The Vivobook S 15 is the primary pocket book from Asus to be powered by the brand new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip. It is also a part of the primary wave of units to ship on this new platform as a part of Microsoft’s renewed push into the ARM-based PC market at present dominated by Apple.
The Vivobook S 15 (or the S5507) is a premium gadget with a price ticket of $1300. For that cash, you’re getting the Snapdragon Elite X in its base configuration, a 15.6-inch 120Hz OLED show, 16GB reminiscence, 1TB storage, and a 70Wh battery. The gadget is focused in the direction of house and workplace customers who wish to do some mild productiveness work and media consumption on the go.
On this overview, we will likely be how the Vivobook S 15 performs but in addition what it is prefer to dwell with an ARM-based Home windows PC.
Design
The S5507 design is not something new and appears much like different Vivobook S 15 fashions earlier than it. The outside, made out of aluminum, has a easy matte end to it with a delicate Vivobook emblem on the lid. The again has a row of vents with a protracted raised rubber foot.
Life the lid and you may discover that you just now have your thumbprints on the webcam. Additionally, you managed to slip the webcam cowl whereas opening so now the face detection would not work. The placement of those components is moderately unlucky, as each the webcam and particularly the sliding mechanism for the duvet are proper the place you’re anticipated to place your thumb to open the lid. It’s a must to prepare your self to keep away from these which makes one thing so simple as opening the lid extra concerned than I would like.
As soon as open, you may be greeted by the massive 15.6-inch show. The show will get very near the facet edges however the prime and backside bezels are noticeably thicker. If, for some cause, you saved opening the lid, you may notice that it truly opens a full 180 levels, making it flat with the bottom.
Under the show, the keyboard deck can also be made out of aluminum with the identical silver end. Even the keys are silver, which has an unlucky draw back as will likely be mentioned later. Under the keys is the massive trackpad that measures round 13cm x 8.5cm. The trackpad is off-center so it aligns with the keyboard and never the numpad on the best.
The Vivobook S 15 is comparatively compact regardless of the massive show. Extra importantly, it is also very mild, weighing in at simply 1.42kg or 3.13lb. This makes it very straightforward to slide right into a backpack and I barely even seen the added weight.
The general design of the pocket book may be very business-like. I am not overly keen on the all-silver scheme, particularly the silver keys that even have a considerably boring, tile-like design. A black variant would have been good however this mannequin solely is available in one colour. Nevertheless, there is not a lot to complain concerning the construct high quality, which is sweet general. The keyboard deck has a slight flex to it however it’s solely noticeable once you press down on it moderately than whereas typing. Asus additionally claims US MIL-STD 810H ranking for added peace of thoughts.
Show
The Vivobook S 15 has a 15.6-inch, 2880×1620 OLED show. It has a 120Hz refresh price with a claimed 0.2ms response time, 600 nits peak brightness, 100 DCI-P3 colour protection, and HDR assist.
Asus has included a handful of show choices within the MyASUS app. The OLED Care function allows a pixel refresh mode that runs when the show is static for half-hour to reduce burn-in. There’s an OLED flicker-free dimming possibility that reduces brightness with out inflicting show flicker which some individuals understand. The Adaptive Edge Brightness setting dims the corners of the show on battery, which appears to be like like having a vignette across the display screen. On the default setting of two, it is barely noticeable so it is best to only depart it on.
The show is color-calibrated on the manufacturing facility and comes with a calibration certificates discovered within the MyASUS app. Asus additionally contains colour calibration profiles to lock the show to sRGB, DCI-P3, Show-P3, or simply depart it unclamped at its native gamut.
Show setttings
The OLED panel has excellent picture high quality, with distinctive colour accuracy, distinction, and viewing angles. The decision is ample, and offers a sufficiently sharp and excessive decision picture, particularly on the measurement. The 600 nits brightness is greater than satisfactory for indoor use and can also be high quality outside except you end up underneath direct daylight.
