In this video, I will be reviewing a $399 dollar 15.6” laptop that boasts
impressive specs and build quality. Will this laptop take the crown of the
best budget laptop of 2020? Let's find out.
This is the latest model of Asus VivoBook 15 and it is powered by Intel’s 10th
generation Icelake CPU. At the time of making this video, it was selling for a
really great price on Amazon. To find
out if this laptop is any good, I will put VivoBook 15 through 10 rounds of
gruelling test. So without further ado, let's get started
Build-Quality
While looking at VivoBook 15, I get the feeling that Asus took inspiration
from their premium ZenBook line of laptops. This is a well-crafted laptop and
it comes in five different colors. My review unit is Slate Gray in color and
it has this understated professional vibe.
VivoBook 15 is made from ABS polymer but Asus has given it a faux aluminum
finish which makes it look far more premium than its price. The top lid has an
anodized aluminum finish which is non glossy and it contrasts nicely with the
glossy Asus logo carved in Chrome. When you open the laptop, you are greeted
with a dark black keyboard sitting on a faux anodized aluminum base. The palm
rest has a polished smooth finish which feels very comfortable while using the
keyboard and trackpad.
The underside of the laptop is made from polycarbonate and it is matte black
in color. The laptop chassis feels very rigid and I didn't experience any
creaking or bending while using the laptop. Vivobook weighs 3.75 pounds which
is not bad for a 15.6 inch laptop. Overall, for a $399 price point, I am
extremely pleased with its build quality. Comparing the build quality of Asus
Vivobook 15 with similarly priced Acer Aspire 5, I think Vivobook feels far
more premium and durable.
Keyboard & Trackpad
Let's talk about the keyboard. Vivobook 15 has a unique hinge mechanism called
ErgoLift that adds a 2° keyboard tilt which helps with creating a more
ergonomic typing position for your fingers. It also creates extra room
underneath the laptop for improved audio and heat management. Vivobook 15 has
a full size backlit enabled keyboard. The intensity of the backlighting is
user adjustable and it can be completely turned off if you want to preserve
battery life. The keys are black in color with white lettering which creates a
nice contrast especially with the backlighting turned ON.
The keyboard feels very sturdy when typing, thanks to its one-piece
construction. The keyboard layout is quite thoughtful, for e.g. the commonly
used keys are bigger in size while the numpad and function keys are smaller.
This allows Vivobook 15 to accommodate a full size keyboard without feeling
cramped. The keys provide 1.4mm key travel and they offer an actuation force
of 30 grams. This creates a nice tactile feedback for a comfortable typing
experience. After few minutes of practise, I was able to hit my top typing
speed without any issues. If you are someone who types a lot of emails,
creates word documents, enters data in excel sheets or does software
development, you will love this keyboard.
Lets talks about the touchpad. It's not made from glass, but the build quality
feels pretty good. This touchpad measures 4.2 by 2.9 inches and it has a
smooth faux aluminium finish. The surface feels very smooth to touch and it
lets your finger glide effortlessly. There is no wobbling and you get a
satisfying click everytime you press the touchpad. Vivobook 15 comes with
windows precision drivers and it supports all windows 10 gestures. In addition
to scrolling, you can perform complex gestures like toggle between various
open apps, switch between virtual desktops, see all open windows and quickly
minimize to desktop. There is also a built-in fingerprint sensor on the
touchpad which supports Windows Hello. It's really fast and unlocks the laptop
as soon as you put your finger on it. Overall both the keyboard and the
touchpad are quite good, not just for the
budget price point, but for any price
point.
CPU
Let's talk about the CPU. VivoBook 15 is powered by the 10th Generation Intel
Core i3 Processors. Specifically Core i3-1005G1 which comes from the newest
Icelake family of CPUs built on Intel’s latest 10nm process technology. They
offer dual cores and 4 execution threads and operate at 15W thermal envelope.
