Featured Brand - Asus

When I first got interested in IT and started to be able to get my hands on some magazines (that would be around 1998-1999, Asus was there, as a higher-class maker. At the time, there was no Gigabyte, there was no MSI, XFX, Galaxy or any of those now-well-known brands. Graphics cards then were not getting the same attention that they have today, in the sense that the vast majority of even the tech-savvy wouldn't center build around it. Still, I get a copy of PC Gamer UK featuring a group test of graphics cards, probably GeForce FX series & Radeon 9000 series. Asus stood out when it came to build quality, and something about PCB layers, which meant less heat and better performance & a better board lifetime (sorry about this being vague, but that's more than 10 years ago, and I was too young). Even before that, you can recall many graphics cards makers wanting to go bad-ass and then fading nowhere: Gainward, Morpheus (wood box), Gigabyte & MSI at the time were definitely lower-class. 

I never had a privilege of owning a PC with an Asus component, I was searching for quality within my tiny budget though, so I got as close as I could with my Athlon XP machine, built upon nForce 2 Abit NF-7 motherboard. Albeit, Abit is nowhere to be seen where I've lived for the past few years.

So, Asus was something I aspire to, like a Ferrari, but I thought that most probably I won't get. Until I got my Nexus 7 last year. That changed a lot! It is absolutely stunning, even the most unfair reviewer (IMHO) won't be able to say that there is anything that offers better value without compromising on, well, almost nothing. Then I got my N56VZ laptop this year. While I loved it a lot already, even more so after the upgrade, something happened yesterday that really made me want to write this:

I just bought a Sennheiser HD 598 audiophile-grade headphone. You look everywhere online and you see recommendations to get a headphone amplifier/ DAC for a set like that. Anyways, I told myself I would try it first with my laptop and then see where would that take me, then I would try with my Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro sound card, and then if I still think that there is room for improvement, I would go for a FiiO E7. My mind was blown. I would have never expected the output to be that clean. Loud enough, with no clipping. My FLAC media sounds like I've never heard it before. While there is going to still be a separate thank you to Sennheiser, this here is completely unusual & unexpected, because my machine, as good as it is, is not top-class!

Asus milestones that I haven't experienced first-hand: starting the netbook wave in 2008 ($200 Eee PC), Xonar sound cards, desktop motherboards and graphics cards, & smartphones, and most recently Transformer laptop/ tablet machines and notable contributions to Ultrabook standards, if not coming up with the whole concept (too lazy; didn't research).

To Asus products teams: hats off. I couldn't be happier.
To Asus sales & marketing: why is Sony Vaio a thing while Asus laptop is what it is?


TL/DR: Before it was called hardcore, it was called Asus.