Asus ROG FX503: A Combination of Corporate Workhouse And Gaming Laptop

You are on the right page if you are a gaming enthusiast who needs a laptop for daily work and casual gaming. This article will review the Asus ROG FX503, a great gaming laptop that can serve all purposes. We will give you a detailed analysis of, its, design, performance, specifications, and more. So Let’s start exploring Asus ROG FX503.

Design

The design of the ASUS FX503 is quite impressive. The color theme represents the sturdiness and aesthetics at the same time. The back panel enhances the outlook of the laptop with four indented lines that makes a shape “x”.

The straight brushed aluminum in black on the lid truly stands out among the AUS gaming laptops. So, when taking a first look at the laptop while unboxing it is really satisfying and believe me much better than the picture of the laptop you might have seen online.

The laptop is pretty nimble in size and excellent in terms of weight. It is portable and you can carry it around easily with a 2.5 kg weight. Although its weight is a bit higher than the ASUS’ Zephyrus notebook still it is good when compared to gaming laptop standards.

The thickness of the laptop is 2.4 centimeters with the lid closed so it can fit in your backpack effortlessly. The power standby and hard drive LEDs can be seen at the bottom with the lid closed structure.

The color theme is red and black, according to ROG branding, and the chassis and the build of the laptop are similar to the Strix GL503 gaming laptop but FX503 isn’t technically a TOG product.

Moving onto ports, there are plenty of ports on both sides of the laptop. On the left side, you will see charging, HDMI, and USB ports along with the unified audio port. You will find a USB port, the SD card reader, and the Kensington lock on the right side of the laptop.

However, there isn’t any Type C USB 3.2 Thunderbolt port which would have further elevated the standard of this gaming machine.

Opening up the laptop will please you with its red backlit keyboard which does provide a hint of inspiration from ASUS’s ROG series. Overall, the laptop offers a pretty and robust build that is more edged toward gaming laptops. However, the metal design would have been a cherry on the cake and would make it a more premium machine.

Display

The model of FX503 has a 15.8-inch display and a TN panel. There is a variant of this laptop with an IPS panel that has excellent color production and crispness. However, the TN panel is also not bad. Its image quality turns out to be better than expected as it has a sharp contrast and good color saturation. The fresh rate of the laptop screen is 60 Hz which is less as compared to ASUS FX503VD with 120 frames per second. 60 Hz is reasonable for casual gaming but that laptop is not powerful enough for 144fps.

The screen has good brightness and with the matte anti-glare finish, I can use it outdoors. The viewing angle of the display is also well put and provides comfortable gaming in various positions. But, the bezel of the display is thick and this makes it feel cheap and small.

Performance

FX503v has a 2.8Ghz Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU, 8 GB RAM, and 128GB SSD+ 1 TB HDD. These specifications are pretty good for a budget gaming laptop and they can endure most of the stress of daily usage and leisure gaming. With this much RAM, I was able to open more than a dozen tabs including, YouTube videos, a 4k stream, a few web hosting tabs, docs, and more. The laptop performed the multiple-tab function seamlessly.

The laptop takes mere seconds to boot up with its 128 SSD, which is not superfast but not a bad speed as you can load your files within seconds. The SSD has a read speed of 480 MBs which is good for a laptop of these specifications. Also, on the Geekbench 4 test, the machine scored 12376 for multi-core and 4182 for single-core.

As you know Asus FX503 is powered by Intel-core 17-7700HQ and NVIDIA GeForce GTX, the Cinebench score yields 741 which is what we expect from a machine with these specs.

Now let’s get to the gaming part. With a GeForce GTX 1050Ti graphics card, this laptop’s performance is well for modern games. This is NVIDIA’s budget graphics card, it’s small and has fewer power needs which we think is perfect for a laptop.

We tested the games at no and maximum frame rates and the results were not bad.

Although you might feel the frame drop at maximum settings the games run smoothly on standard settings. OpenCL scored 77938 in our GPU benchmark and it is a good score.

The graphics can run all the modern games such as GTA 5, Tomb Raider, and more, you just have to tone the graphics settings a bit.

Overall, the laptop handles demanding daily tasks and gaming well so with its immersive gameplay and fast operations you won’t ever be disappointed.

User Experience

Keyboard

The first thing that accounts for the user experience is the keyboard because it is the most used part of the laptop and provides tangible proof of how well the laptop can work. The keyboard of FX503 is a pleasure to use. If you are a content writer, you will enjoy working with this smooth keyboard which is close to Macbook for the feel of its keystrokes.

Moreover, the keyboard is backlit with red LEDs. In the darkness, you will be able to see the keys however I wanted it to be more evident. Also, illumination might feel inconsistent but it should not be a big issue.

The keyboard feel is a bit different for gamers. I would have appreciated a more tactile feel of keys but the travel time ( 1.8mm travel distance and 0.25mm keycap curves) between keys is good. The WASD key is highlighted to give a more gaming feel to the laptop and the arrow keys are also separate from the rest of the keyboard which helps avoid the mistype.

Touchpad

The trackpad is fine nothing special just a fine. It is smooth and doesn’t feel too fragile with a click but is only good for casual work and browsing. It supports multi-touch gestures and you don’t have to exert force while using it. However, a dedicated mouse is preferable because using too many touchpads while typing feels tiring and awkward.

Audio Quality

I really liked the audio quality of the laptop as ASUS has improved it over the years. The laptop is equipped with a pair of speakers. The audio sounds impressive and is well-balanced at all volumes. Also, I didn’t feel any crackle at high and low sounds even once.

If you are watching movies or listening to songs, the audio serves well, but they are still not replaceable with dedicated speakers or headphones. Moreover, FX503 is a generic sound driver and speaker so don’t expect any dedicated application for a sound similar to ROG laptops.

Battery Life

Battery life is another feature that speaks volumes about the user experience of a device. The battery life of this laptop is good as I can easily watch a lot of videos, brows, and work for 6 to 7 hours before recharging. I didn’t expect this much performance from the battery so I was surprised. However, for gaming, the battery life will surely drain faster.

The ventilation of the laptop can be seen at the bottom in the form of lines. This laptop has dual fans which is not the case in many laptops, therefore it handles heat well.

Ventilation

There are separate heat sinks for the CPU and GPU so the components get cool individually through the copper vents. If we look at the real-life scenario, the laptop gets hot while performing demanding tasks for a long time or during gaming. But casual day-to-day work doesn’t bother the heat such as typing. Additionally, the laptop gets very loud because of the dual fans and that’s very irritating sometimes.

Webcam

The Webcam of the laptop is not something that stands out and this is the case with almost every device that has a 720p webcam. It works fine in light still the video quality is not something that impresses me.

Final Analysis

A great budget laptop that nails the corporate work, entertainment, and communication well. You can perform every task on ASUS FX503 with ease. The design is sleek and robust making it a portable laptop so you can work on a go. The plenty of ports let you connect the desktop peripherals and the keyboards let you play with words smoothly.

The CPU and GPU performance of the laptop is also pretty good compared to many other devices in a similar price range. You can run all modern games on the laptop, brows multiple tabs, and perform actions in the blink of an eye without breaking a sweat.

The laptop’s quick access panel allows you to access the storage and RAM easily so you can upgrade with a single screw. The battery life lets you work for hours and there is a supply of reinstalled apps such as WPS Office, McAfee Live security, and WinZip for better assistance.

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