The 120Hz refresh price is a good accompaniment to the stellar picture. You get very fluid scrolling, which is aided by OLED’s phenomenal response instances which are close to instantaneous. HDR efficiency can also be fairly spectacular however with no Dolby Imaginative and prescient assist, you’re restricted to static metadata HDR10 content material solely.
The show does have two controversial elements. First is the 16:9 facet ratio, which is nice for media consumption however not for productiveness and even net looking. The second is the shiny panel, which is terrific when you’re in a pitch-dark room however anyplace else you’re continually combating reflections.
That apart, it is arduous to not be impressed by the show on the Vivobook S 15. Asus has performed an incredible job on this one.
Keyboard and trackpad
The Vivobook S 15 has a regular chiclet-style keyboard with 1.7mm key journey and a numpad on the facet. The keys have a single-zone RGB backlight, which could be personalized within the MyASUS app.
The keyboard is comfy with respectable journey. The keys are barely broad with much less spacing than a typical chiclet-style which takes some getting used to however as soon as performed it was a breeze to sort on. I’m personally a bit cut up on the devoted numpad on the best, particularly since Asus has proven it could have a digital numpad on the trackpad that features simply as properly, and I would moderately have an evenly spaced keyboard and trackpad.
What I am not cut up on is the pointless new Copilot key, which replaces the best management key. All this does is launch the Copilot ‘app’, which additionally occurs to be only a window in Edge, and one thing you possibly can simply pin to the taskbar. All that is on prime of the doubtful worth that Copilot brings. I would a lot moderately have my management key again, please.
As talked about earlier than, the keyboard options RGB backlighting, which feels a bit odd for a tool of this nature. You possibly can modify the lighting colour, sample, and brightness from the MyASUS app however since it is a single-zone lighting, it is going to apply uniformly to the whole keyboard. The backlighting is not very vibrant and has the unlucky facet impact of creating the important thing legends tough to see through the day as the sunshine simply blends with the silver surrounds, particularly if you happen to decide a impartial colour like white.
Under the keyboard is the moderately sizable trackpad. The graceful glass floor makes this a pleasure to make use of, though one may argue if it must be this massive. Asus has assigned some gestures to the highest and facet edges, which management issues like quantity, brightness, and playback however I discovered myself triggering them unintentionally too typically. Fortunately, you possibly can simply disable them however you need to disable all of them and never simply the one which’s getting in your means.
The trackpad is hinged on the prime as is often the case however you possibly can click on on a great 80% of it and get a satisfying response, with solely the highest edge being unable to maneuver.
One recurring subject I had with the trackpad was it will confuse a two-finger scroll gesture within the browser for a pinch-to-zoom gesture. The web page would briefly zoom in just a little earlier than scrolling. This can be a problem with the trackpad driver that may probably be mounted with an replace.
Audio and webcam
The Vivobook S 15 has a pair of bottom-firing Harmon Kardon-tuned audio system. The audio system have respectable audio high quality, particularly when the bundled Dolby Atmos app is enabled. There is not a lot bass however voices sound clear with good timbre.
I used to be not significantly impressed by the headphone jack output. Whereas it received very loud, there was noticeable background noise coming by means of the jack. The sound was additionally oddly mild on bass and all the things sounded skinny and flat by default with the Atmos app disabled. I would not suggest utilizing the Atmos app for headphones because it brings further distortion with it. Sadly, even if you happen to flip it off, it one way or the other manages to show itself on once more.
The webcam high quality is mediocre. A lot was made concerning the picture processing of the Snapdragon chips however I am not seeing it. It appears to be like like some other webcam, which is to say it is high quality for the informal video name however you must nonetheless contemplate an aftermarket digicam if you happen to want it typically.
{Hardware} and connectivity
The Vivobook S 15 S5507 runs on the Snapdragon X Elite X1E 78 100 chipset. It options 12 CPU cores that may clock as much as 3.4GHz together with the Adreno X1 GPU clocked at 1250MHz.
The X1E 78 100 is among the 4 Snapdragon X Elite fashions and is technically the runt of the litter. Not solely does it have the bottom increase clock pace, however it’s additionally the one one with no single or dual-core increase like on the opposite chips, which might quickly increase one or two of their cores even greater. The GPU can also be slower than the highest two fashions.
