ASUS ET2300INTI AIO PC - Sonically Sound

New OS, New AIO

Late last year, we reviewed the ASUS ET2411INTI AIO (All-in-One) PC system and found it to be a sleek and capable device. The system had decent poke and a host of features that enabled it to be a strong all-round entertainment powerhouse. This included discrete graphics - albeit a pretty basic NVIDIA GT 630M - an integrated TV tuner and Blu-ray player.

Now that Windows 8 has launched, ASUS has updated their AIO line-up with the new ET2300INTI. Touted by ASUS as the "Master of Home Entertainment", the ET2300INTI is one of the first Windows 8 AIOs that ASUS has launched.

On first impressions, the ASUS ET2300INTI gave us mixed feelings. Browsing through its spec sheets and taking a look at the unit itself, we were glad that ASUS included some new features in this AIO; but at the same time, we were perplexed as to why ASUS left out some of features that made the older ET2411INTI such a competent AIO.

The bad news first. To begin, one of the more glaring omissions is that the ET2300INTI no longer comes with a Blu-ray capable drive. Instead, it has to make do with a regular Super-combo DVD drive. With Blu-ray being the medium of choice amongst many movie enthusiasts, the lack of a Blu-ray capable drive really puts a damper on the ET2300INTI’s ambitions of being an all-round entertainment system. Additionally, the ET2300INTI is lacking the integrated TV tuner that was found on the older ET2411INTI, though the impact it might have on you depends on your country and city of residence.

However, the ET2300INTI is much improved in other ways. For starts, the ET2300INTI 23-inch full HD display panel has been improved with a 10-point touch system. This is a significant improvement over the ET2411INTI, which could only recognize up to two points of touch. Also, ASUS claims that its display is brighter and more vivid than competitive systems which also have IPS panels.

ASUS has also reworked the audio system and the ET2300INTI boasts what ASUS dubs the SonicMaster Premium sound system. We will put this new sound system through an extensive test later to see if its various technologies really work.

In terms of specifications, the ET2300INTI has a slightly improved processor Intel Core i7-3770 processor. It’s still a quad-core processor with 8MB of L3 cache, but it has marginally higher clock speeds of 3.4GHz as opposed to the Core i7-3770S’ 3.1Ghz. Otherwise, the ET2300INTI retains mostly the same specifications of the older ET2411INTI.

Here’s a quick look at its specifications:

• 23-inch Full-HD IPS display with 10-point multitouch
• Intel Core i7-3770 (3.4GHz)
• 8GB DDR3-1600MHz
• NVIDIA GT 630M 2GB DDR3
• 2TB 7200rpm HDD
• Windows 8

For a detailed specs comparison of the ET2300INTI against the ET2411INTI, hit this link.

Design & Features

Like most ASUS’ products, the new ET2300INTI is a pretty handsome-looking device. And in terms of overall design, we can’t help but feel that it draws lots of inspiration from Lenovo’s A720 IdeaCentre AIO. One of the key features of the Lenovo A720 is its ability to let its display fold completely flat for group activities that can take advantage of its multitouch screen. Likewise, ASUS has engineered a completely new stand for the ET2300INTI such that its AIO can do the same. Additionally, this new stand also adjusts for both height and tilt.

With this new design, the I/O ports has now all been moved to the base of the stand, and this is one area which the ET2300INTI shines. Compared to the competition and even the older ET2411INTI, all of the ET2300INTI’s four USB ports are USB 3.0 compatible. Also, what we really like about the ET2300INTI is that it has two Thunderbolt ports, which can be used with the latest external storage devices and also external displays. This means that the ET2300INTI can drive up to three displays simultaneously - either by Thunderbolt only or a mix of Thunderbolt and HDMI ports.

Another thing about the ET2300INTI that we like is the inclusion of HDMI input and output ports. With it, the ET2300INTI can also double up as an external display for your set-top devices or gaming consoles. Lastly, we also found the multitouch display to be very responsive and fluid to use, much more so than the old ET2411INTI's optical tracking system.

SonicMaster Premium

SonicMaster Premium is a suite of audio technologies developed by ASUS’ Golden Ear team with the aim of improving the audio performance of products that traditionally have poor audio performance characteristics, such as notebooks and AIOs.



This suite of technologies have been implemented on various ASUS products since 2010, and one of our earliest experiences with this was with the ASUS NX90Jq notebook. SonicMaster Premium was also implemented on the older ASUS ET2411INTI. However, we did not find the audio performance of the aforementioned two products to be outstanding. In fact, they sounded pretty average.

Fortunately, this has changed with the ET2300INTI because this AIO sounded impressive. According to ASUS, the ET2300INTI has specially engineered for sound. To begin, in the base of the unit is a built-in subwoofer and four "internal spatial array" speakers. Like the older ET2411INTI, the ET2300INTI also comes bundled with an additional external subwoofer, and we are happy to say that in the case of the ET2300INTI, the external subwoofer does play a crucial role in the system’s overall sound.

These speakers utilize three special technologies which ASUS calls, Beam-forming, Crosstalk Cancellation and Head-Related Transfer Function (HRTF). Beam-forming enables the reproduction of a wide soundstage, while Crosstalk Cancellation technology prevents these sound waves from overlapping each other. Finally, HRTF helps create the perception that sound is coming from around you rather than directly from the AIO. There’s also a special MAXXAUDIO application that lets user choose from five preset EQs (Music, Movies, Gaming, Speech and Recording) and more advanced users can even tweak the equalizer themselves to achieve their ideal sound.

