4 days ago
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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways
- The Vivobook S 15, Asus' archetypal Copilot+ PC, usually retails for implicit $1,000, but it's presently connected merchantability astatine Walmart for $709.
- It's sleek and lightweight with a gorgeous OLED, 120Hz display, large artillery life, and snappy performance.
- Users mightiness tally into the accustomed compatability issues seen connected Arm-compatible devices.
At Walmart, Asus' Vivobook S 15 is presently marked down to $709, which is astir $90 off. The configuration connected merchantability features a 3K OLED 120Hz show with an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor and 16GB of RAM.
Asus' archetypal Copilot+ PC with the Snapdragon X Elite spot past twelvemonth was the Vivobook S 15, a sleek and lightweight 15-inch laptop with a gorgeous show and ultra-snappy performance. It's the configuration with the Intel Core Ultra 7 spot that's drastically marked down close now.
The chassis' minimalist, all-metal plan is lightweight and airy, and it feels much premium than past year's Vivobook S 14. It's lone 0.58 inches astatine its thinnest point, and it weighs conscionable 3.13 pounds, making it peculiarly well-suited for hybrid oregon distant workers who privation a powerful laptop with a bully show that doesn't measurement a ton.
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Like each of the caller Windows connected ARM laptops released past summer, the Vivobook S 15 is accelerated and responsive with nice artillery life. For the mean consumer, this is the epitome of a laptop that looks and feels bully close retired of the box, and it starts with the superb 3K OLED display.
With an 89% screen-to-body ratio and ultra-thin bezels, the surface is superb and high-contrast, rocking a max 600-nit brightness and 120Hz refresh complaint for immoderate silky-smooth and crisp representation quality.
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The display's 16:9 solution gives it that premium widescreen feel, lending itself good to some watching and editing media, but it mightiness not beryllium for everyone. Most 15-inch laptops travel with a 16:10 resolution, which mightiness consciousness much "natural" for some, but yet the favoritism is subtle.
With 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, Asus is capable to support costs adjacent to that $1,000 terms constituent with conscionable the close magnitude of hardware connected this machine. And it feels adjacent amended successful tandem with the snappy, responsive show the Snapdragon X Elite processor provides.
The Vivobook S 15 features the 12-core, 3.4GHz spot with a 45 TOPS NPU, the aforesaid 1 recovered successful the HP Omnibook X 14, but somewhat beneath the 3.8GHz spot recovered successful the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge.
The benchmarking scores successful Cinebench bespeak that aforesaid hierarchy, with numbers supra the Omnibook and conscionable beneath the Galaxy Book4 Edge. In investigating the CPU's performance, I got a single-core people of 106 and a multi-core people of 969. In Geekbench, I got a single-core of 2447 and a multi-core of 14384.
Remember that these scores were recorded portion the instrumentality was plugged into power. While connected battery, I got scores astir 30% little -- somewhat much of a quality than I expected. This is successful examination to the HP Omnibook X 14, which had a overmuch narrower spread successful scores successful my testing, something I noted arsenic I was reviewing it.
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This paints a representation of a laptop that has somewhat adaptable artillery life, depending connected what you're doing and what benignant of mode you person the laptop in. There's nary escaping the powerfulness this show requires, and if you're idiosyncratic who typically ignores artillery mounting profiles and keeps your instrumentality blasting astatine "Best Performance," you whitethorn privation to set the powerfulness modes successful either the MyAsus bundle oregon successful Windows (or both) due to the fact that you'll spot a drastic difference.
That being said, the Vivobook S 15's 70Wh artillery show is good, but the idiosyncratic indispensable negociate it to maximize its efficiency. During the battery trial that ZDNET runs connected each laptops, I got astir 10 and a fractional hours earlier it died, but that fig fluctuated successful consequent tests with antithetic powerfulness mode settings.
Optimization is the taxable here, and this besides extends to its performance. The Windows connected ARM architecture provides fantastic up-front show successful ways that are instantly evident to astir users. But erstwhile you commencement looking intimately astatine much specialized tasks, things person the imaginable to get tricky.
For example, the Vivobook S 15's aforementioned 16:9 solution OLED surface seems cleanable for editing video. While the integrated Qualcomm Adreno GPU is up to the task, its enactment with antithetic apps and their show successful Windows (via Prism) is inactive a enactment successful progress.
During my testing, I ran DaVinci Resolve for Windows connected ARM, and it worked mostly fine, but the show is inactive not 100% optimized. There was immoderate lag, graphic stuttering, and quirkiness, particularly with 4K video. Adobe Photoshop, however, ran smoothly, with section AI-generative tasks popping disconnected seamlessly with assistance from the NPU connected committee the Snapdragon. I expect show to proceed improving arsenic Windows improves and developers amended their products for the platform.
The different elephant successful the country is gaming, which is not wholly up to velocity with Windows connected ARM. Yes, technically, you tin crippled connected this laptop, but galore titles inactive don't run, and the ones that bash are not well-optimized. Although the Vivobook S 15 looks similar thing you mightiness privation to crippled on, I wouldn't urge it arsenic a dedicated gaming laptop. At slightest not yet.
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Instead, I spot the Vivobook S 15 arsenic a superior operator for distant workers oregon integer nomads who are already integrating AI into their workflows and admit an aesthetic laptop with a superb show that handles media well. Supporting that usage case, it has a generous enactment of ports: 2 USB-A ports connected the right-hand side, 2 USB-C connected the left, an HDMI port, a MicroSD slot, and a headphone jack.
It besides has a "full" keyboard (the fig pad connected the close broadside has somewhat smaller keys, arsenic emblematic for sub-16-inch machines), which is satisfying and responsive to typing on. The keyboard has colorful LED backlighting that tin beryllium configured successful galore antithetic lights and effects. Still, again, this is not thing that I would see precocious connected the precedence database erstwhile optimizing artillery life.
ZDNET's buying advice
The Asus Vivobook S 15 is simply a sleek and lightweight laptop with a gorgeous OLED display and coagulated artillery beingness -- arsenic agelong arsenic you're mindful of your powerfulness usage. I'd urge it to forward-thinking integer nomads who privation a performant, AI-ready laptop with a blazing-fast Snapdragon X Elite processor. It's a coagulated concern for radical who regularly swap betwixt originative work, productivity software, and media.
All things considered, the sale terms of $713 is precise competitory for this laptop, peculiarly for the show alone.
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