Asus VivoBook 15 laptop test: minimum service in office automation

It is a fully plastic chassis that equips the Asus VivoBook. And despite the reinforcements observed during disassembly, the VivoBook is not the most rigid. Thus, the plastics around the keyboard sink slightly if you press it too hard, and the screen wobbles a bit after being opened or adjusted.
The case also tends to retain fingerprints very easily.

The VivoBook keyboard is not backlit. The plastic of the keys is slightly grainy and looks identical to that of the display bezel and lower chassis shell. The numeric keypad is present, but limited to 3 columns of keys; little fancy on the part of Asus, the Enter key is circled in fluorescent yellow, surely a rallying sign for VivoBook owners.

The typing is absolutely correct. We simply regret the somewhat short stroke and the lack of rigidity of the keyboard, with a slight pumping effect.
The touchpad has a large gliding surface. The latter is fluid and the different gestures with 2, 3 and 4 fingers are well taken into account. Drag and drop is easy to do.

The connection has the merit of being provided. It mixes old and new: on the right, two USB 2.0 ports; on the left, a USB3.2 Gen1 port, a USB3.2 Gen1 Type-C port bypassing DisplayPort or Power Delivery, an HDMI 1.4 port and a microSD port.
Wireless connectivity is on the other hand in tune with the times with an Intel AX200 chip supporting Wi-Fi 6 (2400 Mb / s) and Bluetooth 5.2. The 720p webcam has the merit of being present. Its quality, however, is particularly poor.

The cooling of the Asus VivoBook is provided by a single fan blowing hot air under the screen on the left.

The temperatures recorded do not exceed 49 ° C at the air outlet. The keyboard is relatively spared, with a maximum of 42 ° C after 15 min of video encoding. The heat radiates especially on the right side of the keyboard, which corresponds to the location of the processor on the motherboard.
Noise pollution is also controlled (36.7 dB recorded during this encoding). The breath is audible in a very calm environment, but goes unnoticed in open space.

Disassembly requires removing 10 screws then unclipping the hull. Avoid leaning on the USB ports or the HDMI port, as this may damage them. The easiest way is to slide an opening pick at the front corners of the case and gently bring it towards the hinge.

Inside, only one RAM slot is accessible; the other being welded). The battery, SSD and Wi-Fi card are also accessible. All this little world is therefore scalable and easily removable. Note the presence of a free 2.5-inch slot, but devoid of cradle and connectors; it is therefore unusable as it is.

This test was carried out with an Asus VivoBook S513EA-bq792t equipped with an Intel Core i3-1115G4 processor with two hyperthreaded cores. It comes with 8 GB of RAM and a 512 GB PCIe 3.0 2x SSD.

The VivoBook 15’s performance index does not rise above 41; a relatively low score compared to those of the Core i5 and other Ryzen 5. It is however nearly 29% more efficient than the lower Core i3, the 10110U which equips in particular the Honor MagicBook X 15.

What is therefore valid for the MagicBook X 15 is also valid for the Vivobook 15: it will do very well in office use. For example, using Chrome with 25 tabs open isn’t a problem, and neither is watching 4K video.

As usual, we have also launched Diablo 3 in 1080p with all the details to the maximum. The latter operates at an average of 23 fps. As for Overwatch, for its part, it operates at 48 fps, still in Full HD, but with minimal details. It will therefore not be very demanding with the Intel UHD graphics part of this 11th generation Core i3.

The VivoBook 15 S513EA is equipped with an IPS panel displaying 1920 x 1080 px. The borders are not particularly thin, especially on the upper part. The screen occupancy rate thus reaches 79.6% of the surface, a value within the average of 15.6 inches on the market.

We noted a maximum brightness of 288 cd / m², coupled with a matte panel reflecting 20.7% of the light. It will therefore be necessary to ensure that the screen is oriented correctly so as not to suffer from reflections. With a brightness below 300 cd / m², on the other hand, it is complicated to work outdoors in sunny weather.

The contrast was measured at 1063: 1, which puts the VivoBook in the back of the basket. The color temperature (6204 K) is a little below the ideal value (6500 K), but nothing alarming. The measurement of delta E (6.5) is, on the other hand, more problematic. Colorimetric drifts are clearly visible, especially in greens, blues and purples.

To put an end to the measurements dedicated to the screen, the remanence of the screen is 30 ms, a high value which can reveal trails during rapid movements of the pointer or the windows. This defect, handicapping in video games, is much less in office automation, the preferred use of this VivoBook.

The Asus VivoBook 15 measures 35.9 x 23.5 cm, is 1.99 cm thick and weighs 1.71 kg. The 65 W charger, for its part, weighs 173 g and brings the whole to less than 2 kg. It is therefore his measurements, more than his weight, that could prove to be a handicap when moving.

We measured an autonomy of 5 h 40 min in video player under Netflix (brightness at 200 cd / m², headphones connected at 50% of the volume and Bluetooth deactivated). This autonomy is a little low for this format of notebook, but is explained by the capacity of the battery of only 42 Wh, in spite of the sticker “Large capacity battery” on the frame. In comparison, the 13-inch ZenBooks carry 65 Wh batteries. The recharging of this “small” battery is carried out on the other hand in a little less than an hour.