Millennial appeal with the ASUS VivoBook S15

Packing the laatest 10th Gen Intel Core i7, the Asus VivoBook S15 (S533) is here to appeal to the millennials with its attractive design and colours for the discerning youngsters and content creators of today. The short answer is that the VivoBook S15 is a good entry level machine for students and on-the-go content creators with decent specs and pricetag to boot. The long answer: our review.

Unboxing the colourful machine

We got two variations of colours for the VivoBook S15: Dreamy White and Resolute Red, with two additional colour options in Indie Black and Gaia Green for those interested. It also comes with stickers for that extra touch of personalization besides its base colour that can surely attract some attention with how striking it is. Utilizing a 3D nano printing technology, the surface of the machine is very smooth, with the chassis made out of an aluminium alloy in a diamond-cut design.

Whatever your choice, the Enter key is highlighted with a yellow border. The basic design basically makes the VivoBook S15 look sharper than ever, standing out from the crowd.

Clear design, slim profile

The new VivoBook series has that ultra-portable design, measuring in at 1.61 tall, 35.98 cm wide and 23.38cm deep for a compact and thin design to easily slip into your bag. It’s easy to carry around to use, even if a 15-inch screen is a little bigger than typical portable devices. If you think it’s a little too big for your tastes, then you can grab the S14 (14-inches) model series.

The design overall is very minimalist, the aluminium alloy for its chassis making it feel more premium than its predecessors that used plastic. It maintains a relatively light 1.8kg weight even with the change in material. The 15.6-inch display can offer full HD resolution (1920 x 1080) with thin bezels for aa 88% screen-to-body ratio. The wider screen definitely benefits those who do multi-window tabs compared to typical 13.3-inch compact devices.

You also get the ASUS Video Tru2Life technology that functions like a higher-end TV. It helps in better image clarity, colour and contrast for videos, analyzing every pixel in every frame to optimize the brightness, contrast, colour and sharpness. It’s like a video editor working their magic in real time, offering you colourful, bright and sharp videos of up to 150% increase in quality.

Funky design, respectable performance

The combination of quad-core 10th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-10510U and NVIDIA MX250 makes it a decent multi-tasking and lower-end gaming machine, with plenty if I/O ports for your peripherals on top of 8GB RAM, integrated UHD Intel graphics and 512GB M12 SSD. It also has Intel WiFi 6 Gig + (802.11ax) and infra-red camera for facial recognition log-in.

Besides the yellow Enter key, the rest of the keyboard with full number pad is a pretty standard silver. It’s smooth to use and is plenty responsive, which is the important part. The fingerprint scanner is in-built on the right corner of the pad, so once you’ve set up Windows Hello, you can log in quickly and securely with that.

Ports you get with the VivoBook S15are 2 USB 2.0 ports and microSD reader on the right, and USB 3.0, USB-C, headphone jack and HDMI port on the left. No Thunderbolt 3 port is available on this laptop. It’s more than sufficient for everyday use, the battery capable of lasting up to 15 hours on minimal use and if needed, can be charged from 1% to 60% in just about 50 minutes. Integrate your devices with MyASUS to make daily tasks even easier, offering control over hardware, software updates, optimization, ASUS support and AppDeals for popular apps and exclusive offers.

How’s the benchmarking?

It’s not a gaming laptop per se, but running it through benchmarking tests don’t hurt anyone. The results, as you might expect, won’t reach any particular heights, but for an entry level laptop, so long it can function well on every day tasks, it fulfills its duty.

PC Mark 10

Overall score from PC Mark is 4212 points, with everything else pretty average and well suited for general everyday use.

3D Mark

The VivoBook doesn’t perform satisfactorily with 3D Mark’s stress tests, nor with Time Spy, only being average at best. If you’re a student who does heavy editing, this might not be the best machine.

VR Mark

It also falls short on VR Mark, so don’t expect the VivoBook to perform for overly heavy/complex tasks.

FFXV Benchmark

On both standard quality tests, the VivoBook is unable to reach the necessary score.

The numbers all but say the VivoBook S15 is best suited for general use, but still, we can try out how it works for games anyway.

Gaming experience

We should reiterate that the VivoBook S15 is nowhere near a high performing gaming laptop, so more “regular” games requiring online connection were put to the test: Brawlhalla, Dragon Ball FighterZ and Valorant.

In Brawlhalla’s case, online gameplay had no lag whatsoever, and the FPS doesn’t drop significantly when running this game with whatever game effects running smoothly.

On high graphic settings, Dragon Ball FighterZ did fine FPS wise with smooth gameplay, but it has a slight heating issue, in this case.

Valorant was smooth all the way, with no lag or incredibly obvious issues besides the possible overheating. It can be a little awkward when it comes to the control scheme, as the keys are quite close on the keyboard. The VivoBook S15 will do fine with these lighter online games, just don’t expect it to run the latest AAA title.

Still a value laptop

The Asus VivoBook S15 brings quite a bit to the table at its relatively low price point, boasting a much higher quality build than most laptops around its price, and remaining portable even with a 15.6-inch screen. It manages to be solid in regards to productivity and can do some light gaming on the side at a reasonable price. If you’re looking for a daily companion to complement a desktop, then you can get your own VivoBook S15 at RM3199.

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