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Sunday, December 08, 2013

Love-Hate Relationship with My Asus Zenbook UX32VD

As some of you may have known, my Pinky Pink Dellnosaur died one me last Friday and I was whining about it in my previous post. I brought it to a trustworthy computer repair shop last Sunday and got it diagnosed. It spoilt due to a short circuit and it could be repaired for $150.

$150 is not very expensive at all but my main concern would be that I had to leave the laptop at the shop for repair till the next day. After the Edison Chen photo scandal that took the Hong Kong and Asia entertainment industry by storm in early 2008, many had begun to be very wary of sending in their computers for repair. Not like I have any censored photos to be stolen. I'm just generally cautious of information and identity theft. You never know how much a stranger could gather about you just by looking at your computer. Moreover in the era where electronic gadgets become obsolete in a speed like how my neighbour's dog barks, it was high time to change a new laptop.

I extracted the HDD from dead Pinky Pink Dellnosaur and decided not to buy a new laptop that very same day in haste without any research. The next few days, I researched, read reviews and made mental notes of some laptops meeting my requirements and finally decided I was ready to buy a new laptop.

After recommendations from the sales assistant at Harvey Norman and rounds of shortlisting, I settled for the Asus Zenbook UX32VD.





I was really happy with my Asus Zenbook. I love the thinness and lightness of it. I love how it isn't pink and I would still consider it beautiful. I love how the screen isn't reflective which is much better for the eyes and how it isn't a magnet to dust.

Just when I thought I had survived very well without laptop for a week and that I finally own a laptop I love, the problem of navigating through Windows 8 crept in insidiously. I hate Windows 8. It really needs lots of time getting used to. I spent the entire night and the wee hours of the morning trying to navigate my way though Windows 8 and downloading all the basic software in it. I mentally cursed when I could not find my Microsoft disc and I currently cannot open all Microsoft documents. I eventually fell asleep while letting the files from my extracted HDD copy over to the Asus.

Horrors and horrors. When I decided to work on my photo editing and blogging today, I was shocked at the yellowish tint on the screen.

The colour of my blog look really strange. The pink header looks orangey, my Instagram photos on the previous post looks overly edited to an orangey greyish cinematic feel and the entire white background of my blog looks like it has a layer of warm yellowish tint.

I was shocked!

I started scrolling through my posts to look at all the photos. They simply looked like I had extremely bad photo editing skills. I also trawled my Facebook page as well as all the photos in my folders. The unedited photos looked better than the edited ones.

Before you dismiss it as my bad photo editing skills, I must make a disclaimer. I even went to all my favourite photography blogs and their photos look like they have a layer of yellow cinematic tinge. Some photos also suffered the same fate of looking overly edited. In fact, for those friends on my Facebook who often upload raw photos that aren't really attractive, their photos all looked more vibrant and warm than those friends (photographers included) whose photos simply looked overly yellow on my Zenbook.

I like warm colours and I like my outdoor pictures to have warm sunset tones but even for somebody who likes warm tones, whatever I see on my Zenbook screen is really unacceptable!

I googled about the yellowish tint on Asus Zenbook and was surprised that I'm not the only one with this problem. Apparently, there are many people both locally and overseas who complained about the overly warm tones too. I also read suggestions on calibrating the red and green colour tones and that Asus had a Splendid Utility that supposedly makes pictures/videos look more "vibrant" and all we ranters had to do was to correct it to "normal" instead of "vivid". That helped a little though I'm still put off by the slight yellow tone. I had to change it to "cold" instead of "normal"  for everything to look more normal and this should not be the case at all.

So what if you are given a 3.5 to 4 star ratings on many review sites?

So what if you are a beautiful shade of grey with a lightweight aluminium body?

So what if you are thin and light?

So what if your audio is by Bang & Olufsen ICEpower?

So what is Asus is ranked #1 and #2 in the various computer market?

So what if many of my techie geek friends gave Asus the thumbs up?

The screen is much too yellow for my liking, it screws my vision and that sux big time!

1-star 1-star 1-star simply for the yellow tint.

I just sent a feedback to Asus and I'm eager to see their reply.

I'm very miffed that the sun is already setting and I've not started on my photos at all. I reckon I would be grossly misled by the screen's depiction of hues that it would not be really wise to edit my photos at this time.

Oh well, I guess I could pack my room.


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Edited to add on 10 Dec 2013.

Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you for contacting ASUS Service Care.
My name is Stephen and it's my pleasure to help you with your problem.
We apologize for the delayed response due to the weekend.

