Deal | This Asus laptop is $170 less vs MacBook Neo with double RAM/storage, backlit keyboard, and more ports

Termed by the Asus CEO “a shock”, the Apple MacBook Neo is presenting a lot of problems for Windows laptop makers. It is a $599 notebook that doesn’t feel like a $599 laptop and punches well above its weight. Windows laptop OEMs have no comparable answer, and the only thing they can do is drop the prices of their existing models to compensate. While this is not good news for laptop makers, it is certainly a good development for customers.

One such price cut has now seen the Asus Vivobook 14 CoPilot+ laptop price drop to just $429.99 at Best Buy (linked at the end). Best Buy lists this discounted price as $320 less than the $749.99 “comparable value”. 

While you should not take the $749.99 price seriously, the $429.99 discounted price of the Vivobook 14 is pretty good, especially considering that the MacBook Neo starts at $599 with only 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage.

So, the Asus Vivobook 14 on sale is $170 cheaper than the MacBook Neo while packing 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. The SoC powering the Vivobook 14 is the Qualcomm Snapdragon X1-26-100 with 8 cores.

The Asus Vivobook 14 also has a much better port selection than the MacBook Neo with:

• Two USB 4 ports with Power Delivery and DisplayPort
• Two Type-A ports
• One HDMI out
• A 3.5 mm jack 

The laptop also boasts a backlit keyboard and expandable storage, both of which are absent on the MacBook Neo. There is also a much larger 50 Wh battery, which should help the Vivobook 14 last a good while on a single charge.

Now, not everything is good about the machine, as Asus has had to cut some serious corners to get the price of the Vivobook 14 down. 

The biggest weakness of the Vivobook 14 compared to the MacBook Neo is the 14-inch IPS display. Where the MacBook Neo has a display with 100% sRGB and 500 nits of brightness, the Vivobook 14’s 1200p panel is only rated for 45% NTSC (~65% sRGB) and 300 nits of brightness.

The Vivobook 14 is also made of plastic and not metal like the MacBook Neo. Then, there is the Snapdragon X1-26-100, which is a good chip, but not excessively speedy. It is much faster than the A18 Pro of the MacBook Neo in multi-core workloads but falls short in single-core tasks. The Asus machine is not silent in use, either.

Stil, the Asus Vivobook 14 is an excellent laptop for the $429.99. It will get the job done rather well if all you need is a machine for workloads like web browsing, document editing, etc. Some gaming is doable on Snapdragons SoCs at this point, too.

Buy the Asus Vivobook 14 at Best Buy | Apple MacBook Neo on Amazon

Disclaimer: Notebookcheck is not responsible for price changes carried out by retailers. The discounted price or deal mentioned in this item was available at the time of writing and may be subject to time restrictions and/or limited unit availability.