ASUS N61JQ-A1 Core i7 Light Gaming 16" Notebook Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2010-05-08
·
1,966 words · ~9 min read
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so today we've got the opportunity to unbox another assus laptop as you can
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see the first thing we notice about this box is that Smart Notebook equals smart
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you so assus is pretty much saying if you buy their notebook you are smart
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okay also on the front you have that assus one 3,56 Awards in 2008 good for
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them okay and then oh this is great so this is the ASUS accidental damage
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warranty which is included in the purchase price of this notebook it is
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not something you have to buy extra onee warranty covering accidental drops
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spills power surges and fire damage your
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laptop gets on fire and you can still claim warranty support that's terrific
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and then after the first year with The Accidental damage warranty you have
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their regular uh Global Warranty so that means that you can actually buy this
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notebook here in Canada you could move to somewhere else and ASUS would still
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cover your warranty even though it's a Canadian Model A lot of Manufacturers
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won't do that and it's region specific so this is the
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n61jq and it is specifically the 2 ax-2
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model okay so that means we've got included features are a 16 you know what
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why don't we just talk about this as we open up the notebook that might be a
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little bit more efficient I've gone and forgotten a knife again but that's okay
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cuz at least I have my keys on me today you know I actually got a YouTube
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message this morning that uh someone wanted to buy me a knife and send it to
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me he asked me for my shipping address and um I really appreciate the kind
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offer but um yeah I I I don't I don't I don't
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actually need a handout knife I just need to be more
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organized so the first thing I find inside the box is a power cord okay
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pretty bog standard power cord so I'm not going to dwell on that too much and
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then we have a little cardboard uh insert here that protects the notebook
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I'm going to try and find the accessory boxes first before I take out the
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notebook book itself okay so these two right here are the accessory boxes and
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I'm just going to reach down in there and see if I can fish out some
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accessories okay then we have the other
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business end of the power adapter so there's your power brick it's rated for
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let me see 19 volts 4.74 amps okay so
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it's a relatively High powerered notebook just because you do have a
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pretty good dedicated video card in it it's a 5730 if memory serves and I'm
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going to cheat a little bit here and yes it is a
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5730 1 gig okay next we've got the
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battery which is um pretty big I believe this is a six cell battery okay so you
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can see it's going to be stylized to match the notebook itself so we'll
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install that battery when we actually get the notebook out of the box and I can show you what it looks like with and
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without it next we've got a whole bunch of documentation stuff in here so assus
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notebook update information the system recovery DVD is no longer
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included in the product package if you need to recover your notebook's OS refer
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to the section using recovery partition in the user manual for more details you
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can also create your own system recovery DVD should you so desire okay then we
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have um a bag oh they include an LCD
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cleaning cloth that's very nice made up of a special combination of interwoven
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microfibers as well as a little users manual thank you assus next we have the
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express gate manual so if you don't actually want to bother booting up into
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your OS you just need to use your computer really quick jot a couple notes
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or use Skype or go on the internet there's uh like a a Linux based OS
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loaded right onto the computer that you can boot up really fast next we have a
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cable tie that's for your power cable then we have the assus drivers and
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utility DVD uh don't use this you basic
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I mean it'll come with everything installed but then you want to make sure that whenever you reinstall you're
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updating with the latest drivers off the ASUS website here's the warranty card
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um yeah they want you to complete this and mail it to the address register
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within 60 days and get an extra one-year accidental damage warranty okay so it
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looks like you do have to register the warranty to get that accidental damage
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warranty but that is a small price to pay considering how much it costs to buy
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an accidental damage warranty from most notebook vendors so let's go ahead and
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put some these back in there that pretty much does it for accessories so we'll get the notebook
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itself open up here
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okay there we go I unveiled it so I'll
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just kind of put the box
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here and then let's have a look at this
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notebook so this is a core i5 based
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notebook as I recall it is a oh sorry
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it's an i7 this is an i7 based notebook so this is using Intel's latest and
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fastest series of notebook CPUs
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there we go and it specifically uses the i7 720 it's got 4 gigs of DDR3 RAM
