ASUS NX90Jq hands-on: dual touchpads unite! (update: video)
By Paul Miller 
posted January 5th 2010 6:30PM
posted January 5th 2010 6:30PM
Update: There's video after the break, along with some more extensive impressions. The real conundrum of the touchpads is that you have to unlearn the impulse to move to below the keyboard to use the mouse. In a way this is a little more ergonomic, but it still feels pretty awkward at this point. The issue is further complicated by the fact that this editor is an ambidextrous physical mouse users, but usually uses his touchpad with the left handed. The material is a simple matte plastic, not quite a soft touch but very comfortable and sensitive. There's a real premium element to all of the plastics used -- not a bit of gaudy gloss in sight -- but some of the edges on these preproduction models are a little concerning. We tested out a bit of pre-loaded music on the laptop, and found the speakers to be decent in depth at first, but surprisingly they started to distort at full volume -- hopefully that's something that just needs a software tweak to fix -- it's certainly not a $10,000 speaker system in the comfort of your lap, just in case you bought the ASUS line on this thing. At least it's loud.
The keyboard looks quite comfortable, and the keys are well spaced, but unfortunately it lacked the sort of depth and responsiveness we'd like out of a keyboard -- particularly on a large, premium laptop. It almost feels like a stiffened, scaled-up netbook keyboard, but perhaps we're being too harsh. While all the plastics are pretty smudge free, the metal surround them (the laptop comes in brushed and mirrored finishes) are not at all impervious to fingerprints. Overall we'd say there are some elements here that make this thing almost deserving of its $2500 pricetag, while other elements have our heads scratching. We'll have to play long term with a final unit to know for sure.
Dual trackpads.. utterly pointless, unless they make some kind of software to act as one. Or even as a Macbook-esque pinch / zoom thing
@iFargle So, here are some things you should know about this sleek Asus lappy: The 18.4-in 1080p screen is LED backlit, it has a Core i7 processor and Nvidia GeForce GT 335M graphics under the hood, it supports up to 1280GB of storage (with dual drives), it has a slot-in Blu-ray drive, and this lovely laptop is USB3.0 read. More details: http://bit.ly/asus-nx90jq-more-details
You mean I can finally cheat in solitaire? =D
Sometime man need to holding thing by two hand, like woman's bubby. :P
@Intellectualdiot
Word.
@Waroxy VOTED PLUS
@0:20 "kinda neat to have to one each side"
eiffel tower high five!
@Waroxy You made my night. Thank you xD
Hmm...hand on left touchpad engages click/hold, then the right touchpad moves the object around? I could see some potential, just a little.
that looks huge.
thats what she said
@OwenV
You know the inevitable response to what you just said.
@Skate It Dont Spray It
Beat me to it.
How about a giant trackpad that uses that 10/GUI concept?
Finger smudge-tastic black.
i guess this could be useful for gaming
@unknown714
How would it be useful for gaming?
@unknown714 Well if you've got 2 hands on the mouse which hand are you going to use for the keyboard?
It's nice to see a PC maker being innovative on industrial design instead of puking out yet another cookie cutter machine.
@(Unverified)
being original/innovative is one thing, slamming on another touchpad for no particular reason is another...
"hey, um, we need this to stand out as a top of the range product, what do we do?"
"I know, 2 TRACKPADS HOT DAMN, YEAH 2 OF THEM"
"hmm, why? I can't think of any viable use for that..."
"..."
"2 TRACKPADS YEAHHHH"
@safe travels I think he is talking about the overall design......I for one think Bang & Olufsen speakers and ICE amps make this truly an awesome system, even if it is only a name.
it says video not available
@saturnblackhole
all I can see is a little blue lego block with a question mark on it.
Someone really needs to fix that.
;-)
@saturnblackhole ok it works now
That's a daunting space to traverse to reach the keys.
Video not available?
I'm sure that if the dual touchpad wa applied to a MacBook, bricks would be shat.
Without those dreadful looking speakers this could be a pretty sexy machine. Right now it just kinda looks like the computer is wearing a dorky hat with ear warmers :-/
I suppose placing the touchpad at the side of the keyboard would require them to do the dual touchpad to accommodate lefties, though I could see some potential "multitouch" gestures being worked using these.
@MrMark I agree. The dual touchpad design is just a side effect of placing the touchpads on besides the keyboard.
Split Screen Gaming! Haha just kidding no one can play with a touchpad.
Bigfoot's hands wouldn't need a palmrest that big.
I have yet to hear a speaker system that doesn't distort at full volume. I know that in "pro audio," at full volume the amp should be over driving the speaker, and that should cause some distortion.
Though, AFAIK, I also haven't heard a $10,000 system, so...
Oversize laptop...
True multi-touch. lol
I'm really hoping that this thing has dual multi-touch, so you could do something like zoom in with one hand and rotate a picture with the other.
the way she said asus in the video really cracked me up
@chrizzled
I always thought it was ACE-US. I was somewhat dissapointed when I learned it was AH-SOOS.
can i touch please?!!
2 player games in the future maybe?
Kind of defeats the entire LAPTOP thing. I can see myself taking this...to clean the dust that piled under it. or to...no that's it.
did she just say 'ASeuss'?
@SaintAndrew
i used to pronounce it A-Suss, but after hearing so many people saying it A-Soos, i started saying A-Soos.
@SaintAndrew
Yes! I was gonna throw up a comment about that. What's with that hideous enuciation? It should be A-S-uh-S
Maybe they are trying to make it more comfortable for lefty/righty people or something along the lines of what josephst18 said. Who knows I try to barely use one mouse as it is.
A-S-uh-S sounds cool, A-SOOS.....sounds like some forbidden jungle creature.
Two mouse pointers would be convenient when switching between using two parts of the screen.
All they need is some software support for those two trackpads to be used separately.
Asoose? Does that mean I've been pronouncing it wrong all this time? Asus...Asoos....w/e...
Nokia....Nokeea
Anybody have a pronunciation guide for Tech Companies?
Seems like this is a perfect candidate for MPX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-Pointer_X
...though I'm not sure what it could be used for even with that...
I own an Asus but this thing is ugly.
what bean counter designed this? huge wasted real estate on palm rest....why not put em there