The base clock frequency is 1.2 Ghz and the max turbo frequency is 3.4 Ghz. In
Passmark CPU benchmark, this CPU performed really well scoring 5,243 points.
That makes it 24.5% faster than Intel’s Comet-Lake processor which was
released earlier this year, and 47.3% faster than Kaby Lake R processor
released last year. I ran both chrome and firefox browser and opened over a
dozen tabs, and was seamlessly able to switch between various tabs without
issue. Day to day tasks like emailing, web-surfing, watching streaming videos
from youtube and netflix was smooth. I also tried productivity tasks like
word-processing, data crunching on excel sheets and this laptop breezed along
without any trouble. I also did some software development in python
programming language and found the performance of this laptop to be quite
good.
I think whether you are a student who is interested in a laptop for school
work, or someone looking for a fast budget laptop for casual work, vivobook 15
is an excellent choice. One thing to remember is that Vivobook ships with the
dreaded windows 10 S mode. But you can upgrade to full version of Windows for
free. All you need to do to get rid of S mode, is to attempt installing any
non-microsoft software say for e.g. Google Chrome. You will get a prompt
asking something like “do you want to upgrade to a full version of windows”?
Just click on Yes, and follow the simple instructions. You will have a full
version of windows running in 5 minutes. I encourage everyone to do this,
because windows 10 ‘S’ mode sucks and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
GPU
Let's talk about the graphic performance. Vivobook 15 is using Intel UHD G1
Graphics. This is Intel’s integrated Gen 11 graphics architecture. It features
32 Compute Units running at a base clock speed of 300Mhz and a max clock speed
of 900 MHz. This new integrated GPU is significantly faster than Intel’s older
UHD 620 graphics. For e.g. this laptop can drive an external 4K monitor at
50Hz refresh rate, something the previous generation Intel GPUs could not do.
I was able to play 4k videos on youtube without any dropped frames or
stuttering. I also played fortnite at 720p setting, and got 45 to 60 fps
gameplay. At 1080p setting Fortnite was still playable but the frame-rate
dropped to about 30fps. So that means you will be able to play casual games
without issues. This GPU also supports the latest version of Intel’s video
encoding framework called quicksyn. I ran handbrake and ffmpeg video encoders
and had no issues with 1080p h264 video encoding. Overall, for the price I am
pretty impressed with both the CPU and GPU performance of this laptop.
Display
Vivobook 15 comes with a 1080p 15.6” Full-HD display. The screen delivers
around 230 nits of brightness which is OK for indoor use, but you can forget
using this laptop outdoors. The screen is not glossy, instead it comes with a
matte finish. The matte finish does have some advantages, it greatly reduces
the glare and reflections which is very useful since the screen isn't very
bright. But it also means that the colors are washed out and don't look very
good. Also the LCD screen is not an IPS panel, this is a TN-panel which does
not offer very good viewing angles.
When this laptop screen is directly facing you, texts and pictures look sharp
and video looks good. But if you tilt the screen, the text and the pictures
look washed out. Overall, I am a little disappointed with this screen. Even
though Asus did an excellent job with its thin bezels and almost 90%
screen-to-body ratio, they have compromised on the screen quality. I would
have loved to see an IPS panel but that might have made this laptop a little
more pricey. In order to get to a $399 price point, every laptop maker has to
make some compromise. With Vivobook 15, you get a great build quality and
performance, but Display is where Asus decided to make a compromise.
RAM & SSD
Now let's talk about the system memory and on board SSD storage. Asus Vivobook
15 comes with 8GB of RAM. This is a blazing fast 3200 MHz DDR4 RAM which is
great for day to day tasks. I had no issues running over a dozen chrome tabs
and seamlessly switching between them. Casual internet surfing, watching
youtube videos and running productivity tasks like word processors and excel
sheet went without a hitch. You can upgrade the RAM if you wish to, but note
that 4GB RAM is permanently soldered to the motherboard. There is 1 user
upgradeable DIMM slot which can take upto 16GB RAM.
