Entry-level gaming laptops typically have meh keyboards, which is a problem because PC gamers are undoubtedly hard on their keyboards. Asus' TUF FX504 puts a better keyboard in a low-end laptop. One that's cushy for long gaming sessions and Asus says is extra durable, lasting for up to 20 million key presses. 

Asus also designed its cooling fans to be better at removing dust particles and dirt, which in turn should extend the overall life of the laptop. It also keeps it nice and cool while gaming, which is great since the TUF is relatively thin for a gaming laptop.  

What Asus didn't do is use a decent full HD 15.6-inch display in the base model reviewed here, the FX504GD-ES51, which sells for $699 in the US and £650 in the UK. (Australian buyers can get a AU$1,900 version with a better display, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti GPU, 16GB of memory, dual storage drives and a six-core Intel Core i7-8750H.) 

Although the $699 price is on par for the specs with competing models from Acer and Dell, they have better displays than the entry-level TUF. So what's more important for an entry-level gaming laptop: A durable keyboard or good display? For my money, it's the latter.

Asus TUF Gaming FX504GD-ES51

	Asus TUF Gaming FX504GD-ES51
Price as reviewed	$699
Display size/resolution	15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080 display
CPU	2.3GHz Intel Core i5-8300H
Memory	8GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,660MHz
Graphics	2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050
Storage	1TB hybrid SSHD FireCuda
Networking	802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 5.0
Operating system	Window 10 Home (64-bit)

Sit there, don't move

The main issue with the display is that, instead of using an IPS-type panel like Dell, Acer, HP and others, it's a TN panel with poor off-angle viewing. Unless you and the display are in the perfect position, the display starts to wash out or the colors appear inverted. Color looks muted in general and contrast isn't particularly good either. 

Now, Asus does use IPS panels on the higher-end TUF models, so if you like the design and don't mind spending $1,000 to get a better display then you can ignore the last paragraph. Or, if you intend to use this connected to an external display mostly, there's no problem there, either. There's even a full-size HDMI output on the left side ready to go. 

In fact, all the connections are on the left side: power, Ethernet, one USB-A 2.0, two USB-A 3.0, a combo headphone/mic jack and the aforementioned HDMI. This makes hooking up peripherals easy and puts all the cables on one side away from your mouse (assuming you mouse with your right hand). There's nothing on right except for a lock slot. This begs the question, with all that space, why not add an optical drive, an SD card reader or a USB-C port? 

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The keyboard is a treat, though. As I said at the top, entry-level laptops usually have pretty lackluster keyboards. Asus' is a few notches above. Like its competitors, Asus outlines the WASD keys in red, so finding your home position is easy. The red markings on black keys can be tough to read, but the keys are backlit and there's three levels of brightness (others are usually only on and off). 

Along with the number pad on the right, the arrow keys are dropped a row to make them easier to find. Asus also spaced the function keys into sets and extended the bottom of the space bar making it less likely you'll miss hitting it in the heat of battle. It's worth noting, too, that Asus lets you control fan speed with a function key letting you cool things down or go silent with a button press.