Paired with the chip is 16GB or 32GB of LPDDR5X reminiscence clocked at 8448MHz. Not like Apple’s M-series chips, the Snapdragon X Elite doesn’t embrace the reminiscence on-die. Quite, it is soldered onto the motherboard like on most different notebooks today. Whereas it is good {that a} 32GB possibility exists, it appears it is solely out there in choose areas, and ours solely got here in 16GB with no different possibility out there.
For storage, our overview unit had a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD with a 512GB possibility out there in some areas. Fortunately, the SSD here’s a customary 2280 M.2 drive, which might simply get replaced must you require extra storage.
Regardless of what you would possibly assume, the Vivobook S 15 has a decently-sized cooling system inside with twin followers cooling twin warmth pipes. There are no fanless notebooks but primarily based on this chip since it could pull a good bit of energy. However extra on that later.
In relation to connectivity, the Vivobook S 15 does rather well, particularly in comparison with its rivals. You get two full-size USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports on the best with 5Gbps bandwidth and on the left are two USB 4.0 Gen 3 Kind-C ports, which assist 40Gbps bandwidth and quick charging. There’s additionally an HDMI 2.1 TDMS port right here however in actuality, it is simply HDMI 2.0 by way of precise bandwidth. Lastly, there’s a microSD card reader and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
For wi-fi connectivity, you get tri-band Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) and Bluetooth 5.4 with LE audio.
Software program
The Vivobook S 15 comes with Home windows 11 Dwelling Version put in. That is clearly the model constructed for the ARM 64-bit platform, and virtually all of the apps that come pre-installed are additionally constructed for ARM.
When it comes to bloatware, Asus is mostly fairly good. There are only a handful of Asus apps which are pre-installed, all of which could be eliminated. Nevertheless, you must preserve the MyASUS app because it gives an unlimited array of settings for the gadget together with the flexibility to improve the gadget firmware, which is separate from the Home windows updates.
Being an ARM-based gadget, there was all the time going to be a query mark on how the gadget runs all of the apps you’re used to operating on a Home windows machine. This was a serious bugbear of early ARM-based Home windows units, which may solely run a choose few apps from the Home windows retailer that had been constructed for ARM.
Luckily, we have now come a great distance since then, and making issues so much simpler this time round is Prism, the Home windows emulator that permits you to run x86-64 apps on the gadget with out you even realizing it. Severely, all you need to do is set up the app as you usually would and it simply runs as you’d count on it to. Nicely, besides if it is a recreation, however extra on that within the Efficiency part.
Nevertheless, emulation is not a free lunch, and there’s a value to translating the app to a different structure each time you’re operating it. When you will not discover the distinction a lot in light-weight apps aside from some delayed launch instances, extra demanding apps will run noticeably slower.
That is the place native ARM apps are available in. Fortunately, with just a little little bit of looking out, you possibly can often discover an ARM model of your app. Typically it is going to be in beta and even alpha however relying on the character of the app can nonetheless run vastly higher than a steady x86-64 model. The previous month or so of utilizing the Vivobook S 15 despatched me down the rabbit gap of discovering the ARM model of each app I take advantage of and it was truly type of enjoyable. I used to be stunned to see simply what number of apps do have an ARM model now, at the least in some state of improvement. Funnily sufficient, it was often the apps with small dev groups who had been fast on the uptake however even larger apps like DaVinci Resolve and Photoshop now have a local ARM model.
The mix of a strong emulator and a rising library of native apps means Home windows on ARM is at present in a great place, at the least so far as day by day or generally used productiveness apps. In fact, there will likely be circumstances the place the emulator would not work properly neither is there a local app out there however at the least in my utilization I by no means got here throughout this situation. Based mostly on my private expertise as of August 2024, I would not hesitate to suggest Home windows ARM notebooks to on a regular basis house or workplace customers.
