ASUS - Vivobook S 15 15" 3K OLED Laptop - Copilot+ PC - Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus - 16GB Memory - 512GB SSD - Neutral Black

The Asus Vivobook S 15 is a Qualcomm-based Copilot+ PC with a traditional 16:9 aspect ratio. It's fast, has good battery life, and is reasonably priced. If you don't mind the non-conventional display, it's a solid option for a 15-inch laptop that meets the CoPilot+ specifications. The design is impressive, featuring a clean and crisp aesthetic with a beautiful metal finish and subtle Asus branding, making it ideal for professional use. Upon opening the Vivobook, you'll find an outstanding OLED display with sharp, vibrant colors and a 2880x1620 resolution running at 120 Hz. In addition, Asus has color-calibrated the display, resulting in stunning contrast and vibrancy. Coupled with sound developed in partnership with Harman/Kardon, the Vivobook S 15 offers some of the best audio quality available in a laptop, positioning itself as a strong contender in the market. The most notable component of the hardware is the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus processor. It is an Arm-based system-on-a-chip (SoC) similar to Apple’s M3 line of chips found in the MacBook Air. It features an incredibly low 45W power draw. This processor is paired with 16GB of 8,440 MHz DDR5 memory, which is exceptionally high speed even by current desktop PC standards, and 512GB of PCIe 4.0 storage. With a variety of connectivity options and a relatively affordable price tag, this laptop is one of the best options for general day-to-day work. However, it has some limitations. It struggles in games due to the lack of a dedicated GPU, although AI upscaling can help improve performance. Additionally, the general AI features are somewhat limited at the moment, with only Microsoft Copilot and Co-creator being the most developed features. The keyboard on the Vivobook has large keycaps and takes up most of the available space on the wide keyboard deck. The numeric keypad, which is becoming outdated, is quite small, and the wider chassis allows for a comfortable keyboard. However, my main issue with it is that the switches are a bit loose and feel wobbly. They also lack the snappiness of some other keyboards, making them feel mushy. In comparison to other Copilot+ laptops I've reviewed, the keyboard on this one falls short. The touchpad is adequately sized, and its buttons are reasonably quiet. I would consider it similar to most mechanical touchpads I've reviewed recently, but more and more laptops are moving to the vastly superior haptic touchpads. The webcam is 1080p, which has become the new standard, and it also features an infrared camera for Windows 11 Hello facial recognition. The fast NPU with up to 45 tera operations per second (TOPS) exceeds the Copilot+ specification of 40 TOPS, and currently supports Copilot+ features like enhanced Microsoft Studio Effects, Live Captions, and Cocreator. However, the controversial Recall feature, which was the standout when the Copilot+ PC initiative was announced, remains on hold. Asus also includes a host of utilities that might use the NPU to some extent, but it’s hard to quantify at this point. Overall, this is a great OLED Windows ARM Based Co-Pilot laptop for work and productivity. However, if you're looking for a gaming laptop, I would recommend looking elsewhere unless you plan to game on cloud services such as Xbox Cloud Gaming or nVidia cloud gaming (which requires a monthly subscription to those cloud gaming services). In that case, this laptop would be perfect with its crisp display and sound with the only con being the keyboard could of been a bit better thus the rating for 4 stars out of 5.

