AMD has announced via a reddit post that it has found a fix for the widely-reported USB connectivity issues that have impacted systems with Ryzen processors, saying, “With your help, we believe we have isolated the root cause and developed a solution that addresses a range of reported symptoms[…].” The fix comes after AMD acknowledged reports of the issues last month and asked users to help it pinpoint the source of the problem by submitting detailed logs.
AMD will release a new AGESA 1.2.0.2 to motherboard vendors in ‘about a week,’ and downloadable beta BIOSes with the patch will land in early April. Naturally, fully-validated BIOS versions with the fix will arrive shortly thereafter.
AMD hasn’t provided further clarity about the fix or the nature of the underlying problem, but the issues seemed confined to Ryzen 3000 and 5000 series CPUs in 500- and 400-series motherboards (i.e., X570, X470, B550, and B450) and consisted of random dropouts for USB-connected devices. The complaints encompassed several different types of USB devices, including unresponsive external capture devices, momentary keyboard connection drops, slow mouse responses, issues with VR headsets, external storage devices, and USB-connected CPU coolers.
Motherboard vendors build firmware upon the AGESA bedrock, so improvements to the underlying code take some time to filter out to the general public. As a reminder, AGESA (AMD Generic Encapsulated System Architecture) is a bootstrap protocol that initializes processor cores, memory, and the HyperTransport (now Infinity Fabric) controller.
Here’s AMD’s post regarding the matter:
“We would like to thank the community here on r/AMD for its assistance with logs and reports as we investigated the intermittent USB connectivity you highlighted. With your help, we believe we have isolated the root cause and developed a solution that addresses a range of reported symptoms, including (but not limited to): USB port dropout, USB 2.0 audio crackling (e.g., DAC/AMP combos), and USB/PCIe Gen 4 exclusion.
AMD has prepared AGESA 1.2.0.2 to deploy this update, and we plan to distribute 1.2.0.2 to our motherboard partners for integration in about a week. Customers can expect downloadable BIOSes containing AGESA 1.2.0.2 to begin with beta updates in early April. The exact update schedule for your system will depend on the test and implementation schedule for your vendor and specific motherboard model. If you continue to experience intermittent USB connectivity issues after updating your system to AGESA 1.2.0.2, we encourage you to download the standalone AMD Bug Report Tool and open a ticket with AMD Customer Support.”If you’re experiencing issues with USB connectivity issues now, AMD has previously issued a few suggestions on how to resolve the issue. You can apply those fixes now while you wait for the new BIOS revisions. We followed up with AMD for more information on the nature of the problems, but the company says it isn’t providing further information on the matter.
For those simply looking to improve on the sound of their TV for just a couple of hundred pounds, the Yamaha SR-C20A is a great option
For
Focused, clear presentation
Rich tone
Great size
Against
Could be more expressive
As with any market that becomes congested, manufacturers are trying every trick in the book to make their soundbar stand out. For only a few hundred pounds these days you can have it all: mile-long bar, massive sub and every 3D sound technology so far invented.
Sound quality, however, is often secondary. After all, if you can sell a cheap soundbar before anybody’s heard it then you’re unlikely to get many returns – unless it sounds absolutely atrocious.
Build
(Image credit: Yamaha)
It’s almost a relief, then, when we receive an affordable product such as the SR-C20A and find it to be free of frills, almost basic. It suggests Yamaha has focused on designing a great-sounding compact soundbar that will improve your TV’s sound with little fuss. And if you take a look at our 2020 Award winners, you’ll see that is an approach we like a lot.
At only 60cm wide and 6.4cm tall, the SR-C20A will have little trouble sitting beneath any TV (a 32-inch set is about 70cm in width) or, as Yamaha suggests, a computer monitor for more immersive gaming. Not that it is content sounding that small.
Features
(Image credit: Yamaha)
The SR-C20A promises volumes and depth belying its stature thanks to its pair of 46mm full-range drivers and integrated 75mm subwoofer with dual passive radiators. Though there is no attempt made here to deliver counterfeit height channels, it does use Yamaha’s Virtual Surround Technology to help create room-filling sound you might not readily associate with a soundbar of its size.
Yamaha SR-C20A tech specs
(Image credit: Yamaha)
Bluetooth version 5.0
Output power 100W
AirPlay No
Dolby Audio Yes
Inputs/outputs HDMI, optical x2, analogue audio
Dimensions (hwd) 6.4 x 60 x 9.4cm
Weight 1.8kg
Things are kept simple at the back of the unit, too. Between the keyholes for wall mounting are two optical inputs, one 3.5mm analogue in and an HDMI ARC out – there is also a USB socket, for updates only. And if you don’t want to connect your new soundbar to anything but the power, Bluetooth 5.0 is on board for wireless streaming.
You’ll also find a few touch controls on top of the SR-C20A for source selection, power and volume, and LEDs at the front signifying the source in use, but otherwise, this is a pleasingly clean soundbar. In fact, you’ll find much more going on with the remote than the unit itself.
Yamaha has its own Sound Bar Remote App from which you can control all aspects of the SR-C20A, but we’re pleased to have a physical controller in the box as well. As well as the basics, you can use this remote to tweak subwoofer levels and select from four sound modes: Stereo, Standard, Movie and Game.
There are also buttons for Bass Extension, should you want to give more emphasis to the lower frequencies, and Clear Voice, which picks out dialogue and allows it to be more audible when otherwise it may get lost in a busy scene.
All potentially useful, though inevitably the SR-C20A sounds its best in its standard settings, with the bass dialled back depending on the surface the unit is placed on. Leave it to do its work in its most basic mode, and this is a cost-effective soundbar well worth your attention.
Sound
(Image credit: Yamaha)
The SR-C20A delivers that rich Yamaha tone, immediately promising a performance it’d be difficult to dislike. The midrange in particular is full-bodied and clear, the SR-C20A’s woofer making itself known by providing solid foundations, if not exactly rumbling the walls of the room.
There is a commendable level of detail on offer for a soundbar at this price, too, and overall clarity is good. Yamaha is clever enough to know why people buy products such as these, and has succeeded in delivering a clear and focused presentation that will improve on that of any regular flat-screen TV. The SR-C20A’s dimensions mean the sound is a little closed in at times – when scenes become particularly busy and at higher volumes – but never to the extent it becomes messy or unintelligible.
The main area in which it lacks a little something is in terms of dynamic expression. This Yamaha is indeed quite interesting – you couldn’t go as far as to accuse it of being flat – but it doesn’t quite convey the lilts and emphases of dialogue in a way we’d want in order to give it a full five stars.
