ASUS Vivobook 15 X515JA 15.6" Full HD Laptop (Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM, 512GB PCIe SSD, Windows 11)

Product Information

I didn't find the fans in the Asus VivoBook 15 to be as loud as other laptops we've tested, namely the Acer Aspire 5. Asus VivoBook 15 Verdict Empower your dynamic lifestyle! With an overall weight of just 1.8 kg2, the extremely portable ASUS X515/S515 is the lightweight laptop that keeps up with your fast-paced lifestyle. It looks good, too, with its Transparent Silver or Slate Grey finish.

Colour gamuts are very narrow, with just 52.2% sRGB covered, along with 36.2% DCI-P3 and 36.2% Adobe RGB. With so little colour available, the Delta E accuracy score was never going to be good, and it wasn’t, registering at an excessive 6 against the sRGB profile in Vivid mode. In Standard mode, it is even worse at 7.1.Taking the base off the Vivobook 15 is a painless operation, and once inside, you can swap out the 2280 PCIe 4 SSD and replace the 8GB RAM card in the one free slot, the other 8GB being soldered to the motherboard. The wireless card is also easy to access, and surprisingly, the MediaTek card supports the 6GHz Wi-Fi 6E wavelength. The benchmark results underlined that the U-series processors are intended for light workloads on the go, but they were not a million miles off the scores returned by the significantly more expensive LG Gram SuperSlim, which runs a P-series Raptor Lake processor. ASUS X515/S515 is equipped with the reversible USB-C® 3.2 port, featuring an any-way-up design that makes connecting devices as easy as possible. It also delivers data transfer speeds up to 10x faster4 than older USB 2.0 connections! It also includes USB 3.2 Type-A and USB 2.0 ports, HDMI output, and a microSD card reader "” so you can easily connect all your current peripherals, displays and projectors with zero hassle.

So, is there a fly in the ointment? According to Asus, the Vivobook is available with three types of display, all 15.6-inch, 1,920 x 1,080, and 60Hz, but in a crucial way, one of them is not like the other two. And that’s the one that came fitted to my review unit. Let’s dive in. Design and Keyboard inch, HD (1366 x 768) 16:9 aspect ratio, 60Hz refresh rate, 200nits, 45% NTSC color gamut, Anti-glare display, Non-touch screen, (Screen-to-body ratio)83% The 720p built-in webcam exists as a failsafe for when you're called into an unexpected video conference. But you'll want an external webcam to pair with the VivoBook 15, as the quality on the included one is comparable to a webcam I had over ten years ago. It's too bad the camera is an after-thought even on budget laptops because there are so many students and professionals who could benefit from the presence of higher quality video. Asus VivoBook 15 review: Keyboard and Touchpad The Vivobook may have a low-power CPU, but it also has a small 42Wh battery, so the PCMark10 Modern Office benchmark only took a modest 6 hours 45 to drain a full charge. In less demanding use, you may be able to get close to the eight-hour mark but don’t depend on it.We estimate Windows 11 support will end in October 2031. However, this laptop may be compatible with a future version of Windows that gets support beyond this date Our Handbrake video transcoding tests gave the VivoBook 15 another chance to get outperformed. The VivoBook 15 managed to transcode 4K video to 1080p resolution within 28 minutes and 33 seconds. The Acer Aspire 5 and HP 15 were much faster, transcoding at 21:55 and 25:53, respectively. The VivoBook 15 was faster than the 40 minute average for other budget laptops that took this test. Asus VivoBook 15 review: Battery Life inch, FHD (1920 x 1080) 16:9 aspect ratio, 60Hz refresh rate, 200nits, 45% NTSC color gamut, Anti-glare display, Non-touch screen, (Screen-to-body ratio)83% The 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 resolution display that comes with the Asus VivoBook S15 is a pleasure to look at and a pleasure to work with: there are pleasantly thin bezels around the edges, while the display itself is bright, vivid and sharp. The 16:9 aspect ratio isn't our most favourite – that's the 16:10 one, by the way – but it is of course perfect for those widescreen movies and shows. The bottom-facing dual speakers on the Asus VivoBook 15 need a little boost. You can listen to music and watch a movie without headphones, but the sound will seem as if it's strained. The Midnight’s Deep Blue’s strong melody, for example, came through clearly enough, while the vocals seemed as if they were coming in from a distance. Bassier genres of music, like house and synthwave, sound just as hollow, and sometimes it's hard to hear vocals even on podcasts. While I was watching Emma, I could barely hear the dialogue with the laptop set down on a table. You're better off pairing the laptop with external speakers to listen to anything.

The Core i5-1235U processor inside the Vivobook 15 is a 10-core chip from the Alder Lake 12th generation and has 8 efficiency cores and 2 performance cores, and a TDP of 15W. It is combined with Intel’s integrated Xe graphics chip, 16GB of dual-channel DDR4 RAM and a PCIe 3 512GB SSD. Everything considered together, this is just about our favourite laptop at the moment. There are more powerful laptops out there, and laptops with better screens, and laptops at lower prices, but for a day-to-day 15-inch laptop that's going to do all the tasks you need it to do and then some, it's very hard to beat at this mid-range price – the perfect balance between price and performance.

ASUS M515

I used the VivoBook 15 with low brightness and the least aggressive setting in Windows 10's battery-saving mode and noticed only slightly better numbers than the lab tests. The VivoBook 15 burned through 15 percent of battery after about an hour into a work session. Two hours later, the laptop used up 45 percent at the same setting. That's nearly 50 percent after three hours of use. Perhaps I could have eked out a bit more time by futzing with the power saving settings. It's clear from the numbers that the VivoBook 15 can barely manage six hours of continuous use. Asus VivoBook 15 review: Heat The NanoEdge display gives ASUS X515/S515 a vast screen area for an immersive viewing experience for work and play. Its wide-view FHD panel features an anti-glare coating to reduce unwanted distractions from irritating glare and reflections, so you can truly focus on what's in front of you. It starts with the design and aesthetics, which are really eye-catching, and the choice of colour options. The 15.6-inch display is perfect for everything from word processing to binge watching your favourite series, and yet despite all that screen space, this portable computer still has its emphasis on portable: it's in no way bulky.