ASUS Vivobook Go 15 Review
For a good reason, low-priced laptops are rarely discussed or recommended. Mostly, these are unremarkable, save for Chromebooks (laptops, detachable, and tablets running ChromeOS). Furthermore, the best Chromebook computers are not sold in India. The Apple MacBook is the go-to recommendation for a laptop purchase. That’s outside of the price range. Asus now aspires to fill this void by providing high-end specs at a more reasonable price.
ASUS Vivobook Go 15 Specification
| Ports | USB 2.0 Type-A ports |
| Weight | 3.7 pounds |
| Size | 14.1 x 9.2 x 0.8 inches |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Display | 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 |
| Storage | 128GB SSD |
| GPU | Intel UHD |
| CPU | Intel Core i3-1005G1 |
| Price | $399 |
Pros
- Affordable
- Complete Keyboard Design
- Super Portable
- Plenty of Port Options
Cons
- Short battery life
- Boring screen
Design
Typical of laptops in this price range, Asus’ Vivobook Go 15 OLED is a clamshell. It’s stylish, durable (it passes the MIL-STD 810H durability standards), and lightweight (1.6 kilograms and 17.9 millimeters in thickness), yet it shows fingerprints and smudges quickly. The metal cover is highly flexible, and the screen can fold back as much as 180 degrees.
Asus has done an outstanding job with the construction, especially for the cost. The plastic body is solid, and the keyboard barely flexes compared to the lid. The backlit keyboard has three brightness levels, and the trackpad is spacious and snappy. The available ports are pretty extensive. Ports include a 3.5mm headphone jack, an HDMI 1.4 port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (Type-C) port, USB 3.2 Gen 2 (USB 2.0), and a power output port.
Performance
Regarding screen quality, no other option in this price range comes close. The OLED screen is brilliant and boasts vivid colors, wide viewing angles, and deep blacks, all of which improve the quality of your media viewing experience. It works wonderfully for manipulating photos and viewing media. The AMD Ryzen 5 7520U processor with Radeon Graphics, offers more than enough processing power for daily office tasks and casual gaming after hours. It will be easy to use numerous tabs simultaneously, edit photos, type lengthy papers in Microsoft Word, and stream videos from services like YouTube and Netflix. But if you push it too far, the laptop can start to overheat. One has little room for complaint, given the cost. You shouldn’t buy this laptop if you plan on playing games or making films. It’s ideal for light users, such as students who require it primarily for classwork and notetaking. The 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM allow you to work quickly and efficiently through your chores.
Price
This Asus VivoBook 15 costs $400 and has an Intel Core i3-1005G1 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of solid-state storage. Another model of the VivoBook 15 with an Intel i5-1035G1 processor and a 512GB SSD is available for $200 more. For an additional $650, an AMD choice features a Ryzen 7 3700U processor and 512GB of storage.
Ports
If you plan to dock your laptop and use a complete setup at some point, investing in a model with many ports is a brilliant idea. Two standard USB 2.0 Type-A ports and a status light are on the laptop’s left side. A proprietary power jack, a USB 3.1 Type-A port, an HDMI 2.0 port for tethering the computer, and a headphone/microphone jack are all located on the notebook’s right side. A USB Type-C connector is included, which is unusual for laptops in this price range, and an Ethernet port may be added with an appropriate adaptor. MicroSD expansion is supported, which is lovely, but I wish there were a regular SD slot to use my DSLR while traveling.
Display
The bezel around the 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 NanoEdge display on the VivoBook 15 is thin, except for a little extension at the top for the webcam. Although the display has a widescreen aspect ratio, it isn’t ideal for watching videos online due to its lackluster color reproduction and odd viewing angles. Movies like the recent remake of Emma had incredibly difficult-to-see dark sequences, and episodes of classic TV shows like Baywatch, which already had a worn-in color palette, seemed even older.
The VivoBook 15 had a dismal sRGB color gamut score of 65% in laboratory tests. That’s lower than the market average of 85.1 percent but higher than budget laptops like the Acer Aspire 5 (63.5 percent) and HP 15 (67.1 percent). From personal experience, the VivoBook 15’s screen appears tilted. I can watch a YouTube video without identifying characters until I switch monitors. And while Adobe Lightroom allowed me to edit RAW photographs, I didn’t feel comfortable with the results until I hooked up an external monitor with superior color reproduction.
