Asus launches the Vivobook 14 X412 and the Vivobook 15 X512 in India with Intel Whiskey Lake and NVIDIA MX250 options

Asus has introduced two new Vivobook refreshes in the Indian market — the Vivobook 14 (X412) and the Vivobook 15 (X512). These notebooks were first announced at CES 2019 in January, and it has taken quite a while for them to make it to Indian shores. 

Both the Vivobook 14 and 15 offer Intel Whiskey Lake CPU options starting from the Core i3-8145U to the Core i7-8565U. The Vivobook 14 tops at the Core i5 while the Vivobook 15 offers till the Core i7 option. The default RAM options are soldered, but there's a SO-DIMM slot for expansion up to 12 GB (Vivobook 14) or 16 GB (Vivobook 15).

Asus offers the NVIDIA GeForce MX GPUs in select configurations. The Vivobook 14 X412FJ offers an MX230 GPU while the Vivobook 15 X512FL offers the MX250. Storage options include 256 GB/512 GB M.2 NVMe and/or a 1 TB HDD. However, the NVMe SSDs get only 2 PCIe lanes in models with the NVIDIA discrete GPUs.

Similar to most Vivobooks, the new Vivobook 14 and 15 offer near-frameless NanoEdge FHD displays. Port selection is good with a USB 3.0 Gen1 Type-C port being thrown in alongside other standard USB 3.0 Gen1 Type-A, USB 2.0, and HDMI ports. Both Vivobooks also offer a backlit chicklet keyboard. There's also the facility of Windows Hello fingerprint login via the integrated fingerprint reader on the trackpad. All models feature a 2-cell 37 Wh battery.

Pricing for the new Vivobooks looks to be very competitive. The Asus Vivobook 14 X412 starts from ₹33,990 (~US$487) while the Vivobook 15 X512 starts from ₹34,990 (~US$500). Both models can be purchased via Flipkart or Asus retail stores.

It would have been great if Asus had also launched the latest Vivobook S14 and S15 with ScreenPad 2.0 in the Indian market. Nevertheless, the new Vivobooks seem to offer a good value proposition for college goers or casual users. It remains to be seen how long the 37 Wh battery can last, though.