The Asus N90Sv has three variations – the A1, A2 and X1. They all vary on one or two peripheral features like the X1 does not have a Blu-Ray Drive and has faster hard drives. Other than that, you will not notice much of a difference.
This is a multimedia laptop and it is definitely bigger than the some older desktop computers. That’s right, at 18.6 inches, this thing is huge. That is something that you should keep in mind when you are thinking about buying the laptop. It is definitely one of the largest laptops you will ever use and you are not going to be able to conceal it or make it discrete in anyway. Asus probably wasn’t thinking about that when they made this laptop.
The ASUS N90Sv actually looks quite good though. So if you do not mind displaying it proudly out in the open you can go for it. It has an overall glossy black surface with hints of a metallic bronze in the finish. There are also grey lines creating a wavy pattern on the surface. Over all I would say it is a classy design and it should look pretty good sitting on your desk or on your table.
The glossy surface does attract fingerprints very fast and you absolutely cannot avoid leaving you mark on it quite literally every time you touch it. I guess the criminal forensic teams are teaming up with laptop manufacturers and telling them that making glossy surfaces helps them catch more criminals.
Another thing that you are going to notice about this multimedia laptop is that it has no dedicated multimedia buttons. There is however a row of buttons and a jog wheel on the left side of the laptop. The jog wheel works for increasing and decreasing the volume and there is a mute button at the center of it. The buttons above it are for changing the power profiles, turning off the touch pad, for adjusting the display (color and contrast) and for starting up a light Linux based OS called Asus Express Gate. It is basically a light OS which gives you fast access to the internet and to you local photos and music.
Most users do not use the Express Gate but it can save you time if all you want is to see something online or show some pictures to someone. It boasts of an 8 second boot up time.
The touch pad on the ASUS N90Sv is reasonably sized and has one solitary button accompanying it for both left and right clicks.
Since we have been talking about the things around the keyboard, let’s get to the keyboard itself. You can guess by looking at the size of the laptop that it can easily house a full sized keyboard and it does. The fact that it has a separate row of utilities on the side says a lot for how big the laptop actually is. The keys are nice and chunky and might remind you of a chocolate bar.
The functions keys double up as multimedia keys and they will allow you do perform actions like play/pause. These keys are very well marked and hence easy to use.
Moving on the screen, this is where you begin to appreciate the laptop. The 18.6 inch screen has a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. That is perfect for viewing 1080p HD content. The laptop has a powerful 1 GB dedicate graphics solution from Nvidia (the GeForce GT 130m). So playing back HD content is absolutely no problem. The screen gets bright enough for comfortable viewing in almost all situations. The ability to adjust the color and contrast is an extra touch.
The ASUS N90Sv comes with a Blu Ray drive. So you can watch the finest quality consumer HD content in the planet with this laptop. Both movies and games look downright gorgeous on the screen. Also, since it has such a powerful graphics card, you can easily connect it to a large HDTV and get the best out of the Blu Ray drive.
It is also great for gaming and as I have already said – the screen just makes it so much better. The 2.66Ghz Core 2 Duo processor gives you enough horsepower to run your games and apps. It is complimented nicely by the generous memory.
The ASUS N90Sv comes with 4 Gigabytes of DDR2 RAM, running at 800Mhz. That is eough memory to do all the things that you would want to do with a multimeida laptop. The occasional games, the HD content, ample multitasking, everything can be done. I would also throw in some decent Photoshop experience and even music making applications. Of course, you will hit the limit pretty fast with these professional apps since you are using a consumer laptop.
The laptop has enough space to fit in two hard disk drives to give you 1 TB of space. Now that is whopping large for a laptop. Last time I checked, people don’t have 1 TB too frequently even on desktops. Although that is changing fast, agreed. The hard disks spin in at 5400rpm. You can choose to skip the Blu Ray and go for 7200rpm drives that are available on the X1 version.
The ports are – 1 card reader and optical drive on the left, 1 VGA out, 1 HDMI out, Mic-in and headphone-in (S/PDIF),ExpressCard/54, 2 USB 2.0 drives on the right and 2 USB 2.0 and the ethernet port on the back. It also has WiFi (802.11b/g/n) and Bluetooth.
The laptop is powered by an 8-cell battery. But do not get your hopes up because with a machine this size, you can only expect about 2-2.5 hours of battery life on an average. That is of course if you use it unplugged. I do not see people carrying lugging this around wherever they go. You can of course save power at the click of a button by switching power modes and shutting down all unnecessary apps.
Looking at the size and the power, this is definitely meant to be a desktop killer. You have the screen size and everything to dump your bulky desktop in favor of this. With a price tag of about $1800, there are other laptops around (like a comparable Sony Vaio) that run better and are around the same price. So do your research before buying.
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