I’m sure lots of people will read the title and say WTF!?! What have you been using? I’ve been using Window 7 Pro since late 2011. Since Microsoft’s support of Windows 7 will end in January 2020, I figured it was time to move on.
My ASUS ZenBook 13.3″ and desktop PC still work reasonable well but I know they are nowhere near as fast as the current hardware that is out in the world.
Picking out a new desktop PC is easy because I simply tell Alan at Mega Computers what I want but for the laptop, it is much harder to get everything I want (and at a reasonable price).
In early September, both Best Buy and Staples (in Canada) had Lenovo ThinkPads on sale at a really good price but CPUs were not very fast and the screen resolution was the standard 1920 x 1080.
Next, I looked at Dell Latitudes and ASUS laptops. I couldn’t quite get the configuration I wanted at a reasonable price. I wanted a laptop with a reasonable fast CPU, SSD only, high resolution display and Win10 Pro (I don’t want Win10 Home). I don’t understand why all the high resolution displays are touch screen. I don’t need/want a touch screen. My fat fingers and touch screens just don’t get along! I hate paying for something that I don’t need and won’t use.
After a bunch of searches and reading reviews, I narrowed my selection down to 2 ASUS laptops:
I was leaning towards the ASUS ROG laptop until I read a review comparing the 2 CPUs at TechSpot. They said that “there’s not much difference between the 8750H and 9750H”. Last week, Amazon had the ASUS ZenBook Pro on sale for $1999 CAD ($300 off) – that’s rough $1500 USD. So, I decided to take the plunge and buy the ASUS ZenBook Pro.
It came just before the weekend. I played around with it on the weekend. It is a really nice laptop. Actually, the first thought I had when I took it out of the box was that it was gorgeous. I’m a geek. I think in terms of gigabytes and megahertz but not gorgeous! But it is one fine looking laptop!! 🙂
Here are the ASUS Zenbook Pro 15.6″ specs:
– 15.6″ UHD 4K touch display 3840×2160
– Intel 8th Gen Core i7-8750HK
– 16GB RAM
– 512GB SSD
– NVIDIA GeForce GTX1050Ti
– HDMI, USB-C, USB 3.1 ports & SD card reader
– Wireless 802.11ac
As I said earlier, ordering a desktop PC is really easy. Last week, I sent an email to Alan at Mega Computers with the following specs:
– Intel Core i9-9900K
– 32GB RAM G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series DDR4 3600MHz
– ASUS PRIME Z390-A
– Samsung 970 EVO NVMe M.2 2280 250GB PCI-E 3.0 SSD
– Samsung 970 EVO NVMe M.2 2280 2TB PCI-E 3.0 SSD
– LG WH14NS40 14x Blu-Ray Writer
– ThermalTake Versa H25 case
– Windows 10 Professional
My 2 Samsung SA450 monitors (each 1920×1200) are still in good working order, so I didn’t need new monitors. If you look closely at the list for the desktop PC, you will notice that I did not purchase a video card either. I’m not a gamer. The ASUS PRIME Z390-A motherboard comes with embedded Intel HD Graphics with 2 ports:
– Supports HDMI with max. resolution 4096 x 2160 @ 30 Hz
– Supports DisplayPort 1.2 with max. resolution 4096 x 2304 @ 60 Hz
The Samsung SA450 monitors only have inputs for DVI and VGA but Alan said he would supply 2 adapters/converts for free: HDMI to DVI and DisplayPort to DVI. They tested it and said it worked fine. I have since tested it and everything looks good. I can extend my desktop across both monitors.
I picked it up on Saturday and played around with it a little bit. Its a very speedy PC but the laptop is better looking. Ahhh, ha ha ha ha ha ha. 🙂
Now comes the pain of installing everything on both the desktop PC and the laptop. That’s the part I’m not looking forward to. 🙁 So, many applications/programs to install (on 2 machines). Plus now I have to learn where things were moved to under Windows 10 (vs Windows 7).
Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.
