Asus A15 TUF Gaming Laptop 2022 Release Review

Asus A15 TUF Gaming Laptop 2022 Release Review

Buy it at Amazon: Asus A15 TUF Gaming Laptop 2022 Release [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Good gaming experience, decent screen quality and battery life

#sponsored #freeproduct

Thank you to Best Buy for sending me this laptop for free to try.

You’ll receive the laptop, 200Watt power brick with 6 ft cable, 3 ft power cable, TUF gaming decal stickers, and a quickstart booklet showing you how to charge and power on the laptop. It measures 14” wide, 10” long, and 1” thick, weighing in at just under 4.5 lbs; keep in mind the power brick adds another pound when travelling. The mecha-inspired exterior of the unit has a metallic look but is a lightweight, sturdy plastic. The shell has a matte-finish, with an embossed TUF logo in the middle, sharp bevels at the edges and engraved accents in each corner. Like the F-series TUF Gaming laptops, there is a cutout at the back so you can view the status LEDs when the lid is closed. The out-of-the-box specs for the R73050T are decent with an AMD Ryzen 7 6800H processor, 8 GB DDR5 4800MHz RAM, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050Ti GPU, and 512GBs of SSD storage.

On the bottom are several air intake and exhaust vents and the rubber feet in the corners along with several solid protrusions raise the laptop off your desktop to ensure stability and air flow. On its left, you’ll find the power port, Ethernet jack, full-size HDMI 2.0b output (delivering up to 1440p @ 144Hz or 4K @ 60Hz), two USB-C and 1 USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, and a combo input/output audio jack. On the opposite side is an additional USB-A port and Kensington lock slot. Note that neither of the USB-C ports support Thunderbolt 4 or Power Delivery charging, though the second one does have DisplayPort 1.2 output with G-Sync. You’ll notice at the front lip, the screen has a small extended tab in the center, which not only gives you purchase to lift open the screen, but also houses the front-facing 720p webcam and dual-microphone array with two-way AI noise-cancelation. This makes livestreaming, video chat, and content creation on-the-go more convenient, but just don’t expect it to have great low-light performance or produce hi-res images at 1MP.

The first time you power it on, it may take a bit of time to set up. While Windows setup is pretty straightforward, it took me about 30 minutes, including downloading and upgrading to the latest version. The 15.6” IPS panel offers 144Hz refresh rates at 1080p, has an anti-glare matte coating, and is decently bright at around 250 nits (max); the built-in panel supports SDR video in the RGB colorspace, and the colors and contrast are quite decent when the laptop is plugged in. However, on battery power, the brightness can drop quite a bit with battery saving options enabled, even at the highest settings. For non-gaming purposes, I did find the screen a tad cramped for video editing and when viewing multiple windows, despite the thin bezels at the top and sides which give the appearance of a lot of screen real estate. Connectivity wise, it supports WiFi 6 bandwidths for fast downloads, less buffering, and reduced server lag when using a compatible router or network.

I found that the 56Wh battery lasts around 2 hours of casual use at 100% brightness. It does charge quickly, however, and you can top up to 50% battery life in just 30 minutes.

The pre-installed 512GB SSD on my build had about 400GB available for use on initial startup. Mine shipped with an Intel 670p m.2 SSD which is PCIe Gen 3x4 QLC which during benchmarking achieved average read/write speeds around 3000 MB/s and 1600 MB/s respectively. I did go ahead and install a second SSD, a Gen 4x4 m.2 in the secondary drive slot, and I’ll put the link to that video in the info bubble above; however, since the slots on the motherboard are the older Gen 3 interface, the max speeds achieved topped out at 3400 MB/s read and 3000 MB/s write - an improvement over the QLC drive, but far below its theoretical max of 7000MB/s and 5300MB/s. So just remember, if you plan on upgrading or adding an SSD – you’ll be capped at Gen 3 speeds even when using a newer generation drive.

While you’re inside, you’ll also be able to upgrade the RAM. There are two slots for DDR5 4800 MHz RAM chips, and mine had one 8GB stick pre-installed. Ideally, you’ll want to add at least another 8GB stick to run in dual-channel, and 16GB would be the sweet spot for gaming as it helps reduce in-game load times. However, you can install up to two 16GB RAM sticks for a maximum of 32GB.

For gaming, this unmodified build can handle medium to high graphics in most current games though I recommend setting your system to ‘Turbo’ mode in the ASUS Amoury Crate software. For the best screen responsiveness, set the GPU mode in Armoury Crate to Ultimate, and it will push frames exclusively from the NVIDIA GPU to the screen. This is also the only way to access the NVIDIA Control Panel and GeForce Experience application to update the drivers. With this setting activated I saw an average of 120 fps and higher in games like CS:GO and an average of 70-90 fps in other RPG titles like Path of Exile; both were set to max graphics with smooth, stutter-free visuals and gameplay. Just note that every time you change the MUX setting, you’ll need to restart the computer. There is an argument for using other MUX modes like MSHybrid mode, for example, to get a little more battery life out of it at the expense of graphical performance.

The on-board mouse trackpad measures 5x3 inches and supports multi-finger gestures and swipes. I found the embedded left and right-click operations to be responsive, though they have a pretty large travel distance to actuation, so you’ll need to press pretty firmly. The full RGB backlit keyboard illuminates the keys well and is adjustable in color, brightness, and animation; however, note that the keys are not individually addressable for custom patterns. You can, however, sync them to other RGB devices, like mice and headphones, using Aura Creator. These edge-lit chiclet style keys have a soft tactile feedback, highlighted WASD keys, and full numpad on the right-hand-side, though the keys are slightly narrower than the others. Typing noise is fairly quiet, and the keys don’t really get hot even during gameplay, as most of the hot spots are above the keyboard. There are four media keys just above the top left of the keyboard for volume, mute, and Armoury Crate quick-launch.

One thing that I wasn’t expecting was how well the Dolby Atmos speakers actually sounded. I typically don’t expect much out of laptop speakers, but these sound fairly open and full, with a bright balance though not much bass. They’re still decent for watching movies and streaming music, even though you won’t get a high-fidelity listening experience from them. But, you can always plug in or pair with a set of Bluetooth headphones for better audio.

Outside of gaming, I found this laptop’s performance impressive. The cooling system works well and during light use like web browsing, word processing, and even watching streaming video, 'Silent' mode kept internal temperatures between 50-60°C at that was without the fan running. This means that the built-in speakers don’t have to compete with any fan noise when you’re watching video or listening to music. When using more CPU or GPU resources during gaming or rendering for creative work, the fans will be a bit noisier but are able to keep temperature under control in the high 70s °C.

Overall, I feel this laptop is a good value for an entry to mid-level gaming laptop. It can handle most AAA title games with fairly decent graphics performance, has a nice aesthetic, and performs well for gaming, work and casual uses. The system is upgradable to push a little more performance out of it and the native screen and GPU deliver a visually satisfying experience. It also weighs less than most top tier portable gaming rigs and has plenty of battery life making it a great choice for on-to-go users.

Buy it at Amazon: Asus A15 TUF Gaming Laptop 2022 Release [Affiliate Link]