The ASUS TUF Gaming Advantage laptop is a standout choice for gamers looking for reliable performance without breaking the bank. Despite not being the most expensive or top-tier model in the market, it offers exceptional value. One of its most impressive features is the solid-state hard drive, which ensures speedy and efficient performance, crucial for gaming and multitasking.

Its build quality is robust, typical of the TUF series, making it a durable option for regular gamers. While it might not boast the highest specifications in its range, it strikes a perfect balance between cost and performance. The graphics and processing capabilities are more than sufficient for most modern games, providing a smooth gaming experience without any significant lag or issues.

For those who are budget-conscious but still want a gaming laptop that won’t disappoint, the ASUS TUF Gaming Advantage is a brilliant choice.

Picked up the i5 model for about 650, plays Fallout 4 with over a hundred mods – so doing what I want from it. Great value for money and much more portable than a desktop, which is handy for a student as we have to move digs a lot. Negs: gets hot and you’ll want to order another RAM card when you buy – fitting is simply slotting in the back, only takes a minute watch a youtube; battery not great; more USB would be nice. Overall, great budget laptop, minor faults, easily the best you can buy in this budget range (and worth more if you compare similar stats from other more expensive laptops).

Price to performance definitely not the best laptop however it is good for playing most titles at low to medium settings at 1080p and doesn’t get too hot for a laptop. Annoying part it since I bought it less then 24hrs after the product went down almost 90 euro.

Straight out of the box this feels like a good robust laptop. The keyboard has a nice crisp feel but the layout takes a little while to get used to after other laptops – not bad, just different.

Bought for church song lyric projection and music playback using dedicated apps as well as Powerpoint, Youtube, Spotify, so good graphics capability and speed was a high priority in our choice of model. This seems to meet that need very well.

Setting it up is a bit of a pain but this is more down to Microsoft Windows 11 than the manufacturer, in particular that I wanted to use the same login credentials for multiple (non admin) users as on its predecessor and not use One Drive or a Microsoft account and pin to login. Once over that hurdle it works well and is pretty quick.
I would like to uninstall the Asus “Armoury Crate” app which appears to have no value for non-gamers but keeps popping up wanting to install updates but so far have not worked out how to do so – the option is not available via control panel.

The continually colour changing backlight on the keyboard is quite annoying. I would prefer one, non changing, colour but so far have not found how to change that so have dimmed it down to off completely.

Other reviewers have said the fans are a bit noisy but we have not found this to be the case with our type of usage -projecting videos , song lyrics and playing music.

The built in loud speakers are not very loud at all and the sound is a bit lacking in depth through them. However the sound quality via the combined headphone/audio out/mic socket is very good with a high gain and minimal noise when connected to our p.a. system.

I consider the lack of vga socket (as is the case with almost all laptops these days) a downside as hdmi sockets can be prone to becoming loose and unreliable with frequent plugging and unplugging. Having both types of socket would be preferable to give resilience in the event of a failure. That said the socket on this laptop does seem a nice tight and secure fit so we will have to see how it holds up.

All in all pleased with our purchase.

Honestly it’s a lot less chunky than I was expecting, it isn’t any bigger than a standard 17 inch laptop I had at school circa 2007/8. It fits in my rucksack just fine, although not in the laptop compartment but that’s kind of expected.
It’s a bit edgy-looking but not nearly as bad as some of the others on the market, and the build quality feels pretty decent; nice fat keys with a lot of travel.
If nothing else you have something to swing at a mugger.

Picture quality is eh. Not sure what all the fuss in the marketing around the screen is about, it delivers well in terms of Hz but it’s not an OLED screen and never will be, so colours and contrasts are mediocre at the best of times. It’s not a terrible screen by any means but noticeably not ‘good’. The sound quality is pretty bad also. If you care about good sound you’ll need something external, a nice pair of headphones or speakers, preferably with a DAC attachment if you’re listening to music for any length of time, cus literally my phone has better sound.

It wasn’t clear in the marketing (from what I could see anyway) exactly what connections it came with and where, so here’s a run-down.
On the left hand-side there’s the power socket, 1x Ethernet port, 1x HDMI, 2x USB 3.1s, 1x USB-C/thunderbolt 4, and a 3mm headphone socket. On the right hand-side there’s just a USB 3.1. Seems a little lopsided to be honest, but I guess there’s plenty of power for an external hub if you want lots of connections.

By default the fans are loud and will periodically spin up and down when doing anything simple like watching youtube, but they are configurable with either an F-button on the keyboard or in the Armour Crate application where you can also do things like change the keyboard colour and give specific apps preset GPU limitations etc.

Runs most games I threw at it without much hassle, nice and powerful so it kinda makes up for the downsides. Cus what’s the point of a nice screen if minesweeper bricks it?