That affects its use as a wireless speaker for music too, or for watching music shows on TV, as does a slightly pedestrian sense of timing. It’d be harsh to compare the SR-C20A directly with a sole-purpose speaker at the same price, but rhythmically we’d still like a little more energy and impetus. It’s why the Sonos Beam is well worth the extra outlay if you can afford it.
Verdict
But that doesn’t mean this soundbar is unworthy of our recommendation. It is still a clear step up from the sound of most TVs, while its price and dimensions make it easy to accommodate in just about every way.
Of course, there are better soundbars out there, but you’d have to be willing to spend a chunk more. At this price, the Yamaha SR-C20A is a worthy contender for a spot in your living room.
Even though the omnipresence of wireless headphones could lead you to conclude that the market no longer has room for wired models, you’d be wrong. Wired headphones, such as the Creative SFXI Trio, still very much have an audience. Anyone who can’t be bothered with such nuisances as battery charging and the potential loss of one of the headphones is likely to pick up a wired pair of in-ears. Let’s not forget about mobile gamers either, or at least those among them looking for zero-lag mobile gameplay, which makes wired headphones a must.
The Creative SXFI Trio in-ear headphones are equipped with a USB-C cable and as such connect directly to Android phones and the Nintendo Switch. Creative didn’t leave you hanging even if you’d prefer to connect them to your desktop PC, laptop, or PlayStation as a simple USB-C to USB Type-A adapter is included. The SXFI Trio in-ear headphones have two distinctive features: As their name implies, they’re equipped with three speaker drivers per earpiece and include SXFI Wire, essentially a more compact version of the excellent SXFI Amp (read our review here), a $150 mobile DAC and headphone amplifier that also includes a powerful DSP with the Super X-Fi headphone holography technology. Coming in at $140/€130, the Creative SXFI Trio in-ear headphones are by no means cheap, so let’s find out if they have what it takes to justify the price, and present themselves as a viable option in a world where wireless headphones absolutely dominate.
Although I assembled it myself, and its software all comes from an open-source DIY project, in many ways my MiSTer is the most versatile computer I own. It’s a shapeshifting wonderbox that can change its own logic to make itself run like countless other machines as accurately as possible. From old arcade boards to early PCs to vintage consoles, MiSTer developers are devoted to helping it turn into an ever-expanding range of hardware.
If you’ve ever wanted to use computer software or hardware that is no longer available for sale, you’ve probably run into emulation before. It’s a huge field that often involves a ton of people working on a technically challenging feat: how to write software that lets one computer run code that was written for another. But there’s only so much traditional emulators can do. There are always inherent compromises and complexities involved in getting your current hardware to run software it was never designed to handle. Emulated operating systems or video games often encounter slowdown, latency, and bugs you’d never have encountered with the original devices. So what if there was a way to alter the hardware itself?
Well, that’s MiSTer. It’s an open-source project built upon field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology, which means it makes use of hardware that can be reconfigured after the fact. While traditional CPUs are fixed from the point of manufacture, FPGAs can be reprogrammed to work as if they came right off the conveyor belt with the actual silicon you want to use.
What this means is, you’re not tricking a processor into believing it’s something else, you’re setting it up to run that way from the start. A MiSTer system can theoretically run software from the NES to the Neo Geo, to the Apple II or Acorn Archimedes, and deliver responsive, near-as-dammit accurate performance next to what you’d get from the actual devices.
Of course, it’s not as easy as that makes it sound. In order to program an FPGA to act like a computer from three decades ago, you have to intimately understand the original hardware. And that’s what makes MiSTer one of the technically coolest DIY projects going today, building on the knowledge of developers around the globe.
The DE10-Nano sandwiched between the I/O and USB hub boards.
FPGAs aren’t new technology. Two early companies in the field (sorry) were Altera, now owned by Intel, and Xilinx, now part of AMD. The two have competed since the 1980s for market share in programmable logic devices, largely serving enterprise customers. One of the biggest advantages of FPGAs on an industrial scale is that companies can iterate their software design on hardware before they need to manufacture the final silicon. FPGAs are widely used to develop embedded systems, for example, because the software and the hardware can be designed near-concurrently.
You might be familiar with FPGAs if you’ve come across Analogue’s boutique console clones, like the Mega Sg and the Super Nt. Those use FPGAs programmed in a certain way to replicate a single, specific piece of hardware, so you can use your original physical cartridges with them and get an experience that’s very close to the actual consoles.
The MiSTer project is built around more accessible FPGA hardware than you’d find in commercial or enterprise applications. The core of the system is an FPGA board called the DE10-Nano, produced by another Intel-owned company called Terasic that’s based out of Taiwan. It was originally intended for students as a way to teach themselves how to work with FPGAs.
The DE10-Nano looks somewhat similar to a Raspberry Pi — it’s a tiny motherboard that ships without a case and is designed to be expanded. The hardware includes an Altera Cyclone V with two ARM Cortex-A9 CPU cores, 1GB of DDR3 SDRAM, an HDMI out, a microSD card slot, a USB-A port, and Ethernet connectivity. It runs a Linux-based OS out of the box and sells for about $135, or $99 to students.
MiSTer is inspired by MiST, an earlier project that made use of an Altera FPGA board to recreate the Atari ST. But the DE10-Nano is cheaper, more powerful, and expandable, which is why project leader Alexey Melnikov used it as the basis for MiSTer when development started a few years back. Melnikov also designed MiSTer-specific daughterboards that enhance the DE10-Nano’s capability and make a finished machine a lot more versatile; the designs are open-source, so anyone is free to manufacture and sell them.
You can run MiSTer on a single DE10-Nano, but it’s not recommended, because the board alone will only support a few of the cores available. (A “core” is a re-creation of a specific console or computer designed to run on the MiSTer platform.) The one upgrade that should be considered essential is a 128MB stick of SDRAM, which gives MiSTer enough memory at the right speed to run anything released for the platform to date.
Beyond that, you’ll probably want a case, assuming you’d rather not run open circuitry exposed to the elements. There are various case designs available, many of which are intended for use with other MiSTer-specific add-ons that vertically attach to the DE10-Nano. An I/O board isn’t necessary for most cores, for example, but it adds a VGA port along with digital and analog audio out, which is useful for various setups. (A lot of MiSTer users prefer to hook up their systems to CRT TVs to make the most of the authentic output and low latency.) You can add a heatsink or a fan, which can be a good idea if you want to run the system for extended periods of time. And there’s a USB hub board that adds seven USB-A ports.
For my setup, I ordered the DE10-Nano, a 128MB SDRAM stick, a VGA I/O board with a fan, a USB hub board, and a case designed for that precise selection of hardware. These largely came from different sources and took varying amounts of time to show up; you can order the DE10-Nano from countless computer retailers, but other MiSTer accessories involve diving into a cottage industry of redesigns and resellers. Half of my parts arrived in a battered box from Portugal filled with shredded paper and loosely attached bubble wrap.
