised. It fits snuggly on the head as the material helps with keeping it where it should be. We didn’t try to use it for more vigorous activities, but the iSport Freedom will stay put with minimal effort if you’re going for a jog or even exercising at the gym. We didn’t try whether it was water resistant either, though we can safely report that it is indeed sweat-proof (re: this writer doesn’t usually partake in exercising).

The headphones are priced at a premium, which some may not want to pay. Pay a bit more, and you can get yourself a pair of more comfortable wireless headphones from brands like JBL, AKG and Sony. Also, sweat does tend to shorten the life of headphones, even if they are made to be resilient. That said, the audio quality and battery longevity of the iSport Freedom is something we can’t complain about. Perhaps its the touch-sensing controls, located on the right earcup, that makes it pricey?

SPECS

VERDICT:

78 SEPT 2017

“A splurge of a sport headphones.” - Atifi

PRICE: RM1,199 CONNECTIVITY: wired, wireless (aptX Bluetooth) and USB Direct Digital Audio OTHER FEATURES: Touch-sensing controls; Sweat-proof, water resistant and washable; Voice activated calls.

7.6

Spark the Pilot in You DJI Spark

Pocket-sized Performer

Drones are normally quite large, which ensures that they can stay stable in flight but the Spark is tiny. It’s slightly larger than an iPhone 6S+.

Short Flight Time

The Spark’s tiny size is the limiting factor for its flight time. It is so small, the battery pack is almost 45% of its main fuselage/body, which results in approximately 10-15 minutes of flying.

Many Ways to Fly

The Spark can be controlled in three different ways: hand gestures, mobile devices or a dedicated DJI controller.

Perfect for Beginners

Much to our Dismay

The DJI Spark is easily the best aircraft for beginners to start out with before moving on to bigger and move complex drones. Pairing and setting it up for flight takes less than five minutes and it comes with automatic take-off and landing with a return-to-home function, giving you a peace of mind when piloting the Spark. Its small frame is also great if you’re not confident with bigger-sized drones to begin with.

The Spark has very limited flying range when paired and controlled with a mobile device. Whether it’s your smartphone or your tablet, the results are the same as the Spark can only fly up to a certain distance. If you’re planning on capturing more footage, we would highly recommend getting the dedicated controller.

SPECS

VERDICT:

Getting your YouTube Career Started Packed with an impressive 1080p FHD camera, the 2-axis gimbal combined with flight stability allows for stunning videos. Functions like ‘Object Tracking’ allows for selfie-styled videos with ease while indoor videos have very little digital noise and distortion. You can also switch between videos and stills through the settings. Sadly, no audio will be recorded with the video.

“Easy to fly and master. Camera takes clear and stable videos, good enough for streaming. Getting the controller is a must.” - Leonard

PRICE: RM2,288 DIMENSIONS (HXWXD): 143x143x55 mm WEIGHT: 300 grams CAMERA: Sensor: 1/2.3" CMOS Effective pixels: 12 MP Lens: FOV 81.9° 25 mm (35 mm format equivalent) f/2.6 (shooting range: 2 m to ∞) ISO Range: Video: 100-3200;

Photo: 100-1600 Video Resolution: FHD: 1920×1080 30p REMOTE: Battery: 1,480mAh LiPo 3S Operating Frequency: 2.4 GHz/5.8 GHz

8.5 79 SEPT 2017

TESTED

Security in Your Pocket Amaryllo KOOVA

Two-Way Talk

It has an in-built speaker and microphone; you can talk and direct the person through your app.

Not Quite Night Vision

A downside to the KOOVA is the lack of real night vision. There is an LED light that’ll turn on if it’s dark, but only when it’s triggered.

More Than Just a Camera

Small and Smart

Not for Free

Known for its robotic security cameras, Amaryllo has been hard at work with the KOOVA – touted as the world’s smallest auto-tracking and face detection robotic camera. It is a considerable upgrade from the original iSensor camera, which sports a similar design. The KOOVA, however, houses a range of smart features that makes it a nifty on-the-go security camera. Its dual-core CPUs makes it possible for facial recognition (up to four people) and detection, along with auto-tracking features.

Thanks to its size, you could easily transplant the security camera anywhere. We could see the merits of setting up the KOOVA as a temporary security solution while you’re on holiday. It powers by USB – you can use a cable with a power bank or wall plug – and connects to the Wi-Fi while being discreet enough to be unnoticed by unwanted visitors to your accommodation. Should there be any alerts, the moment will be recorded and an alert will be sent to you via the Amaryllo app.

There are a range of other smart features available on the KOOVA, including setting your own customised Activity and Block Out Zones. The Activity Zones will allow users to define which area to protect. As for the Block Out Zones, you can choose the area you don't want to be notified for just by defining it on your screen. However, this feature requires users to subscribe to Amaryllo’s monthly plans to enjoy it. The Basic Plan is free, but you will not be able to enjoy the Zones definition; Motion & Audio Alerts; as well as Customisable Voice Alerts.

SPECS

VERDICT:

80 SEPT 2017

“We love the versatility and portability of the KOOVA. The subscription plan, not so much. ” - Atifi

PRICE: RM890 DIMENSION (WXDXH): 36 x 36 x 121 mm WEIGHT: 107 g CPU: Dual Core MEMORY: 2GB RAM, up to 8GB Storage CONNECTIVITY: Embedded Wi-Fi 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n

IMAGE RESOLUTION: 1-megapixels IMAGE SENSOR: 1/4-inch CMOS VIDEO RESOLUTION: 720p, 480p, 360p AUTO-TRACKING RANGE: 240-degrees OTHER FEATURES: Facial recognition, Face/ motion/audio detection, Real-time two-way talk

8.5

Thermal Efficiency

Thermaltake Water 3.0 X120 Silent and Deadly

Keeping it Classy

The X120 is insanely quiet, even when it’s under heavy load; good job, Thermaltake!

Thermaltake Coming in Strong For the past few years, AIO has been the top choice for PC enthusiast’s due to its efficiency and easy installation, compared to a full-fledged water-cooling loop. It can even fit in the most casings in the market and even a cramped mini ITX. So, it’s great to see Thermaltake release an update to its flagship AIO Water 3.0 line: the X120. With a max 25db 120mm fan, it’s highly efficient, even when using a tempered glass casing, or a fully enclosed mini ITX.

SPECS

VERDICT:

With all the hype surrounding RGB, it’s great to see Thermaltake taking things different with an all-white LED.

Single but Powerful

No Rainbows

As the name implies, the X120 is a single radiator AIO cooler that comes with a single 120mm fan. Weighing in at only 782g, the X120 can be fitted at the rear, top or at the front of your casing. The piping is made from smooth rubber, which is just flexible enough to let you manipulate the pump/cooler head to install.

The pump is rated at 12v and features a white LED Thermaltake logo. Sadly, no RGB here, but hey, it still looks cool, especially in a tempered glass casing. The X120 comes with various backplates, which let you install it on various Intel and AMD systems. And great news, the X120 also supports the new AMD AM4 socket, which means you can now use the X120 to cool down your Ryzen.

“The X120 is compact, but still great performing AIO cooler from Thermaltake.” - Din

PRICE: RM249 RADIATOR LENGTH: Single FAN SIZE: 120mm COOLER PLATE: Copper WEIGHT: 782g

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SHOWDOWN

A picture is worth a thousand words; we put that to the test. By Leonard

martphones have invaded just about every facet of our lives today. Some segments of the electronics sector have succumbed to this invasion, rendering them almost to oblivion; one such segment is digital photography. With every flagship model that has launched, there have been several expected improvements that is anticipated and you can bet that the camera is one of them. In this showdown, we decided to take a closer look at the cameras of the leading flagships that have launched recently and pit them against one another. We selected a few challenging aspects/

conditions of shot-taking to see which one of the flagship smartphones have the better camera. 1) 2) 3) 4)

Daylight with HDR Night Video (Front and Rear) Selfie

The chosen smartphones are the Samsung S8+, Sony Xperia XZ Premium, Huawei P10 Plus and the OnePlus 5. I will be leaving the phones in their full auto settings and not make any changes to the camera parameters.

SHOWDOWN

Samsung Galaxy S8+

Huawei P10 Plus

Sony Xperia XZ Premium

Daylight Shots

ifferentiation in daylight is often very difficult. All four smartphones were very capable in this aspect of photo-taking. Upon closer inspection of the images, blemishes and imperfections start to show. When zoomed in, the XZ Premium reigns supreme in terms of providing detailed clarity, which is then followed by the Galaxy S8+. Unfortunately, the OnePlus 5 and P10 Plus has lost its details. A feature that comes with every flagship smartphone camera is high dynamic range (HDR), which helps in capturing images in great detail. While the S8+ and P10 Plus provide the most details in their shots, the XZ Premium gives the clearest image among all four devices. Sadly, the OnePlus 5 doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do itself justice in this department as it was miles away compared to the other devices. In overall scoring, the daylight win will have to be the S8+ followed by the XZ Premium, P10 Plus and OnePlus 5 respectively.

