Going Full AMD With This Laptop! ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition

AMD has been pushing its "Advantage Edition" branding for a year already and we are now seeing more full AMD gaming laptops in mainstream segments like this ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition that was sent out for us to look out. And compared to their ROG lineup, their TUF series are more catered to mainstream and budget gamers wherein the usual focus is to have the best price to performance.

Design & Specification

The TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition is powered by an AMD Ryzen™ 7 7735HS, an 8 core 16 thread CPU which is still based on the its older Zen 3+ architecture while it houses an all new Radeon RX 7600S which is based of AMD's newer RDNA3 GPUs. This CPU-GPU combination also comes with AMD's Smartshift technology offering extra boost in performance. The review unit also comes with 16 GB of DDR5 memory at 4800Mhz frequency with 512 GB of PCIE Gen 4 speeds from Micron. Initial SRP was at 87,995 PHP but right now, ASUS is doing a limited price discount and you can get this one for as low as 72,995 PHP. And just like with ROG laptops, you'll get some extra accessories so you can jump into your gaming session immediately. These include a TUF Gaming branded backpack, a TUF M3 Gen 2 mouse and finally some stickers to add some personality to your laptop.

Design wise, the TUF A16 has a refreshed appearance that also now comes in sandstorm color, I really like this new shade as it is a departure on the usual black color and this also reflects on the original military feel of a TUF branding. Keeping to its military theme, the A16 passes the MIL-STD 810H making it more durable as compared to its competitors. Weight is at 2.2kg which is a bit lighter as compared to other 16 inch gaming laptops and this is mainly due to its plastic body but the lid itself is made out of aluminum.

Display & Speakers

This has been the third laptop that I tested having an 16-inch panel and my appreciation to this form factor is starting to grow as the smaller display of my Zephyrus G14 feels cramped when doing some outside work. Color wise it is actually better as compared to previous TUF laptops covering 100% sRGB color space, 78% AdobeRGB and 79% P3. Brightness is a little bit of a miss at 285 nits; hence, using this on outdoors might not be the best. Gaming on this screen is great as the A16 comes with an FHD 16:10 panel that has a 165Hz refresh rate. I still prefer this resolution on this screen size as gaming on a native FHD resolution produces better image clarity in my opinion. And being an AMD Advantage laptop, the TUF A16 is equipped with Freesync Premium technology for a tear free and more fluid gaming experience. The two bottom firing speakers are Dolby certified and functional at best but definitely not a strong point on this laptop.

Keyboard & Trackpad

Keyboard layout is pretty similar to the Strix G16, you get a full sized chiclet style keyboard with extra media keys and a numpad that is illuminated by white LEDs. Typing experience is almost the same as well, having good tactile feedback and travel distance. The only differentiation that I noticed here is that the keys are a bit mushier but still within the acceptable range. The plastic track pad is a little bit small for a 16 inch and for some odd reasons I am having gestures problems from time to time, where in my vertical scrolling gets mixed up with the 3 finger gesture commands. Since occurrence is not that frequent, I can let it pass but hopefully this could be fixed with newer drivers.

Connectivity

USB 4 was first announced back in 2019 and we saw consumer products adapting to this standard around late 2020. And it is actually a first for me to see it implemented on a mainstream laptop. Besides the USB 4, we have another type-c that is Gen 2 with DP 1.4 and PD that supports up to 100w charging. we also got two USB Type-A that is USB 3.2 Gen 1 on each side, an RJ45 and an audio combo jack. As always, I do like to have at least one more USB slot or an SD card reader as there is still some space on the right port area. For wireless connectivity, we got WiFi 6 from Mediatek and a Bluetooth 5.3 card.

Benchmark

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In terms of performance, the Ryzen 7 7735HS is not the fastest out there but it is still powerful enough to handle most CPU and gaming workloads. For context this Zen 3+ CPU should be relatively similar to Intel's 12th Gen mobile CPU which is its actual competitor. Testing here were done in Performance mode and you can see that in real world test that we are only lagging a little bit behind the i9 12950HX in the single core benchmarks. The Radeon RX 7600S baked in this laptop is one of AMD's RDNA3 mobile GPU and this should be most likely going to be their entry mobile level GPU. And comparing it to the Strix G16 with an RTX 4060 mobile GPU in it, the difference is around 20-30% in terms of performance given that the RX 7600S only has a max TGP of 95W while the RTX 4060 is rated at 140w. It did struggle in Starfield on High Preset tinkering it down to medium with FSR should still be an eye candy while Freesync will smooth in it's frame rates. Other results are still respectable and you should be able to maximize its 165Hz refresh rate at native resolution in most titles with little tweaks on the visual department.

Temps, Noise & Battery Life

This laptop gets a little bit toasty under load, CPU load test peaked at 95C which is the default threshold for this laptop and oddly enough temps did not change even after 10 minutes of running. Gaming temps were better, averaging at 82°C for the CPU and 79°C for the GPU. Fan noise is just slightly a bit louder than the G16 when measured but for some reason, without the calibration tool, I feel that the TUF A16 has a less annoying fan noise than the Strix G16.

As for battery life, I am surprised that the A16 was able to last for 11 hours when doing a 1080p YouTube playback at 50% brightness and audio. result was actually amazing and should be perfect if you plan to use this laptop as your daily driver as it can last entire an entire 8am to 5pm work shift on a single charge. Kudos to AMD as well for pushing efficiency with their Zen 3+ architecture. Gaming on battery is a different story though, battery life tanked real hard once I started to utilize its discrete GPU, I barely got an hour of gaming with this one which I was not expecting since I got good results on the previous test. Further tweaks can be done to prolong gaming usage as this testing was only done on a stock performance mode on Armoury Crate.

Verdict

I had the ASUS TUF Gaming A16 for over a month now but its been only two weeks since I've heavily used this laptop. And to be honest it's refreshing color, lighter weight and long battery life for casual usage really made me like this laptop. Being an Advantage Edition laptop also gave me AMD exclusive perks including Freesync Premium and AMD Smartshift for a better gaming experience. While this is slightly more expensive than previous TUF Gaming laptops, I still think that this is still justifiable given that trends on laptop prices are going up during this tougher economic times. Minor concerns including the low display brightness and the issue I had with the track pad did not deter my decision in giving this laptop the PC Market Great Innovation Award!