ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition Review: A 1080p Beast

ASUS continues to bolster its TUF Gaming brand of laptops but this time we have one powered entirely by team red. AMD’s Advantage system aims to pair all of their components together to provide a unique and complete gaming experience. That’s exactly what we have under the hood of this new 2023 model from TUF Gaming. Will it truly bring you an “advantage” or is it all just fluff? Find out in our ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition Review!

A Militaristic Look and a Tough Feel

The TUF Gaming branding always took it upon itself to have militaristic features, from its materials and even at times its design. As such the Sandstorm color scheme of our A16 Advantage Edition review unit dons a look straight out of a military desert mission. It’s not too eye catchy but also not too bland to be mistaken for just a common laptop. Either way, ASUS nailed the design with this one, truly embodying the “TUF” moniker.

However, it doesn’t just look tough, it feels tough too. As it should with its MIL-STD-810H certification. The ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition can weather multiple storms and wear and tear. Not just because of the certification but it feels solidly built too. Despite all that toughness though, the laptop is surprisingly thin and light making it relatively easy to carry around.

The Red Team Combo

The Ryzen 7 7735HS

As mentioned earlier, the ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Advantage edition sports an all AMD component combo. Specifically, the Ryzen 7 7735HS and Radeon 7600S. It’s been a while since AMD fought Nvidia in the mobile GPU wars, so this is a breath of fresh air. The duo isn’t too shabby on the performance front as they can hold their own against heavy workloads and intense gaming sessions.

In our Cinebench R23 tests the R7 7735HS scored around 753 point (multi-core) and 90 points (single-core), a noteworthy score. This translates to its real world performance as it handles heavy tasks, multiple programs, and long gaming sessions quite well.

The Radeon 7600S

Now how about the Radeon 7600S, can it compare to its RTX counterparts that’s been dominating the market since their release? Well, it can hold its own against them. At least when you’re gaming at just 1080p, which is the most the laptop can handle but more on that later. The Radeon 7600S did pretty well in our 3DMark Benchmarks you can see above.

The AMD card is just a few thousand points shy from its closest competitor the RTX 4060 (notebook) in score. Although the team green card still gets a good edge over the 7600S. However, that doesn’t mean the AMD fighter is a slouch in gaming as you can see with our benchmarks below

gaming Performance

The Ryzen 7 7735HS and Radeon 7600S pair-up to deliver above average gaming in 1080p as most games we run hit 60 or higher fps. These are all at the highest settings the games can muster. Heavy titles such as Total War Pharaoh, Forza Horizon 5, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, and Baldur’s Gate 3 all hit above 60 frames during our gaming sessions. As such lighter ones such as League of Legends, Valorant, Farlight 84 and Dota 2 will definitely have even higher rates.

However, even with this feat the pair is still unable to fully maximize the 165Hz refresh rate of the laptop’s display. That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to make games hit 165fps though. With some tweaks to the graphical settings it is possible to reach the laptop’s maximum supported frames. Of course, you’ll lose some of the eye candy. So you’ll have to decide if it’s performance or quality you want. Either way, you’ll still be playing way above 60 frames in most games.

The A in Advantage

Now the ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition isn’t called the Advantage Edition for no reason as it does feature all of the new gadgets and gizmos AMD has to offer. Basically the “Advantage” moniker is a certification to guarantee a good combination of components and software to improve overall gaming performance.

These include features such as the AMD Smart Technologies, a great display, and quiet and cool temperatures. Of which the ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition does have, to some degree. Let’s first look at that display.

Just the right Display

What we have here is a 16-inch, FHD+ 16:10 (1920 x 1200, WUXGA) display with 165Hz refresh rate, 7ms response time, FreeSync, MUX Switch+, and AMD Smart Access Graphics. These specification checks all the boxes for a good premium display save for its rather slow response time. So, if you’re the type of gamer who plays fast-paced games such as FPS and MOBAs you will feel a bit of delay in your display. That is if you’re coming from a device with higher response times. If not, then you won’t feel that much of a change.

As for quality, the display has 100% sRGB and 75.35% Adobe color coverage resulting in good image quality. Which you’ll notice more of in cinematic games and when watching videos. The laptop can also handle image and video color correction well. Viewing angles are great too with no visible distortion on any of the monitor’s sides. Overall, the display of the TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition delivers on its promise despite only capping at 1080p.

Cooling and acoustics that missed the mark

How about cooling then? Well this is where things go a bit sideways. During our stress tests the Ryzen 7 7735HS hit a maximum temp of a whopping 95.3°C, while the Radeon 7600S reached a max of 83°C. Of course, stress tests are meant to push the limits of your device so you should rarely hit these numbers. Still, these are pretty hot temperatures especially for the CPU.

During heavy workloads or intense gaming sessions the temps the R7 7735HS hovers around 85 to 88°C. On the other hand, the Radeon 7600S can go as low as 65°C to as high as around 75°C. Luckily external temps are contained as the bottom chassis and the area above the keyboard deck only warms up to a tolerable degree. We still don’t advice to use the device on your lap when doing any heavy work.

Of course, those kind of temps will translate to the acoustics of your cooling system. As it stands, the fans of the ASUS TUF Gaming A16 isn’t what you can call quiet. It roars quite loudly when under heavy load and even the speakers won’t be enough to completely drown it out.

Aside from the cooling and acoustics though, the Advantage certification were all on point.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition features a full layout chiclet keyboard. Though it had to cut a corner to achieve this as the arrow keys are a little too small to our liking. As for typing feel, it has a weaker feedback and tactility than my daily driver the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro but is still good overall. You’ll actually only really notice if you nitpick.

For the trackpad, we have a big glossy clickpad. It has enough size to support a wide range of gestures and is smooth enough to provide a seamless feel and experience. Although, it’s size may sometimes get in the way as I experienced hitting the trackpad with my palm when typing.

Upgradability

The review unit we have of the TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition includes 16 GB of RAM (8×2) and 512GB of SSD storage, this is it’s top variant configuration. Even so, you still have quite the room for upgrades. The laptop supports up to 32GB of RAM, so you can still stick in two 16GB in there. Even more so for storage as you only have a measly 512GB as its base, we actually had only enough space to benchmark 3 big games at a time.

We recommend you upgrade this one if you can. You have the option of swapping that 512GB out with a bigger one or adding another drive as you have two M.2 Slots. Sadly, you’re limited to just M.2 SSDs and no option for a cheaper HDD alternative.

Verdict

The ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition hit most of the marks with the AMD Advantage certification save for its thermals. There is little you can truly do to improve on that but if you’re in an air conditioned room or give it a dedicated desk/stand fan, then you might relieve some of the heat. Apart from that you will immediately feel the lack of storage as 512GB is never enough for games. However, at least you get an SSD right out of the box.

Although, you may want to swap that out or add more as soon as you can. If you are on a hard budget and have a remedy for the cooling then this laptop is not a bad choice. For Php 87,995 (top variant) you’ll get great performance, a good display, and a thin and light body. Overall, the ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition is a beast in 1080p gaming.

Specifications