The ASUS Vivobook 15 Pro OLED has a lot of features and capabilities that content creators will love as much as the gamers. A slim laptop but powerful with an elegant design and true-rated OLED display for bursting colors. This new addition to the Vivobook Series will definitely be a go-to buy for the creatives. Don’t leave just yet, and let your eyes feast on this powerful and stylish laptop.
DESIGN & BUILD
The Vivobook Pro 15 OLED has a matte metallic lid design that looks futuristic, and the 3D Vivobook logo at the back part of the monitor complements the whole design with its anodized chevron pattern and tactile texture to add excitement before opening the lid. ASUS offers 2 types of color; Quiet Blue and Cool Silver, and we got ourselves the Quiet Blue as it looks so minimalistic.
Props to ASUS for putting a warning stripe on the “Enter” key. As much as we love to nit-pick, they made it look consistent because there is also a warning stripe at the back part 3D logo on the monitor which looks great.
ASUS made the Vivobook distinct as it does not put ErgoLift hinge on the laptop like their Zenbook lineups. Plus, it only weighs 1.65kg and is 18.9mm thin. The build design of the laptop is very minimalistic as it does not have any exhaust on the side of the laptop, they put the exhaust at the top part of the keyboard that dissipates heat onto the back of the monitor. The dual fan intake design is under the laptop with ASUS IceCool Plus thermal technology. That being said, they also did not put any RJ45 port for a slimmer design.
The form and function of the design are really great that ASUS knew what to put on a certain area and engineered the architectural design very well from thick to thin width.
PORTS & CONNECTIVITY
In terms of connectivity, it has Wi-Fi 802.11 ax, Bluetooth 5.0 and it comes with 4 USB ports (2 x USB 2.0), USB 3.2 Gen 1 (Type A), Thunderbolt 4 (Type C), HDMI Port, MicroSD Card Slot, Headphone and Mic Combo Jack ports.
KEYBOARD & TRACKPAD
The typing experience on the Vivobook Pro 15 OLED is normal and it does have backlit keys for easier navigation in dark environments. To top it off, the keys were very sturdy and linear, it gives the user the means of productivity and entertainment while using the laptop and the responsiveness of the keys are really fast and on point due to the fact that it has 1.35mm key travel to provide a comfortable typing experience. Moving to the trackpad, ASUS optimized and enlarged it by 27% to give you smoother and more responsive fingertip control. The enlarged trackpad helps the user to have more space for dragging and navigating apps. It also has a physical numpad wherein it is easier to input numbers, especially doing work-related stuff like spreadsheets and accounting. Props to ASUS for maximizing the hand rest when typing and it doesn’t touch the trackpad as we type on the laptop.
DISPLAY
There are no other words for its display but it is vividly pleasing as it bursts out vibrant colors a15.6″ FHD OLED 3-sided NanoEdge display, with very thin bezels and a 100% DCI-P3 color gamut. It is packed with a 720p webcam with a webcam shield design, so you don’t have to worry about privacy. The treat doesn’t end there, as it is PANTONE validated for professional use and TÜV Rheinland-certified for low blue-light emissions, which gives you better eye care for longer use. There is also 600 nits of peak brightness for the display that most laptops today couldn’t even put on a device.
COLORS
Going back, Pantone validated laptops today are a must for creative users nowadays. Not all laptops offer Pantone validated ones, and it is one of the reasons why professionals opt to get Pantone laptops. It is used for professional grading of colors, and the accuracy of the OLED display is astounding. As for the visuals, details, and realism, it has the best color projection an OLED could offer with 133% sRGB color gamut, giving you a cinema-grade entertainment experience.
The TÜV Rheinland-certified for low blue-light emissions, which allows you to use the laptop all day without the risk of getting eye damage. In addition to that, it is SGS certified and has 70% less harmful blue light for better eye care and sleep quality. It also has DisplayHDR 600 True black that allows you to see previously unseen details in dark movie scenes. Lastly, a 0.2ms response time for lets you experience smoother actions and animations.
SPECIFICATIONS
The ASUS Vivobook Pro 15 OLED laptop is made for everyone, it may be a little professional creative-driven, due to its design and build but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t game.
Powered by Ryzen 9 5900HX @ 3.30Ghz + Nvidia (Creator Studio) RTX 3050 4GB VRAM with (2X8) 16GB DDR4 of memory running @ 3200MHz and 512GB of PCIe SSD. The Ryzen + RTX combo will make no room for compromise as it can be used for gaming and heavy editing. Sadly, the monitor is only a 90Hz refresh rate but looking at the bright side at least it is not 60Hz or so, it could play MOBA-driven games like Dota 2 and League of Legends. It could also play triple-A games and FPS games but will only hinder you from having a higher refresh rate, but if money is not a problem, then you can get yourself a 144hz monitor and connect it thru HDMI 2.0. On the other hand, editing will not be a problem especially when we’re talking about rendering, as it has 8 cores and 16 threads of CPU processing.
