ASUS - Gaming Laptop - 15.6" 120 Hz IPS-type - AMD Ryzen 7 3750H (up to 4.0 GHz) - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 - 8 GB RAM - 512 GB SSD - Gigabit Wi-Fi 5 - Windows 10 Home - TUF (FX505DT-EB73)

Pros: Anyone looking for a competent gaming laptop that does not break the bank has a limited set of choices. The Asus TUF line slots in below the ROG series in terms of performance, features and, most importantly, price. The question is whether cost-cutting compromises still produce a worthwhile laptop. I found the FX505DT impressive for the price. You’ll spend several hundred dollars more to get a significantly better machine. Asus does many things right with the FX505DT. The Nvidia GTX 1650 GPU is a great addition. Similarly priced laptops typically ship with GTX 1050Ti or outdated Radeon GPUs. Using a modern Turing graphics card significantly improves performance. The Ryzen 7 R7-3500H CPU performs comparably to new Core I5 processors; however, it costs less and uses less power. Wins all around in this market segment. I was pleasantly surprised by the FX505DT. Performance was good – not what you get from spending twice as much or more – but workable for both gaming and day-to-day use. The 120Hz screen gives beautifully smooth response for non-gaming applications and for games that do not tax the system overly much. Neither the CPU nor GPU are capable of 120 FPS in graphically intensive titles, so don’t get your hopes too high. The color range of the display is limited; our in-house measurements showed a color gamut slightly less than 60% of sRGB. The IPS panel, however, provides improved viewing angles and color constancy that the TN panels usually found on gaming laptops in this price range. Asus also uses a single 8 GB DDR4-2666 memory module, but the FX505DT has two slots. Upgrading to 16 GB is not costly. The SSD is a 512 GB Intel 660p NVMe drive. Asus comes through again, as competitively priced alternatives offer only 256 GB. My first impression of the keyboard was negative but improved with use. It has deeper key travel than most, a soft feel, and light feedback. It is not exceptionally responsive for gaming use, but actually proved to be quite good for typing. Basic RGB is provided, but not per-key color control. System cooling is improved from other lower-end Asus laptops. There are switchable modes for Silent, Performance, and Turbo fans. Silent lives up to its name, however both the CPU and GPU throttle when heavily loaded. Performance mode is nearly silent in normal operation, with the fans spooling up with intensive tasks No throttling occurred and total noise never reached obnoxious levels. Turbo mode only serves to add noise. No improvements to maximum performance nor lower normal operating temperatures. Just constant fan drone. Asus deserves praise for a few more minor features. The power supply has a detachable cord rather than a wall-wart. Only a few bloatware programs need to be removed and none require more than a simple Uninstall. At 4.5 lbs., the laptop is not thin and light, but it isn’t so heavy you dread carrying it when necessary. Under load, the vents can produce a toasty exhaust under the screen, but the airflow path prevents the keyboard, trackpad, and hand rests from becoming unpleasantly warm.

Cons: Not all is perfect with the Asus FX505DT. Starting with the processor, you will find games are limited by the Ryzen 7 CPU more often than on a similar Core I5. Likely this is due to less optimizations for AMD processors than Intel, and improvements should come. Still, you will find yourself using 30 to 60 FPS most often. Battery life is adequate at best. I saw 4+ hours when browsing the web, editing documents, etc. Run programs (e.g. the games the system targets) and you’ll drain the batteries in not much over 2 hours. Gaming on batteries can’t be recommended on this system not only because of the limited run time but performance also drops. Benchmark scores drop by 30-40% when disconnected from AC power. Port selection is outdated and not well thought through. All ports – power, ethernet, HDMI, headphone jack, and USB crowd together on the left edge. Other manufacturers distribute the ports on both edges and often spread them out, making for a more flexible configuration. There is no Thunderbolt port, which is not unexpected in this price range. More perplexing are the pair of USB 2.0 ports but no USB-C. Given that this laptop arrived in mid-2019, that is a nuisance. Because there isn’t USB-C, the charger uses a honking-big barrel connector. The touchpad/click pad is, thankfully, precision enabled. Mouse button areas have enough travel to give feedback when they are clicked. The rest of the touchpad is weirdly clunky, and the bumpy surface makes precise mouse movement difficult. I occasionally ran into a problem that owners of the Asus VivoBook series are all to acquainted with. The GPU can overheat, causing a blue screen. Unlike on the VivoBook, crashes only occur rarely and are not predictable. The FX505DT handles prolonged, heavy loads with no drama. It is only when there is a short spike of graphics card usage (HTML5 graphics on web pages were the culprit each time) that you can be rewarded with a BSOD. The case is strange. I’m not sure if Asus thought heavily patterned plastic would look like brushed aluminum, but it doesn’t. More along the lines of scratched ABS drainpipe. Although the plastic is a fingerprint magnet, it is functional

Overall Review: If you are looking for a gaming laptop with a budget comfortably under $1000, the Asus FX505DT is a strong choice. Performance and packaging are no match for higher end laptops, but the price more than reflects this. Considering all you get, the FX505DT is a bargain. Buyers of this laptop will benefit from picking up a compatible 8GB DDR4-266 memory module. This is an effective and inexpensive way to improve performance across the board. You can get a range of compatible modules here on Newegg, including the one Asus uses: a Samsung M471A1K43DB1-CTD. I can verify that a Crucial CT8G4SFS8266 module is fully compatible as well.