MiSTer accessories are based on Melnikov’s original designs, but since the project is open-source, many sellers customize their own versions. My case, for example, includes a patch cable that hooks directly into the IO board to control its lighting, while some others require you to route the LEDs yourself. The USB board, meanwhile, came with a bridge to the DE10-Nano that seemed to be a different height from most others, which meant I had to improvise a little with screw placements. Nothing I ordered came with instructions, so it did take some time to figure out what should go where, but everything worked fine in the end. The only other thing I had to do was go buy a small hex screwdriver for the final screws in the case.
That’s part of the fun with MiSTer. There’s a base specification that everything works around, but you’re still ultimately assembling your own FPGA computer, and you can adjust the build as much or as little as you want.
Once your hardware is set, you need to install the MiSTer software. There are a few ways to do this, and you’ll want to dig around forums and GitHub for a while so you know what you’re doing, but the method I went with was simple in the end — essentially, you format your microSD card with an installer package, put it into the DE10-Nano, plug in an Ethernet cable and a USB keyboard, power on the system, and it’ll download all of the available cores. Your SD card will then be set up to boot the MiSTer OS directly, and you can run another script to make sure everything’s updated with the most recent versions.
The MiSTer OS is very simple, with a default background that looks like pixelated TV static and a basic menu in a monospaced font that lets you select from lists of console and computer cores. The first thing I did was load some old Game Boy Advance ROMs I dumped well over a decade ago, because for some reason Nintendo doesn’t want to sell them for the Switch. (Please sell them for the Switch, Nintendo.) The performance felt about as authentic as I could’ve expected, except for the fact that I was looking at a 4K TV instead of a tiny screen.
My main reason for getting into MiSTer is to have a hardware-based way to access the parts of computer history that I missed, or to revisit forgotten platforms that I was around for. I knew that computer systems like the Apple II and the Amiga were big gaps in my knowledge, so it’s great to have a little box that can run like either of them on command. I’ve also been getting into the MSX platform, which was popular in Japan in the ’80s. My next rainy-day project is to work on an install of RISC OS, the Acorn operating system that was on the first computers I ever used at school in the UK. (You can actually still buy licensed ROM copies of various versions of the OS, which was a neat surprise.)
MiSTer development is a vibrant scene. Melnikov has a Patreon that’s updated several times a week with improvements he’s made to various cores, but there are lots of other people contributing to the project on a daily or weekly basis. A colleague introduced me to the work of Jose Tejada, for example, who’s based in Spain and has made a ton of progress on replicating old Capcom arcade machine boards. There’s another project aiming to get the original PlayStation running, marking the biggest step yet into 3D hardware on MiSTer.
FPGAs are often talked about as if they’re a silver bullet for perfect emulation, but that’s really not the case — at least, not without a lot of effort. Anything that runs perfectly on MiSTer, or as close to perfectly as is otherwise imperceptible, is the result of a ton of work by talented programmers who have spent time figuring out the original hardware and applying the knowledge to their cores. Just read this post from the FPGA PSX Project about what it took to get Ridge Racer running on MiSTer, as well as the assessment of how far they have to go. The cores can vary in quality, accuracy, and state of completion, but a lot of them are still under active development and huge strides have been made in the past couple of years.
Analogue lead hardware engineer Kevin Horton spoke to The Verge in 2019 about the work that went into re-creating the Sega Genesis for the Mega Sg console. The process took him nine months, including two-and-a-half months figuring out the CPU at the heart of the console. “I didn’t know Genesis very well, and knew literally nothing about the 68000 CPU at all!” he said. “This was my first foray into both things and probably slowed the process down since I had to learn it all as I went.”
Ultimately, Horton confirmed the accuracy of his work by directly connecting a 68000 to an FPGA and comparing their performance on a test that ran for a week straight. It demonstrates the lengths that FPGA enthusiasts go to in pursuit of the most accurate results possible, but what makes MiSTer special is that this is largely the work of hobbyists. No one’s paying anyone a salary to make incremental tweaks to the performance of the arcade version of Bionic Commando, but that’s where Tejada has directed his passion.
MiSTer is an important project because it speaks to the concept of preservation in a way that all too often goes underserved by the technology industry. The project makes the argument that the way we run software is as big a part of our experience as its content. Yes, you can port or emulate or re-release software to run on modern hardware, but there’s always going to be a compromise in the underlying code that moves the pixels in front of your eyes.
Of course, that might sound like a pretty niche concern for anyone who’s satisfied with, say, the emulated software you can run in a browser at Archive.org. I’m often one of those people myself — emulation can be great, and it’s hard to beat the convenience. But the MiSTer project is an incredible effort all the same. I’ll never have a shred of the technical knowledge possessed by MiSTer developers, but I’m grateful for their effort. Once you build your own system, it’s hard not to feel invested in the work that goes into it; MiSTer is a never-ending pursuit of perfection, and there’s something beautiful about that.
The Asus ROG Strix Scope RX is a compelling keyboard with optical switches, per-key RGB lighting and many gaming-focused features. It’s only limited by its size and keycaps.
For
+ Switches deliver pleasant typing, gaming
+ Sturdy construction bolstered by dust, water resistance
+ On-keyboard controls for lighting, profile switching and more
Against
– Keycaps can feel unpleasant
– Thick, obtrusive rubber cable
– Switches feel stiffer than expected
Most gaming keyboards only use lighting to look pretty. You watch as the keys illuminate with a dazzling array of 16.8 million colors and a variety of effects. Gaming keyboards with optical mechanical switches do the same thing, sure, but they’re also built around the idea that light offers the best way to register a key press. RGB lighting is essentially a decoration; the lighting used by optical switches are foundational.
It’s taken a while for optical keyboards to go mainstream, but they’re slowing becoming increasingly common among vendors claiming to make the best gaming keyboards. Razer, Corsairand Roccat all released keyboards with optical switches in late 2020, and Asus joins the optical trend with the introduction of the $130 Asus ROG Strix Scope RX. Could this finally be the keyboard that convinces gamers to flock to optical switches?