84 SEPT 2017

OnePlus 5

Samsung Galaxy S8+

Huawei P10 Plus

Sony Xperia XZ Premium

Night Shots

ight time shots are the Achilles heel of any smartphone camera. Just when you thought you captured the perfect image, it turns out to be totally unusable because the natural low-lighting conditions ruined it. The image results were taken with the help of a tripod and things to look out for are clarity and visibility, not just from afar but when enlarged as well.

OnePlus 5

Putting the four smartphones through different tests yielded similar results when compared to the daytime shots as both the S8+ and the P10 Plus came out on top. These two devices retained the most detail and clarity while the XZ Premium and OnePlus 5 were not able to find proper focus, causing the details to be lost and washed out. Just to reiterate, the pictures were taken by hand and in the end, the S8+ was the clear winner, which is then followed by the P10 Plus. The XZ Premium came in a respectable third place while the OnePlus 5 was the unfortunate loser again. 85 SEPT 2017

SHOWDOWN

Samsung Galaxy S8+

Huawei P10 Plus

Sony Xperia XZ Premium

Video

ith image stabilisation in one form or another being part of all smartphone in this monthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s showdown, the videos shot in daylight are silky smooth. The only difference between them would be a matter of personal preference on smartphone choices. 4K recording was the choice of the day for video recording and unfortunately for the XZ Premium, it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come with 4K recording within its video settings. Recording in 4K taxed all the devices, which were pretty warm to touch after just five minutes of recording.

Night videos were taken to stress out the cameras. From the stills taken from the videos, the noise and motion blur are most evident on the OnePlus 5, followed by the P10 Plus. The XZ Premium contained the least amount of digital noise, however, it was also not able to capture much details. The best balance with enough detail and noise comes from the S8+.

SEPT 2017

OnePlus 5

Samsung Galaxy S8+

Huawei P10 Plus

Sony Xperia XZ Premium

Selfie

aking a picture of one’s self has become such a phenomenon that the Oxford dictionary has officially recognised the term ‘selfie’. This gave rise to not just the capabilities of the cameras at the back but also at the front of the smartphones. Nowadays, some smartphones are even touting the front-facing camera as one of the key USPs of its features. Looking at the images, the XZ Premium had the widest field of the group while the remainder shared a similar field of view. A worthy takeaway was the P10 Plus, which was the only one with a bokeh effect or portrait mode for its front-facing camera. The XZ Premium also had the sharpest clarity of the background as well as better colour reproduction compared to the other smartphones. What was a little surprising was the S8+ as the background was a little washed out. With the OnePlus 5, the details in the background appeared distorted, which just spoke about the overall performance of the device. The P10 Plus would come second to the XZ Premium as it retained a lot of the details.

OnePlus 5

87 SEPT 2017

SHOWDOWN Brands/Specs

Samsung Galaxy S8+

Front Camera

8-megapixel AF, f/1.7

Dual Pixel 12-megapixel, f/1.7

Rear Camera

Huawei P10 Plus

Sony Xperia XZ Premium

OnePlus 5

8-megapixel AF, f/1.9

13-megapixel Wide-angle lens, f/2.0

16-megapixel Fixed Focus, f/2.0

20-megapixel Monochrome + 12-megapixel RGB, f/1.8

19-megapixel Motion Eye + 25mm Wide G lens, f/2.0

16-megapixel Wide-angle, f/1.7 + 20-megapixel Telephoto, f/2.6

Image Stabilisation

Yes (OIS)

Yes (SteadyShot with Intelligent Active Mode, 5-axis stabilization)

Auto Focus

Yes

Yes (PDAF + CAF + Laser + Depth Auto Focus)

Yes (Predictive Hybrid Auto Focus)

Yes (DCAF + PDAF)

4K Recording

Yes

Price

RM3,699

RM3,099

RM3,399

RM2,388

CONCLUSION

Yes (EIS)

All the smartphones performed very well but this would not be a showdown if we did not dig deep to find the differences among them. The Samsung Galaxy S8+ was the most consistent performer under all conditions, crowning it the winner of this monthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Showdown. The Sony Xperia XZ Premium does deserve an honourable mention for being the most colour accurate and despite the big bezels, we liked its design best for being understated yet premium. The Huawei P10 Plus also deserves some recognition for being a formidable front and rear-facing shooter. 88 SEPT 2017

SHORT FEATURE

BEHIND THE CLOAK

Rest easy as there are no daggers involved here

rafty offenders use cloaking as a technique to circumvent Facebook’s review processes, thus allowing content that violate t h e p l a t f o r m’s C o m m u n i t y Standards and Advertising Policies. In an effort to further combat false information, Facebook addresses the act of cloaking by removing financially-motivated bad actors who create misleading experiences for people. Bad actors disguise the true destination of an ad or post, or the real content of the destination page, in order to bypass Facebook’s review processes. For example, they will set up web pages so that when a Facebook reviewer clicks a link to check whether it’s consistent with Facebook’s policies, they are taken to a different web page than when someone using the Facebook app clicks that same link. Cloaked destination pages, which frequently include diet pills, pornography and muscle building scams, create negative and disruptive experiences for people. On this end, Facebook is utilising artificial intelligence and has expanded their human review processes to help them identify, capture, and verify cloaking. The new system allows Facebook to better observe differences in the type of content ser ved to people using our apps compared to our own internal systems. 89 SEPTEMBER 2017

SEPT 2017 31

BIZ 2.0

Print & Protect HP Malaysia expands its A3 MFPs

From left to right: Yap Phei Leen, Market Development Manager, Office Printing Solution (OPS), HP PPS Sales Sdn Bhd; Kym Lim: Managing Director, HP PPS Sales Sdn Bhd; Wong Yuen Lai, Business Director, Print Category, HP PPS Sales Sdn Bhd and James Liew, Country Technical Consultant, HP PPS Sales Sdn Bhd.

P Malaysia introduces a total of 54 SKUs into its new and robust line-up of nextgeneration A4 multifunction printers (MFPs), which includes enterpriseclass A3 MFPs that are designed to protect themselves from cyber-attacks. All of HPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest MFPs are implanted with the latest security features like HP Sure Start, whitelisting and run-time intrusion detection. This will automatically reboot the MFPs in the event of an attack on the system. If 90 SEPT 2017

the BIOs, firmware or run-time memory is targeted, the MFPs will generate alerts in syslogs formats and will send out notifications via Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools. HP also introduces a brand-new cloudbased proprietary service optimisation platform known as HP Smart Device Services (SDS), which delivers maximum device uptime with the integration of advanced diagnostics, device specific troubleshooting and remote remediation capabilities for the MFPs.

Single and multifunction devices from HPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s PageWide Pro not only makes printing in colour cheap and affordable, it also come with print speeds ranging from 35 pages per minute (ppm) to 60 ppm.

Enhancing Power and Precision

Dell EMC continues to bring businesses forward with its next generation equipment

n conjunction with the 20th anniversary of Dell Precision workstations, Dell is bringing in new additions to its next generation fixed workstation portfolio: The Dell Precision 5820 Tower, Precision 7820 Tower, Precision 7920 Tower and Precision 7920 Rack. Redesigned inside and out, the new Dell Precision towers are now able to process more creative workflows, thanks to the latest Intel Xeon processors, next generation AMD Radeon Pro and the highest performing NVIDIA Quadro professional graphic cards. The new towers are also configured for professional software applications and can seamlessly complete complex projects like virtual reality content development. When paired with NVIDIA Quadro GP100, the Intel Xeon High core count CPUs enable deep learning and machine learning applications, combining graphics, computing, highly scalable storage and large system memory options. As for the cherry on top, its AMD Radeon Pro SSG Graphics with fast HBM2 memory and 2TB of SSD on board enables real-time 8K video editing and playback, exceeding all current editing and playback boundaries. Meanwhile, Dell EMC is offering its next generation of the world’s bestselling server to help customers of all sizes fuel their IT transformation initiatives. The award-winning design of the new 14th generation Dell EMC PowerEdge server portfolio forms a scalable, automated and secure platform for traditional and cloudnative applications. “Demands on today’s data centre have changed – it has to deliver a modern infrastructure that can adapt and scale

KT Ong, Country Manager – Malaysia, Dell EMC and William Tan, Director, Global Computer & Networks, Dell EMC Malaysia

with business needs and ultimately enable faster IT transformation. The Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th Generation servers effectively modernise the core of the data centre to meet these demands,” states Pang Yee Beng, Senior Vice President, APJ, Compute & Networking, Dell EMC. The scalable business architecture of Dell EMC PowerEdge servers helps customers to efficiently meet their business needs with enhanced performance capabilities for traditional, virtualised and cloud-native workloads. Highly optimised for non-volatile memory express (NVMe), the PowerEdge accelerates deployment of due to its accelerated database performance, faster migration of virtual machines and storage performance. Dell EMC will also be expanding its leading converged systems portfolio by integrating the PowerEdge servers into Dell EMC VxRail Appliances hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) in Malaysia. It will allow Dell EMC to address more use

cases in the country and help modernise data centres with comprehensive service and support, assisting business growth and investment protection. According to KT Ong, Country Manager (Malaysia), Dell EMC, HCI is becoming the fastest growing part of the IT infrastructure market as businesses continue to desire substantial infrastructure simplification. In fact, the hyper-converged systems segment grew up to 64.7% year over year globally and Dell EMC continues to be the undisputed leader of the overall converged systems market with 28.9% market share. In the Asia-Pacific & Japan (APJ) region alone, the HCI segment grew 111% year over year during the first quarter of 2017, more than doubling the revenue from the same period a year ago. The latest data from IDC Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker also notes that Dell EMC’s HCI sales increased by 325% in APJ. 91 SEPT 2017