Efficiency
Productiveness
The Vivobook S 15 has 4 ‘Fan profile’ choices within the MyASUS app which, counterintuitively, are literally the facility restrict choices that in flip additionally have an effect on the fan speeds. You get Whisper mode, which targets 20W as the height energy worth, Customary, which is the default, targets 35W, Efficiency (45W), and eventually, Full-speed mode, which targets 50W.
It is essential to notice these energy figures as that is the one actual info we get relating to how a lot energy this chip pulls. Qualcomm has not offered entry to any of the facility consumption metrics from the chip so regardless that apps like HWiNFO can entry info relating to clock speeds and temperatures, there’s completely no information out there on the quantity of energy being pulled.
No matter which energy profile you choose, the chip can hit the acknowledged 3.4GHz throughout all 12 cores. Whisper can solely maintain 3.4GHz in an all-core workload for a few seconds earlier than dropping right down to 2.2GHz for the remaining length. Customary stays a couple of seconds longer earlier than dropping right down to 2.7GHz. Efficiency will drop right down to 3GHz and Full-speed will preserve 3.4GHz till it hits its 95-degree thermal restrict. The chip regulates the variety of cores it could assign to a process in batches of 4, so you may see 4, eight, or all twelve cores being lively relying on the duty.
With all that in thoughts, the next benchmarks had been run utilizing the Full-speed profile in MyASUS and the Home windows energy profile left on the default Balanced. All makes an attempt had been made to get the ARM model of the benchmark wherever attainable however sadly, among the exams are nonetheless x86 solely.
| Benchmark | Class | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Cinebench R23 (x86) | Single | 1120 |
| Multi | 12753 | |
| Cinebench 2024 | Single | 107 |
| Multi | 1130 | |
| Blender (Classroom) | Time (seconds) | 372 |
| 7-Zip | Compression | 91781 |
| Decompression | 90799 | |
| Geekbench 6 | Single | 2446 |
| Multi | 14277 | |
| GPU (Vulkan) | 23662 | |
| Geekbench AI | CPU (Quantized) | 5837 |
| NPU (Quantized) | 21633 | |
| Corona 10 (x86) | Rays/s | 4332801 |
| WebXPRT 4 | Total | 280 |
| JetStream 2 | Rating | 282 |
| Speedometer 3.0 | Rating | 20.9 |
As talked about earlier than, there’s a penalty for utilizing emulation and you’re looking at anyplace from 12.5% in 7-Zip to an enormous 74% worse efficiency in Blender when switching from the native ARM to the x86 model.
| Benchmark | Class | Rating (ARM) | Rating (x86) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blender (Classroom) | Time (seconds) | 372 | 646 |
| 7-ZIP | Compression | 91781 | 80377 |
| Decompression | 90799 | 79341 |
The 4 energy profiles in MyASUS have a proportionately greater impression on efficiency as you go down the checklist. From Full-speed to Efficiency, you lose about 9% efficiency in Blender within the Classroom scene. Happening to the default Customary makes you lose about 22% of the efficiency of Full-speed after which lastly at Whisper, you lose a big 53% of the efficiency.
| Benchmark | Energy profile | Time (seconds) |
|---|---|---|
| Blender (Classroom) | Full-speed | 372 |
| Efficiency | 404 | |
| Customary | 451 | |
| Whisper | 567 |
Nonetheless, as you possibly can see, even operating on the lowest energy degree is healthier than operating in x86 for Blender, because the Whisper mode on ARM outperforms Full-speed in x86.
On battery, the facility profiles in MyASUS app don’t change and you’ll nonetheless get the identical efficiency, offered you permit the Home windows energy profile to Stability. Nevertheless, by default, Home windows switches to the Greatest Energy Effectivity profile on battery, which has a extreme impression on measurable efficiency.
| Benchmark | Class | Time (seconds) |
|---|---|---|
| Blender (Classroom) | Energy | 372 |
| Battery | 750 |
Now for some real-life testing. I attempted utilizing the Vivobook S 15 in a typical house use case consisting principally of net looking and media consumption and likewise in a extra productivity-oriented setting with heavy picture and video enhancing.