Asus ROG Strix Scope RX Specs
Switches
Asus ROG RX Red optical mechanical
Lighting
Per-key RGB
Onboard Storage
5 customizable profiles
Media Keys
With FN
Interface
USB 2.0 Type-A
Cable
Attached, rubber
Additional Ports
USB 2.0
Keycaps
Plastic
Construction
Aluminum top plate, plastic base
Software
Asus Armoury Crate
Dimensions (LxWxH)
17.3 in x 5.4 in x 1.5 in (440 x 137 x 39 mm)
Weight
2.4 pounds (1.07kg)
Design of the Asus ROG Strix Scope RX
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The ROG Strix Scope RX is a full-size keyboard that features a few design changes to the standard layout meant to help it appeal to gamers. The most notable of those changes are the double-width left Ctrl key, which is supposed to make it easier to find the “crouch” button in most shooters, and the Stealth key that sits in the function row (we’ll talk more about what that key does next). Otherwise, the ROG Strix Scope RX looks like a standard gaming keyboard.
The ROG Strix Scope RX’s Stealth key lets you quickly hide all open apps and mute the system’s audio. Like I said in my Asus ROG Strix Scope TKL Electro Punk review, that feature doesn’t feel particularly necessary while working from home. For those who disagree, well, that hoodie-clad keycap is just waiting for you to press it.
It features a black and gray color scheme accented by per-key RGB backlighting and a rather conspicuous ROG logo in the top-right corner. The lighting appears to shine evenly through the keycaps, and the aluminum top plate’s treatment allows it to reflect those lights without coming off as shiny.
There are no dedicated media keys, unfortunately, but Asus did give media controls top priority when it printed the function row’s legends. The “F5” to “F12” labels are all printed on the front of their respective keycaps instead of the top, which is a nice touch. A similar labeling approach is also used for the secondary functions (changing profiles, controlling lighting, et cetera) of other keys.
The ROG Strix Scope RX offers USB 2.0 passthrough, which some will find useful as it brings a USB Type-A port closer to you. But that does mean the keyboard’s stuck with a thick cable — in this keyboard’s case, a rubberized one — that ends with two different USB connectors. That isn’t uncommon for keyboards that offer USB passthrough, but it’s still disappointing after reviewing the HyperX Alloy Origins 60mini keyboard with a detachable braided cable. Comparatively, the ROG Strix Scope RX is a beast.
I suppose portability isn’t as much of a concern for a full-size keyboard. The ROG Strix Scope RX measures in at 17.3 inches long, 5.4 inches wide, and 1.5 inches tall before the feet are extended from underneath its top corners. It weighs 2.4 pounds. At that point having a sleeker, more travel-friendly cable probably wouldn’t change much. For comparison against other optical gaming keyboards, the Razer Huntsman, is 17.5 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches, and the Corsair K100 RGB, with many media and macro keys, is 18.5 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches.
Luckily, it seems like Asus was prepared for the ROG Strix Scope RX to sit in one place for extended periods. The company said the keyboard offers IP56 dust and water resistance, which means it should be able to withstand any reasonable accumulation of dust or spills.
Typing Experience on the Asus ROG Strix Scope RX
Most important is the ROG Strix Scope RX’s status as the first keyboard to feature Asus’ proprietary ROG RX Red optical mechanical Switches. These linear switches are supposed to be able to withstand up to 100 million keystrokes, feature a 1.5mm actuation point, require 40g of force to actuation and 55g of force to bottom out and a have total travel of 4mm. These specs are similar to the linear Cherry MX Red standard mechanical switches, but they require less force to bottom out (55g versus over 60g) and a shorter actuation point (1.5mm versus 2mm). They also require less initial force for the spring to start compressing (45g compared to about 30g ). More details are on Asus’ website.
The ROG RX Red switches performed surprisingly well during everyday use. I’ve been fairly vocal about my preference for tactile keys, especially when I’m typing, but the first time I pressed a key on the ROG Strix Scope RX, I double-checked the packaging to make sure I wasn’t sent the wrong keyboard by mistake. These don’t feel like any other linear switches I’ve used before. While they are linear, meaning they don’t have a bump along its travel, such as Cherry MX Browns, they feel stiffer than other linear switches, like Cherry MX Reds. And that stiffness persisted after I used the keyboard for days.
Whether that’s a virtue or vice is a matter of perspective. For me, it meant I got the advantages of linear switches — namely their responsiveness and relatively quiet operation — without the disadvantage of having to edit out a bunch of accidental keypresses. But it’s not hard to imagine that someone expecting a linear switch to be easier to press might be a little frustrated.
A keyboard is more than just the sum of its switches, however, and in that regard the ROG Strix Scope RX left something to be desired. The keycaps feel oddly grippy and grimy even though my house is (almost unbearably) dry because of the extended New York winter. It almost felt like I had to pull my fingertips away from the keycaps any time I wanted to punch at another one.
But those are just qualitative impressions. The quantitative impressions are more favorable: I scored an average 122.3 words per minute (wpm) with 97.3% accuracy on the 10fastfingers.com typing test. That’s faster than I typed on any other keyboard, including my daily drivers, with only a slight decrease in accuracy, (which varied; I was 99.5% accurate in one of the tests.
It was also nice to have some of the keyboard back after using a 60% board. Providing easy access to media controls, arrow keys, and important tools like Home and End was a point in the ROG Strix Scope RX’s favor. Do I still find the number pad unnecessary? Yeah, especially since I have a fairly large mouse pad. But having those others keys available helped during everyday use.
Gaming Experience on the Asus ROG Strix Scope RX
Gaming is where the ROG Strix Scope RX is supposed to shine. Optical switches aren’t just meant to be more durable than their strictly mechanical counterparts, since they actuate when the stem passes through a light beam, rather than via metallic contact. They’re also said to be more responsive. Nothing travels faster than light, right? That is just an illusion, though, and the reality is that I wasn’t able to tell that I was gaming on optical switches rather than standard mechanical ones.
I will say the way Asus designed the ROX RX Red switches lends to my play style. I like to keep my fingers on important keys (the WASD cluster, left Ctrl, etc.) when I play my go-to competitive titles, like Valorant and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Some linear switches interpret that hovering as a key press, which can lead to disaster if it results in me peeking at a bad time.
That doesn’t happen with this keyboard, however, because of the ROG RX Red Optical Mechanical Switches’ initial resistance. That means the switch will probably be even more polarizing when it comes to gaming —many linear switches are popular specifically because they can be activated by a baby’s breath from halfway across the room— but it worked for me.
The grippy quality of the keycaps also proved to be a boon rather than a hindrance when it came to gaming. Typing requires me to find a bunch of different keys in rapid succession, while gaming mostly requires me to keep my hands on the same keys for extended periods. That’s easier (if not more pleasant) when those keys are slightly grippy.
A word to the wise: if you’re going with a full-size keyboard like this, you should get a mouse pad that’s either small enough to sit next to it or large enough for it to sit on. Mine, the Razer Gigantus V2 in large, was caught in a no-man’s-land that forced me to move everything around when I switched from writing to gaming. Those minor inconveniences add up. (For some recommendations, see our Best RGB Mouse Pads list.)