BIZ 2.0

New Head of Sage APAC

Sage appoints new executive VP for Asia Pacific

age appoints Kerry Agiasotis as the new Executive Vice President for its Asia Pacific business. Agiasotis will be taking over Alan Osrin, Managing Director, Sage Australia, after Osrin announced his impending retirement a few months ago. Starting on 11 September, Agiasotis will report to President Blair Crump. Responsible for ensuring Sage’s continued growth and success in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, he will also assume responsibilities for the Australia business. He will drive Sage’s focus on providing customers with newly-launched global cloud technologies and support, new customer acquisition and ensure a loyal following for local payroll, payment and accounting solutions. Previously from Western Union Business Solutions, he had been President

of Western Union’s global Business Solutions division since October 2013. He led the company’s Sales function and held the position of Regional Managing Director for the APAC region. He also spent time in leadership roles Oracle’s sales business and at Siebel Systems. With over 20 years of experience in business management, sales and consulting primarily in the Financial Services and IT Industries, he has a deep understanding of business builders, having had his own business consultancy practice serving SMEs in the past. Crump commented: “With his vast and varied experience running businesses across the Asia Pacific market, Kerry is well-positioned to lead Sage’s business in one of the fastest growing regions in the world.”

The Australian-born Agiasotis holds an Executive MBA degree from the Australian Graduate School of Management and will be based in Sydney, Australia.

Kerry Agiasotis, Executive Vice President for Sage Asia Pacific [Incoming]

Guarding Malaysia’s Businesses

Fortinet Launches Global Threat Intelligence Service for Malaysian firms

ortinet announces a new threat intelligence service. The FortiGuard Threat Intelligence Service (TIS) highlights the latest threat trends and cyber risks facing organisations. Fortinet enables local CISOs to stay ahead of the global threat landscape and proactively defend their enterprises against rapidly evolving threats. FortiGuard TIS is a cloud-based threat intelligence platform that provides threat metrics and activity trends. FortiGuard TIS leverages Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs leading threat intelligence research and consists of more than 200 expert researchers analyzing data

92 SEPT 2017

collected from more than three million sensors around the globe. “Given the maturity and breadth of our sensor network, Fortinet is uniquely positioned to provide accurate threat intelligence telemetry across a diverse and broad range of sources in Malaysia and across the globe,” said Gavin Chow, Network and Security Strategist, Fortinet APAC. “FortiGuard Labs ingests over 50 billion events daily, and now with the FortiGuard Threat Intelligence Service we are able to deliver those same extensive threat insights to our customers and the security community at large.”

FortiGuard TIS is specifically designed to provide the threat intelligence needed for CISOs to stay on top of the latest threat trends. The platform prioritises global threat landscape activity to understand which security risks are on the rise. Kill Chain reporting provides additional details on the unique and specific threat trends currently impacting their industry and the globe. CISOs can drill down further into specific threat details to identify its activity trends, prevalence and ranking. Integration with the FortiGuard Encyclopedia provides enhanced threat descriptions that includes details of the origin, behaviors and remediation steps.

Keeping a FarEye on Logistics DHL eCommerce partners with logistics technology platform

HL has chosen FarEye, a Logistics Management Solution as a partner of choice for DHL eCommerce. The technology platform will help enhance customer experience, optimise resources and deliver its brand promise ‘real-time’. DHL eCommerce is a division of logistics company Deutsche Post DHL Group. DHL eCommerce provides international, standard parcel delivery for business customers. It supports business processes with mature e-commerce shipping solutions and technology platforms that help enable various online businesses.

DHL eCommerce continuously invests in technology to improve processes and communications. FarEye’s platform fits in with the organisation’s existing systems, providing a more flexible and agile IT infrastructure. Being a SaaS platform, FarEye gave DHL eCommerce the flexibility to the scale-up and down depending on the demand levels. This allows the division to adapt quickly to work environments. Charles Brewer, CEO DHL eCommerce says, “With eCommerce growing at such a rapid pace, we see a fantastic opportunity for high quality solutions that will offer a great customer experience and more

choice, convenience and control for online shoppers. FarEye’s platform is scalable, future-oriented and flexible. With FarEye we can deliver ‘delight’ by having complete visibility of the logistics movement and keeping customer informed at every step, ‘real-time’.”

Cloudera Appoints ASEAN Distributor

Tech Data becomes first ASEAN distributor for Cloudera to deliver integrated solution suite for big data analytics and machine learning

loudera appoints Tech Data as their first ASEAN distributor. Along with this announcement, the company also announces availability of a new integrated Smart City and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions built on Cloudera. Tech Data will now deliver turnkey Smart City and IoT solutions for data centre, cloud, analytics, security, and mobility service providers. The integrated solution suite comprises enterprise hardware, compute, storage, hyperconverged systems and software for various segments of the data management process. Tech Data’s Big Data Analytics & IoT business unit has been specially designed to empower partners to

use technology to bolster Smart City investments and initiatives. Cloudera notes that the importance of data security in a smart city environment cannot be underestimated and needs to be made a priority from the outset. Serving this need, Tech Data’s ready-to-use solution built on Cloudera, provides a holistic and secure open source platform that enables highperformance, usability, and cost-efficiency. “The addition of the Cloudera Enterprise platform to our solutions suite enables us to further transform technology products into integrated business solutions for our partners. With access to playbooks, blueprints, and a wide range of Cloudera’s value-added training and professional services, our partners can look forward

to a streamlined and well-supported implementation process that will help end-users to accelerate their digital transformation and their contribution to local Smart City initiatives,” says Bennett Wong, vice president and general manager, ASEAN at Tech Data. “The accuracy of data and integrity of processes are critical to the success of Smart City initiatives. Through this partnership, we are now able to extend our reach to help Tech Data deliver an integrated solution to an expanded network of partners in the ASEAN region. End-users will now be able to easily manage and access their data and drive deeper insights for intelligent decision making,” adds Mark Micallef, vice president, Asia Pacific and Japan at Cloudera. 93 SEPT 2017

BIZ 2.0

Pulse Secure Buys Brocade vADC

Pulse Secure Acquires Brocade’s Virtual Application Delivery Controller product family

ulse Secure, a provider of secure access solutions to both enterprises and service providers, recently completed the acquisition of Brocade’s Virtual Application Delivery Controller (vADC) product family. The acquisition is expected to boost the company’s accelerating growth in Malaysia. Pulse Secure achieved over 25% consecutive quarter-on-quarter growth for the past three quarters. Don Tan, Pulse Secure’s Regional Director of Asia Pacific says, “The acquisition of Brocade’s technology will add significant new capabilities

to the Pulse Secure Access Platform, allowing us to deliver a complete endto-end solution designed to reduce cost and complexity, increase security, and delight users.” Pulse Secure’s Secure Access Solutions will be further strengthened by Brocade’s vADC technology by the virtual ADC portfolio – with software and virtualisation capabilities to support hybrid IT and Cloud deployments. The Brocade vADC solution is a virtual application delivery controller, that can be quickly and easily provisioned either on premise, in a private/public cloud, or cloud service marketplaces such as AWS, Google,

and Azure. It is recognised within the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers and is used by many organisations worldwide. Existing and new vADC customers will enjoy expanded support and R&D coverage. Pulse Secure’s distributors in Malaysia are Adaptive Netpoleon Malaysia Sdn Bhd and Ingram Micro Malaysia Sdn Bhd. Since its launch as an independent entity in 2014, Pulse Secure has invested significant resources into expanding its footprint across Asia Pacific. The company was recently named SSL VPN Vendor of the Year at the 2017 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards.

Online Shoppers Prefer Desktop Adobe research shows SEA consumers prefers buying via desktop over smartphones

onsumers in Southeast Asia (SEA) prefers to purchase via desktops sites over smartphones, an Adobe research concluded. Adobe’s Best of the Best research examined average website performance versus the top 20% across Asia Pacific (APAC). The research is based on aggregated and anonymous data from 100 billion visits to 3,000+ websites across the region including India, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States.

94 SEPT 2017

The report found that SEA experienced the largest decrease in time spent on websites at 13%; at the same time SEA saw 40% growth in smartphone conversion rates. This highlights changing consumer habits, as attention spans shorten and network connection speeds improve across the region. Despite declining desktop traffic and a corresponding increase in smartphone traffic in SEA, desktop conversion rates also grew an average 21% YoY and were still more than double the conversion rates of smartphones. This suggests that even as SEA consumers

are browsing more on their smartphones, they are still purchasing via desktop. “While consumers in SEA are still making their purchases largely on the desktop, brands should not ignore the rise of smartphones that will fast overtake desktops,” says Scott Rigby, Head of Digital Transformation, Adobe. “Organisations that are overly dependent on desktop traffic, and not optimizing on smartphones, may find themselves at risk of becoming obsolete as smartphone share of visits continues to multiply.”