Since I primarily use a laptop while travelling / on the go and dislike being tied to a plug (who does like that, really), I've followed the development of Windows for ARM devices with keen interest. ARM devices are designed for low power usage - it's why they dominate the smart phone and tablet world and why newer Apple laptops have such great battery life. But until recently, Windows on ARM has been disappointing to say the least. These new Snapdragon X chips change all that though - they combine the tremendous battery life of ARM with solid performance and a Windows experience that's shockingly (almost) normal. This ASUS Vivobook S 15 is the pick of the litter as well when it comes to finding the sweet spot for these laptops - you get great performance out of the Snapdragon X Plus chip and good multi-tasking with 16GB of high speed DDR5 memory (the memory is NOT upgradeable on these models as it's soldiered to the motherboard BUT because of the speed of the memory at 8,448 MT/s, it's not the bottleneck you would think it might be even if you're used to having 32 or 64GB of RAM) for a solid mid-range laptop price (unlike the earlier Elite models that didn't add much more performance but came at a higher price tag). The included M.2 NVMe SSD is a fast one (a WD SN740 in 2280 size) but you might find the 512GB limiting - do note that with removing some screws, you can remove the bottom of the laptop (see picture attached) and the SSD is the one "user replaceable" part so that can be upgraded, though since there is only one M.2 slot available, you'll have to image copy the current SSD to the new one so you don't lose your Windows install / files (or, I suppose, you could re-install Windows from scratch on the new SSD). The screen is a standout here as well with the OLED screen producing vibrant colors and great contrast ratios at the 3K resolution and up to 120Hz refresh rate - 15" isn't road warrior size usually, but this laptop is so thin and light that it still works on the go and I love having the extra screen real estate anywhere I'm working. The keyboard is quite good - I do usually like ASUS keyboards and this is one of their better models at that with nice single zone RGB light that's just enough without being too much - and the trackpad is fast and accurate though note that it's centered under the spacebar rather than the center of the laptop (the keyboard is offset due to the inclusion of a number pad which is skinnier than full-size, and I actually think this is a nice compromise in keeping the num pad but not having it fully shift the keyboard). The speakers are loud and clear ("sound by harman/kardon" after all) though they are downward firing and so work best when the laptop is on a hard surface vs on your lap and the laptop supports Dolby Atmos. There's no fingerprint reader but the webcam, which is quite good both with and without the copilot+ AI trickery, does support Windows Hello for facial recognition if you prefer. I do love that ASUS went with a full set of ports here and not the "all USB-C" look that is more common in super thin laptops - you get 2 USB-C 4.0 ports, 2 USB-A 3.1 ports, a full-size HDMI port, headphone/microphone combo jack and a microSD card reader. I do wish there was a USB-C port on both sides of the laptop for easier cable routing when charging (both are on the left side), but that's not too big an issue. All that's well and good, but what you really get an ARM laptop for is for the battery life (yes, and technically the Windows Copilot+ experience too - and the AI is good and very helpful in things like summarizing long documents / suggesting text) and the battery life here is AMAZING. With a few tweaks and normal (web browsing, office, email, sometimes video / music streaming) use, I'm seeing well over 12 hours of real world battery life without having to go crazy on tweaking settings. I did change a couple things (limiting the screen to 60Hz when on battery is key and not something you notice if you're not gaming anyhow and turning the keyboard backlighting off when you're in a brightly lit room and don't need it), but those were easy from the Windows power efficiency suggestions. Having such long battery life really changes how you use the laptop - even my prior laptop that had a good solid 7 hours still had me checking to make sure it was charged overnight and still hunting for a plug towards the end of the day if I was on it all day. This laptop doesn't have either of those things - I don't worry about the level of charge (too much) before going out for the day and if it's more than 2/3rds full or so, I don't have to worry about charging during the day if I don't want to (I do still keep it generally charged as a habit - and I feel like this is the first laptop that I could use the "80% battery charge level / lifespan increase" setting if I wanted to without really hurting the usability of the thing). So HUGE plus there. At the beginning of the review, I did say that you get and almost normal Windows experience - and it's VERY close at the moment to being like the non-ARM experience. The two big "gotchas" are (1) optimized software and (2) software that is tied closely to the hardware. While most software does just work, to really optimize the battery life you'll want to pick the "ARM64" version of various software when you can (it's installed by default for Microsoft Edge, Office and such, but for any new software you download, you'll want the ARM version). It's not a huge thing - and the Windows emulation layer does mean that "x86" software will work, but it might be a bit slower or use a bit more battery. This includes games, where non-ARM games will run through emulation and might suffer a performance penalty. THAT brings me to the second gotcha - anything that is very tied to the hardware might have issues. This is particularly impactful for things like hardware drivers - for example, my Canon all in one printer doesn't currently have a driver that works on ARM (it fails on install) and so I have to use the default Windows driver which works fine for printing but doesn't have all the scanning features. This will get better over time as more and more companies optimize for ARM and is one of the pitfalls of being an early adopter. All in all, even with a few gotchas, this is a GREAT all around laptop particularly if you're one who uses your laptop on the go and you can take advantage of the great battery life. So if that sounds great to you, give this one a try today!

