ASUS TUF F16 Gaming Laptop, Dedicated GeForce RTX 5060 GDDR7, 16’’ FHD+ Anti-Glare Display, Intel 16-Core i7 14650HX, Backlit KB, Facial Recognition, Win 11 Pro, Accessories, 64GB DDR5+2TB SSD

A highly tentative 4-stars: the first two hours impression
Edit* (1/24/2018):Now that Amazon has actually published this review, here are a few edits and recaps [the original review is more thorough]:-Apparently I was mistaken: you have to purchase Windows 10 Pro separately if you want Pro, there is no free upgrade (at least none I could find). Otherwise W10 Home has remained satisfactory. It was always a fast OS, still is, programs open quickly, switching from one to another and between tabs is as seamless as on a desktop, and the power on-through-BIOS-to-login screen time is less than ten seconds, I’d say. I don’t know if Microsoft finally stopped making constant updates, but I haven’t noticed any update interruptions in the last 2 weeks. Maybe they decided to stop torturing people with forced updates. Maybe the laptop has be waking itself up in the middle of the night and installing while I sleep. IDK.-I am loving this Intel chip. Quite possibly the single component responsible for making this laptop deserving of 5 stars. I have NEVER had as good a laptop experience as this. You pay a premium for Intel, but I’m content that you get the bang for your buck (I say this having only ever used AMD for desktops). Usually the CPU never gets over about 50-55 Centigrade during 1080p 60 fps video watching in Chrome and Firefox, and is often in the middle 40s to high 30s with simple tasks and when idle. Occasionally during multi-tasking it will spike as high as 66-68 Centigrade, but usually only for a second. The fan is rather obvious in sound, but unless you’re watching really quiet video, you won’t notice it when it does kick on, usually only above 50 degrees. ASUS and Intel say the 8550U goes up to 4.0 GHz, but I haven’t seen it go past 3.8-3.9 GHz on this unit. I have however seen it dip significantly below 1.8 GHz, as low as 1.15 GHz and even less than 1.0 GHz. I’m unfamiliar if laptops normally do this to conserve power and extend the chips lifespan, but I imagine it does. Haven’t run into thermal throttling, but have discovered something else from Intel’s monitor; this does “current limit throttle”, which is new to me. Maybe a limitation from the battery and amperage of the power supply even plugged in? Never heard of it before; it does occasionally throttle for a second, but not for extended periods even while under the same load.-The speakers are awesome. The onboard audio is very good in general, and I don’t know if I’d be able to tell the difference between it and my desktop SoundBlaster ZXR unless they were side by side with identical headphones. I recommend setting the “Audio Wizard” controller to the [Music] option and tweaking the bass and treble up a bit. I haven’t fiddled around with decibel modulation in the frequency options, but it’s there for anyone to use. The speakers are good enough to be from a TV.-Again, I emphasize that the keyboard is rather far set into the chassis, and it really isn’t comfortable. I may invest in some wrist rests, small enough to fit on the laptop, I don’t bother with the track pad. The keys are alright, a bit flat, but it’s a laptop, so I’m not put off. If I want, I could always just plug in a USB keyboard and type in my lap. I use a USB mouse (Logitech G600) and haven’t had any glitches.-General I/O, system drivers, and other odds and ends are nicely hands off. No silly stuff like having to download Realtek ethernet drivers, a problem I had with an older ASUS motherboard. This unit has sufficient NVIDIA drivers, including GeForce Experience to get to the most recent drivers for the 1050; audio is good to go, wireless/bluetooth, etc etc. I’m very glad ASUS has this stuff covered.-I still like the screen. Blacks are nice and black, a fact that makes a big difference. Nice colors, no flickering or tearing, no problems. I certainly hope that it lasts until this unit is hilariously obsolete.-One important note: I still have not tested any games, or anything else that would use the 1050. I’m going to download a 13.5 GB game soon to both test the CPU and SSD a bit more, and eventually the 1050 graphics processor. Based on my experience with the 1060 desktop from EVGA, I don’t think I’ll be let down. At some point I also want to see if this unit can output 4K UHD (at 30 fps I assume?) like ASUS claims it can, and maybe even 1080p 144 Hz if I can turn off the built in display.