Software and Features on the Asus ROG Strix Scope RX
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The ROG Strix Scope RX uses the same Armoury Crate software as other Asus peripherals to handle key settings, basic RGB lighting management and firmware updates. It’s also compatible with Asus Aura Sync, which helps the company’s products shine their pretty lights in unison, but people who haven’t invested in that ecosystem can just stick with Armoury Crate.
You can save settings to the keyboard’s onboard storage. It offers five user-managed profiles, as well as a default profile that can all be accessed via the F1-F6 keys. This will mostly be used to swap between specific key assignments and lighting effects based on the game being played, and Armoury Crate can switch profiles automatically when games are launched.
Much of the keyboard’s additional functionality can be managed right on-keyboard, too, which is a welcome feature. The arrow cluster can be used to manage the lighting’s brightness and effects, a quick-toggle switch immediately switches the function row to media playback controls, holding down Fn while pressing the Windows key can “lock” it to prevent accidental presses.
The keyboard’s on-the-fly macro recording makes it easy to record and assign macros without ever having to launch Armoury Crate too. It’s nice not to be totally reliant on the software for basic functionality, such as managing different lighting presets or switching between profiles saved to onboard storage. Armoury Crate is a bonus, not a necessity, as it should be.
The ROG Strix Scope RX also boasts 100% anti-ghosting, N-key rollover, and a 1,000Hz response rate.
Bottom Line
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The ROG Strix Scope RX was a surprise. I expected the linear optical switches to respond to a feather landing on top of them, but instead they met me with resistance similar to that of a tactile key. I expected to use Armoury Crate for everything, because it’s been a while since I reviewed an Asus keyboard, but instead I was reminded that most features can be managed on-keyboard. I expected it to look exactly like a stereotypical gaming keyboard, but… well, yeah, I was right there.
There’s a lot to like about the ROG Strix Scope RX. It feels sturdy and offers per-key RGB lighting, and a wide array of features that should allow it to appeal to a diverse audience. Not everything feels like a must-have, though, and Asus’ decision to opt for a more resistive linear switch for its first optical keyboard might confound people who expect more responsiveness.
There are some downsides too. Nobody likes grimy keycaps, and I suspect that’s exactly what the ROG Strix Scope RX would have if there were a single additional drop of moisture in my home. Its rubber cable is massive and looks bent after just a little over a week of use. Travel doesn’t even feel like an option with this keyboard; it’s simply too big to easily take anywhere.
For those seeking a sturdy full-size keyboard with optical linear switches that aren’t as sensitive as the titular character in “Bubble Boy,” then, the ROG Strix Scope RX should fit the bill. Anyone looking for something a little more responsive or portable should consider something else.
The Raspberry Pi Pico is becoming the Swiss Army Knife of microcontrollers, and this is largely down to the flexibility provided by the programmable IO (PIO) and the $4 price tag. In the latest project to grab our attention, we see Luigi Cruz, a computer student and amateur radio enthusiast, use the Pico as a software defined radio (SDR) interface for the popular GNR Radio application.
Cruz’s SDR project, PicoSDR, uses one of the analog input pins to sample 8 bit data at 500ksps. Cruz has connected the Pico’s analog input to the output of his soundcard and uses an online tool to generate tones that are visible on his computer. To connect the Pico to the computer, Cruz explains, “The data is sent via USB using the RNDIS protocol to emulate a TCP/IP interface. The ADC speed is limited to 500 ksps. The data can be used with software like the GNU Radio with a custom block.” This provides a low-bandwidth means to get data from the Pico and into applications such as GNU Radio.
Cruz continues the demo by showing how you can use the GNU Radio to view and analyze the audio input; for example, Cruz plays a video file, and we can see the audio frequency and sample rate in GNU Radio.
Image 1 of 3
(Image credit: Luigi Cruz)
Image 2 of 3
(Image credit: Luigi Cruz)
Image 3 of 3
(Image credit: Luigi Cruz)
It is still early days for PicoSDR, but we can see a Raspberry Pi Pico powered scope for basic electronics work. Right now, there is no public code with which we can replicate this project, but it is only a matter of time until Cruz announces the details via his Twitter account.
Boutique headphone manufacturer Meze Audio is marking a decade of operation by releasing a limited run of their flagship Empyrean over-ear headphones.
The new Art Gallery Empyrean Phoenix headphones will be restricted to just 100 products worldwide, each with a unique serial number and CNC sculpted aluminium chassis, and hand-painted with a flame-inspired red and black design.
The fiery headphones also employ Meze’s patented isodynamic array drivers using technology allegedly acquired by Soviet spies during the Cold War. Whereas conventional headphone drivers have a movable diaphragm and a central electromagnetic coil, here the diaphragm is suspended between two coils that vibrate independently as the electrical current flows. But does it help the headphones sound better? Meze Audio certainly thinks so.
Each pair of Art Gallery Empyrean Phoenix headphones will cost £2900 ($4000) and ship with two sets of earpads – leather and Alcantara – and the option to upgrade to a High-Purity Oxygen-Free Copper cable of your choice.
MORE
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Our pick of the best headphones for every budget
Splash the cash on 11 of the world’s most expensive headphones
Find out how to choose the right pair of headphones
It might work for those who need a CD player and streaming in one box, but there are far better alternatives if you can compromise on features
For
Plenty of weight to sound
Good timing
CD player can be useful
Against
Dynamically uninteresting
Bass detail is poor
With vinyl sales having overtaken those of the CD for the first time in 35 years, and cassette tapes enjoying a similar resurgence to the black disc, it is almost novel to be testing an all-in-one system such as the Technics Ottava F SC-C70 MK2 in 2021.
We’re very much in favour of any physical media inclusion in a sector that is increasingly geared towards streaming, of course; it’s just a pleasant surprise when there’s a wireless speaker asking us to dig into our racks of CDs.
This is actually the second generation of Technics’s most premium Ottava wireless speaker, adding features such as Auto Space Tune along with a complete retune for its new drivers. We didn’t get our hands on the first one, but did spend some time with the four-star Ottava S SC-C30 – the baby of the group – so feel justified in having some high expectations.
That said, you shouldn’t really need any prior knowledge of the range to expect something for the money you’ll have to pay. A price tag of £799 ($999, AU$1649) certainly isn’t the weightiest among the wireless speakers we’ve tested, but it does place the SC-C70 MK2 in a premium bracket.
