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Javein Harvey photo
Sweden, Stockholm
1 Level
758 Review
43 Karma

Review on ASUS TUF Dash 15 (2021) Gaming Laptop, 15.6” 144Hz FHD, RTX 3050 Ti, i7-11370H, 8GB DDR4, 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD, Wi-Fi 6, Windows 10, Eclipse Grey, TUF516PE-AB73 by Javein Harvey

Revainrating 2 out of 5

Great but not perfect: Issue to note

Just to be sane, here's a concise list of pros and cons that I found: Pros: - When set up, the laptop toggles between a power-hungry RTX 3050 TI and an integrated Intel graphics card Iris XE ensure long battery life. The RTX 3050 Ti can deliver the performance to play most games on the highest settings. The processor is also very powerful, allowing you to perform common desktop tasks with ease. I've hosted Minecraft servers on my PC before and the amazing single-threaded performance allows me to host servers and play at the same time. The body is lightweight yet sturdy. Also, it supposedly passed the ASUS drop tests, but I can't say much about that (sorry, I prefer not to test my laptop :p). The inside of the laptop is also well protected by stickers (as I noticed when installing additional RAM). Looks durable! - Super upgradeable :) - In addition to the existing 500 GB SSD, there are slots for 2 more SSDs. I only saw one extra stick of ram - The display seems to be of good quality. I guess a 144Hz monitor. - Thunderbolt 4: Being able to charge your laptop with a USB-C cable is very convenient (among MANY other things to look out for). I'm glad the manufacturer chose the new Thunderbolt 4 connector, the laptop charges very quickly, as promised in the product description (I didn't fully test the charging limits on the Thunderbolt connector with the standard charger). High-performance Wi-Fi 6: I was able to achieve download speeds of up to 420 Mbit/s on my gigabit internet. This value is higher than my other WLAN devices with a maximum speed of 250 Mbit/s. Comes with ASUS Armory Crate pre-installed: Displays CPU/GPU/RAM stats and temperatures, allows you to customize blue light filter, manage power saving settings and keyboard backlight.- All in all great value for money! Cons: - The laptop has no camera. This should be considered if you as a student also want to use this laptop, for example to take part in zoom calls. I think this can be a big disadvantage for many, but you can always buy a separate webcam.- The screen does not open more than 100 degrees. Let's say using this laptop while standing on a desk is difficult due to the narrow screen angle. That's the biggest minus for me. I suggest getting a laptop stand to solve this problem if needed. The laptop does not have a numeric keypad. I've previously attached macros to number keys, so it's a limitation that this laptop can't do that. - Battery life is NOT close to "16.6 hours". In battery saver mode, a more realistic MAX is 8 hours (which is still pretty good compared to other laptops with similar specs). But actual battery life is far from advertised, so be aware. The LEDs on the keyboard only have one color (blue). I wish the LED was a little more customizable. Keep this in mind if you plan to upgrade this laptop: the screws that come out on the back are different sizes. BE AWARE of the size of the screw where it goes when removed. In my opinion, this is indeed an unnecessary hurdle. A slightly smarter design could have avoided this inconvenience. Comes with several malware (namely MyAsus, Mcafee and some other stuff). Thankfully, it's easy to remove. The battery portion of the laptop gets REALLY hot, even with a light load on the computer. And when you play any PC games, EVEN WITH a laptop cooling pad, the keyboard even gets warm. I would suggest using a dedicated mouse and keyboard for gaming.

Pros
  • Weight
Cons
  • Some minor issues