Within the former, the Vivobook S 15 carried out flawlessly. No matter whether or not you’re on energy or battery, there all the time appears to be ample energy out there and the gadget feels fast and responsive. In fact, this was principally when operating native ARM apps however even non-native apps appeared to run high quality more often than not outdoors of benchmarks to the purpose it was straightforward to overlook they had been operating underneath emulation.
When it got here to heavier productiveness duties, there was an issue, and it was not the Snapdragon chip. Seems, the chip has sufficient energy to deal with the issues that I do for work, which is enhancing high-resolution RAW photos in Affinity Photograph (which additionally is available in native ARM) and infrequently enhancing a 4K video in DaVinci Resolve (additionally ARM however in beta). I used to be capable of energy by means of these apps with out experiencing any main slowdowns. That’s till I hit the boundaries of the 16GB reminiscence. Sadly, this merely is not enough to do any actual productiveness work on the gadget, and the second I opened greater than three RAW information or bigger video tasks, the efficiency floor to a halt.
As talked about earlier than, Asus does supply a 32GB reminiscence possibility in some markets. That might be the go-to if you happen to plan on doing memory-heavy duties. Sadly, not having that possibility in all places seems like leaving efficiency on the desk because the Snapdragon X Elite chip, and thus the Vivobook S 15, is able to extra however is held again by the 16GB configuration. Dwelling customers in all probability would not take care of net and media functions however then once more, you may also simply use an iPad if that is all you wish to do.
The 1TB drive that got here with our Vivobook S 15 carried out fairly properly. It isn’t the quickest drive we have now seen however for the use circumstances this gadget is designed for it needs to be satisfactory.
Gaming
That is the place issues go pear-shaped for the Vivobook S 15 and the ARM-based Home windows platform generally.
That is the unlucky actuality of the present state of affairs; there are merely no video games out there for Home windows on the time of writing which are primarily based on the ARM structure. This implies each recreation you strive should undergo emulation, which impacts video games disproportionately in comparison with common apps.
All of the video games I attempted (and I attempted so much) fell into three classes:
- The sport put in, launched, and ran as anticipated with decreased efficiency
- The sport put in, launched, however had graphical errors and/or unplayable efficiency
- The sport put in however couldn’t be launched
A small subset of video games fell within the first class. They put in and functioned roughly as they’d on a local x86 gadget. The typical body price wasn’t nice owing to the emulation, lack of drivers, or only a normal lack of GPU efficiency, however it was steady and playable. Some examples of those embrace titles like Management, Metro Exodus, Alien: Isolation, Stray, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Sadly, a lot of the video games fell into the second and third classes. Whereas some video games launched high quality, the efficiency was typically unplayable. In case you had been to only have a look at common body charges, you would possibly make the error of considering the sport runs high quality however the body time efficiency was all over with huge spikes that made the sport tough to play and inconceivable to take pleasure in. This contains titles similar to God of Battle, Outer Wilds, Resident Evil 3, Counter-Strike 2, and Overwatch 2.
Some titles appeared to run high quality however had visible points. The Tomb Raider I-III Remastered assortment, for instance, ran completely however was too darkish, which made it tough to see. A few others additionally had artifacts like flashing textures and visible glitches whereas enjoying.
Then some video games merely wouldn’t even launch. This included titles like Demise Stranding and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. The primary immediately crashes on launch. The second, like many others, searches for suitable drivers probably from Nvidia or AMD, and upon not discovering any throws the system would not meet minimal necessities message and peaces out. Then there was Doom Everlasting, which initially didn’t launch in any respect, then later would launch and crash after the opening logos, and most not too long ago would launch and attain the menu earlier than crashing.
A overwhelming majority of video games that will not launch had been multiplayer titles with anti-cheat. Even when the sport itself would run underneath emulation, the anti-cheat software program would stop the sport from launching resulting from an incompatibility error. In some circumstances like Elden Ring the place the multiplayer is an non-compulsory element of the sport, it was attainable to bypass the anti-cheat and straight launch the sport to play offline. However with titles like Fall Guys, there isn’t any means in.