Reuse and Recycle Printed Paper

Toshiba Launches Its 1st Hybrid MFP

oshiba TEC unveils the world’s first hybrid multi-function printers (MFP) that prints regular black prints as well as erasable blue prints in one single device. This series is driven by Toshiba TEC’s e-BRIDGE Next platform and is equipped with state-of-the-art features for modern document workflows. The Toshiba Hybrid MFP enable users to select two types of toners in one device, which is the erasable blue toner and regular black toner.

To simplify the usage, the product’s rule-based printing feature allow users to define multiple rules by automatically selecting the toner mode, for temporary documents or permanent documents printing. “The Toshiba Hybrid MFP is the ultimate machine where you can print regular black prints and erasable blue prints, with the ability to recycle and reuse paper, all in one device, with no additional cost from the monochrome MFP,” says Paul Ting, Director and CEO of Toshiba TEC Malaysia.

4G Driving Smartphone Growth

Gartner says component shortage might affect premium smartphone sales

artner releases the latest numbers for global smartphone sales in the second quarter of 2017. Totalling 366.2 million units, it registers a 6.7% increase over the same period the previous year. “Although demand for utility smartphones remains strong, there is growing demand in emerging markets for 4G smartphones, with more storage, better processors and more advanced cameras. This is translating into higher demand for mid-priced ($150 to $200) smartphones,” said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. Android continues to grow its market share with an 87.7% market share while iOS accounted for 12.1%. Compared to Q2 2016, sales of all types of smartphones have grown; although there are issues

concerning rising component costs as well as limited supply of certain critical components, especially flash memory and OLED displays. Based on brand breakdown, Samsung takes the crown with smartphone sales growing 7.5%, thanks to the boost from their Galaxy S8 series. Apple on the other hand registered a 0.2% decline, although the upgrade to iOS 11 is expected to fuel growth in the next quarter. Majority of the global smartphone sales came from Greater China and emerging Asia/Pacific markets, with market shares of 27.7% and 21.4%, respectively. However, smartphone sales in Greater China declined year-over-year, due to longer replacement cycles, as users prefer to buy better smartphones.

Anshul Gupta, Principal Research Analyst, Gartner Inc

95 SEPT 2017

SPOTLIGHT

ON THE ROAD TO VICTORY

By Sharil Abdul Rahman

LENOVO IS CURRENTLY ONE OF THE TOP NAMES IN PERSONAL COMPUTING, BUT THEY ARE NOT RESTING ON THEIR LAURELS

Far right: Ken Wong, President of Lenovo Asia Pacific & Senior Vice President of Lenovo Group 96 SEPT 2017

omputers are everywhere and chances are, most machines you interact with everyday are made by Lenovo. From desktop computers to servers running on the cloud, Lenovo’s reach is all encompassing and far-reaching. With that said, it isn’t at all surprising to know that Lenovo is one of the top names in the personal computing world. However, innovations are far and few in-between these days, thus throwing the overall PC market into a state of limbo. This results in low engagements and purchasing by customers, something Lenovo is eager to transform by triggering customers to purchase a new device, based on new and revolutionary innovations that will wow them. This is the vision that is shared by Ken Wong, President of Lenovo Asia Pacific & Senior Vice President of Lenovo Group. Lenovo is constantly on the move, creating the right product for the right market segment. This fulfils the needs, wants and requirements of the customers, which is what Lenovo is all about with its company’s new philosophy: “Customer Centricity”. This transformation has been going on for quite some time, and it has garnered positive results for both Lenovo and its customers. The company follows a simple guiding principal – “what would make our customers’ life better?” The answer to this question is what Lenovo is focusing on this fiscal year. One of the ways it is being addressed is the establishment of new resources, starting from this fiscal year to better serve Lenovo’s customers. This includes dedicated teams on a global level to find out what do customers want. The rebranding of Lenovo’s gaming line-up is one of the results. Previously known as the Y-series, it has since been rebranded and is now known only as Lenovo Legion. This includes both the hardware as well as the community being built around the brand. Having a branded community is important, as the gaming community is a staunch believer of community feedback and communication. “One of the reasons we started Lenovo Legion is because branding is important for gamers. In fact, other

companies have their own brand to make them stand out as gamers tend to associate better with a brand. A community is also important for gamers as it is something most gamers are looking forward to. Therefore, we have invested heavily in nurturing the gaming community and building a platform to interact directly with our customers,” says Wong. Through Lenovo’s Customer Centricity philosophy, its enterprise segment has also started to take shape. Its current range of enterprise products are constantly evolving through the feedback from customers, making it better than before. Surprisingly, the enterprise market is one of Lenovo’s growing segments in APAC alongside gaming, bucking the flat growth trend that PCs are facing in the region. Through various interactions and feedback gathered from customers, Lenovo has discovered that enterprise requirements are becoming more complicated and sophisticated than ever before. “For example, if you look at our data centre business, we spent about US$2.5 billion (bn) as an acquisition from IBM a few years ago. This year, we will be building an end-to-end dedicated team on all levels, from products to R&D as a dedicated source for our Data Centre Group (DCG) business,” he adds. Lenovo’s growth is only made possible thanks to the contribution from the company’s partners, which includes

System Integrators (SI), distributors, sales and marketing, and the service team that works with business partners. In investing for the future, Lenovo has spent over US$1.2bn in R&D over the past year; 20 – 30% of that amount has been funnelled into Atificial Intelligence (AI) research. To further the study, Lenovo brought Dr. Yong Rui on board, due to his experience in AI to bolster the company’s grip in the burgeoning market. Rui oversees Lenovo’s corporate technical strategy, R&D directions and Lenovo’s corporate Research and Technology (R&T) organisation, which covers AI, intelligent devices, big data analytics, cloud computing 5G network and smart lifestyle-related technologies. Another segment that Lenovo is dipping their toes into is its Smart Home. The launch of the Smart Assistant at CES 2017 signals the company’s entry into the smart home segment, which ties deeply with the AI R&D. Not only is this new segment set to boom in the next couple of years, more and more consumers and companies, which includes developers, are embracing the world of Internet of Things (IoT). Lenovo is ready to be in the heart of the revolution. “Devices are no longer confined to a screen, keyboard and mouse. A connected device, linked to the smart home through Smart Assistant, is the future and Lenovo is ready to take the journey into the unknown, and beyond,” Wong concludes.

97 SEPT 2017

inview

Innovating on the Cloud

By Laurence Si, The author is the Country Manager, Amazon Web Services Malaysia

echnology has changed the way we live, work, learn and play. As technology continues to evolve and become an evermore seamless part of our lives, the expectations and demands of consumers to enjoy a more personalised experience through digital channels, get higher all the time. As we become increasingly connected, there has been an explosion of data that’s transferred through devices, servers and cloud. Organisations in almost every industry sector are integrating their business operations with cloud, developing a seamless user experience to help them stay relevant and competitive. As Malaysian enterprises move through this process of digital transformation, it’s driving an increasing number of companies opting for cloud-

98 SEPT 2017

based services. Organisations are embracing dynamic, cloud-based operating models to better position themselves for cost optimisation and increased competitiveness. Malaysia’s 2017 Budget has placed a strong emphasis on digitisation as a step towards achieving the nation’s vision of a fully connected digital economy. we should expect more digital disruption as businesses slowly integrate their business operations onto cloud. Potential of Cloud Innovation Cloud-first strategies are the foundation for businesses to stay relevant in today’s fastpaced world. As businesses move away from legacy iT infrastructure, the pattern of iT spending is shifting dramatically, with more than US$1 trillion in iT spend being

directly or indirectly affected by the shift to cloud during the next five years. Disruptive technologies such as cloud computing have been an accelerating force in driving innovation and enabling new business models, helping organisations to be more agile and creating a new generation of start-ups and born-in-the cloud providers. Cloud has introduced a significant shift in how technology is obtained, used, and managed. it also shifts how organisations budget and pay for technology services. it benefits organisations by giving them the ability to trade capital expense for variable expense, gain advantage from massive economies of scale, make agile capacity decisions, increase business speed and agility, stop spending money running and maintaining data centres, and go global in minutes.

