All posts tagged: Asus

Asus TUF Gaming A14 (2026) Review: GPU-Less Gaming Laptop

Asus TUF Gaming A14 (2026) Review: GPU-Less Gaming Laptop

Published by skeptic

In the past, I’ve stayed away from Asus TUF laptops, as it was the bottom-tier in terms of design. That meant chunky chassis, poor displays, and thick bezels. The models from 2025 looked more modern, but the prices weren’t competitive with some of my favorite cheap gaming laptops like the Lenovo LOQ 15 and Acer Nitro V 16. But again, the TUF A14 is something new, and the design is impressive. It’s right around the same thickness and weight as the 14-inch MacBook Pro, and the bezels around the sides of the screen are really trim. The bottom bezel is thick, primarily because the A14 uses a 16:9 aspect ratio screen. I won’t belabor that point, but it means less screen and more bezel in the same footprint. Overall, it’s very subtle. The gaming aesthetic is heavily downplayed, with only a few elements left, such as the typeface on the keycaps and the shape of the vents below the hinge. There’s not even per-key backlighting on the keyboard. Photograph: Luke Larsen Photograph: Luke Larsen You’d …

Asus ROG Cetra Open Wireless Earbuds Review: Open Gaming Buds?

Asus ROG Cetra Open Wireless Earbuds Review: Open Gaming Buds?

Published by skeptic

Even after a few hours I don’t mind the weight, and they work just fine with sunglasses and hats. They include a reflective neck strap that pops onto the arm end of each bud, but it isn’t particularly comfortable, and it’s stiff enough that those with larger necks will find it restrictive. Once I have them in the right spot they feel secure, so I don’t feel the need to deploy the strap even when working in the yard. Battery life hasn’t been an issue at all, with Asus quoting the headset at 16 hours, with 48 additional hours in the charging case, with no mic and all the extra features turned off. I’m closer to 10 or 12 on a single charge with some calling mixed in, on a blend of USB-C and Bluetooth, and I haven’t felt like I need to do much besides occasionally keep the case topped off. One nifty feature is that the dongle actually works via pass-through while inside the charging case, so if you only have a single …

Best gaming monitor deal: ASUS TUF 27-inch is now 9 at Amazon

Best gaming monitor deal: ASUS TUF 27-inch is now $159 at Amazon

Published by skeptic

TL;DR: The ASUS TUF Gaming 27-inch curved monitor is on sale for $159 at Amazon, down from its $229 list price. That saves you $70 on a Full HD gaming display with a 1,500R curve, up to 280Hz refresh rates, a 1ms response time, and AMD FreeSync Premium support. $159 at Amazon $229 Save $70 Fast gaming monitors can get expensive in a hurry, especially once you start looking for the kind of refresh rates that make competitive games feel properly fluid. This ASUS TUF model, though, has now dropped to a much easier price for anyone after a curved PC panel that leans more into speed than flashy extras.  As of April 8, the ASUS TUF Gaming Monitor is down to $159 at Amazon as a limited-time deal, which cuts $70 off its $229 list price. Better yet, that also brings this display down to its best-ever price on Amazon, as confirmed by price tracker camelcamelcamel.  For that money, you’re getting a 27-inch Full HD monitor with a 1,500R curve, which should give games …

ASUS Executive Says MacBook Neo is ‘Shock’ to PC Industry

ASUS Executive Says MacBook Neo is ‘Shock’ to PC Industry

Published by skeptic

On an earnings call today, an ASUS executive admitted that Apple’s more affordable MacBook Neo is a “shock” to the PC industry (via PCMag). In the U.S., the MacBook Neo starts at just $599, or at an even lower $499 for college students. “Given Apple’s historically very premium pricing, launching such an affordable product is certainly a shock to the entire market,” said ASUS’s Chief Financial Officer Nick Wu, according to a transcript of the earnings call published by Seeking Alpha. His comment was translated to English by an interpreter who was present on the call. Wu said the MacBook Neo has some limited specs, including only 8GB of RAM, and he believes this may impact the ability to use certain apps. However, MacBook Neo reviewer Patrick Tomasso played back 4K video in DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro, edited a photo in Adobe Lightroom, and used many tabs in Google Chrome on the laptop, all without issue. In fact, most if not all reviews praised the MacBook Neo’s performance. Wu believes that Apple seems …

