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Taiwanese electronics giant ASUS is one of the most established firms in the PC business. And, while the company’s portfolio is full of sleek notebooks and high-end gaming laptops, the brand’s Vivobook lineup has always caught my eye because it gives end users the best bang for their buck. Case in point, the ASUS Vivobook OLED, a 14-inch laptop, is priced in India at Rs. 54,990 onwards. The hardware spec sheet on the laptop is impressive enough to warrant a further inspection and see if it fits your needs well. In this review let’s find out if the device can become your daily work companion.
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The Vivobook 14 OLED is a compact machine and the device easily slips into my bag. What’s more, the bundled travel adapter doesn’t take up a ton of space, and as such, the unit scores big on portability. As far as construction goes, the laptop uses a unibody polycarbonate chassis with a matte finish. While the laptop feels solid for the most part, there is a bit of flex in the middle of the keyboard deck. Also, the hinge of the unit is not very sturdy and accordingly, the screen wobbles a little while using the device on the go. However, the Vivobook 14 OLED is very light and the laptop tips the scales at just 1.6KG and is less than two centimeters thick, which is great.
As far as ports are concerned, the laptop offers a USB Type-A 2.0 port, two USB Type-A 3.2 standard connectors, a single USB Type-C slot, an HDMI 1.4 port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. An Ethernet port is not available though you get WiFi 6 capabilities for wireless network usage. Suffice it to say that for the price, the Vivobook 14 offers a reasonable amount of connectivity options.
As for the display, the laptop ships with a 14-inch OLED panel that refreshes at 90Hz. Generally, Rs. No fewer than 60,000 laptops are equipped with LCD screens that – to put it mildly – offer a suboptimal viewing experience. The Vivobook 14’s OLED panel, by contrast, offers rich contrast, is bright enough at 600 nits, and is impressively vibrant. On top of that, the unit offers 2.8K resolution for enhanced clarity and the display refreshes smoothly at 90Hz, paving the way for buttery smooth animations and UI transitions. The laptop can relay HDR content and is Pantone-certified, making it a boon for digital creators.
Talking about the typing experience, the keyboard on the Vivobook 14 OLED is a standard six-row chiclet style setup with shallow key travel. I wrote this review on a laptop and it didn’t take much time to adjust to the key placement and tactile response. As far as budget keyboards go, the Vivobook 14 OLED has one that focuses on utility. The backlighting on the keys is adjustable through three levels and is bright enough for low-light use. The trackpad is spacious and responsive but the mouse buttons don’t feel very strong. Of course, the toggles feel clunky, and the trackpad doesn’t even do justice to gesture-based inputs.
Vivobook 14 OLED is not aimed at spec-heads. My variant ships with Intel’s 12th-gen Core i5-1235U SoC, however, the laptop also offers a more affordable Core i3 SKU. Understandably, the laptop’s U series chip doesn’t hold a candle to the processing capabilities offered by larger, budget gaming devices that retail at the same price. In fact, the integrated IrisXe integrated graphics doesn’t offer much scope for GPU-intensive tasks like 3D rendering or AAA gaming. In fact, the device barely manages to churn out 60-65fps CS: GO. Having said that the laptop can hold its own for routine office work, this is further proven by the unit’s benchmark stats. To wit, in Cinebench R23, the device scored 7,144 points in the multi-core test run and a net 6,566 and 5,121 points in the Geekbench 5 and PCMark 10 benchmarks.
For basic tasks like web browsing, the Speedometer 2.0 scored a decent 227 points, and during my time with the device, I could easily switch between a dozen Chrome tabs without running into any instances of lag. Finally, the device ships with 16GB of DDR4 RAM and a 512GB NVMe PCIe SSD that offers fast sequential read/write speeds of 3,029MB/s and 1,661MB/s respectively. Certainly, the Vivobook 14 OLED is a solid daily driver, though if your workflow requires a more powerful GPU you might want to look elsewhere.
I must say that the Pro series VivoBook and ZenBook devices have really spoiled me for audio quality on a laptop. Unfortunately, the regular Vivobook 14 OLED fails to match the same standards. The volume seemed a little low even for budget standards, and the audio lacked depth. The fingerprint sensor is also a bit iffy and the unit takes its own sweet time to authenticate the user’s credentials. There’s also a top-of-the-line webcam for video calling purposes that only supports HD output.
The Vivobook 14 OLED’s battery life isn’t great either. In fact, it’s not satisfactory for all intents and purposes when compared to some ultrabooks in the same price bracket. To wit, the company claims the device lasts up to eight hours, but I could only get four hours out of a single charge with the machine. This is surprising, as the unit’s 50Whr cell seems capable enough, although it struggles to keep the lights on for a full day. However, you can juice up the device in under two hours with the charging brick provided with the box.
Final judgment
Vivobook 14 OLED’s market potential lies in its portable form factor as well as its excellent display capabilities. Acting as a daily driver for office work and also as a media consumption aid, the laptop makes for a good buy. Of course, there are improvements in things like sound quality or battery life, but for the average user, the Vivobook 14 OLED is an attractive choice.
Editor’s Rating: 3.5 / 5
Pros:
- Portable and lightweight design
- Vibrant 90Hz OLED panel
- Good keyboard
- Decent performance
Disadvantages:
- Battery life could be better
- Average speakers
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Source by [91 Mobiles]
Written By [Baji Infotech]