-Probably one of the few annoying/bad things I can complain about is that the power button is placed right about the minus “-” key on the numpad, so it’s pretty easy to mistakenly hit it.All things said, I’ve given it a new, but still tentative, 5 stars. Thanks for building a good machine, ASUS!Original review* (1/11/2018:So upfront I will say I dislike laptops. They often have terrible quality control from manufactures, they either overheat or perform poorly, and the batteries run dry like the Sahara. This purchase is one of the most nerve-wracking, extremely considered, over analyzed processes I’ve ever had the (dis)pleasure of subjecting myself to. Looking at Dell battery recalls, HP costumer satisfaction holes, and yes, even lukewarm waters for ASUS and Acer laptops (usually due to QA conflicting with high prices)…I have been questing for a laptop that can satisfy the avarice of an enthusiast desktop user, me.My first two hour experience with this model has been….suspiciously equitable. To cover some of the basics:-Windows 10 Home, preinstalled, has not been horrible. I disabled everything I hate about W10 and deleted all that apps I didn’t want within about ten or fifteen minutes. The OS is fast like it was when I used it a year or two ago on a desktop test. A+, most things considered. I still wish it would let me have a 40-50 character password for login. Maybe the free upgrade to Pro will get me there. That said, ASUS doesn’t provide a physical copy. Lame, but whatever. Said more, there is almost no paperwork with this laptop; a warranty booklet and a short user guide. Straight to business I guess.-Herein lay my first issue, regarding the OS; there is no disk drive on this model. Not the be-all-end-all, I can probably copy Windows 8 to a flash drive and boot to it from BIOS if W10 starts driving me crazy……if I can figure out how to get to the ASUS BIOS….again, this is just 2 hours into using, so we’ll see where things go.-Restarts/boots are quite fast for a laptop. Very appreciated. Programs are fast too. No annoying lagging when opening a program like on older laptops, particularly duo core models. I’m liking my first experience with Intel.-My first “stress test” for any computer is as follows: as quickly as I can and as simultaneously as I can, install Chrome and Firefox, download and install new NVIDIA drivers and the requisite CPU overclocker/monitoring program (which, from Intel, I quite like first impressions), login to Chrome, sync, and watch a YouTube video in 1080p 60 FPS, open task manager and compare the CPU clock speeds to the monitoring utility program. All of this went very well. This Intel CPU is quadcore, has excellent low clock speeds, and hasn’t gotten over 41-42 Centigrade during all of this stressing. Speeds in the task manager match those in the utility. So far so good. It feels like desktop performance, which is thrilling.-The screen: very nice. This 17″ model is excellent; I like the color vibrance, the bright whites are intense, the blacks are very black (aside from a tiny bit of backlight leak in, so far as I’ve noticed, the bottom left corner; this is not worse than my ASUS monitor, which I love, so no issue for me personally, after all, this isn’t an OLED screen or anything), and the easy access to screen brightness is keyboard functional, very awesome. Windows 10 also has a color corrector option in the settings that reduces blue light and increases red light at night, I quite like it. On desktops I usually use the program f.lux for this, and for now they seem relatively similar in performance. ASUS also say this screen already has reduced blue light, so kudos. My eyes are saved!-In line with the keyboard brightness control, the general UI has been pleasant. The keys for now are unfamiliar, but I’m typing this review on the laptop and it has been just fine. Given how verbose I am, it’s a good test of extended use. One negative is that the keyboard is set what must be approaching 4 inches into the width of the chassis, so my forearms aren’t comfortable to rest on it. The key presses however are fine, have a satisfying travel distance, and the backlit keyboard is a first for me; can’t say as I’ll get more use out of it than the lowest brightness setting. The trackpad is…a trackpad. I prefer a mouse. There are no “buttons”, so I mush things a bit when trying to use it two handed/ two fingered, but if you’re used to trackpads it’ll be no problem I suppose.