We’ve heard plenty of speakers that can comfortably account for prices doubling that of this Technics, even without bonuses such as the CD player. But to get an idea of how stiff competition is here, we only dished out one 2020 What Hi-Fi? Award to a wireless speaker costing more than £500, and that one is £50 cheaper than the SC-C70 MK2. Essentially, this is a lot of money to spend, and you’re well within your rights to expect something special in return.
Build
(Image credit: Technics)
There are certainly some aspects of the SC-C70 MK2’s construction that resonate with its price. Opening the packaging reveals a thick aluminium top panel – either grey or black, depending on which of the two finishes you’ve chosen – and the speaker’s weight as you lift it from the box is equally reassuring.
It looks pretty good, too. There’s an industrial stylishness to its straight lines and vent-like grille, which stands out just enough while hopefully not dating it too much into the future; a speaker such as this should have some staying power.
The OLED display is small, but functional, while that top plate also houses a few well-engineered push buttons alongside a row of touch controls for playback. You probably won’t be up this close often, though, thanks to the included remote and ability to work the SC-C70 MK2 via its app.
Around the back, there are inputs for aux-in, optical and USB, alongside connections for the included radio antenna, power and wired internet. These are all sandwiched between a pair of reflex ports that complement a quintet of drivers inside.
Most notably, the SC-C70 MK2’s downward-firing subwoofer, which you’ll feel if you stroke the speaker’s undercarriage. It’s a 12cm driver aiming to add some serious depth to the pair of forward-firing 8cm drivers taking care of the speaker’s midrange.
Technics F Ottava SC-C70 MK2 tech specs
(Image credit: Technics)
Power 30W + 30W (40W sub)
Inputs Aux-in, optical digital, USB-A
Headphone out Yes
Finishes x2
Dimensions (hwd) 14.3 x 45 x 28cm
Weight 8kg
In this second-generation SC-C70, these woofers are said to benefit from the reduced weight of their voice coil, enhanced airflow and increased rigidity of their diaphragm, and aren’t the only component to have undergone a major revamp.
The pair of 2cm dome tweeters are much changed, too, with a lighter silk diaphragm and optimised acoustic lens for improved dispersion. And each section has its own JENO Engine full digital amp unit, delivering 30W to the tweeters and midrange drivers and 40W to the sub.
There’s a lot packed in, and it becomes evident that it’s the SC-C70 MK2’s interior, along with the top plate, providing most of the weight. Unfortunately, the rest of the outside is rather plasticky to the touch. That might not be of great importance, given you’ll rarely touch the speaker’s sides, but it’s a feature that extends to the swiveling CD lid. Our initial hope that this might be glass is soon quashed, and a less than smooth finish on the edge only compounds the disappointment.
Features
(Image credit: Technics)
At least we can’t fault the feature list. Built-in Google Chromecast means the SC-C70 MK2 is primed for multi-room use, while Apple AirPlay 2 and Bluetooth also offer wireless playback options. That is, of course, along with the CD drive, DAB+ and FM radio, and analogue and digital inputs.
Less ordinary, though, is Technics’s Space Tune technology, and more importantly this speaker’s new automatic function. The MK1 offered pre-sets of Free, Near the Wall, and Near the Corner; all of those are present again for quick EQing, depending on where your speaker is placed, but the new Auto function can do that more precisely by using test tones and on-board mics for optimal sound.
You can even go further, using the Technics Audio Center app to adjust settings depending on your listening position. iOS devices can also be used to measure room noise and acoustic conditions as well as further calibrating sound characteristics.
Sound
(Image credit: Technics)
Some tuning could be vital, depending on your room, as there’s a lot of power coming from the SC-C70 MK2 that needs to be kept tame. Most notably in the low end, where that subwoofer proves a sound investment early on for those who like a lot of bass.
The key, of course, is finding a good balance; the Auto Space Tune does a good job of that, and the ability to further tweak is welcome. But you won’t be criticising this Technics speaker for not having enough in the way of bass weight.
Detail levels are generally okay as well, giving enough information to keep that full-bodied presentation from becoming soft – in the upper registers at least. Unfortunately, though, the other side of all that bass is that the mix is a bit of a blunt object and rather bereft of detail.
Despite that slightly corpulent low end, timing is still surprisingly good. It is an aspect with which a lot of really bassy-sounding products often struggle, appearing slow or muddled, but the SC-C70 MK2 is actually rather good at keeping time.
However, because that accurate timing is betrayed by a real dearth of dynamic expression, it fails to deliver any great sense of rhythm. This is our main gripe: there is such a lack of expression it quickly becomes a wearing listen.
(Image credit: Technics)
We sit there willing the SC-C70 MK2 to appear a little more interested in the music we’re sharing with it, but it has made up its mind. It’s even more of a shame when you consider all the power it flaunts delivering those bass frequencies; even if just a little more of that was directed at giving some punch, this would be a more entertaining listen.
And as we noted earlier, the SC-C70 MK2 has entered the market among some seriously talented rivals. If we were underwhelmed with its performance at first, the Technics only loses more ground when we compare it with the Award-winning Naim Mu-so Qb 2nd Generation.
There’s no CD player here, of course, but you should ask yourself whether you really need one; the Naim is leagues ahead in terms of detail, rhythmic sense and excitement. And you can always put the money saved towards a CD transport later on if necessary.
You’d even get a better all-round performance by going for a micro system such as the Denon D-M41DAB. Again there are compromises – the stereo speakers are separate, so it isn’t a on-box solution, and your only wireless streaming is via Bluetooth – but if CD is your main concern, then it’s a no-brainer in terms of sonic performance and value.
For anyone considering buying the Technics SC-C70 MK2, our advice would be to go back to the drawing board and think about what you’re willing to compromise. Our choice would always be features or space, rather than compromising on sound.
Verdict
Regardless of whether or not there is a true like-for-like alternative, the Technics Ottava F SC-C70 MK2 is just too expensive to sound this lifeless. A re-tune may be able to solve its issues – the feature set and building blocks of a good performance are here, but at the moment you’d need some fairly specific requirements to consider this a worthy buy.
NASA has released an audio recording of its Perseverance rover firing lasers on the martian surface. The strikes, which sound like a series of small clicks, are designed to help scientists analyze the rocks around the rover. In this case the target was a rock called “Máaz,” which scientists were able to discover was basaltic, BBC News reports, meaning it contains a lot of magnesium and iron.
According to NASA’s site, the laser is fired by Perseverance’s “SuperCam,” and allows the rover to “zap and study areas on a rock as small as the period at the end of this sentence” from a distance of 20 feet (7 meters) away. Once the laser has fired at a rock, it uses its camera and spectrometer to analyze the hot gas the rock is vaporized into. The sound the laser creates offers additional data on the rock being studied.