According to your description, it seems your VGA or display monitor have some problem.
(Sorry, here we not receive your attach picture)

Firstly please reinstall VGA driver as a troubleshooting for a try.
nVidia Graphics Driver Version V9.18.13.2683
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/DriversForWin8.1/VGA/VGA_nVidia_Win81_64_VER918132683.zip

At last, if the problem still exist, that may be hardware related issue.

For such hardware related issue. It need let service center engineer help you check and test deal with it.
You can contact with them to know the detail process and information.
Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for understanding!

ASUS Service Center - Singapore No.8 Burn Road, #11-16 TRIVEX Singapore 369977 +65 64157917
http://support.asus.com.cn/ServiceCenter/List.aspx?SLanguage=en&r=1&c=16&a=241&p=3

You may also give us a call by this link:
http://support.asus.com/Hotlines.aspx?SLanguage=en

Thank you for your support Asus product. Wish you have a good day.
Best regards
Stephen
ASUS service center


I've already tried the above method and it is SIGH... Still the same. I guess I could probably try to live with the permanent yellow hue or make a trip down to the service centre. I'm just afraid that all their laptop screens are the same and that it would be a wasted trip down.


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Edited to add on 11 Dec 2013.

Thank you all of you for your comments. Rather than to reply on the comment thread, I would update here instead.

I have decided to accept the laptop's major shortcoming, bear and live with it.

I called the Asus hotline today and after listening to some corny Asus theme song (yeah, they have a song) for a good 10 minutes, my case was handled by a very patient and polite customer support staff. Well, I was patient too. I had to relate the whole story to him since the email Case ID and the call Case ID are 2 separate matters.

He taught me steps to carry out on my Zenbook to test if it was a hardware problem. Also, he perfectly understood my concern about the yellow tinge (aka warm tones) being a SPECIAL FEATURE of most Asus laptops and that bringing down my laptop to the service centre would not be of any help even if I discover that it is a hardware problem.

"Since there are soooooooo many people who complain about the yellow tinge or should I say, the overly warm tone, why isn't Asus doing anything to the screen display? Why is Asus continuing to have the warm tones for their screens? Shouldn't you all take these feedback and do something to future laptops?"

I uttered the above without pausing to take a breath,

"As an Asus employee, I can't say why isn't any action being taken but as a person offering you customer service, YAH... I don't understand why too."

I was actually amused by his reply.

After work, I went back to my family home for dinner and it turned out that my 2nd sis and my eldest sis's bf are also using the exact same laptop as me with no problems with their screens at all. Or so, I thought it was no problem...

My eldest sis's bf hadn't even noticed the slight yellow tinge on his screen and saw all white portions as plain white instead of yellowish white until I pointed it out and asked him to compare. It was then that he realised that his laptop indeed has a slight yellowish tinge too and he spent quite some after that trying to figure out what was wrong.

He is quite a techie geek and I would trust whatever techie advice he dispenses. He told me that Asus is really good and other than this screen problem, I would not be facing much problem from this brand. Should I do an exchange with Harvey Norman for the other undisclosed shortlisted brand of laptop, I would face a whole new set of problem like the laptop not functioning well after a year or totally blowing out after the warranty period

In general, the colour of the screen really boils down to perspective. While acknowledging that my photos indeed look very "jaundiced" on the Asus screen than anywhere else, he said that he was fine with that colour he saw on his Asus screen. My 2nd sis was also fine with her laptop screen and that the warm tones aren't bothering her too much.

After having his laptop to compare, I could safely announce that my decision to stick to this laptop is a prudent one as it does seem that warm tones are exactly the SPECIAL FEATURE of Asus and there would be no point in servicing it or asking to replace with a new set.

I would live with this by setting to the cold tone under Splendid Utility and calibrating the red and green colour bar to normalise the screen as much as possible. It an irony that I've to "denormalize" my laptop in order to normalize it.

I'm typing the above portion with my eyes half closed and I hope I hadn't made enough glaring mistakes in my writing.