While the ET2411INTI sounded flat and laborious, the ET2300INTI sounded much more powerful and authoritative. There’s real substance and presence to the sound, and while it may not be the last word in precision and clarity, we can say that ET2300INTI handles audio perfectly well on its own. For users who are not too fussy about sound, the inbuilt speakers in the ET2300INTI will be more than enough.

Performance

To find out how the ASUS ET2300INTI performs, we’ll be looking at its performance against comparable AIOs such as the ASUS ET2411INTI and Lenovo A720. We also included results from the Acer Aspire Z5, Dell Inspiron 2330 and also a sampling of results from two quad-core Ivy Bridge notebooks - the MSI GT70 and HP Pavilion dv6. Note that the ET2300INTI was the only system in our tests to run Windows 8 and the difference in OS could have an effect on the results.

SYSMark 2012

Last year, BAPco recently released SYSMark 2012, the latest edition of their popular benchmarking software. Designed to test systems running on the new Windows 8 OS, SYSMark 2012 puts the system through a rigorous series of various workloads ranging from office productivity, data analysis, media creation and 3D modeling.



Since we haven’t had the time to call in the rest of the AIOs to be retested with SYSMark 2012, we will have to make do with comparisons against the Lenovo A720. Also, the Lenovo A720 had problems completed the Web Development workloads, hence it also failed to generate an overall score. Nevertheless, looking at the individual breakdown of scores, it is apparent that the ASUS ET2300INTI is the better performer.

PCMark 7

On PCMark 7, the ASUS ET2300INTI managed a decent score of 3471 PCMarks, which puts it just about on a par with the ET2411INTI. Considering the slightly improved processor, we had expected to see it do better. Looking at the breakdown of scores, we noticed that it scored exceptionally well on the Creativity and Computation test runs.

3DMark 11

The ASUS ET2300INTI was matched by the Lenovo A720 and Acer Aspire Z5 AIOs. Also, it scored about 19% higher than the old ET2411INTI. However, it’s no match for the HP Pavilion dv6 and MSI GT70, both of which have much more powerful discrete graphics chips.

Dirt 3 & Far Cry 2

On real world gaming benchmarks such as Dirt 3 and Far Cry 2, the ASUS ET2300INTI was the quickest amongst the AIOs. Despite having the same NVIDIA GT630M discrete graphics as the ASUS ET2411INTI, Lenovo A720 and Acer Aspire Z5, the ET2300INTI was about 10% quicker when running at 1680 x 1050. However, looking at the results when running at its native 1080p resolution, we saw that the ET2300INTI was only negligibly quicker.

Average Performance but Exceptional Audio

Overall, the ET2300INTI AIO PC is a decent system with some interesting features and some disappointing letdowns. To begin, we must first say that it makes so much more sense using a touchscreen AIO with Windows 8. It was a joy swiping the screens and making use of the new ‘Snap’ multi-tasking feature. It also helps that the ET2300INTI has a very responsive multi-touch display.

As for performance, the ET2300INTI performed as expected, with its upgraded processor and faster 7200rpm hard disk giving it an advantage over comparable AIOs from Lenovo and Acer. On a whole, it did well on our benchmarking tests.

And as we’ve mentioned previously about the ET2411INTI, ASUS would do well to equip their AIOs with a more capable discrete graphics engine. Although our gaming benchmarks showed that it achieved playable frame rates even at 1080p resolution, bear in mind that this was on modest graphics settings and on rather old games. Newer games will no doubt be more demanding, and this means that users would have to either to turn their graphics settings down even more or play at lower non-native resolutions. Of course, for users who are not that serious about gaming, the standard NVIDIA GT 630M discrete graphics chip would more than suffice.

In terms of the ET2300INTI’s features, we were a little curious as to why ASUS would omit Blu-ray playback and also the integrated TV tuner. As a self-proclaimed "Master of Entertainment", the omission of a Blu-ray drive is particularly glaring, especially when the older ET2411INTI and also the Lenovo A720 could both play Blu-ray discs. But we do appreciate that ASUS has given the ET2300INTI four USB 3.0 ports and also two Thunderbolt ports for state-of-the-art connectivity options.

Additionally, the ET2300INTI also redeems itself with its surprisingly competent audio performance. For so long, we have been conditioned to accept that notebooks and AIOs cannot have decent audio because of space and design constraints, but the ET2300INTI changes all of that. The ET2300INTI sounds authoritative and full of body; where traditionally AIOs and notebooks sounded thin and weak. Granted, it accomplishes this with the aid of the bundled subwoofer, but it still sounds exceptional. In fact, we would even go as far as to say that it is comparable to entry-level desktop speaker systems.

With a retail price of S$2159, the ET2300INTI is about $90 costlier than the older ET2411INTI, and this puts it a tricky position. This is because while the new ET2300INTI has a better selection of I/O ports, a more responsive touchscreen display and better speakers, it is let down by the lack of an integrated TV tuner and Blu-ray drive.

The ET2300INTI would have been close to perfect had it come with an integrated TV tuner and a Blu-ray drive, but as it is, if what you are looking for is an all-round entertainment system or if you have an extensive collection of Blu-ray movies, you might want either stick an additional USB-based Blu-ray drive or forgo the ET2300INTI and stick to the older ET2411INTI. Otherwise, if most of your media is stored and obtained digitally, the ASUS ET2300INTI will delight with its responsive touchscreen display, capable performance and stunningly competent audio performance.

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