ScreenPad 2.0 Debut: Asus VivoBook S15 S532FL Laptop Review

Footprint is slightly smaller than the last generation VivoBook S15 S530 since the bezels of the newer design are narrower. Otherwise, thickness and weight are unchanged. The system is only slightly larger than both the pricier ZenBook 15 UX533 and Dell XPS 15 9570.

An Intel 8265 comes standard for transfer rates up to 867 Mbps and integrated Bluetooth 4.2. In contrast, most Ultrabooks these days come equipped with the pricier Intel 9260 or 9560 for transfer rates up to 1.73 Gbps and integrated Bluetooth 5. For home and office purposes, the Intel 8265 is more than sufficient. We experienced no connectivity issues during our time with the test unit.

Servicing requires a Philips screwdriver and a sharp edge. The bottom panel is latched very tightly around the edges and corners — much more so than on most other laptops we've tested. Be very careful to not damage the system or your fingers during this process.

Users will get direct access to 2x storage bays and 1x SODIMM slot.

If you already have a dual monitor setup at home or work, then you are already familiar with Asus' ScreenPad as it is essentially a 5.65-inch (13 x 6.7 cm) secondary IPS monitor with a native resolution of 2160 x 1080. Everything you can do on a typical multi-monitor PC setup can also be done on the ScreenPad including video, wallpaper settings, brightness, and even gaming. The practicality of the feature is obvious for both multimedia and productivity.

The ScreenPad has its own unique settings menu as well. Unlike last year's ScreenPad, frame rates are silky smooth this time around with an Android-like UI to make navigation feel more familiar even for first-time users. Brightness, resolution, and refresh rates can be adjusted. Customizeable shortcuts are available for launching Windows or ScreenPad applications much like on an Android Home screen.

An annoying feature of the ScreenPad is the automatic pop-up that suddenly appears when dragging a window on the main display. The pop-up will help snap the window you're dragging to the ScreenPad, but the problem is that it's very easy to accidentally snap the window if all you want to do is move it by just half an inch.

If you're uninterested in the ScreenPad and only wish to use it as a traditional clickpad, then you only need to press the clickpad icon on the bottom left with a finger to enable traditional clickpad mode. Gliding on the slightly roughened matte surface feels a lot like a regular clickpad but just a tad bit stickier.

The S532 utilizes the exact same LG Philips LP156WFC-SPD1 IPS panel as on the S530 and so our existing comments on the S530 display apply here. Both color space and contrast are only average for shallower and less accurate colors than on Asus' pricier ZenBook 15 UX533.

Perhaps most notably, the ScreenPad is brighter than the main display (450 nits vs. 262 nits) with higher native resolution (2160 x 1080 vs. 1920 x 1080), higher contrast ratio (~1100:1 vs. ~600:1), and even a wider gamut (89.7 percent sRGB vs. 55.6 percent sRGB). Subjectively, however, these advantages mean little because the matte overlay on the ScreenPad causes onscreen text and images to appear very grainy. It's not as bad as on the first generation ScreenPad, but it's noticeable nonetheless.

Color space for the main display is narrow at just 55.6 percent of sRGB compared to >90 percent on most flagship Ultrabooks. This is definitely not the system to use for any professional graphics work. It's very odd to find that the secondary ScreenPad is capable of reproducing a wider range of colors than the primary display.

Color temperature is slightly on the cool side for the main display. Our calibration attempt addresses this for a more accurate grayscale, but color accuracy remains moot due to the very narrow color space mentioned above.

Meanwhile, color temperature on the ScreenPad is far too cool. While it's possible to calibrate the ScreenPad for even better colors, the VivoBook series is not designed to provide color accurate displays in the first place and so the practicality of calibrating the ScreenPad is questionable.

Outdoor visibility is only average at best. The main display is dimmer than both the XPS 15 and MacBook Pro 15 and so colors become washed out even if working under shade. Meanwhile, the ScreenPad is even worse because apparent brightness dips noticeably depending on the viewing angle. As shown by the images below, glare impacts the ScreenPad significantly and bright ambient light can even blacken the screen. The bright 450-nit backlight is only useful if looking directly at the ScreenPad from atop which is an unrealistic orientation during regular use.

