Asus TUF A15 review: AMD Ryzen 7 5800H powered gaming laptop on budget
Asus is known for its gaming-centric laptops, especially the premium ROG series ones. For price conscious buyers, the Taiwanese PC maker has a TUF series of gaming laptops. It recently launched the Asus TUF A15 in India. Geared towards those on a limited budget, this gaming laptop seems good for most of its specifications – at least on paper. But is it a good entry-level gaming laptop? Let’s find out:
Asus TUF A15: Build and design
The TUF A15 might be an entry-level gaming laptop but its design speaks otherwise. It looks premium, has fancy bells and whistles, and a solid and sturdy build to justify ‘TUF’ in the moniker. Though heavy (2.3 kg) and bulky, Asus says the laptop has ‘military grade protection’ and can take some beating without showing a purple patch.
The TUF A15 sports a 15.6-inch FHD screen of 144Hz refresh rate with support for Adaptive Sync. The Adaptive Sync feature allows the display’s refresh rate to synchronise with the GPU’s frame rate. This reduces lag, minimises stuttering, and eliminates visual tearing for smooth and immersive gameplay.
The display maintains the frame rate, but the response time is not great. Moreover, it is not the best display when it comes to colour accuracy. While the display seems fine for a gaming laptop, audio ruins the experience. Acoustics is one area this laptop will disappoint many. While gaming laptops usually don’t have an impressive output, it’s high time companies start fixing it. Despite the DTS:X Ultra, the audio in TUF A15 is feeble and disappointing.
On a positive side, the TUF A15 has an impressive full-size keyboard, which is evenly spread and has wide keys with ample key travel for impressive tactile feedback. The keyboard is backlit with RGB colour to add a charm to riveting gaming sessions.
Asus TUF A15: Performance
The Asus TUF A15 boasts solid specifications for a gaming laptop on budget. It is powered by AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor, paired with 8GB of DDR4 RAM and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 discrete graphics. For storage, you get a hybrid solution with a 256GB NVMe SSD and a 1TB hard disk drive. Thermals are controlled by the dual n-Blade fans and the laptop has a system of four heat pipes and three heatsinks to absorb heat from the CPU and GPU.
Technical details aside, the laptop is fun to use for both gaming and otherwise. While the TUF A15 is an able device, it does get a bit noisy while handling the heat after intense hours of play.
From Halo to Counter-Strike, you can throw anything at it and it will be able to handle the task for the most part. The lags, latency, and stutters are there but minimal if you play for long hours. I also managed to play Call of Duty using a friend’s steam account but honestly, the experience wasn’t overwhelming.
Battery
The TUF A15 would last for about four hours on moderate usage so you will have to keep the charger handy. Power users would like to keep the laptop on charge because the battery goes down from 100 per cent to 20 per cent and less in no time. The laptop takes around two hours to charge fully.
Verdict
The Asus TUF A15 has a reasonable price tag and performs just fine in regular gaming with great on-paper specifications. This is primarily a value-for-money device at a starting price of Rs 65,990. The Asus TUF A15 is perfect for those looking for a gaming laptop on budget. Look for other options if you have extra bucks in pocket to spend.
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