The issue right here is twofold. In the beginning, recreation builders are going to need to construct native variations of their titles to have the ability to run correctly. Within the interim, a few of them may at the least make them launch in order that even when the efficiency is not nice, one may nonetheless at the least get into the sport and perhaps with a little bit of fiddling round with the settings, have a considerably playable expertise. Second, Qualcomm wants to begin delivery graphics drivers for titles. Nvidia does this, AMD does it, and now even Intel does it. There is no such thing as a getting round it and if Qualcomm must be taken significantly on this area, it additionally must meet up with the others.
Microsoft has included a temporal picture upscaling resolution in Home windows known as Automated tremendous decision, which runs a handful of whitelisted video games at a decrease inner decision after which upscales them. Sadly, all of the titles I attempted that supported this function regarded terrible because the decision is much too low and non-adjustable. You’re much better off launching the sport usually and utilizing no matter picture upscaling know-how the sport comes with, like TSR, FSR, or XeSS.
In case you’re questioning why there are no recreation benchmarks on this web page, the reply for that’s that the benchmarking instrument I take advantage of wasn’t capable of run accurately. Initially, it would not work in any respect and later having the instrument operating would trigger any recreation launched to crash instantly, even when the sport would run in any other case.
When it comes to precise playability, I used to be capable of get easier titles to run fairly properly sufficient. I may, for instance, play Inside or Gris properly sufficient on the gadget. Primary 2D titles just like the Ace Lawyer collection additionally ran high quality. I used to be additionally capable of run Management at a fairly steady body price. The trick with these was to all the time simply drop the decision to the bottom quantity you possibly can tolerate, which for me was 720p on this display screen after which set all the things to the bottom settings.
One may argue that the chip is not aimed toward avid gamers neither is Asus’ Vivobook collection generally. Nevertheless, the sensation I had enjoying video games on the gadget was that there was enough energy right here to get a PS4-level of efficiency, which is to say, 1080p with medium settings and 30fps locked body price. That is not too unhealthy, however for that to occur there would have to be native titles out there, in addition to optimized drivers from Qualcomm.
Funnily sufficient, the Mac now has a good variety of native ARM titles out there for it. You may have titles like Resident Evil 4, Baldur’s Gate 3, Murderer’s Creed Mirage, Demise Stranding Director’s Lower, and a number of other others natively out there on the Mac App Retailer, with extra within the pipeline. Not solely is there not a single ARM title out there for Home windows, nobody has even made any claims to launch them sooner or later. It is so bizarre to see macOS and Home windows swapping locations relating to video games when switching over to ARM.
Funnier nonetheless, our Vivobook S 15 got here with three months of Xbox PC Sport Move Final membership. The factor is, you possibly can’t entry most of those video games because the Xbox app on ARM will merely not present any of them to you. You possibly can obtain a handful from the Microsoft Retailer app however after I say handful, I actually imply handful. Many of the others won’t present up within the retailer in any respect or won’t allow you to obtain them citing compatibility causes. It is attainable the Sport Move membership was a one-off factor for overview items because it is not sensible to bundle this for precise customers.
Lengthy story quick, gaming, for probably the most half, is a no-go on the Vivobook S 15 for the time being and if that is an issue then this is not the gadget nor the platform for you.
Thermals
The Vivobook S 15 has a decently sized thermal resolution regardless of what one would possibly count on from an ARM chip. The reality is, the Snapdragon X Elite can pull loads of energy, and operating it fanless would not appear to be an possibility for the second.
As such, the followers on the Vivobook S 15 are virtually all the time operating. Nevertheless, by default they’re so quiet, you’ll not often hear them, even in a quiet room. The one method to get the followers audible is to run the 2 greater energy profiles and do one thing closely multi-threaded on the CPU. For all the things else, it is virtually like having a fanless system.
Whereas the fan noise is pretty nice on the Customary and even the Efficiency mode, the Full-speed profile seems like summoning a demon as abruptly the followers get very loud. In fact, regardless of the title, the followers will solely spin as much as their full pace when doing one thing extraordinarily taxing on the CPU, that means you may also simply run the system on this profile and never hear the followers in any respect till you determine to run Cinebench for some cause.
