As much as I’d like to think it does, go-faster panels and colourful RGB don’t affect a computer’s performance. Sometimes, simpler is better. Built with portability in mind, this is where the durable ASUS TUF Gaming A14 laptop finds itself.

Clean and simple dark grey panels hide an overachieving system, with the only giveaway being the ever-so-slightly darker TUF text and logo on the top corner of the screen’s rear covering or the glossy dark silver of ASUS just under the screen. Even the three-quarter-sized keyboard, with its white lettering on black and soft white backlighting, gives nothing away. Weighing in at less than one and a half kilograms and measuring less than two centimetres thick while the screen is closed, it’s hard to imagine how they managed to cram solid gaming performance into the tiny chassis.

Two 16GB LPDDR5X 7500 sticks provide the memory. At the same time, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 drive offers a decent amount of storage, and a 14-inch 2.5K 165Hz anti-glare screen offers gorgeously clear images with incredible colour reproduction. This is driven by a NVIDIA GeForce RTX4060 8GB GDDR6 laptop GPU, running at up to 2225MHz, and the overall system is controlled by a 12-core AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX Processor, boosting at up to 5.1GHz and supported by AMD XDNA NPU. Additional storage can be added by adding a user-accessible panel that houses two additional M.2 PCIe slots, offering a small amount of user upgradability.

As we’ve come to expect, ASUS Armoury Crate appears, offering users the chance to monitor some system settings and make some small tweaks, including controlling any Aura-Sync compatible peripherals. This includes some control over the backlighting for the keyboard, and while you can’t change the white lighting to another colour, you can control what kind of patterns are visible. Additional AI software will help users get the most out of their system, including AI-enhanced noise-cancelling and AI-driven boosts to performance on the CPU and GPU, making it easy for gamers to dive into their favourite games faster.

Short of having a USB adapter to plug in an ethernet cable, internet connectivity is only provided by a Wi-Fi 6E(802.11ax) (Triple band) 2*2 wireless card, which also provides Bluetooth 5.3 should you choose to connect Bluetooth peripherals. Otherwise, ASUS has managed to cram four USB ports on the sides of the ASUS TUF Gaming A14 laptop. Two of these are Type-A, which supports up to 10Gbps, while the other two are Type-C, which supports DisplayPort. One maintains the 10Gbps transfer speeds, but the other offers up to 40Gbps and power delivery. For the creative types out there, a lone microSD card reader, supporting UHS-II, will let you quickly and easily drop your memory card into the system for quick and easy edits.

For the more business-focused individuals, the ASUS TUF Gaming A14 laptop is an incredible system for productivity. The 1080P IR webcam is completely compatible with Windows Hello, something my old laptop was missing, which makes it perfect for effortlessly logging into your system by simply looking at the camera, and the AI-supported noise-cancelling works hand in hand with the built-in microphone array, clearly delivering your message on a Teams call, while the dual speaker system can provide reasonable quality sounds in return. Should you prefer, however, there is also a 3.5mm combination audio jack on one of the sides.

Given its reasonable price tag and I still can’t believe they’ve crammed gaming-grade components into the petite frame, the ASUS TUF Gaming A14 laptop exceeded my expectations while playing games. My current go-to is Space Marine 2, simply because it is the closest I can get to living out my fantasy of blowing apart and slashing through aliens in a giant suit of armour. My normal gaming system can easily run this with the settings dialled up high, steadily

maintaining 50+ FPS – unless my internet connection decides it needs a small break. The ASUS TUF Gaming A14 laptop easily outshines this, consistently providing closer to 80FPS with the same settings, once again only being negatively affected by unstable internet services. I also briefly dipped my toes back into Star Citizen, where I noticed a not-insubstantial increase in frame rate, but I also noted it was significantly steadier.

While promoted as a gaming laptop, and it does this well, the ASUS TUF Gaming A14 laptop is equally capable for business purposes and content creators. It’s small, lightweight, and durable, making it perfect for carrying in and out of the office, and with gaming-capable components, it will handle being taken out for on-location photoshoots and edits. The ASUS TUF Gaming A14 laptop is a fantastic little piece of technology, regardless of what you want to use it for.

Written by: Mathew Lindner