You’re listening to the first audio recordings of laser strikes on Mars. These rhythmic tapping sounds heard by the microphone on my SuperCam instrument have different intensities that can help my team figure out the structure of the rocks around me. https://t.co/nfWyOyfhNy
— NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) March 10, 2021
Since its successful landing last month, Perseverance has sent back a variety of images and audio recordings from the surface of Mars. Although images from the planet are nothing new, this is the first time a Mars rover has actually used a microphone from the surface of Mars. NASA’s site notes that of two previous spacecraft that have carried microphones to Mars, one failed, and the other never turned its microphone on.
All of these data points are essential to help the SUV-sized rover as it goes about its mission seeking out signs of life and analyzing the geology of the red planet. It’s currently scheduled to spend one Mars year, or two Earth years, exploring the area around its landing site, which is suspected to have been a lake billions of years ago.
As reported by Dutch publication NRC Handelsblad, the inventor of the compact cassette tape, Lou Ottens has died aged 94.
Ottens began working at Philips in 1952 and became the head of product development for the company’s Hasselt division in 1960. Here, he started his journey to bring the reel-to-reel tape format into a more portable and user-friendly form factor.
Cassette renaissance: UK music fans buy a whopping 65,000 tapes in 2020
The first success for Ottens and his team was the Philips EL 3585 – a ‘portable’ tape recorder that ran on batteries, but still used the reel-to-reel format. You can view this delightful piece of history at Johan’s Old Radios.
Frustrated by the bulkiness and clumsiness of the format, Ottens and his team worked to condense the technology, and two years later they unveiled the first compact cassette tape, complete with a plastic housing.
The cassette was debuted at the Berlin Radio Show in 1963, and was marketed as being ‘smaller than a pack of cigarettes’. Soon after, the term “compact cassette tape” was trademarked and Philips had developed a consumer-ready player to handle the new standard format.
A decade later, Ottens would also be involved in the Philips team that collaborated with Sony to develop the CD, yet another industry standard for storing great amounts of audio in an incredibly compact fashion.
When NRC Handelsblad had asked Ottens in 2018 what he thought about the renewed interest that cassette tapes were having in recent years, the pioneer thought it was silly, noting that CDs were unbeatable for audio quality.
Huawei has taken the wraps of its latest – and most affordable – true wireless earbuds. The new Huawei FreeBuds 4i offer active noise-cancelling and a 22-hour battery life for just £80 (around $110, AU$150), which is considerably cheaper than the majority of noise-cancelling true wireless buds on the market.
Much like the firm’s pricier FreeBuds Pro, the FreeBuds 4i promise a “comfortable noise cancellation experience”, as well as an “Awareness Mode” that lets users to briefly hear their surroundings instantly by pressing and holding the bud’s touch-sensitive exterior.
Battery life sounds promising: the buds themselves offer 7.5 hours of playback with noise-cancelling switched on, or ten hours with it off – not bad when you consider the Apple AirPods Pro top out at 4.5 hours with noise-cancelling engaged.
Huawei goes on to say that the FreeBuds 4i last “all day”, which is sort of true considering the included charging case bumps the total battery life up to 22 hours from a single charge. In a hurry? A 10-minute ‘fast charge’ of the case returns an impressive four hours of playback.
As for sound, the 10mm dynamic drivers promise “powerful bass performance”, with Huawei’s engineers choosing to tune to audio quality “to fit the frequency of pop music”.
(Image credit: Huawei)
This isn’t Huawei’s first rodeo, so fingers crossed the FreeBuds 4i improve on the performance of the FreeBuds Pro noise-cancelling buds (£170, $180), which we rated an average three out of five stars, praising their “upbeat, lively sound” but criticising their “lack of detail” compared to the class leaders at the time.
Lastly, owners of a Huawei smartphone running EMUI 10.0 or later should get seamless pairing, receiving a notification to say the FreeBuds 4i are ready to pair almost instantly. Playback, voice calls and noise-cancelling can all be controlled with taps of the buds.
It’ll be interesting to see how the FreeBuds 4i compare with other cheap AirPods Pro alternatives such as the five-star Earfun Pro noise-cancelling buds (£70, $80, AU$120), which we recently discovered offer great value for money for those on a budget.
The Huawei FreeBuds 4i are available from 26th March in three finishes – Crystal Black, Ceramic White and Honey Red. In the UK, pre-ordering them before 25th March bags you a £5 discount and a free Huawei Band 4 fitness tracker, too.
MORE:
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Or check out our in-depth review of the Huawei FreeBuds Pro
After almost a decade of total market dominance, Intel has spent the past few years on the defensive. AMD’s Ryzen processors continue to show improvement year over year, with the most recent Ryzen 5000 series taking the crown of best gaming processor: Intel’s last bastion of superiority.
Now, with a booming hardware market, Intel is preparing to make up some of that lost ground with the new 11th Gen Intel Core Processors. Intel is claiming these new 11th Gen CPUs offer double-digit IPC improvements despite remaining on a 14 nm process. The top-end 8-core Intel Core i9-11900K may not be able to compete against its Ryzen 9 5900X AMD rival in heavily multi-threaded scenarios, but the higher clock speeds and alleged IPC improvements could be enough to take back the gaming crown. Along with the new CPUs, there is a new chipset to match, the Intel Z590. Last year’s Z490 chipset motherboards are also compatible with the new 11th Gen Intel Core Processors, but Z590 introduces some key advantages.
First, Z590 offers native PCIe 4.0 support from the CPU, which means the PCIe and M.2 slots powered off the CPU will offer PCIe 4.0 connectivity when an 11th Gen CPU is installed. The PCIe and M.2 slots controlled by the Z590 chipset are still PCI 3.0. While many high-end Z490 motherboards advertised this capability, it was not a standard feature for the platform. In addition to PCIe 4.0 support, Z590 offers USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 from the chipset. The USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 standard offers speeds of up to 20 Gb/s. Finally, Z590 boasts native support for 3200 MHz DDR4 memory. With these upgrades, Intel’s Z series platform has feature parity with AMD’s B550. On paper, Intel is catching up to AMD, but only testing will tell if these new Z590 motherboards are up to the challenge.
The ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E aims to be a durable, dependable platform for the mainstream market. The ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E features a respectable 14-phase VRM that takes advantage of 50 A power stages from Vishay. Additionally, ASRock has included a 2.5 Gb/s LAN controller from Realtek as well as the latest WiFi 6 connectivity. The ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E has all the mainstream features most users need packaged in at a reasonable price. All that is left is to see how the ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E stacks up against the competition!
