Asus TUF FX505DT Review

Our Review

9.5/10 Our Rating

Want a laptop that delivers an immersive gaming experience at an incredible price? Look no further than the ASUS TUF FX505DT.

It is equipped with the AMD Ryzen 5 3550 processor and the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1650 GPU, while also sporting an FHD display, an impressive combo. This laptop will give you 1080p laptop gaming for under $1500 at a canter, with a little help from the performance settings. 

This laptop is equally productive for other tasks aside from gaming; multimedia editing, AutoCAD, web design, the list is endless.

The battery is the spoiler in the mix, and minor concessions will have to be made to fully enjoy this laptop. But this is not entirely unexpected, it is after all a gaming laptop.

Check Todays Price

ASUS TUF FX505DT – Complete Review

Appearance

Plastic is the material primarily employed in the design of the chassis for this laptop. This plain plastic may appear bland and uninspiring on the surface, but its appearance is deceptive, and this laptop proves the saying right. The corners feature an acute cut that gives it an edge, the lid is stiff and the base is sturdy. This device may not pack in the metal gear, but it is still very solid, much like a proper gaming laptop (Acer Nitro 6 comes to mind).

There is a slight niggle, on adjusting the viewing angles of the display, you might notice the grating and slight wobbling of the hinges. 

Accessories

The positioning of ports in this laptop will divide opinions, up to the point that the limited number of ports becomes even less of an issue. All of the ports are attached to the left side of the laptop. On one side of the argument, this arrangement helps create vast navigable space for the mouse on the right side, on the other side, it sets up a crowded mess of wires on the left side. Two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, a headphone jack, and the power supply make the lineup of ports for this laptop.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard and clickpad wear the same look as the preceding models (FX505DY, FX705DT, and FX705DY). The keys give satisfactory feedback, have a fairly deep travel distance, and possess RGB backlighting which is the best part ye(gamers, take note). 

The clickpad features the good and the not too bad of integrated mouse keys, It is precision enabled, gives short travel distance, and more pronounced feedback. Its surface is smooth, but not smooth enough to give you control over cursor movements. In essence.

Display

Primarily described as a gaming laptop, The ASUS TUF FX505DT sports a display that is befitting of its status. Its Full HD resolution is brilliant, as is a refresh rate of 120Hz for a 1080p screen, the viewing angles are wider too. Bezels make an unwanted appearance on the display, but this time they are much smaller, except for the ones at the bottom. 

The display is bright for use outdoors, just not bright enough to be used comfortably in sunlit areas. A major disadvantage of having such a rich display lies with the color reproduction and the accuracy of colors. Other than that, this device gives you a mix of vibrant colors, crisp text, and images, that make for a satisfactory display.

Audio

The speakers are not a strong point for the device, the bass reproduction is passable and the audio has a vague metallic edge, with frequency deviations across all levels. On the flip side, its parent X™ technology is packed with impressive features. A built-in equalizer and a high-fidelity 7.1-channel virtual surround sound that brings the theater to your bedroom.

Graphics

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is a mouthful, but it is just what this laptop needs to churn out excellent graphics. It is powerful enough to play most of the latest game titles, albeit at lower brightness levels or performance settings. It copes just fine with moderate graphic workload and does so at minimal power costs. This implies that you can engage it in 3D rendering activities like AutoCad without crippling the laptop. The frame rates are within acceptable limits too.

Gaming with the Asus TUF FX505DT

 A combination of factors makes this device rank as a top-shelf laptop for avid gamers and creatives alike. Its colorful display is a good place to start from, as well as a decent graphics card to go with a CPU that can go the distance.

Not to mention the speed at which video frames are scanned and displayed in this laptop; vivid imagery and reduced screen flicker are a good thing. In comparison to the Asus TUF FX705GE, the frame rates for this laptop returns better numbers. This laptop delivers even better 1080p gaming if you can take a hit to your graphical settings, or most importantly, restrain yourself from activating turbo mode on the “Armoury Crate” gaming platform.

Cooling

This laptop mostly keeps it cool under load, there is little chance of it becoming too uncomfortable to use, even in the thick of gaming action. When set to balanced mode, the fans can become quickly agitated, but they only ever do so without causing a racket.

Tunnels are installed to provide means of expelling harmful dust particles and dirt from the chassis, this serves as a firewall of sorts, helping prevent unwanted buildup around the cooling area. As expected, the laptop is warmer around the keyboard area but much cooler around the palm rest, NumPad, and WASD keys when “Armoury Crate” is in full swing. This kind of help strikes a balance.

Battery

For a dedicated gaming laptop, the 48 Wh internal battery of this laptop is not a good fit. You get a measly 4.5 hours of real-world WLAN browsing for setting it to a balanced profile, and even worse figures when “Armoury crate” is launched and set to turbo mode. It takes between 2 to 1.5 hours for the battery to reach full charge from Zero.

Performance 

Armed with four cores and eight threads, the Ryzen 5 3550H performs satisfactorily,

Its performance lives up to its billing as a gaming laptop, but not with aplomb. The laptop possesses all the ingredients for a decent performance;120Hz refresh rate, steady clock rates, 8 GB of RAM, and efficient processors.

As always, the odd compromise is necessary, graphics power and brightness will have to be tuned down for frame rates to reach around 60FPS. But this is still enough to run the latest games like the Witcher and Alien Invasion. This laptop is powered by Intels’ Core CPU, and the NVidia GeForce GTX is reliable as well, 

Final verdict

The ASUS TUF FX505DT is no workhorse but be rest assured that you get a thoroughly enjoyable gaming experience with it. Beyond its plain plastic outward looks, It is tough as nails and easy to the eyes once you flip the lid open. The display is colorful, and the processors are given appropriate power, not so much for the battery, however.

The chin bezels will need trimming, and the click pad gets the stick for its sticky feel. But beyond all of that, The makers of this laptop have struck the right chord for gamers who pay close attention to their pockets, and even closer attention to their screens.

Device specifications