After two years Asus finally updated the series' case and adds an Alder Lake CPU with DDR5 RAM and RTX GPU, in our case an RTX 3060 with a full 140 W TGP. And while this might sound very promising we need to keep in mind that not all that glitters is gold, and that the TUF Gaming F17 has a few flaws that we uncovered in our review.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-TUF-Gaming-F17-Laptop-Review-Good-3D-Performance-and-Battery-Life-Meets-Poor-Build-Quality-and-Dim-Display.612636.0.html
I do not like to defend Asus laptops, but those "blemishes" are user error. When the reviewer opened up the laptop he put the long screws in the wrong spot causing it to poke the plastic out. It is very clear in the pictures, they are missing in the overview shot, but then show up later.
Title is spot on and everything wrong with low-end laptops these days.
Display and build quality should be the two No.1 priorities regardless of the price point.
Battery life, keyboard, touchpad, ports, sound, weight saving, design - these are all secondary concerns for budget laptops.
Looking back on 2021, Lenovo Legion 5 and HP Omen series are the only budget performance laptops that seem to have that basic concept nailed down.
Asus, Dell, Acer, Gigabyte, TongFang, Clevo, and MSI - have failed completely in this regard. Such a shame.
Quote from: Lorry on April 18, 2022, 10:08:10
Title is spot on and everything wrong with low-end laptops these days.
Display and build quality should be the two No.1 priorities regardless of the price point.
Battery life, keyboard, touchpad, ports, sound, weight saving, design - these are all secondary concerns for budget laptops.
Looking back on 2021, Lenovo Legion 5 and HP Omen series are the only budget performance laptops that seem to have that basic concept nailed down.
Asus, Dell, Acer, Gigabyte, TongFang, Clevo, and MSI - have failed completely in this regard. Such a shame.
Are you sure about Lenovo Legion 5?
QuoteThe quality of the chassis is probably one of the weakest points of the laptop and you just notice the low price point. The build quality itself is good, but there are some creaking noises when you twist the base unit. The bigger issue in everyday situations is the creaking from the hinges when you adjust the opening angle of the screen (up to 180 degrees). The hinges cannot completely avoid some bouncing. These are hardly limitations when you play games, but you should not expect a high-end chassis.
(quote from the Lenovo Legion 5 15 G6 AMD review from this website).
We initially stated the loaner had quality issues. Upon further inspection, it turned out we were the ones who caused the issues to appear. We have since removed all mentions of what we mistook for irregularities in chassis build quality from this page. Please excuse us for this - we are working hard to give you unbiased test results every day and we'll do out best to make sure nothing of the sort happens again.
I wish you guys start giving us detail on USB-C port connections, some laptops are connecting it directly to dGPU and some are using Intel GPU. Please add this to your testing.
Thanks.
To add to what @Ray Henderson said, separating the list of ports based on their capabilities would be nice to see.
For instance, 2022 Asus Scar 15 has:
- 1x USB-A 5Gbps, Data only
- 1x USB-A 5Gbps, Data, always-on PD (power delivery) 10W
- 1x USB-C 10Gbps, Data, PD 3.0 100W, DP 1.4a (displayport) to iGPU
- 1x USB-C TB4 40Gbps, Data, DP 1.4a to iGPU (on Optimus), DP 1.4a to dGPU (on MUX), 10Gb Ethernet, no PD
- HDMI 2.1a 40Gbps, maximum 4K120Hz 8-bit
This way, readers know HDMI port on this laptop despite the "2.1" spec cannot be used for 4K 10-bit / HDR gaming due to lack of bandwidth.
Also clarifies that USB-C port connected to the dGPU cannot simultaneously charge the laptop and connect to external monitors.
Giving this exact info on the bandwidth and version of each feature included in each port can be very helpful.
Excellent idea!
On one hand: I miss the "good old days" when if a display was 17.3" and 1920x1080 it automatically had good colors, because the low-sRGB parts simply didn't exist for one reason or another.
On the other hand: I don't, because at that time high refresh rates weren't yet common, the >1080 product space was polluted by RG/BW, and 16:10 wasn't making a resurgence yet.
Always gotta be on the lookout for something I suppose.
Wonder if there's any panel we can change to that gives better colour reproduction and brightness too. I really like to have a good enough screen that I can use cause even my current laptop has similar low brightness issue. Either this or I go Strix but tbh, I do believe this laptop is a way better value to feature than a lot of mid tier offerings. It actually gets the basics right at the but ofc has to cut some corners. Here I th we get better screen than last year.