Review: Asus TUF Gaming A14

Finding a balance between design and performance in a budget gaming laptop can be tough, but Asus may have done it with its newest TUF Gaming A14. Going for a slightly less aggressive aesthetic than its predecessors, the TUF Gaming A14 feels more luxe than its price suggests while giving you a laptop that wouldn’t look out of place in the office. Not to mention delivering enough oomph for respectable frame rates in modern games.

Perhaps the biggest shock when initially unboxing the TUF Gaming A14, however, was its weight and size. This 14-inch design is new for the 2024 TUF lineup, and it’s surprisingly light for a gaming laptop at 3.22 pounds. Its 16:10 screen aspect ratio is a little taller and less wide than a typical 16:9 display (like a TV), helping it feel pretty compact.

For comparison, the TUF Gaming A14 has very similar dimensions to the decidedly nongaming laptop the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1, despite including a mobile GeForce RTX 4060 graphics chip, an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS processor, and all of the cooling components necessary to keep temperatures down while gaming. Other specs include a 1-TB solid state drive for storage and 16 GB of RAM, plus an additional M.2 slot if you want to add more storage later. That’s an impressive setup for a laptop that looks and feels rather unassuming at first glance.

The top and bottom of the chassis are covered by metal in a handsome dark gray, which complements the black color scheme found around the screen and on the keyboard deck. This isn’t your typical loud and RBG-infused gaming laptop, which I appreciate as someone who doesn’t necessarily want to stand out like that when I’m out of the house. However, the understated look may not be for everyone, especially if you like a bit of flash on your tech.

The overall presentation feels sturdy with very little flex. Around the back, Asus included full-width exhaust cutouts, which you’ll need if you want to do any heavy gaming. On the sides, there’s a bevy of ports, including two USB-C, two USB-A, one full-size HDMI output, a microSD card slot, and a headphone jack.

The performance you can get out of the TUF Gaming A14 is pretty good for a gaming laptop with a $1,400 starting price. It kept up around 90 frames per second while running Doom Eternal on Ultra settings (peaking around 110). More graphically intense games like Cyberpunk 2077 are much tougher to run at the highest graphics fidelity, but you can squeeze out around 30 to 35 frames per second at max settings if you lower the screen resolution (or dial the graphics down).

I’m a big World of Warcraft fan, so I couldn’t resist firing it up on the A14. In major city hubs with many players around, my frame rate dipped to around 35 to 50 frames per second at maximum settings. Out in the world, while flying around the new zones in The War Within expansion, frames increased to between 75 and 100 at the same settings.

You won’t be able to match the power of a full desktop PC with top-end components, but those are perfectly comfortable frame rates to expect out of a gaming laptop at this price. If you do a lot of indie gaming or play older titles, you’ll likely be able to max out the 165-Hz G-Sync display. For more graphically demanding games, you can still get exceptionally smooth gameplay if you’re willing to fiddle with your settings.

Speaking of that screen, it’s a beauty to look at. It’s not as vibrant as an OLED panel, but the matte IPS screen, with a 2,560 x 1,600-pixel resolution, is both sharp and vivid. I was surprised at how bright it gets, and G-Sync kept frames flowing without a screen tear in sight.

One major area Asus appears to have skimped on is sound quality. The speakers are located on the bottom of the laptop and sound muffled, whether you’re playing a game or listening to music. Consider snagging a good pair of headphones or a gaming headset to immerse yourself in a game.

Battery life was surprisingly good for everyday use, and I hit nearly 10 hours when using the laptop for just work and random browsing. When gaming, however, you should expect only a couple of hours of battery life. I’d keep long gaming sessions limited to when I’m near an outlet to avoid battery woes and get more horsepower out of the hardware.

The Asus TUF Gaming A14 is an excellent gaming laptop if you don’t want (or need) to spend thousands on a top-of-the-line machine. It strikes a nice balance between portability and power, while still providing enough battery life to get you through a day of school or work. I suggest getting the one with at least 16 GB of RAM, which bumps the processor to the newer AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor for a nice boost in CPU performance.