The true value of cloud computing is its ability to optimise business functions in ways that can maximise growth and value, and its ability to achieve this with the most effective end-user effort. Businesses are freer than ever before to focus their resources where they most matter: on driving and growing their business, rather than worry about managing iT issues. when a business grows, its cloud service provider should act as a partner in its expansion, through the ability to scale the solution in line with business demand, ensuring costs are kept in line with growth but performance is not compromised. Making the Transformation to the Cloud in transitioning to the cloud, every organisation will experience a unique cloud adoption journey, but benefit from a structured framework that guides them through the process of transforming their people, processes, and technology. in order to successfully transition to the cloud, you need to understand your organisation’s current state, the target state, and the actions required to achieve that target state. Knowing this will help set goals and create work streams to enable staff to thrive in the cloud. Businesses are freed to spend time and resources thinking about how technology can make their customers’ lives better. For example, the Fave Group recently migrated Groupon Malaysia to

its new platform, switching all traffic and some three million subscribers from the group-buying website to its new website running on Amazon web Services (AwS). The start-up was able to migrate immediately, scale up, optimise services and could focus on building and improving products instead of managing complex and costly iT infrastructure. Fave uses cloud computing technology to accelerate digital transformation to give consumers access to everything that’s needed to engage in today’s digital world. The launch of Fave, running entirely on AwS Cloud, helps bridge the communication gap by bringing offline merchants online to meet the current and evolving needs of their consumers. Fave’s collaboration with merchants also provides consumers with easy-to-use mobile technology that allows them to search, purchase and book their favorite meals or leisure activities – all within the palm of their hands. Grab, a ride-sharing service which was locally founded in Malaysia in 2012, is another company that has rapidly grown its presence in the Southeast Asia region by innovating on the cloud. Grab uses real-time data computation and data streams to support over 1.5 million bookings per month in Southeast Asia. By utilising AwS Cloud, Grab can minimise the resources needed to manage iT infrastructure, and instead shift its focus to developing innovative services and features to deliver a seamless consumer

experience. For instance, Grab introduced GrabChat, an instant messaging platform embedded within the mobile app, allowing drivers to communicate their estimated arrival times without leaving the app screen, while passengers are able to receive more responsive feedback and share their exact locations. Since the launch of the feature, the company saw a significant reduction in ride cancellations. Fave and Grab reveal how cloud services open up a realm of possibilities that at one time, organisations could never have imagined. enterprises and start-ups alike are moving away from legacy thinking, and embracing the digital revolution to bring innovation for their own organisations. in turn, they’re changing the way we live.

99 SEPT 2017

inview

The People Element of Digital Transformation

By KT Ong, The author it the Country Manager – Malaysia, Dell EMC

number of recent studies have been examining how changes in technology, such as the internet of Things (ioT) from a consumer standpoint, the wholesale move to the ‘Third Platform’ is impacting business. Most of these studies focused on the technologies themselves: from hardware and software to the new currency of business – the data, to those focusing on how to transform business and digital operating infrastructure, which will help defend businesses from being eclipsed by nimbler start-ups born in the digital age. Among conversations about technology-driven transformation, a distinct constant is the necessary changes a company must make to its operating model, processes and organisational structure, in order to succeed in the digital era. Organisations’ inability to facilitate and accelerate the transformation of their organisational model at or ahead of advancing technologies is an ageold problem. The shame of knowing our

100 SEPT 2017

inadequacies are still very much alive and in full view, and has amplified the effects of the digital era, creating a space for new firms to step-in and cause all manner of disruption to many traditional business models. But organisations aren’t faceless, empty buildings. They are run by people. while technology does the heavy lifting, it is people who intentionally commission the labour. Dell’s global Digital Transformation index, unveils some of the shortcomings experienced by companies in this area. Obvious indicators include the fact that only 39% of businesses in the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) region say the Board is driving digital transformation, and that one of the top barriers to transformation is a lack of in-house skills and expertise. To try and understand this more deeply, it is important to take a look at three key attributes of a digital business, as defined by business leaders and used as a measure of success within the Digital Transformation index:

1. Innovate in Agile Ways The pressure for business leaders to act and transform is extremely high – 61% of respondents in the APJ region indicating that they have already experienced significant disruption to their industries as a result of digital technologies, with 83% considering digital start-ups as a threat. The term “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is familiar to all of us. The tricky thing is – how do we know what is and isn’t broken? A business process might work ‘fine’ in the present day but should we settle for just ‘fine’; and will ‘fine’ sustain the business in the near-future? Digital start-ups are carving-up the business landscape. in just 3-5 years, 52% of businesses believe they may become obsolete. So, what isn’t broken today, could well be broken tomorrow. How do we prepare for this? To enable organisations to address the unforeseeable future, they need to welcome innovation and agility in all shapes and forms. An

interesting phenomenon has started to take shape in many corporations who are struggling departmentally with digital transformation. with the advent and availability of Softwareas-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud-based applications, users in the business community are now going outside of traditional iT teams and practices to fund and implement new solutions themselves. These are often interpreted as rogue activities that need to be tracked down, assimilated into current infrastructure and governed more closely. This isn’t seeing them for what they are: innovative ways to solve real business problems or indicators that some business processes have outlived their sell-by date. According to the Digital Transformation index, 74% of businesses in APJ admit to not innovating well and in an agile way organisation-wide. Clearly, something needs to change. Releasing employees’ shackles and opening the door to creative ingenuity could be a company’s saving grace. For leaders of transformation, it is important to assess the need for change in various aspects of business operations, be it driven by operational enhancement, market need or new revenue opportunity. By opening our eyes and understanding that the physical world of networking, application availability and remote access are no longer limitations for transactional systems or processes, we could, for instance, develop a series of micro services that allow the safe and flexible transfer of data across an ecosystem, while saving money and breaking down barriers. in Malaysia for instance, the Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) highlighted that the government is expected to deliver quality customer experience, despite a limited budget. This requires a change in the way of thinking and working, and choosing the right technology platform becomes an essential component in its digital

transformation journey. To do this, SSM is using data analytics - the focus is on delivering data analytics, audit and risk analytics and analytics applications not only to internal users, but also to external users i.e. the customers. 2. Predict New Opportunities An integral part of digital transformation, business analytics based services are on track for a four-year compound growth rate of 20.3% between 2016 and 2020, according to iDC. According to a separate study which includes Malaysia, 42% of the respondents from Malaysian organisations are planning to deploy cloud-based analytics software in the next one to two years while some have already deployed such solutions. As organisations continue to shift more critical applications into the cloud platform, the demand for cloud analytics will grow exponentially. However, taking data generated by enterprise systems such as eRP, Sales, Marketing, Manufacturing, and placing the right bets on the right insights through reporting and analytics is still a practice that is yet to be refined. with the arrival of so many different systems, external and internal options, rapid transformation of business processes and people, there are now only pockets of ‘data stability’ that can be achieved. For someone in the traditional reporting space for example, this presents an emotional challenge as stability, accuracy and trend measurement (the staples of historical reporting) are thrown out of the window and replaced with a ‘free market economy’ of reporting and analytic capabilities that can produce divine insight but can also be undercut by naysayers who question accuracy or quality. Finding just the right blend between the extremes of accuracy and accountability or innovation and daring is where strong leaders can differentiate themselves and their teams. Unfortunately, predicting the future and being able to act on these

opportunities is still the unknown, volatile part of the equation. As the Digital Transformation index backsup: 65% of respondents admit to not acting on intelligence in real-time. 3. Demonstrate Transparency and Trust Transparency and trust is often a golden rule in customer interaction. However, when looking inwards toward organisational digital transformation, transparency and trust take on an entirely different meaning. An organisation’s ability to create a safe environment, where team members are encouraged to share ideas, take risks and shake things-up, could be businesses’ only way to survive in the new economy. it is a huge leap of faith, and many companies won’t have the stomach for it. They won’t be able to overcome the default position of ‘but it is not possible to do it that way’ or ‘we tried that before’ or ‘how will we have a process to govern this’ and fall back into the old analogue ways of managing and executing their business objectives. This is reflected in the fact that only 30% of respondents are demonstrating transparency and trust well and organisation-wide. However, if we can pull together those people who do believe and are willing to put themselves on the line, and embrace opportunities brought about by emerging technologies, we can truly grow the business through digital transformation. These are just three of the five pillars outlined in the Digital Transformation index, but they are also the ones that most directly relate to the people and operational side of the equation. By taking the time to recognise the impact of Digital Transformation on organisations, and especially to individuals within them, and becoming aware of the pitfalls of attempting to drive change simply through technology, we will be able to influence business success more directly. 101 SEPT 2017

GAMETIME eSports reviews GAMETIME

STEALING HEARTS IN STYLE Persona 5

102 SEPT 2017

By Amir Othman

word & Sorcery is replaced with Style & Social Change here in Persona 5, an RPG developed by Atlusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; P Studio for the Playstation 4. Chronologically, Persona 5 is the sixth installment in the Persona series, which is part of the even larger Megami Tensei franchise. Originally announced in 2013, the game was delayed three years from

its original 2014 release date so the developers could polish the game to their satisfaction. With sales going over one million copies worldwide - the highest in the entire franchise - you could say the wait was well worth it. I mean, even the opening titles for the game is so stylishly presented, you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help but feel hyped! Fair warning though, this game will consume you.