PCMark benchmarks are consistently ahead of last year's VivoBook S530UN. Its Productivity Score, however, is 10 percent lower than the Acer Aspire 5 A515 equipped with the same CPU likely due in part to the below average CPU performance of our VivoBook. Navigation and browsing are still smooth as silk as one would expect from a modern SSD-powered Ultrabook.

Two M.2 2280 slots are available. Our test unit comes equipped with an entry-level 256 GB WDC PC SN520 with sequential read and write rates of about 1200 MB/s and 700 MB/s, respectively, according to AS SSD. Results are slow especially when compared to pricier NVMe drives like the Samsung SSD PM981, but even the slowest NVMe SSDs are almost always faster than the fastest SATA III-based SSDs where transfer rates are limited to about 500 MB/s.

See our table of HDDs and SSDs for more benchmark comparisons.

The cooling solution consists of just a single fan and heat pipe. While typical for smaller notebooks, we were expecting something larger and more capable to better exploit the 15.6-inch form factor. The result is a fan that pulses frequently when browsing or video streaming on High Performance mode. We recommend setting the system to Power Saver or just opting for the config with no dedicated graphics if the GPU is not needed.

When gaming, fan noise jumps and stabilizes at the maximum of 41.5 dB(A) which is not an uncommon range for thin Ultrabooks with dedicated GPUs. Results are similar to both the ZenBook 15 UX533 and Acer Aspire 5 A515. The noise is somewhat high pitched and thus more noticeable than we would like.

We're able to notice no electronic noise or coil whine on our test unit.

We stress the system to identify for any potential throttling or stability issues. When running Prime95, we can observe the CPU spiking to 3.3 GHz for the first few seconds until hitting a core temperature of 93 C. Thereafter, clock rates drops to just 2.2 GHz in order to maintain a cooler core temperature of 74 C. Since the base clock rate of the i7-8565U is 1.8 GHz, the CPU is able to maintain a Turbo Boost of +400 MHz which is rather low even for an Ultrabook. The i7-8550U in the Lenovo Yoga C930 is able to maintain a faster clock rate of 2.5 GHz when under the same conditions which corroborates with our CineBench results above.

The GPU throttles quite heavily to just 937 MHz when running extreme Prime95 and FurMark loads. Thankfully, this does not occur during real-world gaming conditions.

When running Witcher 3, CPU and GPU temperatures plateau at about 78 C and 67 C, respectively. The HP Spectre x360 15 with MX150 graphics runs slightly warmer in the mid-to-high 70 C range when under the same gaming conditions.

Running on batteries will impact CPU performance. A Fire Strike run on batteries returns Physics and Graphics scores of 3557 and 3631 points, respectively, compared to 8347 and 3705 points when on mains.

Idling on desktop demands between 6 W and 11 W depending on the brightness and power profile. The ScreenPad demands an additional 2.8 W when at its maximum brightness setting. Results are slightly higher on average than the ZenBook 15 UX533FD and Acer Aspire 5 A515 during these low loads.

When gaming, consumption jumps to the 58 W to 69 W range to be more demanding than the aforementioned Acer. The ZenBook 15 UX533FD with more powerful GTX 1050 Max-Q graphics is only slightly more demanding at 74 W despite it offering 50 percent faster GPU performance than our GeForce MX250.

When running both Prime95 and FurMark simultaneously, consumption spikes to 88 W before declining to 70 W, 55 W, and then 50 W as shown by our graph below. This behavior mirrors our Stress Test observations above where clock rates are highest only during the first few seconds of testing before declining over time.

The small (~7.5 x 7.5 x 3.3 cm) 90 W AC adapter is just enough to power the system through high processing loads. Running 3DMark 06, for example, already draws 69 W on average.

It's worth noting that the system draws an unusually high >4 W when in Sleep mode and it appears to have issues entering a "true" sleep state because the bottom surface would always become very warm. Most laptops are at 2 W or less when under such conditions.