-Moving onto IO. It’s excellent, and one of the biggest factors into why I bought this model. Plenty of USB, SD, HDMI, and even a glorious ethernet jack, and a headphone/mic jack. The DC power jack isn’t as solid feeling as I would like, but that’s because I’m used to power cords that plug into PSU’s that weigh as much as this laptop.-Speaking of power, it seems quite well supplied on this unit; I haven’t run the battery down to 5% and then timed full charge, but ASUS boasts quick charging. Power players probably won’t see past 3 hours of use on battery alone, I haven’t even played any games to test how power hungry the GTX 1050 is, but moderate use (just by my initial experience) probably spans into 5-6 hours, and I imagine 10-12 hours could be achieved with skilled power management and task stringency. I pulled the plug after full charge, and the battery estimate says I have almost 4 hours left after an hour already spent unplugged. I’m very happy with this.For now, I suppose that’s all I’ll say. The unit is quiet, the fans are reasonable when the CPU is working, the HDD or something makes some soft clicking/chirping when working (though, thankfully, the OS and everything is installed on the SSD, which I’m liking the speeds on), but it’s not really any different than the occasional noise I get from my desktop or have heard from a usual laptop. The unit is almost entirely cool to the touch, save for the bottom at the front and the top center at the front. I imagine that’s where the CPU/GPU/heatsinks and pipes are.As I said to begin, I tend to dislike, even hate laptops. This ASUS however has been a wonderful experience thus far. Fast. Responsive. Quiet. Performing. Beautiful display. Oh, and yes, quite lovely onboard sound, at least through my Senheiser headphones. The speakers seem rather quiet, but I haven’t tested them at all, so I’m probably mistaken about hat.4 stars for first impressions. If it keeps up, I’ll probably give this thing 5. I will update probably within a month.

3rd time is a charm!
***Update (glutton for punishment) I took a chance and gave this laptop one more shot. The third one I received is perfect and runs like a dream! Easily the best gaming laptop out there. Playing Black Desert Online and Guild Wars 2 both on high graphics settings with no issues whatsoever even on large groups I’m still getting 60fps. My only gripe at this stage is how hard Asus made this laptop to upgrade. I’d love to put an M2 1tb and a SSD data drive into this baby. Possibly upgrade to 32gb of memory at some point when the prices aren’t crazy (thank you BC farmers :() But, I’m too scared to open it up to be honest.***Update 2nd laptop received has exact same issues!!!! ***Received laptop not 24hrs ago and did all the usual updates, settings changes and everything. Was a beautiful laptop and was blown away by the quality then out of nowhere it starts getting sluggish so as anyone would I shut down and restarted it. Once restarted all I received was a blank black screen that even after 2hrs never went anywhere. Searching around online I found that this is a very common occurrence with Asus products. My only saving Grace was being able to find a keycode online that Asus uses in order to reboot the system to reload Windows. Luckily the reset everything but save my information worked as I could then copy off my valuable data and remove my account before sending it back. Asus used to be an industry leader now I fail to see how they’d even stack up to an emachines had they still existed! I have requested a replacement so, if anything gets better I will update this as soon as I can.

This was my 1st ASUS laptop i got it because few people told me it is good. They were lucky I wasn’t. couple of months of use and come keys felt out of keyboard. Now processor and motherboard are fried and it is home computer, nothing excessive, that would be running day and night. Very disappointing. If you need computer that lasts get Apple, not ASUS. Its worth save money and pay twice as much but get laptop that lasts.

The DC Adapter is the “round” type plug (same look as your wireless router). Over time, moving the laptop around, the central pin inside the computer becomes loose, leading to battery connection issues. YES you can send it back to Markham and get it fixed under warranty (ONCE ONLY!) but it seems that this laptop does not have longevity. A new charging solution should be devised, perhaps a magnetic charge port.