Pros: Here we just have a beautiful very tight and well-built laptop. It feels very solid and doesn’t flex. In running Userbench, everything is “Performing above expectations” (CPU 79th - GPU 98th - SSD 96th - RAM 96th percentile) Overall “PC Performing way above expectations (92nd percentile)” That tells me Asus runs a VERY tight ship, they use good hardware and implement it well. What I REALLY like: 120hz screen? On a laptop? Yes, please. The screen is gorgeous and sharp. 141 PPI is very sharp when 80-100 is ideal. The bezel is small and thin. With 120hz, it’s just so liquidly smooth and clear. 500GB m.2 NVMe SSD? Sweet yes. It’s an intel 660. -There is 1 stick of 8GB ram in here, with another slot to add another 8GB. The bottom is easy to remove with a standard screwdriver. I love that. I’m sure that makes swapping out an m.2 SSD or adding another 2.5” drive easy as well. 11 screws are all it took. -Keyboard: I appreciate backlit keyboards when I am working with the lights off. The cycle RBG in a beautiful way. -You can manually with a simple function key set the fan speed, Silent - Balanced & Turbo. -In doing updates the BIOS self-updated. I think that’s pretty cool. -After all updates, it’s been 15 second boot time. Shipped with 1809 W10 as of Oct 2019.

Cons: Standard Windows 10 Bloatware (not Asus’s fault) is easily removed (look for “Line by Line description of what Win10-Initial-Setup-Script does”) besides that there is MyAsus, MS Office & McAfee. Yes, that’s it. I am impressed by that. A quick running of the script and uninstall of McAfee and you’re good to go. It can get loud if you set the fan to performance mode or are gaming. I assume that’s not going to be a problem for headphone users. It’s silent when idle.

Overall Review: This is a gorgeous, snappy, mid-range gaming laptop. It feels like quality when you hold it. If you are playing some older games, this is perfect. Newer games on 1080P, this GPU isn’t going to cut it. Made by the #1 name in the business, I don’t hesitate to recommend this laptop.

Pros: The pc runs games great and has little to no delay at all. It is really well built with a great 120hz monitor and the RGB keyboard is well made with many different options to customize it.

Cons: It can get really hot quick and the fans can get quite loud.

Overall Review: I would recommend it to a friend

Overall Review: I've had lots of problems with this computer since I've gotten it. *This computer is constantly losing internet access with my wireless network. None of my other devices have any issues. It started doing it after reviving the computer from sleep. Now it is constantly turning off and on while doing anything online. *Audio headphones won't work most of the time. 3.5 and usb won't be recognized. I have to shut down and restart often to try and get them to work. If I open the lid and wake the computer while headphones are still plugged in, they will not work. I have to make sure they are unplugged before opening the lid. * I have a lot of screen bleed around the edges that really wash out black backgrounds. * Recently the display is showing weird bluish green smudge like marks that intermittently appear. They always appear in the same place but are not always visible. *From day 1 the graphic performance seemed off. A lot of games would slow down to a crawl as I watch my frame rate drop to 5 or less for a few seconds and then pick back up to 40+ fps. Games that should be running very nicely at high frame rates perform less than they should with the hardware on this laptop. I'm having problems with games that I played on my 7+ year old MSI. Granted settings are higher with this laptop but the hitches and slowdowns shouldn't be happening. * Lastly, my wife and I were very disappointed with the keyboard layout (this is mostly my fault for not paying attention when I bought it).

Pros: Absolutely nothing

Cons: I've had so many issues with this laptop. Boot-looping as soon as I got it, I should've returned it but instead I reinstalled windows and got it working, after having the laptop for 3 months now, I go turn the laptop on and it wont turn on, the keyboard RGB is on, but no fans or display work, even plugging it into a tv does not give a display. I go to newegg as I'm finally sick of this piece of garbage and of course they tell me to contact the manufacturer. This is ridiculous and i recommend everyone stay away from this laptop.

Overall Review: I would not buy this product.

Pros: It does everything I expected. Best 900 I've ever spent.

Overall Review: Good

Pros: It manages to run pretty much every game that I throw at it pretty well - it runs Apex legends on very high settings(except for the textures which are capped at 4 GB because of the VRAM amount, but that's fine) at ~70 FPS stable. The laptop manages to keep itself relatively cool while gaming as well, which is nice because it means the fans don't have to ramp up that much - it's really quiet for a gaming laptop. The screen is an IPS, and not only that - its also 120hz and supports FreeSync(if you install AMD's GPU drivers) - so that's pretty awesome.

Cons: ASUS thought that it was a good idea to bundle the laptop with Mcafee of all things which is disappointing as I consider it to be spyware. Only 8 GB of RAM for a gaming laptop is not really enough, especially when the internal vega GPU takes 2 GB out of it with no way to change the amount allocated to it - I'd recommend adding at least another 8 GB stick to it - the RAM is DDR4 SODIMM 2666Mhz by the way. The BIOS is pretty basic and there's barely anything you can play with there. There's no type c port or a thunderbolt port, but I haven't found any laptop within the same price range that has simillar specs and includes one.

Overall Review: I bought this 1 1/2 years ago, dealing with blue screens of death complaining about my graphics card. Today, I turn it on and now it displays nothing at all. The power and keyboard lights up, but the screen remains blank. No amount of hard resets and hardware troubleshooting has made a difference in getting this back online. I think this model was packaged with a bad video card.