103 SEPT 2017

GAMETIME reviews

Into a Whole New World First and foremost, I must warn that there are spoilers ahead as the developers have crafted such an intriguing mystery, I couldn’t avoid them in this review. Persona 5 wastes no time throwing the player into the thick of a mystery, introducing the main character in the middle of a casino heist and the basics of the game are explained by a mysterious voice. One thing leads to another and the protagonist is ambushed and sent to an interrogation room. The story is then told through a series of flashbacks starting at the point where our hero first arrives at his new home and a glimpse of his backstory. As you progress past the first couple of hours of the game, you learn of the Metaverse - an alternate world where an individual’s deepest and darkest desires are manifested in physical form as Shadows. In this world, the hero and his merry band of thieves utilize their Personas, a manifestation of the user’s personality or ‘mask’, to face their foes. It’s here they begin the walk down the path of Phantom Thieves, attempting to change society by stealing the hearts and treasures of wicked Shadows. 104 AUG 2017

Like previous Persona games, core gameplay is divided into two basic parts, the classic RPG dungeon crawler and a social simulator. While these two styles might not seem to have much in common with one another, Persona 5 has managed to interlace these two concepts brilliantly. Despite being a master thief in the Metaverse, the hero must still keep up appearances as a normal high school student. This means keeping your room clean, studying for exams, hanging out with friends and even house chores. All these activities lead to improved social stats like guts, knowledge and charm which will in turn affect many important events throughout your journey. As time is finite in the game, managing your time effectively as a student and thief will be key tackling any challenges the game throws at you. Although, I must admit that over hours of gameplay, I ended up developing a connection with the hero and his ragtag gang, the story and writing does a really good job of evolving the characters over time. In the metaverse, the Shadows with the strongest desires end up creating

Palaces, strongholds of their power and it’s up to the players to break in and steal the Shadow’s most prized possessions. While this section is more of your standard dungeon crawling RPG, the designers have decided not to go with procedurally generated dungeons. Instead, you have painstakingly maze-like Palaces, designed from the ground up. Each location has its own set of puzzles, security measures and traps to trip the team up when they break in. Certain Palaces will be harder to break into requiring both action in the Metaverse and the real world. In between Palaces, there’s a large underground area called Mementos where players can encounter other Shadows as well. Graphic Eye Candy Combat within the game is fluid despite being a basic turn-based combat system where each team member takes turn to attack. There is a rock-paper-scissors mechanic involved when it comes to elements and as exploiting enemy weaknesses results in an extra turn, players are encouraged to constantly experiment with different elemental builds.

Players can take it up a level too with a baton pass move, which allows you to switch to a character better suited to exploit an opponent. Once you’ve weakened all opponents, you can team up and perform a hold-up on the enemies. During a hold-up, you can choose to perform a devastating all-out attack or negotiate with the enemy to either give some cash, items or just straight out join you as a Persona. It’s amazing how simple the combat system and yet there’s enough depth to really customise a team to your liking. Persona 5 is incredibly stylish, especially when you consider how flashy the previous Persona games were. This is Inception and Ocean’s Eleven wrapped in slick black and red anime wrapper.

Moving from scene to scene, location to location, the transitions are seamless and even the loading screens have purpose. Every single element of this game is so well-polished that the hours just flew past as I was consumed by this game. Unwilling to stop, always wanting to find out what would happen around the next day – rinse and repeat. All while having the infectious background tune in my head. I’m going to put it out there and say that Persona 5 is definitely one of the best JRPGs that have come out in the past few years and will eventually be an entry that will be fondly remembered by fans. Content within the game is abundant and the level of polish is nothing short of amazing. I’m not joking when I say it will consume your life.

Developers: ATLUS, P Studio Publisher: ATLUS Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 Genre: Role Playing Game (RPG) Players: Single-player

score:

9.5

/10

AWESOME 105 SEPT 2017

GAMETIME reviews

This game was exclusively played on the Illegear S7 gaming laptop.

TOO BIG FOR ITS BOOTS Gigantic

By Teh Wi-Liam

t seems the trend of gaming has turned its attention towards MOBA-based games with the likes of Dota 2, League of Legends and Overwatch taking the pole position. This has left many other games with plenty of potential in the dust; Gearbox Software’s very own Battleborn was slated to be one of the biggest MOBA-centric first-person shooter games on the PS4 but didn’t see the light of day thanks to Blizzard’s Overwatch. Having got my start in MOBA games with Dota 2, the bar has been set at a high standard for me to be pleased with the outcome of today’s MOBA games. While League of Legends will never pique my interest and Overwatch just looks clunky, Gigantic did strike a chord that it could potentially be fun.

106 SEPT 2017

Straightforward Gameplay While most MOBA games are pretty much straightforward, Gigantic keeps it to the bare minimum in terms of simplicity. Instead of breaking into the enemy base and destroying it like Dota 2 and League of Legends, Gigantic keeps its focus on magical beings called Guardians that is protected by five players on each team. Each team’s main objective is to capture ‘power circles’ at which they can summon defences or monsters to fight alongside them to increase the overall health bar of the Guardian. Once a team reaches 100, the Guardian is active and will proceed to attack the other team’s Guardian. Whichever team attacks the Guardian three times

in a row wins the game. I guess you could say it has a very Heroes of the Storm feel to it as its more objective-based as compared to other MOBAs.

you have a team of five who are willing to play against bots until you’re at a high enough level to start playing regularly, you will be quite put off with the whole matchmaking system Gigantic has.

Time to Get Cracking Much like all MOBA games, each character is unique and comes with special abilities and roles to help balance out your team. When first starting out, you only get five characters to choose from but more will be unlocked the more you level up. This is a ploy that has been adopted by many other MOBA games to get you to play more, thus unlocking more characters. Why couldn’t everything just be unlocked and give new players a chance to test out all the characters? Is that too much to ask for? Thankfully, the Practice Arena mode gives you full access to all characters but there isn’t much you can do except train your craft with each hero. The Practice Arena also gives you various enemies that you can battle against, which is a challenge on its own right. Either the tougher enemies in the Practice Arena is really that difficult or I am just losing my touch when it comes to video games…

Why Does Everyone Do This? This begs the question: why do many of these new age MOBA-centric games tend to limit new players into playing with themselves (that came out wrongly) or with bots until they are of a certain level to be able to play with actual gamers from around the world? One way in understanding this new matchmaking concept is to not ruin the experience for everyone else, especially when there’s a newbie on their team who would know what is going on in the game. Sure, this limits the number of toxic players in the game but it also discourages new players from picking up the game due to this type of matchmaking system. Even with games like Battleborn and Paladins, it all uses the same system, which is what has stunted its growth in the gaming scene. If Gigantic wants to grow, it had better come up with a better way gamers, both new and old, can enjoy the game without having to go through the frustration (or I could just be salty because it made me wait too long for a game).

It Takes Forever Sadly, I don’t think there are many Gigantic players in Southeast Asia as it took forever to queue for a matchmaking game. Unless

Developers: Motiga Publisher: Perfect World Entertainment Platforms: Microsoft Windows Release Date: 20 July 2017 Genre: MOBA, third-person shooter Players: Multiplayer

score:

/10

AVERAGE 107 SEPT 2017

GAMETIME reviews

BETA-TESTING A GRAND TOUR Gran Turismo Sport Beta

riving can be a chore to some while it’s a pleasure to many others. This is especially true for driving simulation games that pepper the gaming landscape. We have seen some lemons in our reviews, but not the Gran Turismo Sport. The beta version of the game offers a peek at what we can expect from the full game – and we like it very, very much. True to Life What stands out in any Gran Turismo game is the level of detail that goes into the game, thanks to the developer: Polyphony Digital. This is also true in Gran Turismo Sport (GTS), where the ‘sport in the name refers to a new mode that will be offered to players. Sport mode will pit players against one another in an online simulation where they will race to see who will top the leader board and who is the best (digital) driver around the track. 108 AUG 2017

By Sharil

The first time we took to the wheel in GTS, we were reminded why the game series has been a staple on the PlayStation platform. Fun fact – the first Gran Turismo game was released way back in 1997 on the original PlayStation, and the upcoming Gran Turismo Sport will be the seventh iteration of the game. Sheer realism is on the plate with GTS and it is evident, right down to the driver’s cockpit that you experience through the screen. Every nuance of driving is replicated, down to the smallest of details. Every roar of the engine and screeching of the wheels gives you the realistic feeling of actually being in the car, which brings you just that bit closer to being a real race car driver. How realistic is the game? When taking a corner while driving, you may be blinded by the ray of sunlight hitting you square in the face. It can’t get any more real than that – Polyphony Digital has made strides in ensuring you are getting the most

realistic experience when you’re behind the wheel in GTS. Multi-class Driving In the beta, we were giving the choice between three racing classes: the N300, GR.4 and GR.3. This translates into stock production cars, cars with slight racing modifications and full-bore, race-tuned production cars. With the focus placed towards the competitive side of the game, we essentially raced throughout the day, trying to edge out that little extra performance from the cars given. We made changes in just about every parameter possible to make sure we can be on top of the leader board and qualify for the race against other players. What makes the system different this time is the new matchmaking system incorporated into the game. When going against an opponent, your driver and sportsmanship ratings are key into matching with your opponent. These two

new indexes measure a player’s overall skill with a rating sale from E, D, C, B, A and S. We may see this system being fully implemented into the real game when it starts shipping by the end of the year. Of course, the sportsmanship part of the system was ignored by most players, so we hope that this will not be the case when game is gold. Waiting Game One feature that didn’t enamour us was the waiting game; you can’t just pick up your controller and driver whenever you feel like it. There is a pre-set wait time for you to drive and you must qualify to race. The downside is that you will be stuck on

the track, trying to chase for that elusive 0.1 second to qualify. The upside, you’re stuck on the track, which the game renders beautifully. This sneak-peek look of the upcoming GTS is quite interesting as it gave us something to whet our appetite while patiently waiting for it to be released. The beta was also a way for the developers to gain insights into what gamers really want and the data collected will be used to make the game even better. We, on the other hand, were busy driving around and enjoying the scenery with the cars available to us; this is also a perfect way to enjoy the Gran Turismo series as the name of the game in Italian stands for “Grand Touring.”