2x Antenna Ports 1x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port 1x HDMI Port 1x DisplayPort 1.4 1x Optical SPDIF Out Port 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A Port 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C Port 2x USB 3.2 Gen1 Ports 2x USB 2.0 Ports 1x RJ-45 LAN Port 5x HD Audio Jacks
Audio:
1x Realtek ALC897 Codec
Fan Headers:
7x 4-pin
Form Factor:
ATX Form Factor: 12.0 x 9.6 in.; 30.5 x 24.4 cm
Exclusive Features:
ASRock Super Alloy
XXL Aluminium Alloy Heatsink
Premium Power Choke
50A Dr.MOS
Nichicon 12K Black Caps
I/O Armor
Shaped PCB Design
Matte Black PCB
High Density Glass Fabric PCB
2oz copper PCB
2.5G LAN
Intel® 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6E
ASRock steel Slot
ASRock Full Coverage M.2 Heatsink
ASRock Hyper M.2 (PCIe Gen4x4)
ASRock Ultra USB Power
ASRock Full Spike Protection
ASRock Live Update & APP Shop
Testing for this review was conducted using a 10th Gen Intel Core i9-10900K. Stay tuned for an 11th Gen update when the new processors launch!
If you opened your phone this morning to see a Twitter app update, you might have been excited — and then confused — to see an advertisement for Twitter Spaces, the audio chat rooms that the social network recently launched to compete with the similar Clubhouse app. “Introducing Spaces,” the iOS update says, promising that “Now you can Tweet and Talk.”
But while you won’t actually find the ability to create a new Space unless you’re one of a select few, the company now says it’s planning to launch Spaces to everyone next month.
The iOS update note.Screenshot by The Verge
Amusingly, we overheard the news in a Twitter Space itself, hosted by the company. Twitter’s plans aren’t set in stone, but the gist is that they’re trying to get the product into a state where anyone can host a Twitter Space starting in April. April is the goal. In the meanwhile, users on both iOS and Android can both join and talk in existing Spaces.
Twitter Spaces are just one of an array of new features the typically feature-resistant company has announced in the past few months, and we’ve got a wide-ranging interview with Twitter product head Kayvon Beykpour where he discusses the whole set, including the company’s Snap and Instagram-like disappearing Twitter Fleets, and Super Follows where you can pay to subscribe to extra Twitter content from your favorite creators — a business which reminds us of platforms like Substack and OnlyFans.
Microsoft is updating its store for Xbox and Xbox Game Pass to include language support, the company announced today. The Languages label is meant to make it “easier to decide if you’d like to purchase or play that title” by including information on the game’s interface, audio, and subtitles.
Whatever language console owners have set as their default will display first. The feature applies to 27 languages and displays how localization has been applied to various parts of the game, such as controls, subtitles, or spoken dialogue. “We’ve already added language tags to hundreds of games and will add more over time,” the announcement reads.
Fans have previously criticized Microsoft’s handling of localization, specifically outside of the US. As reported by Windows Central, players in territories like South Korea have documented which games support Korean languages. Platforms like Nintendo and Steam already support language guides.
Microsoft will continue to add updates later this year to “make it even easier for you to find and play games that are right for you.” The company did not specify what those changes would look like.
Asus is going big with its latest gaming phones. The ROG Phone 5 lineup will start shipping this month across the globe, costing 799 euros (around $950) for the base configuration with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of fast UFS 3.1 storage. Every configuration has a 6.78-inch FHD+ OLED screen with a 144Hz refresh rate and a 300Hz touch sampling rate. Also, the headphone jack has made a comeback after being absent from the ROG Phone 3, this time with a quad DAC in tow for hi-res audio. (In case you’re wondering where the ROG Phone 4 went, Asus skipped over the number four, like OnePlus did, due to its similarities with the word “death” in some Asian languages.)
The most notable changes from the last generation are exclusive to some even more expensive configurations, the ROG Phone 5 Pro and Ultimate (which I published a review of) that release in April for 1,199 euros (approximately $1,420) and in May for 1,299 euros (about $1,583), respectively. Both of these models have double the storage and more RAM (starting at 16GB in the Pro and going all the way up to 18GB in the Ultimate); come in limited edition colors; and have two additional ultrasonic touch sensors than the standard model, located near where your ring fingers might rest while holding the phone in landscape mode. You’ll also get a case and a clip-on AeroActive Cooler 5 fan attachment with purchase with either the Pro or Ultimate phone (which adds two more buttons attached to the fan.)
The new Asus gaming phones aren’t huge departures from their predecessors, though the hardware and software are more refined. I reviewed the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate, and while it delivers on its promises to be a spec and feature juggernaut in some clever ways, paying $1,580 for it seems steep. Even the $950 base configuration isn’t what I’d consider affordable.
The Ultimate and Pro include “ROG Vision,” a feature that pushes premade or custom text or graphics to its rear-facing OLED screen. It’s a spin on Asus’ “Anime Matrix” effect used in the Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop, allowing you to personalize your phone if you want. The standard ROG Phone 5 simply has a backlit ROG logo, which some might find to be just enough pizazz.
I go into all of the features in the review. But if you’re just passing by and want to know all about the specs, I’ve attached a handy table just for you.
Asus ROG Phone 5 lineup specs
Comparison
ROG Phone 5 Ultimate
ROG Phone 5 Pro
ROG Phone 5
Comparison
ROG Phone 5 Ultimate
ROG Phone 5 Pro
ROG Phone 5
Colors
Matte white
Glossy black
Phantom black or Storm white
Price
1,299 Euros (approx. $1,583)
1,199 Euros (approx. $1,420)
Starts at 799 Euros (approx. $950)
Processor
Snapdragon 888
*
*
OS
Android 11 with ROG UI
*
*
Display
6.78-inch 2448 x 1080 OLED with 144Hz refresh rate
*
*
RAM
18GB LPDDR5
16GB LPDDR5
8GB,12GB or 16GB LPDDR5
Storage
512GB UFS 3.1
*
256GB UFS 3.1
Extra touch sensors
Yes
*
No
Rear-facing cameras
64-megapixel with F/1.8 aperture, 13-megapixel 125-degree ultra-wide with F/2.4 aperture, and a 5-megapixel macro lens with F/2.0
*
*
Front-facing camera
24-megapixel with F/2.45 aperture
*
*
ROG Vision support
Yes, monochromatic
Yes, color
No
Battery
6,000mAh
*
*
Included charger
65W
*
*
Dimensions
172.8 x 77.2 x 10.29 mm
*
*
Weight
238 grams
*
*
Connectivity
LTE and sub-6GHz 5G on AT&T and T-Mobile, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
*
*
Included accessories
AeroActive Cooler 5, Aero case
*
No cooler included
* represents the same spec as the Ultimate
Photography by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge
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