Exclusive ASUS Vivobook 15X OLED review: Bang for the buck!

A comprehensive review of Vivobook 15X OLED – Everything You Need to Know in 2023

Asus India has recently expanded its consumer laptop portfolio powered by 13th Gen Intel processors. Among a lot of them, we got this unique and new offering i.e. Vivobook 15X OLED which is aimed towards those who love the best price-to-performance ratio.

Starting at ₹74,990, this laptop bags a big 15.6-inch OLED display coupled with a newer 13th Gen Core i5-1340P with up to 12 cores for best performance. Aimed towards those who love creativity and everyday media consumption, this OLED display, a decent design and the latest hardware will surely excite you.

Personally having been using the laptop for a week now, here’s a quick review of this laptop:

ASUS Vivobook 15X OLED Specifications

• Processor: Intel Core i5-1340P Processor 1.9 GHz (12MB Cache, up to 4.6 GHz, 12 cores, 16 Threads)
• Memory: 16GB (8GB onboard + 8GB SO-DIMM) 3200MHz with | Storage: 512GB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD
• Display: 15.6-inch (39.62 cm) FHD (1920 x 1080) OLED 16:9 aspect ratio, 60Hz refresh rate Display, 0.2ms response time 550nits HDR peak brightness VESA CERTIFIED Display HDR True Black 500 100% DCI-P3 color gamut PANTONE Validated Glossy display
• Graphics: Integrated Intel Iris Xᵉ Graphics
• Operating System: Windows 11 Home with lifetime validity | Software Included: Pre-Installed Office Home and Student 2021 | 1-Year McAfee Anti-Virus
• Design: 1.79 ~ 1.79 cm Thin | Thin & Light Laptop | 1.60 kg | 50WHrs Battery Capacity Up to 6 hours Battery life, Note: Battery life depends on conditions of usage
• Keyboard: Backlit Chiclet Keyboard with Num-key
• I/O Port: 1x USB 2.0 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C support power delivery, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1x HDMI 1.4, 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, 1x Headphone/Headset, 1x DC-in
• Other: FingerPrint Reader | 720p HD camera With privacy shutter | Wi-Fi 6E(802.11ax) (Dual band) 1*1 + Bluetooth 5 | US MIL-STD 810H military-grade standard | SonicMaster, Built-in speaker, Built-in array microphone with Cortana voice-recognition support

Design & Build Quality

ASUS has followed the same stylish Vivobook design that it has recently improved upon, while still having a plastic unibody but it’s hard yet light. It has a thin profile of 17.9mm and weighs 1.6 kg with military-grade durability.

The new Vivobook 15X OLED has a clean and subtle design with beautiful colors for giving premiumness for the price. It’s rigid, sturdy and lightweight, great for college students or even productivity lovers who need the best price-to-performance without sacrificing the design or build quality.

Display

One of the biggest USPs of this Vivobook 15X OLED laptop has to be its big 15.6-inch FHD OLED display but with an older 16:9 aspect ratio. This is a 60Hz refresh rate display with 0.2ms response time and ASUS claims up to 550nits HDR peak brightness.

Also kudos to ASUS for those who need an affordable OLED laptop, this is a VESA CERTIFIED display with HDR True Black 500, covering up to 100% DCI-P3 color gamut and is PANTONE Validated. Being a Glossy display is sometimes painful but the display mostly works whether you are indoors or even go outdoors.

The quality of the OLED panel is no doubt great and working with it for everyday usage is bliss obviously. Slowly and steadily we have come to a time where OLED displays have become very common and having one for media consumption is really cool. I loved using the laptop for YouTube sessions and binge-watching as well, if you too love watching stuff on your laptop, this will be bliss.

To verify ASUS’ claims we have done our tests of this display with our DataColor SpyderXPro:

As you see in the display benchmarks, the Vivobook 15X OLED display does perform as promised, providing up to 99% sRGB, and 99% DCI-P3 color accuracy. These are really great numbers and even the contrast is great whereas the peak brightness is not near the 550 nits claimed but more of the 400 nits from our results.

