First off, presentation is key. The plastic feels amazing to the touch and definitely seem like they'll hold up during the lifespan of this beefy laptop. I was looking for something to not only outperform my old HP, but hopefully outlive it as well. Now I'm certain user error was to blame in shortening the lifespan of my previous laptop (such as leaving it in a hot car this drying out the thermal paste) but it's build wasn't all too phenomenal to begin with. It wasn't exactly built with upgradability or durability in mind and had a pretty lackluster cooling solution for a machine with an AMD chip (nothing wrong with team red or team blue, they just happen to have different draw backs and thermal efficiency has been an issue with AMD from what I've heard).
The Asus TUF F17 is built to a military spec and has a bottom panel designed to give easy access to upgrade slots (a second M.2 and dual channel RAM) and also reveals the dual fan, heat piped the heck out thermal solution that will ultimately serve as the back bone of this glorious machine when it comes to preventing its premature death. (That and hopefully a lack of user error like leaving it in a hot car or using it on my bed...)
As for actually usage, I haven't gotten around to it just yet but I can certainly note the quality of the keyboard. The clicks feel solid and don't feel gooey like the sensation some cheap switches provide. The travel distance is quite nice as well. Many laptops have too short a travel distance for my taste but I feel this simulates a desktop keyboard quite nicely. The mouse pad isn't oversized, as I'm sure you saw in the photos, but I would argue that the size is perfect for average usage and it definitely isn't undersized. The plastic on the surface of the touchpad feels very quality as well. There's no give underneath and it has a soft feel that I'll never get tired of.
On a final note, I can say the screen is of high quality as well with little signs of backlight seepage from the edges. No dead pixels, excellent color for the frequent movie watcher, and a nice smoothness generated by the 144Hz refresh rate. Also, the screen half isn't very flimsy either. Quite the opposite. You could surely open and close this thing a thousand times in one sitting without a single issue. However, I think the standard 1920 by 1080 resolution is a bit sub par - just a hot take. I'm also spoiled by the desktop setup which features a 120Hz with a 4k resolution so do keep my bias in mind. Actually, after using the laptop for a bit I'm quite used to it and the screen actually looks fairly sharp. So go Asus! (Maybe I shouldn't put my face so close to the screen all the time...)
I may post updates about actual hardware performance at a later date. Just note for now that if it's build quality your after this is the laptop for you. I purchased this one at a bargain price of around $650 for the holidays so my review does have some bias from that. (MSRP was about $850 at time of purchase but is now listed at around $899)
I have had time to test the camera and yeah.... I will never understand why laptop cameras are so horrible. But the microphone is nice! Even dual channel! That's another selling point as far as I'm concerned!
| Standing screen display size | 17.3 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 pixels |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 Pixels |
| Processor | 4.5 core_i5 |
| RAM | 8 GB DDR4 |
| Memory Speed | 4.5 GHz |
| Hard Drive | 512 GB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | RTX 3050 |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 4 GB |
| Wireless Type | Bluetooth |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 3 |