This Asus Vivobook S15 and Copilot+ laptops in general are something I've been dying to review since they came out earlier this year. Snapdragon X is the most exciting thing to happen to the Windows PC space in a long time and I am stoked to say that it exceeds all of my expectations and then some. #Unboxing, physical first impressions# The Asus Vivobook S15 is a strange bird in that it has a larger 15.6in screen but it is an extremely thin and light profile. My unit arrived in a larger overpack box and I was honestly shocked that the laptop box itself was so small. This is a dramatically smaller laptop than the (more powerful) 16" OLED laptop w/ discrete GPU I have been using as my personal device. The Vivobook is actually not much bigger than my 14" Latitude corporate laptop - it's thinner than my corporate workhorse and a tiny bit heavier and wider - with a significantly larger and better display plus the numberpad on the keyboard. I love the font on the keyboard. I do want to point out that one of the key pluses of the Vivobook is that it has an all-metal case, but this is also a downside as the black metal shows oil smudges really easily and it's hard to make this look clean. Much worse than ABS plastic even. Something to keep in mind, though the _feel_ is fantastic. #Performance# The display on the Vivobook S15 is fantastic. It's a 120hz, 2880x1620 600 nit HDR screen that has Vesa DisplayHDR 600 certification. Asus includes a color profile for Windows and out of the box this laptop just looks amazing in HDR mode. I did my movie test with my favorite HDR demos (Encanto and Interstellar) and it handles highlights along with the perfect HDR blacks just like you'd hope for a premium display. Battery life is the major benefit touted for Snapdragon X and the Snapdragon X Plus in the Vivobook S15 does not disappoint. I'm a Windows and Linux systems engineer by trade so getting a Macbook has always been out of the question for me and I've always been jealous of the battery life of the M CPUs in the Macbook Air and pro - the Vivobook has blown me away. I received my Vivobook 2 days before leaving on a family trip. I haven't charged my Vivobook since I left on Saturday morning. My wife and I connected it to our hotel TV to watch a movie last night and it's still at 90% battery. For standard productivity and media consumption, this thing is just incredible. I did some gaming tests with trepidation as the initial reviews of Windows gaming on ARM weren't all that great when Copilot+ laptops launched a few months ago. I'm happy to say that the experience was very good, especially considering the sub $1000 price point of the Vivobook S15 (and that it has a Snapdragon X Plus rather than the top of the line Elite). In Overwatch 2, a non-"AI super resolution" game, I was able to get a _solid_ 45 FPS in medium/low settings at 1080p with FSR2 50% scaling. The game was totally playable in the QP game I played - I even got Play of the Game on Juno :). I then tried Witcher 3, which is on the official AI Super Resolution support list. The game looks amazing with AI Super Resolution - this is clearly superior quality to even the DLSS algorithm. It wsan't playable though, even at the lowest settings. Again, not suprising given this isn't even the high end Snapdragon X Elite chip. So, while I wouldn't buy the Vivobook S15 as a gaming laptop, it's not marketed that way and it can certainly game if you feel the need in a pinch with this as your road warrior laptop. #Copilot+ and other features# As mentioned above, AI Super Resolution is amazing. The AI noise cancelling on the microphone for meetings is also very good, at least as good as the GPU accelerated features from AMD and Nvidia, while using less power. As for the dedicated Copilot button, it's an interesting thing. It does have a PWA for Copilot pre-loaded that's tied to the button on the keyboard or the icon on the taskbar. The NPU on the Vivobook allows it to generate images locally. I do use Github Copilot enterprise at work, but I don't use ChatGPT or copilot much in my personal life. I gave one of my favorite image generation prompts to the onboard Copilot+ and it did a pretty sweet job ("create an image of a flaming skull motorcycle rider with a leather jacket and brass knuckles in the style of the_pack on reddit"). The fact that it's doing it locally is impressive to me given the low power usage from using the feature vs however many GPUs you're engaging if you send that prompt to the cloud. As for other features: I love the presence sensor and Windows Hello camera on the Vivobook. It's so cool how I can sit down in front of it and it will wake up and log me in before I even touch it as long as I'm looking at the laptop when I sit down. I also am a big fan of the included numberpad, even if it's not a standard 10key layout. For a non-"gamer" laptop. I think it's really cool that Asus included (single zone) RGB backlighting for the keyboard. The MyAsus app lets you customize a breathing or strobing pattern for the lights. In general, I found the MyAsus app to be pretty useful and well integrated compared to the OEM apps for some other laptop makers. #Conclusion# So... who is the Asus Vivobook S15 for? I think this is the ideal laptop for a student or knowledge worker/freelancer who doesn't need strong gaming capability (but likes to game sometimes). Especially for the kind of person who might have been tempted by the battery life of an M2/M3 Macbook but doesn't want to switch to Apple, the Vivobook S15 is a STRONG choice. I'd feel 100% confident leaving the hotel without my charger with this laptop on a business trip. That's just not a thing I'd do with any windows laptop I've ever used. The Vivobook has an amazing display for watching HDR movies and TV, and in general is perfect for media consumption on the go. This will be my go to personal laptop for the foreseeable future.