Performance

Powered by the latest Intel’s latest 13th Gen processors and Iris Xe graphics, with upgradable 16GB DDR4 RAM (3200 MHz) and 512GB/1TB PCIe Gen 4 storage (3500 MB/s), this is a powerful as well as efficient laptop. The P-series processors are not only efficient but also slightly more powerful than the U-series chips.

For me, this laptop with Windows 11 performed as expected with a fluid everyday usage experience, faster boot speeds, smooth transitions and exceptional efficiency. The improvement over the 12th Gen is evident and while the raw performance numbers have a smaller difference but in terms of efficiency, the new generation has improved substantially.

Here are some of the common synthetic benchmarks for your reference:

As you see in all the benchmarks, the numbers are quite good, we will compare this with 12th Gen predecessor soon, however, so far so, not huge in terms of raw scores but in terms of efficiency you can just feel that the new Intel chips have been improved significantly.

In terms of SSD speeds, for an average user, 512GB fast storage is enough for most use cases and here you can expect up to 4115MB/s read speeds. While the write speeds could have been better obviously, but won’t complain much.

In terms of daily performance overall, the 16GB RAM, 512GB Gen4 SSD and new Intel Core i5-1340P processor give you that smooth daily work experience, even if you open 15 Chrome tabs simultaneously there’s no lag whatsoever. I was also surprised the laptop fans not spinning up meaninglessly and was calm & composed throughout my usage.

Anyone who is looking to buy a reliable everyday usage laptop can actually consider it as a serious option.

Keyboard and Trackpad

Having a big form factor on a laptop has the advantage that the keyboard layout is wider. So you have a backlit chiclet keyboard with Num-key which to be fair is quite tactile and accurate for daily work.

Also, the trackpad is quite big for a Vivobook laptop and while I didn’t use it much but it is “ok-ish” nothing extraordinary. For basic work, the trackpad does the job pretty well and most people will be happy with it.

I/O and Connectivity

As expected, this Vivobook laptop wouldn’t befall you in this category as well. This 15.6-inch form-factor laptop comes with a complete set of ports including USB 3.2 Gen 1 (Type-C), two USB 3.2 Gen 2 (Type-A), USB 2.0, HDMI 1.4, and a 3.5mm combo audio jack.

In terms of connectivity, you have Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.0, being an affordable option, it lacks an adequate number of antennas, so the network reception is not the best I would say. However, in most cases, the Vivobook 15X OLED works pretty fine and even when you connect multiple Bluetooth devices, the laptop handles it without any issues.

Audio and Webcam

Coming to audio, which for many is very important, and for me, it’s obviously because I love listening to music more often. The Vivobook 15X OLED speakers are really disappointing and are nowhere near the ZenBooks.

In this regard, I expected more from Asus honestly, this is the same 720p HD 3DNR camera with an Infrared sensor for video calls, I would have liked it if ASUS upgraded it to FHD ones as they did on the ZenBooks.

Battery Life

Lastly, talking about the battery life of this the new Vivobook 15X OLED features a smaller 50WHrs battery which lasts pretty long considering the price and majorly because of the efficiency improvements that the 13th Gen Intel chips have.

While ASUS says you can get up to 6 hours of battery life from this, I was too getting similar battery life throughout the day, not the best I would say but won’t complain much for the target audience it has. Also with a 90W charger, the laptop charges very fast, helpful when you are outdoors.

Verdict

Now should you buy this new Vivobook laptop? Well, it depends on your use case and budget obviously, however, I personally loved using it for the short time and noticed great potential. Though nothing is perfect and neither this one is, still, with its minor shortcomings and new hardware along with OLED display has an edge over those cons.

Though I would have loved an FHD webcam and better speakers, still, the efficiency and performance of these new 13th Gen P-series Intel processors are much better. With good battery life, great display quality, and cheeky design, this is yet another favourite option that money can buy right now in 2023 undoubtedly.

Buy this ASUS Vivobook 15X OLED from Amazon India: https://amzn.to/3mXZA1D