It’s another day and we have another ASUS laptop to test again – and this one is an interesting laptop. This laptop is within ASUS’s new lineup of budget gaming laptop within the ASUS Gaming family. At just RM3,999, you can get this ASUS V16 V3607 laptop for yourself – and it is actually a very capable gaming laptop.
Specs and performance
Now, let’s talk about the specs and performance first as that is the main highlight. For this model in particular, it is powered by:
- Intel Core 5 210H
- 16GB RAM at 5200MT/s in a single-channel mode
- 512GB of SSD
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU
When we did jump into a game though, it’s actually performing really well. Games like Cyberpunk 2077 ran really well with all of the settings as shown on the screen, and the experience was very smooth yet the game looks absolutely stunning. Granted, we were playing the game with the maximum fan speed mode so it does sound like a tornado.
We also tried GTA V Enhanced Edition since it has better graphics and ray-tracing, and it also performed really well with most things at max settings – but we cannot go all the way to the max as we hit the VRAM limit of 6GB already.
I have to say though, for this screen’s resolution of 1920×1200, this RTX 4050 Laptop GPU is surprisingly capable.
Upgradability
I also want to touch on upgradability as I think this laptop is a great gateway to PC gaming. I highly recommend doing this one upgrade when you get the laptop – add another 16GB RAM. The back panel is quite difficult to pry off, especially at the back there – but once opened, the two RAM slots are directly in front of us.
One of those slots are taken up already – but the other slot is empty. Please get another 16GB DDR5 5200MT/s SO-DIMM RAM and put it in the second slot. You’ll get dual-channel memory and that will result in a much better experience. Some games we’ve tested are also limited by the amount of RAM – so that is why I highly recommend this upgrade.
The SSD can also be easily swapped out for another since it’s easily accessible. Other than that, the fans can easily be serviced too – and it will be very dusty in here since the fans spin up a tornado constantly.
The temperatures aren’t the lowest either, but looking at the cooling system in this laptop, yeah I can understand why. By the way, the RTX 4050 Laptop GPU runs at a maximum of 65W TGP.
Screen
And now, let’s talk about the screen. This ASUS V16 uses a 16-inch IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 1920×1200 pixels and goes up to 144Hz refresh rate. The maximum brightness is around 300 nits and that is decent enough for indoors usage, but from my eyes alone, I can see that the colors aren’t exactly the best on this laptop. We can immediately see that the colors are dull – and we can confirm that by looking at the color accuracy report.
Yeah… the sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamut coverages are very low, hence the colors not looking that good.
Ports
That aside, we can connect this laptop to an external monitor. The ports selection here is quite okay though the speed is only 5Gb/s maximum for both USB-A and USB-C. I do wish there’s another USB-C port though. This laptop also uses a 150W power brick and connects via this proprietary port.
It does, however, come with a HDMI 2.1 FRL port. Yes, this is the real HDMI 2.1 port and we can technically get 4K 120Hz or 8K 60Hz out of this HDMI port – but as for whether or not the laptop can handle it, that’s a question for another day.
Keyboard and trackpad
The keyboard is surprisingly good as it is bouncy and has great travel distance. I thoroughly enjoyed typing and playing games on this keyboard. But I’m not sure about the aesthetics.
The WASD keys are made transparent to make them ‘stand out” from the rest of the keys, and instead of having a white backlight, this keyboard only has a blue backlight. I guess it matches the color of the laptop.
The trackpad is fine. I never really use it much since I use this laptop with an external mouse most of the time.
Battery life
As for the battery life though, the 63Wh battery in this laptop can last around 5 hours in the PC Mark 10 modern office test – which is pretty much expected since the processor is based on Raptor Lake, not Lunar Lake.
Design
All of this hardware is packed into this chassis – it’s not that much different from the ASUS Vivobook 16 A1607 that we reviewed recently. It’s not the most appealing in terms of design, but it works for a budget gaming laptop. It’s mostly plastic and weighs in at 1.95kg with a thickness of 2.2cm. Since it is a 16-inch laptop, you might need to find a bigger backpack to fit it in.
I am using the ROG Ranger Gaming Backpack 16 – and it’s an amazing backpack. I can fit in practically everything. This 16-inch laptop fits in without any problems and still has some space left too. Check out our initial video where we talked about this backpack.
Should you buy the ASUS V16 V3607?
Okay then, should you buy this ASUS V16 laptop? Do I recommend it? I do think it’s a pretty good budget gaming laptop, all things considered. We do have an upgrade path – and I personally advise you to get another stick of 16GB DDR5 RAM the instant you get this laptop – and the performance is actually very good for 1080p gaming.
I mean, at the price of RM3,999 only, I think it’s a great deal. Granted, the screen isn’t the best here but we can get a good 24-inch external 1080p monitor these days for a very low price.
Where to buy? (Affiliate links)
For more information about the laptop, click here.
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