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because all i7s use DDR3 RAM and then as
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I mentioned before it has a 4730 notebook GPU so it's not the most
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powerful out there but it's still going to provide a decent casual gaming
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experience in a very convenient form factor I mean it's a notebook so okay so
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includes True Entertainment real sound so includes video magic boost DVD
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quality to full HD okay 1 gig dedicated graphics memory and symphonic audio
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enjoyment I'd be curious to know what that does here's another summary of
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their warranty which we already went over then we got a little uh keyboard
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protector inside here you know a lot of people actually keep these I was surprised to find that out um around
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University I would often see people take this off of their notebook every time
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they go to use it CU it keeps you from getting little key-shaped dents in the
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top of your LCD if you're carrying it around in a backpack all the time
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hey this is cool this notebook has USB 3.0 I had no idea check that out USB 3.0
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is actually implemented into this particular notebook model you've got GPU
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Computing three-finger multi-touch touchpad so it's a gesture ready and
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because it features Windows 7 which is completely multi-touch and touchscreen
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ready there you're going to have a lot of extra support for that next we've got
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the actual specs of this notebook which I haven't really gone over in too much
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detail it's got a 16 in HD LED backlit
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display it's got a 500 gig hard drive I mentioned already 4 gigs of memory
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802.11n so that's Wireless N as well as Bluetooth DVD super multi so you don't
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have support for Blu-ray or HD DVD but
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you can play back HD video clips as long as they're files with the integrated ATI
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Mobility rad on I mean the core i7 could handle it on its own but whatever it
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includes Windows 7 Premium and then why
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don't we go ahead and have a look at some of the physical characteristics of
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this thing so you got a glossy top here that has kind of um a patterned this is
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kind of interesting it's sort of like a wave or like blade of grass pattern but
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they're using little dots to draw the shapes on the top of the notebook can
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you really see that with the camera no that's pretty tough to see isn't it can
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you can you get it from this angle anyway it's kind of nice looking it's
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it's a little bit classier than just a plain black and it should also make it a
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little bit less susceptible to showing fingerprints because you've already got
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these small uh swirly shaped patterns on here so that's that's a very nice touch
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around the side of the notebook we find uh headphones microphone USB eat
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the DVD multi recorder right here another USB an antenna thingamajiggy
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there then on the back we find the battery which I'm going to go ahead and
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just quickly install and that took not very long to do and then around the
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other side we have a Kensington lock
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power in ventilation slot VGA out which
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is you know what I I've had people say
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oh why do you have VGA out on a modern notebook the reason is that a lot of
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projectors need VGA so if you're going to use this notebook for any kind of
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serious business use you better have a VGA port because the last thing you want
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is to have some huge DVI to VGA dongle hanging out of your notebook and it
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doesn't make sense so they build in a VGA it costs them next to nothing and
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it's very convenient for people who do need that feature gigabit and then
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there's HDMI remember if you need DVI out you can always adapt HDMI and so
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many things use HDMI natively these days it doesn't even matter this is the
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perfect output combination in my opinion got a little uh Express card there then
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you have USB 3.0 port and a wireless
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onoff switch moving around to the front
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we have an SDHC card reader just like that and then let's go
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around to the bottom where I am not going to show our viewers the product
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code for the Windows 7 Home Premium included with this laptop the lap lamp
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in this display contains Mercury okay so at the bottom we find Convenient doors
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to access the important pieces of Hardware inside here so I'm going to go
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ahead and guess that down here is your memory as well as your wireless card and
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in here based on this symbol is the hard drive they've also got a technical
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support phone number on the bottom so it's a 24hour 7 days a week except
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holidays hotline very nice and I think that pretty much wraps up everything
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that we need to say about the n61 J thank you for checking out my boxing and
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uh you know what that doesn't quite wrap it up I'm sorry here's the power button
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oh I turned it on excellent and then here is the oh cameraman's telling me to
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wrap it up cuz we're hitting 10 minutes here's the chicklet keyboard quite comfortable well spaced out you've got a
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dedicated number pad which is great for business use and up here you've got a
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couple of media keys for volume up volume down as well as play and mute and
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thank you for checking out my unboxing of the n61 J