ASUS shows a few new gaming laptops from their TUF line at CES 2020, showcasing the latest 4000 series mobile CPUs paired with Nvidia graphics, so let’s find out what’s on offer from these new machines!
We have the gaming laptops ASUS A15 and A17 in here.
First of all, both of these laptops are fitted with
the new mobile processors of AMD’s Ryzen 4000 H series.
They don’t specifically say which ones, but now it looks like the 8 core 16 thread 4800H or 6 core 12 4600H thread is available from AMD.
ASUS also noted that we will see F15 and F17 versions of this laptop later this year,
which will feature Intel’s new 10th gen CPUs instead.
The A15 is basically a 15 “model, while the A17 is a 17” model.
There are however more variations than this between them. Both laptops support FreeSync which is nice to see in a gaming laptop, though the A15 is available with a up to 144Hz screen. the A17 seems to cap out with a 120Hz panel.
It looks like the A15 also goes up to Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics based on the specs available, while the A17 goes up to GTX 1660 Ti. so based on the lower screen refresh rate and GPU options I get the feeling it will be the cheaper option, despite being larger.This higher power requirement gives the A15 a 230 watt power brick, whereas the A17 gets a 180 watt smaller brick.
Both the laptops A15 and A17 have massive 90 watt hour batteries, which I find to be extremely interesting.Only much higher end flagship gaming laptops typically have such size batteries.
And considering that other gaming laptops based on ASUS AMD have a great battery life with smaller batteries, I’m not shocked that ASUS says 12.3 hours of video playback or 8.7 hours of web browsing.
Once I test them, I’ll know more, but I was expecting power efficiencies. With new 7 nm AMD processors.
I couldn’t look inside but ASUS say there are two memory slots for dual channel activity that’s awesome, along with two M.2 storage slots. both of which support PCIe drives.
The build quality between the two will vary according to which finish you pick. Both the A15 and A17 are available in either a gray fortress with a metal sandblasted cover, which I think looks pretty nice in the middle with a slight TUF icon, or a black bonfire.
Which is plastic grooved finish with more of your typical gamer laptop look.
Nevertheless, the interiors of both laptops were plastic, and the keyboard and touchpad layout looked very similar, with WASD keys clearly marked.
Despite the differences in height, they both still have a numpad and they both also had air vents above the keyboard.
These both have WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5 as well, although the Intel-based models F15 and F17 will presumably use WiFi 6.
Underneath they both have a honeycomb pattern for the air intake vents but not all that many actual air flow holes really seemed to be there. but we’ll have to see.
If in reality this is a problem when I get them in for analysis. If I recall that the ASUS TUF FX505DU was close in this way, but due to the lower powered AMD CPU, it did not overheat.
And at least these latest 4000 series CPUs are a bit of a mystery for now, until I get a few to check.
Another important similarity was the I / O, on the left both the A15 and A17 have the power input, followed by the gigabit ethernet port.
HDMI 2.0b output, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port with DisplayPort 1.4 support, and 3.5mm audio combo jack.
We can also see the A17 has a red trim around the edge while the A15 looks cleaner in that way, but this is due to the variations in both finishes.
On the right hand side they both have a single USB 2.0 Type-A port and Kensington lock the back side.
So I think it’s good that most I / O s won’t interfere with most right-handed mouse users of the keyboard.
There are only air exhaust vents over on the back with both laptops to the left and right corners.
These laptops also have a camera above the display which is worth noting considering that ASUS removed this from many of their latest laptops for gaming.
There’s a bigger hump coming out of the bezel than normal too. That made the screen a lot easier to unlock. Compared to previous ASUS TUF gaming laptop models, the latest 15-inch model tends to be 7 percent smaller in terms of overall volume.
While the 17 version is 8 per cent smaller than the old version.
Sadly I am not too sure about the release dates, but I got the impression that it wouldn’t be far off.
These look like some nice changes to the lineup of TUF gaming laptops anyway.
Whats your thinking about these Gaming laptops ?
Do comments and share 🙂
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