Beneath load, the underside half of the keyboard deck stays at a snug temperature though the world above the highest row will get fairly heat.
Battery life
The Vivobook S 15 has a 70Wh battery. Asus makes a moderately daring declare of 18+ hours of battery life, a determine they obtained whereas enjoying video domestically.
For my testing, I left the gadget on the default Customary mode within the MyASUS app and the Greatest Energy Effectivity profile in Home windows settings. The show was set to 60% brightness and the keyboard lighting was off. The Adaptive Edge Brightness function was left on the default worth of two. All different battery-saving and standby mode options had been disabled.
Utilizing these settings, I received about 12 hours of pure net looking in Edge. For video, I received about 14 hours when enjoying YouTube 4K and 15 hours when enjoying Netflix 1080p.
The Home windows Greatest Energy Effectivity profile is completely satisfactory for net looking and media consumption. Nevertheless, you’d wish to change to Balanced if you wish to do productiveness work on the go, because it makes a giant distinction to efficiency. It additionally has a serious impression on battery life and I received about 6-8 hours when attempting to do blended productiveness duties on this mode, which concerned enhancing RAW information in Affinity Photograph and watching the occasional YouTube video.
One nice function of all these new ARM-based PCs is that the idle energy draw is considerably decreased. I can shut the lid and depart the PC in a single day solely to seek out about 3% drained within the morning.
Total, the battery life on the Vivobook S 15 is unimaginable. I used to be capable of go on a two-day journey with out the charger and nonetheless had energy left after I got here again. The effectivity positive factors over earlier x86 chips are actual and you’re now not blowing loopy quantities of energy for primary duties. If all you do is a few hours of net looking or watching Netflix in a day, you will not have to cost greater than as soon as every week.
Talking of charging, the Vivobook S 15 comes with a 90W USB-C charger. Trying on the HWiNFO figures, the machine was pulling about 72W whereas charging. I additionally tried a 65W USB-C PD charger, which Home windows promptly instructed me wasn’t quick, and it pushed about 48W. Contemplating the battery lifetime of the Vivobook S 15, you possibly can simply carry a single high-power USB-PD telephone charger for all of your units for a brief journey as a substitute of lugging across the a lot bigger and heavier Vivobook S 15 charger.
One factor to notice is that the left edge will get extraordinarily scorching when the gadget is charging. The floor temperature is greater than even whereas operating one thing CPU-demanding on the gadget. If you’re utilizing the gadget whereas charging, your left hand goes to begin feeling it quickly.
Conclusion
The Vivobook S 15 S5507 is a superb gadget for house and workplace customers. It is skinny and lightweight but well-built, has a unbelievable show, a wide variety of ports, a snug keyboard and trackpad, quiet operation, and an distinctive battery life. The general efficiency for net looking, workplace work, net looking, and even mild picture and picture enhancing is greater than satisfactory.
What the machine is not good at is heavy manufacturing work as a result of restricted 16GB-only reminiscence configuration out there in some areas and the 16:9 facet ratio show, and the gaming expertise was largely poor resulting from a scarcity of native titles and driver assist.
If you’re on the lookout for a jack of all trades, this may not be the choice for you and also you is likely to be higher off trying on the new Ryzen AI 300 fashions. However for these doing principally house, workplace, or faculty work with a little bit of media consumption on the facet, the Vivobook S 15 is a extremely compelling possibility that is solely going to get higher with time.
Professionals
- Skinny, mild, and well-built design
- Wonderful show
- Nice general efficiency from the Snapdragon chip
- Good keyboard and trackpad
- Barely audible cooling
- Excellent battery life in mild utilization
- Good number of ports
Cons
- 16GB not sufficient for productiveness; 32GB has restricted availability
- Poor gaming expertise
- 16:9 facet ratio not superb for productiveness
- Dim keyboard backlight
- Replaces the best Ctrl key with a pointless Copilot button