The Asus Vivobook S 14 OLED laptops are some of the best value offerings in Asus’ lineup. These notebooks are meant to be sleek and portable with good performance, solid displays, and long battery life. The Asus Vivobook S 14 (M5406WA) with the Strix Point processors showcases this rather well.
In our review of the Asus Vivobook S 14 OLED with Strix Point Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, we praised the laptop for its speedy processor, good display, incredible battery life, a healthy port selection, and good inputs, to name a few. As a result, we gave the laptop a “good” rating of 85%, calling it “a great portable companion”. If this description sounds appealing to you, the Asus Vivobook S 14 with a Ryzen AI 9 365 APU and a 120 Hz OLED is now on sale for less than $1,000.
To be more precise, the Asus Vivobook S 14 with a Ryzen AI 9 365 APU, 24 GB of RAM, and a 2880x1800 OLED display can be yours for just $900 at Staples. This is a 28% or $350 discount on the list price.
Before we move on to discuss the laptop in question, it is important to mention that the Vivobook S 14 on sale only carries 512 GB of storage. So, if you want more storage, you’ll have to replace the M.2 2280 drive inside the laptop with a bigger one. Fortunately, there are plenty of cost-effective options on Amazon.
Moving on to the hardware, the Asus Vivobook S 14 OLED is well-constructed. Our biggest complaint regarding the chassis was that Asus could’ve made it a bit more stable. However, the laptop is quite portable due to its 14-inch screen and a low weight of just 1.3 kg (2.87 lbs.).
Around the front, the Asus Vivobook S 14 carries a 14-inch 2.8K OLED display with a smooth 120 Hz refresh rate and a 16:10 aspect ratio. The panel is glossy and is rated for 100% DCI-P3 and 600 nits of HDR brightness.
Under the hood, the notebook is powered by a 10-core Ryzen AI 9 365 APU. Our testing shows that, while the Zen 5/5c CPU won’t win any performance awards, the Strix Point APU is efficient and relatively fast. The Radeon 880M accompanying the CPU is also powerful enough to run light modern games at FHD with low/medium settings.
The performance afforded by the Ryzen AI 9 365 should also, for the most part, not result in excessive heat and noise output. Our review unit with a much more powerful Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 was relatively quiet, although we did see some concerning surface temperatures under stress. Since the Ryzen AI 9 365 is less powerful than the HX 370, the Vivobook S 14 OLED on sale will likely see better surface temperatures.
Finally, the Asus Vivobook S 14 is an absolute beast when it comes to endurance. The laptop managed 16.5 hours in our WLAN test.
To sum it all up, the Asus Vivobook S 14 OLED (M5406WA) is an impressive everyday laptop, thanks mainly to the portable design, high-quality display, and excellent battery life. At the currently discounted price, it is worth looking into.
Source(s)
slickdeals, Staples, Teaser image: Philip Oroni on Unsplash, Asus, edited