Developers: Polyphony Digital Inc. Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment Platforms: PlayStation 4 Release Date: 17 October 2017 Genre: Driving Simulation Players: Single Player

score:

9/10

AWESOME 109 SEPT 2017

gametime news

First Time for Everything PSX makes its way to Asia!

sually a yearly affair in the United States, PlayStation Experience (PSX) gives gamers from all around a look into whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in-stored for them in the coming months. Mostly featuring never-before-seen footage of upcoming AAA game titles alongside a playable beta version of said game, PSX is the holy grail of PS gamers and for the first time ever, PSX took its event to Asia. Held in the KL Live Centre in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, PSX Asia was the first-ever PSX event to be held outside of the US and gave gamers from all around Asia a chance to see what Sony and PlayStation had in-stored for them. 110 SEPT 2017

With the entire hall filled with rambunctious laughter and chatter, KL Live Centre was buzzing with gamers from all around Southeast Asia either waiting in-line to test out upcoming games or waiting to hear from one of the keynotes. The first keynote was about Gran Turismo Sport, which was then followed up with a Taiko no Tatsujin performance, a popular rhythmic drumming game by Namco in arcades. It then took to Monster Hunter: World to showcase its brand new open-world platform; Marvel v Capcom: Infinite, which talked more about the gameâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mechanics and how the Marvel and Capcom universe would intertwine; and lastly, the Final Fantasy XV VR (FFXV VR) presentation, which focused on the VR capabilities of bringing a popular, yet nerve-wrecking

mini-game from the popular title onto the VR platform: fishing. Aside from hearing about the keynotes, there were plenty of beta versions of AAA game titles scattered across the two floors of KL Live Centre, with one of the main attractions boasting the longest line: FIFA 18. Another popular game that saw its fair share of waiting was Gran Turismo Sport, which was played in its own racing pods, as well as other games like Marvel v Capcom: Infinite, Detroit: Become Human, Far Cry 5, Matterfall, Stifled and Inpatient to name a few. There was also a mini-game that took place throughout the course of the day where participants to PSX Asia had to play a number of games to win a stamp, which can then be redeemed for goodies like PS Plus and PS Store goodies.

111 SEPT 2017

gametime news

Release the Raider MSI unveils three new gaming laptops

SI introduces three new gaming laptops to its extensive repertoire of gaming laptops, mainly the behemoth known as the GT75VR Titan as well as the GE63VR and GE73VR Raider. All three gaming laptops carry the latest Kaby Lake processor from Intel and is kitted with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10 Series GPUs. The GT75VR was introduced during a 36-hour LAN party at One City Mall as MSIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own Interschool Cyber Challenge (ICC) Grand Final was held during that time as well. The ICC Grand Final saw teams from eight regions in Malaysia battle it out over Dota 2, Overwatch and Street Fighter V to see who would be crowned victors. Available only through Lazada, the GT75VR 7RF is going for RM17,999 and comes bundled with a Warlord Phantom Gaming Chair worth RM899. The GT75VR 6RE, on the other hand, is selling at RM13,499 and will come bundled with a ViewSonic VX2757-mhd 27-inch FHD Gaming Monitor worth RM799.

112 SEPT 2017

“All three gaming laptops carry the latest Kaby Lake processor from Intel and is kitted with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10 Series GPUs.” The GT75VR 7RF is kitted with the Intel Core i7-7820HK processor with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB DDR5X GPU to give you the best in gaming laptop performance. The laptop also comes with a 17.3-inch FHD display screen with 32GB DDR4 RAM and a 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD RAID0 with a 1TB HDD. Meanwhile, the GT75VR 6RE comes with the Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor, a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB DDR5 GPU, a 17.3-inch FHD display screen, 16GB of DDR4 RAM and a 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD RAID0 with a 1TB HDD. The other gaming laptops to make an appearance onto its line-up is the GE63VR and GE73VR Raider, the latest mid-range gaming beasts from MSI. These VR-ready gaming laptops come with the 7th Gen. Intel Core processors, NVIDIA GeForce

GTX 1060 GPUs and a SteelSeries RGB backlit keyboard. While the GE63VR features a 15.6inch 120Hz FHD display with the Intel Core i7-7700HQ and GeForce GTX 1060 combo, it also comes with a 128GB SSD paired alongside 1TB SATA storage. The GE73VR is essentially the older brother of the two and it comes with a 17.3-inch 120Hz FHD display screen and features the same core components as it’s the GE63VR. One stark difference between the two: the GE73VR comes with 8GB DDR4 RAM and a 256GB NVMe SSD alongside 1TB SATA storage. Both the GE63VR and GE73VR are available for sale at MSI’s authorised online store, 11street, MSI authorised retailers and in Harvey Norman at RM7,199 and RM7,499 respectively.

VR-Ready Capabilities With VR games already being considered a norm in the gaming industry, it was only a matter of time gaming laptops were viable to play VR games and MSI has done it with the GE72VR/GE62VR gaming laptops, both of which are VR-Ready. Aside from featuring the Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor, you can choose between three different GPUs: the GeForce GTX 1070/1060/1050Ti. Mind you, the GeForce GTX 1060 GPU has the bare minimum requirements to run VR-Ready games. The GE Series of laptops also carry the Dynaudio Woofer alongside Audio Boost 2, KILLER SHIELD LAN ports and other popular MSI preinstalled features. Other Features: • Processor: 7th Gen. Intel-Core i7-7700HQ • OS: Windows 10 Home • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070/1060/1050Ti • Memory: Up to 32GB DDR4 • Storage: 1TB HDD +M.2 NVMe/SATA SSD x1 • Ports: HDMI x1, MiniDisplay x1, USB 3.1 x1, USB 3.0 x2, USB 2.0 x1 • LAN: KILLER SHIELD

Ge72 VR FRom Rm 6,999

my.msi.Com

gametime eSports gametime news

Liquid Has Done It! TI7 has a new champion

“L

iquid are doing it!” A phrase that echoes throughout the arena whenever Team Liquid were to pull off a great victory. Originally coined by David ‘LD’ Gorman back in TI3 where Liquid upset one of the tournament favourites back then, LGD Gaming from China. This time around, Liquid have finally done it by taking a clean 3-0 sweep over another Chinese powerhouse, Newbee. TI7 in general was a grand event as it broke eSports gaming history once again as it trounced the previous prize pool with a total of US$24,787,916, making it the largest prize pool ever in eSports history. The first day of TI7 saw 18 teams being separated into two groups, who would go through a gruelling four days of best-of-twos to ultimately decide its placing. Day One After the Group Stages were done and dusted, TI7 said goodbye to Malaysian favourites, Fnatic from Group A and 114114 JUNE2017 SEPT 2017

HellRaisers from Group B. Day One of the Main Event in the Key Arena in Seattle saw a total of six games being played, two of which were a best-of-three for the Upper Bracket and the rest being a best-of-one in the Lower Bracket. The Upper Bracket matches saw both Liquid and Evil Geniuses (EG) losing out to Invictus Gaming (iG) and Newbee, respectively. Day One also saw four more teams being shown the door, which comprised of Execration from The Philippines, Cloud 9 from North America, iG Vitality from China and Infamous from South America (fun fact: TI7 was the first TI to feature a team from the South American region.) These teams were bested by Team Secret, Team Empire, Digital Chaos (DC) and OG, respectively. Day two Focusing on the other two matches of the Upper Bracket, Day Two saw LGD. ForeverYoung (LFY) knock down TNC Pro Team from The Philippines to the Lower Bracket while Virtus Pro (VP) managed to

bring down the other LGD franchise, LGD Gaming, both hailing from China. Day Two also saw the rise of Liquid as they knocked out Team Secret, who took down Infamous a day earlier. Team Empire, who eliminated Cloud 9, took out another North American favourite, Evil Geniuses (TI5 champions.) Day three Day three saw the rest of Round 2 of the Lower Bracket matches play out between TNC Pro Team against OG and LGD Gaming versus DC. What was touted to be a repeat of TNC’s famous upset over OG during TI6, it turned out to be the other way around as OG had the upper hand this time and exacted revenge over TNC. After eliminating iG Vitality in Day One, DC’s run came to an end via LGD Gaming, a sad way to go for the first runner up of TI6. The rest of Day Three saw Round Two of the Upper Bracket between iG and Newbee as well as LFY against VP. Newbee wound up victorious and so did LFY, which set up the Upper Bracket Final to determine who would be the first Grand Final Entry.

