ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Gaming Laptop FA608UP Review

ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Gaming Laptop FA608UP Review

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. #CommissionsEarned
Buy it at Amazon: ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Gaming Laptop FA608UP [Affiliate Link]
Buy in UK from ASUS: https://tidd.ly/42d31Dc [ASUS Affiliate Product Link]

Takeaway: Great for gaming and creative work

In the box you’ll receive the laptop, 240Watt power adapter with 4ft cable, 6 ft power cord, instruction manual, and quick start guide. The laptop measures 14” wide, 10.5”, from front to back, and 1-1/8” thick tapering down to 7/8” at the front. It weighs just under 5 lbs, however, the charging brick and cable are other 1.5lb.

The lid is matte gray aluminum with minimal branding, and I appreciate that it doesn’t pickup fingerprints easily. The power port is located at the back corner of the left-hand side along with an Ethernet, HDMI 2.1, USB4, USB-C 3.2 Gen2 with DisplayPort out, USB-A 3.2 Gen2, and combo mic/headphone jack. On the right-hand side are two additional USB-A ports, though only one is USB3.2 Gen2 while the other is only USB2.0. I was a bit surprised to find that a Kensington security lock slot was omitted, and there are no ports along the back of the machine as it is all dedicated to the full-width heatsink for cooling. The underside has rubber feet as well as several vents to ensure stability and air flow, and stereo speakers in the corners towards the front powered by Dolby Atmos. The speakers actually sounded fairly decent, though can sound boxy and muddy at higher volumes.

The screen opens to a 180° full lay-flat position and has a 16” diagonal display with 165Hz max refresh rate and 3ms response time, 300 nits brightness, and max resolution of 1920x1200 FHD+. It has thin bezels at the sides and top, and there is an integrated 1080p webcam with dual-array microphone that is great for video chat, live streaming, and compatible with Windows Hello facial recognition to log in. However, it does not have a built-in privacy cover. The status LEDs for power, charging, and drive activity sit behind the screen and are not visible when the screen is open.

This model TUF Gaming A16 is a solid gamer’s build out-of-the-box and offers high-end performance with its AMD Ryzen AI 9 270 CPU, 32GB DDR5 5600MHz RAM, upgradable to 64GB, and discrete NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 GPU. The pre-installed PCIe Gen 4 SSD has a 1 TB capacity and there is an additional slot inside for a second m.2 SSD. The power connector, while proprietary, is reversible, but can the laptop can also be charged via USB-C Power Delivery (PD), albeit at a slower rate of 100Watts. Setting up Windows 11 takes about 15 minutes and is pretty straight forward and the WiFi card supports WiFi 6E.

The RGB backlit keyboard is full-sized with a numpad on the right-hand side, full-size arrow keys, highlighted WASD keys, and generously sized mouse trackpad. The power button is located in the upper right-hand corner, and just above the keyboard are dedicated volume adjustment keys, mic mute, and “Armoury Crate” button.

Armoury Crate is ASUS’s control console, and you’ll be able to quickly change the power profile between Windows, Silent, Performance, and Turbo with the last one only available while the laptop is plugged in. You can also define custom manual profiles for battery or AC power. As for battery life, when set to ‘Silent’ and ‘Best Power Efficiency,’ the 90Wh battery gave me an estimated runtime of 8.5 hours of casual, non-intensive use, while changing the settings to ‘Best Performance’ for gaming reduced that to 2.5 hours.

The native display is G-Sync compatible when using the discrete GPU, which you can use exclusively by changing the setting in NVIDIA’s control panel, however, keep in mind that you’ll consume more power versus using integrated graphics for tasks that don’t require the additional performance.

You can also use the app to customize the RGB backlight effect with different animated patterns or solid colors and change the speed or brightness, however, it is single zone only and the keys are not individually addressable. With the fans running at full speed during high-powered gaming or performing resource intensive tasks like rendering video and 3D models, GPU temps didn’t exceed the low 70s °C. The speakers also produced enough volume to overcome the fan noise, but you’ll have a better listening experience with the laptop power profile set to ‘Silent’ or with a decent pair of headphones.

As for gaming performance, the panel produces very nice visuals at high to ultra settings, and I saw consistently high framerates, above 130fps, in games like Warframe, CS2, and Path of Exile. However, I did notice occasional dropped frames, stuttering, and loading lag, more than I’d expected with the CPU and GPU combination. Watching video and creating content on the laptop is excellent as the screen is plenty bright, has good contrast, and the colors are accurate as the panel covers 100% of the sRGB color space. Alternatively, you can opt to use an external display via the HDMI and DP (USB-C) out. Just note that on battery power the native screen’s refresh rate may be capped at 60Hz.

Overall, as a gaming laptop, this A16 build has plenty of power to run games in high or ultra video modes pretty smoothly. It also performed well for work and casual use, whether you’re a content creator, rendering 3D models, or just web browsing. You’re also able to upgrade the RAM, add more storage, or swap the pre-installed 1TB SSD to a larger capacity.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. #CommissionsEarned
Buy it at Amazon: ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Gaming Laptop FA608UP [Affiliate Link]
Buy in UK from ASUS: https://tidd.ly/42d31Dc [ASUS Affiliate Product Link]

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