With its tapered chassis, aluminum cover and thin bezels, the VivoBook S15 (the specific model I reviewed is the S510UA) looks the part of the modern, style-conscious laptop. It may seem on the luxurious side, but with a price tag below $700, it’s designed to fit into just about any budget.
Design
With this 15.6-inch laptop, Asus offers few flourishes, letting its compact construction and low price do the heavy lifting. The similarities to Apple’s MacBook Air are obvious: VivoBook copies the aluminum monochrome look and tapered base of Apple’s iconic notebook, even dropping the chiclet keyboard into a familiar shallow depression in the chassis. But the VivoBook is much larger than any Air, and much cheaper, too (look too close, and the minor corner-cutting becomes obvious). The spacious (though dim) screen, with minimal bezels all around, is the centerpiece of the system, and audio — with speakers mounted on the front underside of the machine, not quite firing directly downward — is adequate but unimpressive.
Features
Portability plus spacious screen real estate make for an enticing combination here. The laptop boasts a 1920 by 1080-pixel, 15.6-inch display, but weighs just 3.3 pounds, (nearly a pound lighter than the MSI GF63) and, at 21 millimeters thick, a full half-centimeter slimmer. The machine also includes a fingerprint reader embedded in the touchpad for biometric-based login, a backlit keyboard and a very portable power adapter (again seemingly borrowed directly from the Apple playbook).
Specs
The 1.8 GHz Core i5-8250U (eighth generation) processor, 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB SSD are all average for this category. Integrated graphics processing means you shouldn’t expect much in the way of gaming performance. Port selection is surprisingly strong for the device, and includes three full-size USB ports (sadly, two are old-school USB 2.0; only one is USB 3.0); a single USB-C port, full-size HDMI, and an SD card reader.
Performance
Much to my surprise, the VivoBook S15 was the fastest laptop in this category at general computing tasks (including web page rendering, business productivity applications, and digital media creation work), scoring 8 percent above the average speed in this category. The VivoBook didn’t hold its own, of course, on the remaining tests, which are all graphics- or gaming-related, though in comparison to other laptops with integrated graphics which I tested, it did eke out slightly higher scores. That said, you won’t be playing games beyond the likes of Candy Crush on this laptop. There’s good news on that front, however, because Candy Crush comes preinstalled!
Battery
Battery life is a weak spot for this machine, with 5 hours and 50 minutes of run time on my full screen video playback test. That’s a few hours short of all-day life, and several hours short of what most other laptops in this category achieved.
Conclusion
Asus lists the exact model I reviewed for $820, but you have so many options when it comes to seller, condition and configuration that it’s difficult to offer a single price point. But considering its respectable performance, exceptional portability and streamlined design, this machine is well worth around $700.