BENCHMARKS
We first tried Adobe Photoshop and played around with the graphics. We were editing some pictures for the Vivobook and the colors were just so accurate that we were not used to seeing a new tone of colors. The deep colors and the vibrance are very bright. It can take a while for the eyes to adjust due to the fact that the peak brightness is very high, and we were using it in a dark environment. We don’t know if we were just not used to using OLED screens for laptops or it’s just that the colors were so much. Good thing that since OLED has brighter perceived brightness than LCD, and the fact that it doesn’t lose color accuracy at lower levels, we were able to turn down the brightness and still enjoy the same vivid colos and deep blacks.
HOW TO AVAIL FREE 3-MONTH ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD SUBSCRIPTION ON YOUR VIVOBOOK PURCHASE HERE.
Lastly, before moving to our next subject, we tried Premiere Pro and we tried to render a 2-minute 1080p@30fps video with slight effects and it only took seconds to render. We were not even surprised because the Ryzen 9’s capabilities are crazy, especially the threads it has. 8 cores + 16 threads are so much for that.
GAMING BENCHMARKS
We tried playing Valorant to see how much fps we could get from the laptop, and here are the settings.
Sadly, the screen is only at 90Hz which is why it is not intended for hardcore gamers. Our fps were ranging around 137-211 fps as we go through. It is pretty decent since this laptop is really made for content creators. Don’t be fooled if you see a Ryzen 9 5900HX on a laptop, it may be a Ryzen 9 but it is a mobile processor which means it is smaller than a normal Ryzen 9 that we put on a desktop or bigger laptops, these are made for creative users that don’t need higher gigahertz for deep-dive editing and rendering. So seeing as high fps as 100-200, in general, is pretty amazing for a mobile processor.
The next game we tried was Dota 2 which is a MOBA game. Our settings are set to Best Looking which is the maxed-out settings. We were surprised when we are ranging from 70-100 fps. Often our fps sit at 80-85 fps which is very decent. The shader quality, VFX, colors, and such are very vibrant and the gaming experience especially playing Dota 2 gives us more immersive gameplay. The laptop’s sweet spot for games is the MOBA genre which are Dota 2, League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Heroes of Newerth, and other MOBAs out there. The visuals are great and the fps as well.
We also tried to watch Netflix movies and Youtube Videos with great cinematography and sure is one of the best screens we have ever watched on. The colors are crips, the details are there, and plus in darker scenes, I can see some information or details which we have never seen before when we first watched that movie somewhere. The Display HDR600 True Black is really true. *no pun intended*
In addition to that, the audio is really clear and very surrounding. We feel the vibes of being inside a cinema, the surround sound and we can really tell where the sounds come from if it’s at the back, sides, or in front of you.
BATTERY
It is packed with a 63 watt-hour battery which is a decent-sized battery for a 15-inch laptop. We put the battery charge to 100% before starting some benchmarks and use it to know how optimized the battery is. After 40 minutes of using it, the battery was down to 78% which looks great even though it was in “Best Performance” mode the whole time and tried out some games and work-related stuff.
OTHER FEATURES
ASUS WiFi Master technology allows you to enjoy streaming FHD YouTube videos at distances of up to 300 meters or even more from a router. Even when you’re using USB 3 devices which can cause wireless interference — you can still stream smoothly when you’re up to 225 meters away or more from your router, which is 65 meters farther than on standard laptops without the benefit of Wi-Fi Master.
ASUS WiFi SmartConnect is the feature that could automatically steer clients to the most appropriate band. Select the smart connect option and automatically connect your devices in your network to the best band for optimal speed.
ASUS even infused a fingerprint sensor login on the power button for added security purposes. It is paired with Windows Hello so you don’t have to type your password from time to time and all you need is a single touch.
They also added “MyASUS” to provide solutions for hand-held device mirroring on PC and remote file access from your handheld device to your laptop.
AUDIO
It is Harman Kardon-certified as it brings your sounds into a state of being immersed and brought to life details. Treating yourself with great audio tends to sway our moods in a better position. Plus the ASUS AI Noise-Canceling technology to ensure your best communication experience when in a conference call or remote work. The technology was made to isolate unwanted noise from human speech.
VERDICT
The Vivobook Pro 15 OLED has won the hearts of the creatives out there. Now that it is officially out with an SRP of 69,995 PHP, it is very much a great deal for its specs in proportion to its price. The Vivobook Pro 15 OLED is our top choice for having the best color output and visuals. The only thing that we were disappointed with was the backlights on the keyboard. It looks lowkey and very minimalist, we get the design and all but if only they could tone the brightness of the keyboard a little more than it would be much better. All in all the laptop serves its purpose and its function as well. It is a very ideal laptop for people in the creative industry, online classes, work-from-home setups, and work office setups.
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