The Asus TUF Dash F15 Hits That Sweet Spot
I’ve been in the market for a new gaming laptop for the better part of the past two years. With new next-gen consoles eating up my gaming time lately, it just hasn’t been that much of a priority. And, well, I am cheap. Gaming laptops typically cost a small fortune. So if I am going to drop two grand on a new laptop, I want to make sure I got one that’ll last and, of course, play all those hard drive sucking AAA games.
The Asus TUF Dash F15 seems to hit that sweet spot of affordability and performance. Granted, it’s not without some issues, yet at the end of the day, it’s quite easily the best laptop I have ever played video games on.
Here are 5 things I absolutely love about the Asus TUF Dash F15:
Light and Slick Looking
The TUF Dash F15 is surprisingly light. Much lighter than I expected. It weighs in at just 4.5lb, which on the surface may seem a little heavy, but for a gaming laptop, that is nothing. It’s only 0.8 inches thick too, making it an ideal laptop for carrying around and travel. It has a superb design as well. The laptop is grey with an aluminum lid and has a sturdy design. Not to mention it seems extremely durable. While the bottom of the laptop is plastic, which is a bit of a bummer, it keeps the weight down and doesn’t really take away from its glorious look.
Excellent Price Point
The Asus TUF Dash has been available for several months now, so prices do seem a little all over the map. I’ve seen it listed as high as $1900 CND and as low as $1300 CND. Even at that high-end pricing, the Dash F15 is excellent value and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. For the price, you get an Intel Core i7-11370H processor, DDR4 3200Mhz RAM, a 1TB SSD, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, and LCD 15.6 FHD 240Hz display. Needless to say, the specs are super solid and will easily run even your most demanding AAA games. Performance, coupled with its slick design and long battery life, make the Dash an excellent bang for the buck.
Top-Notch Performance
The Asus TUF Dash isn’t advertised as a high-end desktop replacement. It is meant to be a portable gaming machine that allows you to game pretty much anywhere you need it to. This isn’t the fastest laptop in the market, but it doesn’t need to be. Games like Call of Duty: Cold War and Fortnite run without a hitch. Even more graphically demanding games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Forza Horizon 4 run fantastically. I didn’t encounter any frame rate issues and the games ran silky smooth. The RTX 3070 allows for some ray tracing as well, which is fantastic. The laptop also delivers when it comes to day-to-day working. I can have word running, email open, along with several internet tabs open and everything worked as expected. The lack of a webcam is disappointing, so you’ll have to hook up an external camera for those Zoom calls, but otherwise, this is an effective work from home laptop.
Superb Battery Life
Gaming laptops are pushed to the brink, so it’s no surprise the battery life is usually terrible. Even by today’s standards, a gaming laptop that gets you around 8 hours is considered decent. The Asus TUF Dash F15 not only hit 8 hours, it runs around 10 hours. That is impressive when you consider the display and the CPU under the hood. It’s nice to know you can get through an entire workday without having to plug it in.
Keyboard Lights Up and Feels Great
Some may be a little bummed out the keyboard doesn’t offer RGB lighting; however, this doesn’t take away from the sharp-looking teal backlighting and for how great the keyboard feels. Typing feels effortless and it is surprisingly comfortable. My wrists rested perfectly, which is a testament to how thin the laptop is. The WASD keys have their own color and stick out nicely in the dark. The trackpad is a decent size as well making the TUF a great feeling laptop.
This ASUS TUF DASH F15 has the following specifications:
- LCD 15.6 FHD 240Hz
- CPU Intel i7-11370H (4 cores)
- NVIDIA GFORCE RTX 3070
- HDD 1Tb PCI-E G3 SSD
- RAM DDR4 3200Mhz RAM
- WLAN: WIFI 6
- Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, USBs and LAN sockets