The Asus Zenbook S 16 Is 0 Off and Has Never Been This Cheap

The Asus Zenbook S 16 Is $500 Off and Has Never Been This Cheap

Published by skeptic

After a long time of resisting significant price drops, the Asus Zenbook S 16 has finally dropped down to $1,000, which is $500 off its retail price. It’s normal for laptops to dip in price toward the end of their lifespan, close to when an update comes out. But the Asus Zenbook S 16 has held on. To be fair, it’s an extremely high-end Windows laptop, one of the prettiest to come out last year. It’s sleek, portable, and has a striking design. It even gets fantastic battery life, on par with a MacBook. Speaking of MacBooks, this Zenbook is the laptop I saw tech journalists traveling with more than anything else. Given how much tech they review, that’s quite an endorsement. But the S 16 has always been hard for me to recommend when the cheapest model available was $1,500. I was always on the lookout for a more significant price cut, but it never dropped more than a couple hundred bucks. And even though it always came with 24 GB of RAM and …

Asus ROG Falcata Review: A Split Gaming Keyboard

Asus ROG Falcata Review: A Split Gaming Keyboard

Published by skeptic

The wheel on the left side has options to adjust actuation distance, rapid-trigger sensitivity, and RGB brightness. You can also adjust volume and media playback, and turn it into a scroll wheel. The LED matrix below it is designed to display adjustments to actuation distance but feels a bit awkward: Each 0.1 mm of adjustment fills its own bar, and it only uses the bottom nine bars, so the screen will roll over four times when adjusting (the top three bars, with dots next to them, illuminate to show how many times the screen has rolled over during the adjustment). The saving grace of this is that, when adjusting the actuation distance, you can press down any switch to see a visualization of how far you’re pressing it, then tweak the actuation distance to match. Alongside all of this, the Falcata (and, by extension, the Falchion) now has an aftermarket switch option: TTC Gold magnetic switches. While this is still only two switches, it’s an improvement over the singular switch option of most Hall effect …

Asus delivers Wi-Fi 8 sneak peek at CES: Is this the shape of routers to come?

Asus delivers Wi-Fi 8 sneak peek at CES: Is this the shape of routers to come?

Published by skeptic

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways Asus previewed the ROG NeoCore Wi-Fi 8 router at CES 2026 The router will focus on wireless stability and reliability. Asus’ first Wi-Fi 8 routers are slated for release later this year. It feels like only yesterday that Wi-Fi 7 arrived, ushering in an era of faster home networking. Yet the industry is already looking forward as Wi-Fi 8 is just around the corner. At CES 2026, Asus previewed what could be the very first Wi-Fi 8 router, the ROG NeoCore. It’s important to note that this is only a proof of concept. There’s no guarantee the ROG NeoCore will actually launch — at least not in its current form. Its icosahedron shape is visually striking. I’ve never seen a router look anything remotely like this.  Also: CES 2026 live blog: Latest news on TVs, AI, phones, more It’s hard for me to imagine something like this fitting neatly on a side table or tucked behind the TV next to the modem. I …

CES 2026: Asus revives its dual-screen gaming laptop, adds full-sized OLED displays

CES 2026: Asus revives its dual-screen gaming laptop, adds full-sized OLED displays

Published by skeptic

Asus’ dual-screen gaming laptop is back with more screen than ever. The Taiwanese tech company unveiled an new ROG Zephyrus Duo with twin 16-inch 3K OLED touchscreens at CES 2026 Monday, marking its first update in three years and a major redesign. Previous ROG Zephyrus Duos released from 2020 to 2023 had 15- to 16-inch displays that were accompanied by a thinner tilted panel called a “ScreenPad Plus.” It was attached to the top of the device’s keyboard, which had narrow vertical touchpad on the right-hand side. Reviewers called its overall design “pretty cool” and potentially useful for keeping an eye on Twitch or Discord chats while gaming, but took issue with its “cramped” and “awkward” keyboard and touchpad layout. In overhauling the ROG Zephyrus Duo for 2026, Asus finally made it a proper dual-screen gaming laptop. The ScreenPad Plus has been replaced with a second full-sized display for 213% more screen real estate, and it now has a larger detachable keyboard with a centered touchpad underneath it. Bye-bye, ScreenPad Plus. Credit: Asus Asus also …