ASUS and Bang & Olufsen create the NX90Jq

In what will likely be the first of several new sets of product announcements from ASUS at this year’s CES, we have some of the first images of the new ASUS ROG G73Jh gaming notebook and the collaborative effort between the ASUS and Bang & Olufsen, the NX90Jq. Check out what the high end notebook market is shaping up like for 2010!
As has been the case with ASUS the last few years, they held a pre-show briefing to display some of the company’s upcoming products and offerings for 2010.  Two notebooks stood out to me as being far from the norm: the NX90jq and the ROG G73Jh as they offered very unique features and designs.

The Marriage of ASUS and Bang & Olufsen

If you have never heard of Bang & Olufsen, then you aren’t interested in high fidelity audio.  Long known for their extreme high quality audio (and some high prices most of the time as well), B&O has teamed up with ASUS to create a stunning new laptop that hopes to not only change the external design and sound qualities of notebooks but also how the user interacts with it.

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David Lewis had some pretty hefty goals with the new NX90Jq machine and the result is beautiful:

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While at first it looks like a mounted LCD or plasma TV, this is in fact an 18.4-in display notebook computer.  The exterior and palm rest are polished aluminum while the touchpads (yes pads) and keyboard are a matte black.

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Those things on the side of the display that look like speakers are in fact speakers – but apparently of a much higher quality than any previous installed on a mobile system.  Coming from Bang & Olufsen, that should almost go without saying.  With the speakers at the side and not mounted along bottom or on the keyboard area the sound reproduction should be much closer to that of traditional desktop solutions than to any currently available notebooks.

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Probably the most innovative feature from a computing stand point is the introduction of a dual touchpad solution that ASUS claims will allow us to have a “DJ turn table” like experience with the computer.  Based on the two below screenshots of the new interface with the operating system the rotational aspect looks compelling though we will obviously need to see it in person to judge for sure.

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The rest of the hardware internals basically prove the new ASUS NX90Jq to be about as fast as a mobile machine can get:

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The 18.4-in 1080p screen is LED backlit and should be stunning; the GeForce GT 335M graphics solution is pretty solid though it will not be the top mobility GPU for gaming but should be completely capable of powering any of the video you would want to playback; it is USB3.0 ready (which we assume means it has support  for USB 3.0 hardware) and will weigh in at a hefty 10.5 lbs.  Obviously this is not a small notebook by any consideration and is really meant as a home decoration that is portable as opposed to a mobile computer.

There is obviously a lot more for us to see and learn about the new ASUS NX90Jq and we hope to get some hands on time with the machine right after the ASUS event and will post some video as soon as we get it! 

I have included several more images of the notebook here below and don’t forget to read the next page for our preview of the new ASUS G73Jh gaming notebook on display today as well!

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