Compendium. This was the first time a prize pool of US$100,000 was featured for the All-Star Captain’s Mode match, which was ultimately won by Team Radiant. Day Five Day Five saw LGD go up against Chinese counterpart iG where LGD came out on top to book their place in the Lower Bracket Semifinal against Liquid. The Upper Bracket Final was also played on Day Five between Newbee and LFY, another all-Chinese match-up. Sadly, LFY was knocked down to the Lower Bracket Final, awaiting the results between Liquid and LGD. Day Six Another demanding task at hand, Liquid first faced off against LGD, which ended in a 2-0 sweep and brought them to the Lower Bracket Final. They then had to face LFY, which turned out to be a back-and-forth match. Ultimately, Liquid were victorious with a 2-1 win, sealing their Top 2 placing in the Grand Finals.

Day Four Liquid were tested further in Day Four, having to play two best-of-threes against Team Empire and VP, respectively. Taking on two teams from the CIS region, Liquid were pushed to the limit but eventually prevailed, sending themselves further up into the Lower Bracket Semifinal. Day Four was also the day multiple Major winners, OG got knocked out by LGD, which marks another disappointing loss for the boys in green as the dream of lifting the Aegis remains as it is. The rest of Day Four also showcased the All-Star Captain’s Mode match, which featured 10 players who were chosen through a voting system via The International 2017 Battle Pass

Day Seven Although Liquid decimated Newbee in all three games, it was no walk in the park. Game One saw Liquid totally outclass Newbee in terms of drafts and play style while Game Two was a more even match-up with Newbee pulling ahead at certain parts of the game. However, Liquid were able to put their heroes to good use and created space all around the map and pushing out the sidelanes, ultimately causing Newbee to call the ‘GG’ and taking it to a third and final game. Game Three saw Liquid taking total control of the game, not allowing Newbee any chance to take over. Although it did take Liquid just over 45 minutes to crack Newbee, the Chinese were forced to call out the ‘GG’ once more, gifting Liquid the victory they so deserved. Liquid walked away with a cool US$ 10,862,683 while Newbee had to settle for US $3,950,067. The other two Chinese teams, LFY and LGD, took home US$2,592,231 and US $1,728,154 respectively. 115 JUNE SEPT 2017

gametime news

The Predator Rises Acer brings forth two new gaming laptops

o keep up with the ever-growing gaming market, Acer introduces two new gaming laptops to its line-up – the Acer Predator Helios 300 for hardcore gamers and the Acer Nitro 5 for the more casual gamers. Featuring a dual-fan cooling system with an all-new AeroBlade 3D metallic fan at only 0.1mm thin, the Acer Predator Helios 300 keeps itself cool at all times while boosting its thermal system. It comes with an overclockable NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, the 7th Gen. Intel Core i7-7700HQ desktop processor and an 8GB DDR4 RAM. There is also a 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD combo to keep the Acer Predator Helios 300 quick and snappy while its 15.6-inch FHD IPS display screen ensures you get the most out of it. Marketed towards the more casual gamers who could use a gaming laptop for two functions, the Acer Nitro 5 is powered by the 7th Gen. Intel Core i5/i7 processor and can carry up to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050Ti GPU. The Acer Nitro 5 can also hold up to 16GB DDR4 RAM. To keep itself cool, it features Acer’s CoolBoost technology to keep the system running cool and optimally. The 15.6-inch FHD IPS display was made for both games and movies to keep your entertainment levels up always. 116 SEPT 2017

While the Acer Predator Helios 300 is priced at RM5,999, the Acer Nitro 5 comes in two variants – the Core i5 model with the GTX 1050 GPU is priced at RM3,299 while the Core i7 model with the GTX 1050Ti GPU is priced at RM4,699.

Model posing with the newly launched Predator Helios 300 with dual AeroBlade 3D fans and overclockable graphics

Models with the newly launched Acer Nitro 5

AMD Takes it Further

HP and Acer paints the town red

o show that it is taking the gaming industry seriously and not let the boys in blue completely takeover, AMD shows its commitment towards the gaming community by showcasing the power of AMD Ryzen CPUs and GPUs with two leading products: The Acer Aspire GX281 gaming desktop and the Omen by HP Desktop. “At AMD, we work closely with our partners to develop advanced and high-performance products for the gaming community. For gamers, performance and power are key to gaining the ultimate gaming experience. With that insight in mind, our dedicated research team has developed products, such as Ryzen CPU series and Radeon RX GPU, to deliver the ultimate gaming experience. Through our partnership

AMD Director of Consumer Sales for Asia Pacific and Japan, Peter Chambers introducing Ryzen

with Acer and HP, we hope to bring the gaming experience to a whole new level.” said Peter Chambers, AMD’s Director of Consumer Sales for Asia Pacific and Japan. With the help of AMD’s latest Ryzen CPUs and Radeon GPUs, plenty of

HP and Acer laptops and desktops are now equipped with the latest processors and graphic cards, ensuring you get the best when it comes to smooth gameplay, enhanced visual graphics and performance power like no other.

Game On with Celcom Celcom heads into eSports with The Major League

ith the help of the Livescape Group along with Beatnation and with the support of Iskandar Investment Berhad (IIB), Celcom presents The Major League, a Dota 2 tournament that will be happening from 20 to 22 October 2017. Held at EduCity Indoor Arena and championed by Celcom, The Major League will be the first initiative by IIB to establishing Iskandar Puteri as the eSports hub of Malaysia. The Major League Qualifier will also be held soon, pitting a Malaysian team against seven other teams from around the globe for a slice of the RM300,000 prize pool. Currently, officially invited teams include EHome from China, EVOS Esports

from Indonesia, Clutch Gamers from The Philippines and MVP Resolution from Kyrgyzstan. Qualifying rounds will be held in various cyber cafés across Malaysia while the final round will take

place at the Academy of Esports Afiniti Medini, Iskandar Puteri in Johor Bahru. Tickets will be available for purchase at The Major League’s website, www.themajorleague.asia 117 SEPT 2017

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The usage of drones has been gaining momentum within the last few years. We have also seen beginners and enthusiasts picking up professional drones for aerial imaging. While such devices provide users with top-of-the-line aerial imaging experience, inexperienced drone pilots - beginners and enthusiasts alike - may risk crashing them. Catering to the growing interest in aerial imagine drones among beginners and casual-users, DJI introduced its smallest and smartest drone. The Spark makes it easier for operators to capture and share those special moments on-the-go. As the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leader in drone technology, DJI delivers features that give users with great video- and phototaking capabilities in this small package. Seize the moment with the Spark as it empowers you to push your boundaries through its intelligent flight control options, mechanical gimbal and incredible image quality.

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Lending a Hand Users are able to control the device with hand gestures alone, which is made possible through its innovative 3D Sensing System. Features like Gesture Mode and PalmControl allow users to control the Spark with hand movements as commands, which include following the users, take aerial selfies, send the drone away and beckon for it to come back. With its Record gesture, users can now start and stop video recording with a simple arm movement. This gives you the freedom and flexibility to capture beautiful, smooth videos whenever the right moment strikes.

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Accessories Galore Out of the box, the Spark itself is loads of fun and easy to use. To heighten your aerial imaging and droneoperating experience, the Fly More Combo offers a breadth of accessories to pair with the Spark. While we found the Spark’s hand gestures capabilities to be innovative, sometimes having greater flight control is needed. Navigate your way around the sky with the Spark Remote Controller, and you’ll be sure to always be in control. Other accessories in combo include a battery charging hub; a set of propeller guard; two sets of quick release folding propellers; two intelligent flight batteries; and a shoulder bag.

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Smart and Nimble Another innovative feature found in the Spark is the QuickShot Intelligent Flight Modes, which makes creating professional videos fun and easy. Through the use of QuickShot, the Spark can automatically fly along a preset flight path while recording a short video and track the subject along the way.

Moreover, you can now control the circular direction of the drone with the Circle and Helix modes for better cinematic control when filming. Other QuickShot modes also include Dronie and Rocket modes, which increases the height gained and smooth out the camera’s pitch respectively.

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SenhengMY

119 SEPT 2017

DID YOU KNOW? You can enjoy 1-to-1 Replacement Warranty with the PLUSONE membership Daily battle with chores and tasks from work or home can be frustrating, so don’t let a faulty product add to your frustration. You can count on SENHENG’s 1-to- 1 Replacement Warranty to maintain that peace of mind for a 24-month period. The extended replacement warranty is only available for every purchase made on the first day of the month. Yes, with just RM1, the product is warranted for the original purchaser. If things go wrong, SENHENG is here to turn your frown upside down by providing you an instant replacement. Mark your calendar and visit the nearest SENHENG showroom for a value-added shopping experience! Terms & Conditions Apply 1. Promotion is available at SENHENG showrooms only 2. Applicable to small electrical appliances below RM500 only 3. Valid for purchases made on every first day of the month only 4. Exclusively for SENHENG PlusOne members only

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AN EASY FIT FOR YOUR JOURNEY

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Made light, compact and stylish, the EOS 200D complements the lifestyle of a modern person by capturing the best angles and moments. With features such as Dual Pixel CMOS AF and Vari-angle LCD touch screen, the EOS 200D gives you the edge in creating powerful photos and videos. Available in black*, silver & white colours * Exclusive colour for selected channels only

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