Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition review: All-day gaming at a great price

Price When Reviewed

$1,099

Best Prices Today: Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition

$1099

AMD’s well-priced however highly effective Ryzen 7000 CPUs make the right nucleus for a mid-range laptop computer just like the A16 that’s straightforward on the hip pocket, however fairly highly effective. In 2022 we noticed the identical factor with the Asus ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition, which we applauded for its stupidly good price-to-power ratio.

What these laptops have in widespread is the “AMD advantage”–that means they meet particular AMD pointers to carry out at their peak for mid-range laptops. But, after all, there’s extra to laptops then simply CPU efficiency.

Indeed, the A16 additionally has an exceptionally lengthy battery life and a big, beautiful 16-inch 16:10 ratio show. An further sweetener is its strong chassis that’s as sturdy an ox, components that make this an actual gem for 1080p avid gamers.

For extra choices, take a look at our roundup of the best gaming laptops out there proper now.

Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition: Specifications and options

The Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition is out there with both AMD Rembrandt Zen3+ (Ryzen 7 7735HS) or AMD Phoenix (Ryzen 9 7940HS) CPUs. Two show choices can be found additionally – a FHD+ with 165 Hz refresh charge or QHD+ with 240 Hz refresh charge. The specification of our evaluate mannequin are as follows:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS
• RAM: 16GB DDR5 / 4800MHz
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7600S
• Display: 16-inch FHD+ (1920 x1200) IPS-level, 165Hz refresh charge, 100 % sRGB, 7ms response, FreeSync Premium
• Storage: 1TB SSD PCIe 4
• Ports: 2 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (Both with Display Port 1.4 one with 100W PD), 2 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, HDMI 2.1 port, 3.5 mm audio port, 1G Lan port, Kensington lock
• Networking: Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax)
• Weight: 4.85lbs (2.2kg)
• Dimensions: 13.88 x 9.92 x 0.87 inches
• Battery capability: 90Whr
• Price: Currently $1,099 USD at Best Buy

Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition: Design and construct

The A16’s design displays the mid-range focus of the Asus Advantage sequence laptops. It received’t soften your eyeballs with luxurious extras like flashy RGB lighting or curves that resemble samurai swords. Indeed, it has neither of these items, but it surely does get the fundamentals proper.

Returning legacy options like its immovable plastic chassis and inflexible steel lid have handed US army grade certification for toughness, which may be very reassuring for a pack horse like me. The lid additionally comes nicely adjusted—it stayed put in the entire myriad angles I examined it.

The A16’s chassis is a really versatile measurement. While its massive sibling the 2023 Asus ROG Strix G18 is a bit of too massive and heavy to make use of on the fly—like for ending a quest with the laptop computer balanced on one knee—the A16 in all fairness spacious, however nonetheless sufficiently small for shifting round. It measures 13.88 x 9.92 x 0.87 inches and weighs simply 4.85 kilos, which is light-weight for a gaming laptop computer.

Asus

So a lot of the A16’s design is expertly engineered in your viewing pleasure. In truth, the saying “all roads lead to Rome” may be utilized right here; solely the roads are its extremely slim bezels that body up the 16:10 ratio panel so superbly. An elaborate hinge mechanism pops the show up nicely above the laptop computer’s decrease edge so that you’re not simply bezels.

Another factor I beloved in regards to the A16’s design is its modest styling. For a gaming laptop computer, the A16 seems to be a bit of under-cooked, with not way more than an unobtrusive TUF emblem on the lid and a crest within the monitor pad. But alas, the upside is it received’t appeal to any undesirable consideration within the workplace—it’s simply as geared in direction of work as it’s play. This versatility is additional validated by its glorious battery life (however extra on that later).

This 12 months, along with a black mannequin, the A16 additionally is available in a brand new Sandstorm coloration. Both fashions function a matte end on their lids that reduces fingerprints to mere boring smudges. However, it additionally holds them agency, so that you’ll want fairly a little bit of elbow grease to rub them off.

Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition: Keyboard and trackpad

The A16’s keyboard is massive and spacious and has a beneficiant 1.7 mm journey between keys. There’s additionally ample room to relaxation your fingers both facet of the trackpad, so you may calm down into your sport.

Although they don’t have multi-colored RGB, the keys are backlit by a sexy white gentle that’s straightforward to see. The keys really feel low-set and comfortable, which makes typing fast, however a bit of fatiguing throughout lengthy stints. Personally, I might have most popular them to be a bit of bouncier like within the ROG Strix G18.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

That stated, the keyboard configuration may be very beneficiant. You get a full-sized quantity pad, all of the Fn keys and a set of handy audio controls on the very high. Below the keyboard, the first rate sized monitor pad feels neither too slippery nor too grippy–simply ideally suited for gaming.

Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition: Display and webcam

I’ve performed with my justifiable share of laptops with 4K shows, and in my view a few of them are simply too excessive decision for his or her {hardware} to offer actually seamless experiences.

The A16 by comparability packs a extra modest FHD+ show so it doesn’t endure from this drawback. Its colours actually pop off the 100 % sRGB panel and look wealthy and assorted. Despite having a peak brightness stage of simply 250 nits, there’s a stunning depth to the blacks and greys too.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

But the panel’s greatest function is undoubtedly its fluid video playback–the 165Hz panel ticks over with out the slightest trace of stutter or glitching. I by no means as soon as noticed it skip a beat, which is the sort of efficiency I’d take any day over a juiced-up 4K show that struggles to maintain up.

For webcam, the A16 sports activities a 720p High-Definition digicam. It does a decent job for sound and imagery, however like loads of gaming laptop computer webcams, it will possibly’t compete with the standard you get from some productiveness laptops–particularly in low gentle circumstances the place it will possibly look a bit grainy.

Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition: Connectivity and audio

The TUF A16 Advantage Edition locates most of its ports on the left facet, which frees up loads of area in your mouse hand in case you’re right-handed, however isn’t so nice for lefties.

As anticipated, there’s no Thunderbolt 4 ports, however the inclusion of a number of USB-A and USB-C ports and one HDMI 2.1 port means there are nonetheless loads of nice choices in your units. Conveniently each USB-C ports function DisplayPort 1.4. Additionally, one of many USB-C ports options 100W Power Delivery so you may cost units shortly on the fly.

The A16’s two audio system sound clear and balanced, but the bass received’t bedazzle you. It ranges out to develop into fairly flat towards the decrease finish. You do get Hi-Res Audio and Dolby, nevertheless, so it would produce close-to-cinematic sounding audio.

Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition: CPU efficiency

Our A16 got here with an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS CPU, an 8 core (16 thread) CPU based mostly on AMD’s Zen 3+ microarchitecture. For a yard-stick comparability, it’s mainly a refresh of the Ryzen 7 6800HS, simply with greater clock speeds and TGP settings.

To check the laptop computer’s CPU efficiency, I pitted it towards quite a lot of gaming laptops, largely consisting of 2022 fashions–because it’s nonetheless early days in our 2023 evaluate schedule. Most I selected as a result of that they had comparable mid-range CPUs–for instance, the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 boasts a Ryzen 9 6900HX CPU, which in 2022 didn’t high the charts, however carried out solidly in some PCWorld evaluations.

First up we ran Maxon’s Cinebench R20 Single-Threaded benchmark which flexes only a single core of a laptop computer’s CPU. In the graph we generated beneath, you may see the A16’s CPU was only a average performer towards our comparisons. Even so, this consequence signifies the A16 can have no bother operating light-weight apps and packages.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

In the Cinebench R20 Multi-Threaded benchmark, the A16’s Ryzen 7 7735HS CPU fared considerably higher, proving its suitability for AAA video games and CPU-demanding duties like video enhancing and encoding. What’s noteworthy is that it out-performed the MSI Katana GF76, which options an Intel 12th-gen Core i7-12700H CPU.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

Next, we ran a bespoke check we created particularly for the free HandBrake utility. This gave us a sign of how nicely our laptop computer may hold processing a CPU-intensive job earlier than it received too scorching and wanted to throttle efficiency. The consequence? The A16 did a good job staying cool and powering on, ending the check in a decent time of 1,072 seconds.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition: GPU efficiency

Under the hood, my A16 evaluate unit got here with a mid-range AMD Radeon RX 7600S GPU. GPUs in AMDs new 7000 Mobile Series function AMD RDNA 3 structure; they embody new compute items that share sources between rendering, AI and ray tracing and make full use of every transistor for quicker, extra environment friendly efficiency.

While our benchmarks particularly examined for GPU efficiency, it’s value noting that the A16 incorporates AMD SmartShift applied sciences too.

AMD says one SmartShift know-how, SmartShift RSR, works by “intelligently distributing the rendering, upscaling and presentation demands between the APU and GPU resources to deliver the best possible performance”—which, in case you’re questioning, makes it much like Advanced Optimus in some Nvidia supported laptops.

The outcomes from 3DMark’s Time Spy benchmark gave us a basic overview of the GPU’s efficiency for each gaming and different graphics-based duties. As you may see beneath, the A16 seems in the midst of our comparability discipline, shut behind the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and Razer Blade 15.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

Moving to our gaming benchmarks and for Rise of the Tomb Raider the outcomes are extra promising. Here you may see our laptop computer produced quicker framerates than most of our comparisons.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

In the Shadow of the Tomb Raider sport benchmark, the A16 additionally carried out very nicely, outpacing the competitors—aside from the Aus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16, which though a bit of older, has extra premium graphics {hardware}.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

What do these outcomes inform us? Overall, they affirm that the A16’s GPU delivers mid-range graphics efficiency, but additionally show that it’s undoubtedly highly effective sufficient for first rate gaming at FHD+ decision. It’s what I noticed the laptop computer obtain throughout my testing—that’s, constantly excessive body charges and a clean seamless movement on the show.

Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition: Battery life

The A16 has quite a lot of vitality effectivity benefits over 2022 Advantage Edition fashions—the aforementioned AMD SmartShift applied sciences included—and these actually made a distinction within the longevity of the A16’s battery life.

I started operating our PCWorld battery check at 6:35 a.m. one morning, and once I arrived dwelling from the workplace at 7pm, a lot to my astonishment, it was nonetheless going. In complete, it ran for a whopping 11 and a half hours that day.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

Admittedly, PCWorld’s battery check is sort of light-weight, however these outcomes nonetheless recommend the A16’s 90Whr battery will see you thru roughly seven hours of gaming away from an AC outlet. If you’re solely operating gentle productiveness apps, you’ll almost definitely get greater than a full day’s operation, which is sort of extraordinary for a gaming laptop computer.

Asus TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition: Should you purchase it?

The A16 (which is at the moment $1,099, USD at Best Buy) makes a superb case towards costlier laptops just like the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 and the MSI Katana GF76, particularly in case you’re into 1080p gaming. However, though its inexpensive, it doesn’t skimp on efficiency or a strong chassis.

But for me, the most important issue that units it aside from these choices is its unbelievable battery life. In my time reviewing laptops, I can’t keep in mind once I final noticed a gaming laptop computer lasted 11 and a half hours on a single cost, which makes the A16, in my guide, really excellent.