23 comments:

  1. ohhhh thank you so much for doing this post! i've been thinking about getting a new laptop recently and i specifically wanted to try asus!! this is really helpful information. thank you!!

    haha you guessed correctly the black lace part was part of my inner slip :p

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  2. The new one looks great doll. Sorry about the yellowish-tint though. When I got a new laptop, it took me ages to get used to, everything looked so different and I wasn't sure that everyone else was seeing things the way I seen them on my laptop. It can be very annoying. I hope they reply to you and all gets sorted out. Have a gorgeous new week doll xx

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  3. A yellowish-tint huh, I guess they tried to put a permanent instagram filter on the laptop.. just kidding.. I hope your issues get resolved. And on the last post, loved to have a peek into your life. Take care hun. Following you through GFC :)

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  4. Hi Jo! I'm glad you found another laptop but I'm so sorry for the big trouble you had and I can imagine how annoying it is. Hope Asos will reply you soon, I'm curious too about what they will tell you. Happy Sunday dear, have a good start of the week! Kisses! xo

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  5. Hi sweety, sorry to her about what hapappned to your old laptop, I agree, I wouldn't want to leave mine for more than a few hours with a repair company, you never know what they could be doing with all your information/personal documents and photos that you have stored on your pc. I use a MAC and don't think I could ever go back to using Windows. Thats such a pity abut the Asus, but if there are so many complaints about the warm tones, have the company not done anything as yet to fix this issue? I hope that they will get back to you with good news and some helpful advice. All the best sweetie. Thanks for your kind words.

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  6. My husband works in it and would recommend a tailor made dell to anyone who asks. Hope you do not mind my advice

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  7. My laptop is dying right now... All I know is that I won't buy asus (I had one that I barely used and it died very fast)
    It will be HP or MAC

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  8. oh gosh jo, that sucks! i would be upset too. i hope their is an easy solution to fix the problem. i haven't gone to windows 8 yet and I am dreading it! i like change, but sometimes they do a little too much. hope everything resolves itself.
    http://www.averysweetblog.com/

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  9. You are so funny, what a great review. Hope they get back with you soon. So everyone looks jaundiced then? That would be less than ideal. I would like to be described as having a lightweight aluminum body although I would prefer not to be grey. Though, if I were grey, I might look OK on your laptop :)

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  10. Oh I would hate it too as I work with a lot photos too. It specially makes me made after researching and going by it and to realize it is not what you expect.
    www.thoughtsofpaps.com

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  11. Oh no! That sounds horrible! I was planning on buying myself this same exact laptop, I'm so glad to have read about this on your blog. I'm definitely crossing this off my list.

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  12. Thanks goodness your hard drive is okay! You're right about not giving your old laptop away. Who knows what they'll do with it. To tell you the truth I have heard of the Chen scandal too!! You see even in Europe we have heard of it. Sorry about the trouble with your new laptop. I would want a yellowish screen too. Hope they can sort the problem out. Have a happy Monday!!

    xx Mira

    www.glamdevils.com

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh what a bummer that your pinky pink laptop was indeed unsalvageable :( I wouldn't have felt comfortable leaving my comp at the shop for the same reasons as you. It's such a shame that you're having color problems with your new Asus now. I think that yellowish tinge would make me wiggy. Hope there is someway to sort it out or maybe you can trade it for another model.

    Rowena @ rolala loves
    Enter my Blue Nile necklace giveaway!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I hope your problem gets sorted and maybe Asus gives you a laptop without a tint. I can imagine how annoying it must be when you get a new gadget and it doesn't meet your expectations. I just googled the Chen scandal and was shocked to see the results. This must have been really hard on all those actresses.
    xx
    www.JuneWantsItAll.com

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  15. Sorry to hear about your computer woes! That's gotta be very frustrating! Holding good thoughts! T. http://tickledpinkwoman.blogspot.com

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  16. I don't like bring thanked for my understanding when I have not yet offered it. Can you return the laptop?

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  17. i have the same concerns when i had my laptop repaired so my boyfriend took the hard drive to make sure none of my personal info that were in my computer will get stolen. i hope that helps just in case next time youd have to let go of your laptop for awhile for repair - hopefully that doesnt happen tho :) and i hope asus can find a way to fix the yellowish tone on your screen, it must be very frustrating to not see the true colors of photos :)

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  18. that is annoying! we've been looking for a new lap top for uni. better stay clear of this one!

    www.mkstyleramblings.blogspot.com.au

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  19. Awwww...how sad! I was hoping they would inform you that you could get it replaced or something. =( So what are your plans now?

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  20. That would drive me nuts too if all my photos gave yellow tint. I hope it gets resolved soon. I dont have a laptop, just a regular PC and Ipad. Your new laptop does look great though, too bad on the color issue.

    I find my cats chewing on a tree once in awhile but for the most part nothing bad has happened. Lucky me.

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  21. Hello all! Thank you very much for all your thoughtful comments. I've updated on my laptop status in this post and will not be replying to you individually. Really appreciate all your words! =)

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  22. Hello. Try to to uninstall ASUS Splendid Utility. After doing this the yellowish tint has disappeared.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow! Thanx for this tip! Uninstall the splendid utility? I will go read up more on it soon!

      Delete

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