Coming straight from the official unveiling at Computex 2018, ASUS VivoBook is a eye-catchy yet highly spec-ed laptop which is mainly targeted for business consumers as well as catered for college/working adults who would love classy yet reliable notebook for their perusal. How well does the VivoBook S15 fairs during my usage? Find out on below review as I have used it daily for two weeks upon arrival.

Design

My first impression on the outlook is pretty impressive. I find it to be classy and sleek with a slight resemblance of MacBook to it the moment you open the lid. The color that I have is the Gun Metal which is definitely my general favorite color in most products. The design is pretty unique as the keyboard is attached from a curving edge and Ergolift hinge connecting to the display. This also makes the typing pleasure to be better probably due to the slight curve which makes the keyboard higher when placed on flat surface. The display itself is a true beauty, NanoEdge display sized at 15.6″ and Full HD resolution tends to be attractive for me.

The keyboard layout is well-designed and accompanied with backlit which is getting trendier yet compulsory these days. A full-sized keyboard layout makes it convenient for your typing pleasure and for me it fits just right. The gaps between each keys are good enough for my fingers and it did not stop me from typing real fast.  The trackpad is also considerably large and has an integrated fingerprint reader for additional security.

On the left you’ll find two USB 2.0 ports as well as micro SD card reader while on the right you’ll find charging port, USB 3.1 port, HDMI port, USB Type C and 3.5mm audio jack. The speakers are placed on the bottom part of the laptop. They are stereo speakers and placed at each corners respectively.

Performance

The unit that I reviewed comes with 8th gen i7 processor (8550U), 4GB of DDR4 RAM and 256GB of SSD storage alongside 1TB of HDD as well. The operating system and drivers are stored on the SSD which results in faster booting time as well as better overall performance. The graphics are powered by NVIDIA’s GeForce MX150 with dedicated 2GB of DDR5 VRAM.

Technically the laptop performed well and did not show any sluggishness due to how the operating system was setup. I used mostly for editing videos, photos as well as documents. With a little bit of Social Media and Youtube, the VivoBook S15 performed above average despite its high-end processor. Tho the RAM could have been more, the processor covered that area but it would be recommended to upgrade to 8GB of RAM so that you can actually have a better overall laptop which is capable for most games out there without having to decrease the graphics option too much.

The advantage of having decent amount of USB ports is good and will eliminate the need of getting an additional USB hub. Tho I would have preferred having a SD card slot rather than micro SD Card slot since most of the time I would require to use the larger in size SD card on my camera. The USB type C port cannot be used for charging the laptop, unfortunately.

Before

Battery Life

It takes roughly about 1 hour and 30 minutes for the laptop to be fully charged and it is indeed quite fast despite some other laptops that I charge takes longer. It lasted me around 7 hours while used only for web browsing, watching videos as well as minor video editing. This is actually a good battery life and saves your time to actually find for a charging port when you are on-the-go.

After

Conclusion

The ASUS VivoBook S15 (S530U) is indeed a value for money and probably one of the best designs of 2018 by ASUS. They are the only company that actually listens to their consumers and improvise. A good example can be the Ergolift hinge which makes business oriented person’s life way easier in terms of comfortable typing experience.

For the people out there who are looking for a perfect laptop specially for business use as well as minor video editing, this can be a very good choice as not just it excels in performance, it is definitely eye candy. Sadly, there is no touchscreen on this VivoBook since its a pretty common feature. However, do keep in mind that it is not a feature that we are going to use on a daily basis or frequently – but it’s a plus to have it.

The unit that I reviewed is priced at RM3899 but there are also i5 variants where the prices start at just RM2999.