The laptop has 128GB of PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD which is blazing fast and runs like
a champ. It is user upgradeable, so you can replace it with a bigger SSD
if you want more storage. I will drop a link to a compatible PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
that will work with this laptop. To access memory and SSD slots, you will have
to open the back of the laptop. There are 10 screws which easily come out, but
the base of the laptop needs to pried open. You will need a
prying tool kit which can be bought from
Amazon for about 10 bucks.
👉Buy recommended PCIe NVMe SSD upgrades
Battery & thermals
Let's talk about the battery life. The Asus VivoBook 15 uses an energy
efficient 10nm CPU which helps with battery life. I got 9 hours of battery
life during continuous 1080p video playback at 150 nits of brightness. I also
tried PCMark 10 Battery test which simulates real world usage by running
common office applications at regular intervals. I got around 8 hours of
battery life which is not bad. Vivobook comes with a tiny 45-Watt charger
which supports fast charging. It is able to charge the battery from 0 to 60%
in under 50 minutes.
Even though Vivobook comes with a USB Type-C port, you cannot charge the
laptop using this port which sucks. But the good news is that Asus has done an
excellent job with thermal heat management. The ergo hinge lifts the laptop
when in use, creating extra room for fans to suck in cool air and keep the
system cool. The icelake family of CPU and GPU are more power efficient and
that combined with a good heatsink and cooling fan, Vivobook remains cool and
does not overheat even under heavy use.
Audio and webcam
Let's talk about audio. Asus VivoBook 15 comes with bottom firing stereo
speakers. They look like typical laptop speakers, but sound surprisingly good.
Most budget laptop speakers are very tinny, but these deliver quite rich
sound. One thing helping improve the audio quality is the ErgoLift hinge which
lifts the bottom firing speakers by few millimeters. This creates a resonance
chamber effect because the sound bounces back from the table and feels more
rich.
Let's talk about the webcam which is very important these days because all of
us are working from home. It's a 720p webcam mounted at the center of the top
bezel which creates a perfect angle for zoom video calls. I do wish that more
laptop makers start paying attention to the quality of their webcams. I would
like to see 1080p webcam as the bare minimum on all laptops. BTW, you can
easily step up to a high quality 1080p webcam by going with an
external USB webcam.
Ports
The port selection on Asus Vivobook is quite good. You get a USB 3.2 Type-C
port which is great, but it only supports data transfer. So that means you
cannot charge the laptop with this port or connect it to an external monitor.
But there is an HDMI port, which does let you connect Vivobook 15 to an
external monitor. I was able to connect this laptop to my 4K monitor and get a
full 4K resolution at 50Hz refresh rate.
You also get one USB 3.2 Type-A port and couple of USB-2.0 ports. In addition,
there is a microSD card reader which is great for transferring video and
photos from your GoPro. There is also a headphone jack as well as support for
bluetooth 4.1 devices. For internet connectivity, Vivobook 15 supports Wi-Fi
802.11 AC standard. But there is no WiFi 6 support and the ethernet port is
also missing. Overall, this is a decent selection of ports for most folks
Conclusion
I think Asus Vivobook 15 is a great budget laptop. It offers good build quality, solid keyboard and trackpad, good performance, good battery life and impressive heat management. Only negative is the quality of the display panel which is not very bright and viewing angles are narrow. It's not a deal-breaker, but I do wish Asus had given us a better IPS panel. So what do you guys think of Asus Vivobook 15? Do you think this laptop should be crowned the budget King, or should Acer Aspire 5 continue to hold that title? Please let me know in the comment section below.Purchase Links
👉
Buy ASUS VivoBook 15
👉
Acer Aspire 5 Slim Laptop with AMD Ryzen 3 3200U
👉
Acer Aspire 5 Slim with 10th Gen Intel Core i3-10110U
👉
Buy recommended PCIe NVMe SSD upgrades
Disclosure: Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases