Asus VivoBook 15 review — a budget laptop with low-budget battery life
Our Verdict
The Asus VivoBook xv is capable of common tasks and a chip of video game nostalgia, but it's not the upgrade you're looking for.
For
- Affordable
- Total keyboard layout
- Extremely lite
- Aplenty port selection
Against
- Poor bombardment life
- Ho-hum brandish
- Deadened sound
Tom's Guide Verdict
The Asus VivoBook 15 is capable of common tasks and a bit of video game nostalgia, only it's not the upgrade you lot're looking for.
Pros
- +
Affordable
- +
Full keyboard layout
- +
Extremely light
- +
Aplenty port selection
Cons
- -
Poor battery life
- -
Dull display
- -
Muffled sound
Asus VivoBook 15 specs
Price: $399
CPU: Intel Core i3-1005G1
GPU: Intel UHD
RAM: 8GB
Storage: 128GB SSD
Display: 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080
Battery: 5:twenty
Size: 14.i x 9.2 x 0.8 inches
Weight: 3.7 pounds
The Asus VivoBook fifteen is a upkeep laptop we had high hopes for. Upkeep laptops, as you might well know, frequently seem like they're as well proficient to be truthful. The idea that you can get enough functioning to carry you through a few years at an exceptionally reasonable toll is quite enticing. But often, when yous're paying less, you lot're getting less, likewise.
In the example of the latest refresh of the Asus VivoBook fifteen, you're paying for less performance and less battery life and opting for a less vibrant brandish. In exchange, yous go numerous ports, a thin chassis, and a most edge-to-border widescreen display, only this Asus VivoBook xv review will bear witness how the result is merely a reminder of the compromises 1 has to make to save money.
Asus VivoBook fifteen review: Price and Configurations
The $400 Asus VivoBook 15 featured here is an Intel Cadre i3-1005G1 model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB SSD storage. If you can spring an extra $200, you might consider another variant of the VivoBook 15 with an Intel i5-1035G1 processor and a 512GB SSD. There's also an AMD option with a Ryzen 7 3700U processor and 512GB of storage for $650.
Asus VivoBook fifteen review: Pattern
The Asus VivoBook xv excels at dressing for the job it wants. Its slate-gray chassis doesn't look like a upkeep laptop, and despite its plastic build and relative lightness — a mere 3.7-pounds, lighter than the Acer Aspire v and HP 15 (3.8 pounds and four.4 pounds, respectively) — information technology all feels cohesive in its overall design and construction.
The inside of the VivoBook fifteen reveals a keyboard fitted to the rest of the laptop like on Asus' premium models. The trackpad is flush on the wrist rest without existence besides obvious, and there's even a fingerprint scanner for locking up your system.
Asus managed to fit in a whole number pad without crowding the keyboard area, and there'south enough room for comfortably resting your wrist while thumbing through your work.
The VivoBook 15's ErgoLift Hinge is one of its more helpful facets, as information technology angles the keyboard so that it'southward raised a chip for more comfortable typing when yous're seated at a desk. Information technology'due south a feature carried over from some of Asus' ROG gaming laptops (some of the best gaming laptops you can purchase) for increasing ergonomics on the go. It'south nice that the company implemented information technology into its lower-tier laptops.
Asus VivoBook 15 review: Ports
Ownership a laptop with enough of ports is a adept thought if yous're e'er considering docking the device and working with a full ready. The laptop's left side has 2 traditional USB 2.0 Type-A ports, plus a status indicator low-cal.
The correct side has the residue of the bounty, housing a proprietary ability jack, a USB 3.1 Type-A port, an HDMI ii.0 port for tethering the laptop, and a combination headphone and microphone jack. There's a USB Blazon-C port, a rarity for a laptop in this toll range, and a way for you to add an Ethernet port by mode of a compatible adapter.
There's also a MicroSD slot, which is a nice-to-accept and allows calculation on storage space, only I would have preferred a standard SD slot to piece of work with my DSLR on the go.
Asus VivoBook 15 review: Display
The VivoBook 15's 15.six-inch, 1920 x 1080 NanoEdge display offers footling bezel on either side of the laptop, with a bit more at the acme to accommodate the webcam. But across its widescreen wait, the display's dim color profile and weird viewing angles make it an underwhelming device for consuming online video. It made episodes of vintage TV shows like Baywatch, already with a worn-in colour palette, look older than they are, while movies like the contempo remake of Emma were extremely hard to run into in dark scenes.
In lab tests, the VivoBook 15 scored a beggarly 65 percent on the sRGB color gamut. While that'southward ahead of similarly-priced laptops, including the Acer Aspire five, which scored 63 pct, and the HP fifteen, which scored 67 percent, it'south behind the manufacture boilerplate of 85 percent. Anecdotally, the display on the VivoBook fifteen is obviously off-kilter. I can go through a YouTube video without immediately recognizing it, simply it becomes credible once I switch displays. And while I was able to edit RAW photos in Adobe Lightroom, I felt more confident about the result only later connecting to an external monitor with better color reproduction.
The viewing angles of the VivoBook 15 are a scrap odd, too. You lot accept to look at the laptop at an exact angle — about 100 degrees — to see the brandish without a sheen. The issue affects dark colors, specifically black and grays, and if you rely on dark mode within about apps, it'southward hard to ignore. I found the laptop hard to use with the Windows x night mode because of this sheen issue. Information technology's also not very bright, with the VivoBook 15 maxing out at 205 nits in lab tests. The Acer Aspire 5 and HP 15 Laptop are brighter, measuring at 258 nits and 222 nits, respectively, though fifty-fifty those models are below the manufacture boilerplate of 268 nits. Whichever way you milk shake it, the VivoBook 15 isn't meant for a cinematic viewing feel.
Asus VivoBook 15 review: Audio and Cameras
The lesser-facing dual speakers on the Asus VivoBook 15 need a piffling heave. You lot can mind to music and lookout a film without headphones, but the sound volition seem every bit if it's strained. The Midnight's Deep Blue's strong melody, for example, came through clearly plenty, while the vocals seemed equally if they were coming in from a altitude. Bassier genres of music, like house and synthwave, audio just every bit hollow, and sometimes it'south difficult to hear vocals even on podcasts. While I was watching Emma, I could barely hear the dialogue with the laptop set up down on a table. You're better off pairing the laptop with external speakers to listen to anything.
The 720p born webcam exists as a failsafe for when you're called into an unexpected video conference. But you'll want an external webcam to pair with the VivoBook 15, as the quality on the included one is comparable to a webcam I had over x years agone. It's too bad the photographic camera is an after-thought fifty-fifty on budget laptops because at that place are so many students and professionals who could benefit from the presence of college quality video.
Asus VivoBook 15 review: Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard on the VivoBook 15 is a bit polarizing. The chiclet keys are comfortable to type on, and in that location is ample backlighting to get work done with the lights down low. I appreciate the number pad squeezed into the correct side of the keyboard and that information technology can be easily turned on and off with a Number Lock key, like a total-sized external keyboard.
Simply afterwards well-nigh an hour of working with the keyboard, I found myself frustrated past the altitude betwixt the keys. They're so widely spaced that it feels like trudging through the Sahara. I lost myself in the configuration any time the backlight went out. I also found the placement of a few keys, Page Up and Page Down, farther apart than where I naturally wanted to rest my fingers. Plan to work with this laptop docked if you want to go things done.
Trying to apply Windows x gestures on the VivoBook fifteen's 4.one x 2.9-inch trackpad proved annoying at times. I found myself with lots of unwanted swipes, so I only turned them off. The trackpad could be a flake bigger, every bit it feels off-centre at its current placement and width.
Asus VivoBook 15 review: Functioning
The VivoBook's Intel Cadre-i3 processor and 8GB of RAM are quite able, despite their mediocre benchmarks. I was able to sift through dozens of Google Chrome tabs, plus shuffle through my cloud-based library in Adobe Lightroom without the fans sounding similar they were readying for takeoff. I gave the integrated Intel UHD graphics a spin to run across if it could run an one-time favorite. I loaded up Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and the VivoBook 15 maintained betwixt 18 and 25 frames-per-2nd as I walked through low-quality-rendered snowy mountains.
It seems like you tin do plenty with the VivoBook xv, but most upkeep laptops experience this way at first. The VivoBook 15'southward benchmark numbers show how little the laptop has to start with. It scored 2,399 overall on Geekbench 5, a testing suite that measures everyday figurer tasks like browsing the internet and rendering augmented reality effects. That'south below the Acer Aspire v, which scored 2,744, and even further down the graph from the industry average of ii,983.
Our Handbrake video transcoding tests gave the VivoBook 15 another chance to go outperformed. The VivoBook fifteen managed to transcode 4K video to 1080p resolution within 28 minutes and 33 seconds. The Acer Aspire 5 and HP 15 were much faster, transcoding at 21:55 and 25:53, respectively. The VivoBook 15 was faster than the 40 minute average for other budget laptops that took this examination.
Asus VivoBook fifteen review: Battery Life
Virtually budget laptops tin last well over six hours on one charge of the battery, simply the VivoBook 15 struggled to hit this mark. It lasted only v hours and twenty minutes through continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. Although this beat out out the Acer Aspire five (six:55) and the HP 15 Laptop (4:57) in lab tests, information technology'due south at the tail cease of the spectrum compared to the average of other upkeep laptops tested (6:39).
I used the VivoBook 15 with low brightness and the least aggressive setting in Windows 10's battery-saving mode and noticed but slightly meliorate numbers than the lab tests. The VivoBook xv burned through xv percent of bombardment subsequently about an 60 minutes into a work session. Two hours later, the laptop used up 45 percent at the aforementioned setting. That's nearly 50 percent after iii hours of use. Perhaps I could take eked out a fleck more time past futzing with the ability saving settings. It's articulate from the numbers that the VivoBook 15 can barely manage six hours of continuous utilize.
Asus VivoBook fifteen review: Heat
The VivoBook fifteen is consistent and capable at distributing heat, and it felt temperate plenty to use on my lap. In lab tests, the VivoBook fifteen'due south keyboard measured about 72 degrees Fahrenheit throughout, while the underside measured college at 91 degrees. Overall, the laptop never felt likewise hot to employ.
I didn't find the fans in the Asus VivoBook xv to be equally loud as other laptops we've tested, namely the Acer Aspire 5.
Asus VivoBook xv Verdict
Theoretically, if I were in a blitz and needed a so-chosen throwaway laptop to perform a few quick deeds, the Asus VivoBook fifteen would be likely to bear me through. Information technology has plenty power to run an older game at low-quality settings to help fulfill the nostalgia quotient. It has enough battery life to file words at a Denny's in fourth dimension for the next borderline. But every bit this Asus VivoBook fifteen review showed, performance doesn't particularly impress, which doesn't make it a laptop worth an upgrade.
At least in that location are plenty of ports, so if the VivoBook 15 is the only choice y'all have in your arsenal, an external monitor, a set of speakers, and a mouse can assist with some of its quirks. But if you can swing information technology, at least consider spending a few hundred more on the Core-i5 version of the VivoBook 15 for a little more power in the processor.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/asus-vivobook-15
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