Asus TUF FX705DT review: Impressive display, strong performance and tough build

The TUF FX705DT offers the impressive performance of the latest Nvidia GTX 16 series graphics cards. Coupled with a beautiful display and a powerful AMD processor, you can't get a better deal than this, especially at Rs 82,990. 

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Asus TUF FX705DT review: Impressive display, strong performance and tough build

Asus TUF FX705DT review 8/10

Pros

  • Brilliant display
  • Dependable performance
  • Great value

Cons

  • Tinny speakers
  • Bulky
  • Average battery life

In Short

  • The Asus FX705DT comes with a unique combination of an AMD Ryzen 7 processor and an Nvidia GTX 1650 GPU.
  • The 17.3-inch Full HD display offers vibrant colours and high contrasts.
  • There's also a full-size keyboard with RGB backilighting.

Asus is one of the few PC vendors that offer the most options in its laptop lineups. Just take a look at the ROG and TUF series gaming laptops and you will find yourself spoilt for choices. Whether you are ready to spend more or want an affordable gaming laptop for your college, you will find just the right laptop with adequate computing power to let you play latest games or edit full HD videos on Adobe Premiere.

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The TUF series has been particularly receiving lots of new variants using AMD power and the latest one -- the TUF FX705DT, is another example of that. However, it's one of the few laptops in India that uses a rare combination of an AMD Ryzen 7 3750H processor and an Nvidia GTX 1650 graphics card. At a price of Rs 82,990, this combination does seem like a bargain on paper. To see whether its as good as it seems on paper, I had one on my desk for a few days and I was surely happy for the entire time I used it.

Asus TUF FX705DT: The good bits

Build and design: Really tough

The TUF series is the affordable series of gaming laptops and Asus majorly focuses on offering a cost-effective build that's also durable enough to survive the daily abuse. If you have seen earlier versions of TUF laptops, then you will be familiar with this one. It's got the same plastic lid with a brushed metallic finish. This design won't grab eyeballs like the ROG models but it's a handsome design. For a change, I really liked the absence of sharp lines and busy stickers with loud RGB lighting on the lid. The plastic lid is also resistant to smudges and is easy to clean.

Inside, you will be greeted with a familiar Asus TUF design -- a combination of sharp lines and contours. These do add to the gaming laptop feel. Since this is a 17-inch laptop, Asus has managed to squeeze a full-size keyboard with a dedicated Numpad. The backlit keyboard supports RGB lighting and I have to say that it does make quite a light show in the dark. The display has slim bezels and gets a matte anti-glare coating.

Display: You can never dislike a big display

Whether it's an affordable laptop or an expensive gaming laptop, Asus has always maintained its stand on providing really good displays on its laptops. The Asus TUF FX705DT maintains that tradition with its vibrant and bright display measures 17.3-inches and renders pictures at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. With a wide-angle viewing and narrow bezels, the display really makes for an impressive viewing experience.

Whether you are playing games, editing photos or videos, working on long documents and watching movies, the display is always pleasant on the eyes.

Performance: Flagship AMD processor with powerful Nvidia graphics

The TUF FX705DT is the first laptop to make use of a unique combination of an AMD processor and an Nvidia graphics card. For geeks, this is a match that had to be made long ago. AMD's processors are crazy fast and much more affordable to an Intel equivalent. Paired with Nvidia's robust GTX series graphics, it's a great combination of dependable performance.

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The TUF FX705DT gets an AMD Ryzen 7 3550H processor paired with the latest Nvidia GTX 1650 graphics card. The GTX 16 series cards offer improved performance compared to the GTX 10 series cards but still fall below the RTX series cards. Asus offers up to 8GB RAM as standard along with 512GB SSD. As usual, it runs on Windows 10 Home.

I tried a couple of graphically-intensive games and the TUF FX705DT was able to play all of them pretty well. My favourite Codemasters F1 2018 was able to get me 60fps in Ultra High settings. However, I had to dial down the screen resolution to get the desired fps. Watch Dogs 2 was struggling with medium graphics until I dialled down the resolution a bit. I even tried the Road Redemption and PUBG -- these ran well at medium to high settings delivering close to 60fps. Therefore, for casual gaming, this combo of the AMD Ryzen 7 processor and the Nvidia GTX 1650 graphics card offers good performance.

Asus TUF FX705DT: The Bad Stuff

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--While it's great to play on a laptop with a massive 17.3-inch display, the downside to that is a huge and bulky form factor that isn't very practical to live with. I was pretty restricted in carrying it outdoors, especially with its 2.7Kg weight.

--The full-size keyboard is a benefit but it isn't comfortable to type long documents at a stretch. There's a lot of key ghosting (translating to accidental key presses). However, the RGB backlighting is a visual spectacle in darker ambience.

--The battery life is below average for a big 17-inch laptop. I was able to extract a maximum of close to 3.5 hours of usage while working on a few documents and keeping the web browser open in the background with a few tabs opened.

--Asus really needs to work on the speakers for all TUF series laptops. The two built-in 2W stereo speakers sound tinny and aren't loud enough if you are using it outdoors. The only solution to this is external speakers.

--For a big laptop, I was expecting a comprehensive collection of connectivity options. You get an RJ45 LAN port, two USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.1 port, an HDMI port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. A USB-C port and a card reader is a necessity for power users in 2019.

Asus TUF FX705DT Conclusion: Is it worth buying?

The Asus TUF FX705DT is an overall impressive gaming laptop, especially when you consider what you are paying for it. Like all Asus TUF series gaming laptops, the TUF FX705DT nails it where it matters -- performance. With the latest AMD Ryzen 7 processor and the Nvidia GTX 1650 graphics, this laptop can quite easily run all the latest gaming laptops as long as you are willing to compromise a tad on the visual quality. The large and vibrant display is a treat to watch movies or spend weekends playing FIFA with your buddies. There sure are some compromises one needs to be acquainted with but when considering the price of Rs 82,990, I feel you can't get a better deal than this right now.