Laptops have become increasingly expensive in recent years, with many lower-priced models selling out last year. However, at $690, the Asus Vivobook S 14 Flip is a breath of fresh air in the world of low-cost laptops.
The Vivobook S 14 Flip, for the most part, manages to strike a balance between price, quality, and performance, making it a good buy in an increasingly competitive market. Aside from the disappointing display, the Vivobook S 14 Flip has a lot to offer for the price.
There are two configurations of the Vivobook S 14 Flip that I am aware of. There’s the $690 review unit configuration, which includes an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch WUXGA IPS display.
Then you’ll pay $1,100 to upgrade to an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. Depending on the configuration, this places the laptop in the budget or mid-range range.
Asus Vivobook S 14 Flip price
Let’s get this out of the way first: The chassis of the Vivobook S 14 Flip is made of plastic, while the lid is made of metal. While plastic is sometimes associated with low cost, this is an unjustified association.
The Vivobook S 14 Flip is a sturdy budget laptop, with only minor lid bending and flexing in the keyboard deck. If this were a $1,500 laptop, I’d be more concerned about the build quality.
But it isn’t. I would be a little less certain about the $1,000 configuration. Furthermore, the hinge is too tight to open with one hand, but it does securely hold the display in clamshell, tent, media, and tablet modes. The hinges on the majority of truly premium laptops are smoother.
The overall aesthetic is minimalist, which is not typical of budget laptops. Indeed, in previous years, budget machines were frequently outfitted with tons of plastic “chrome,” making them garish and cheap-looking.
The Vivobook S 14 Flip is a solid blue with the line’s new logo on the lid and no other embellishments besides chrome hinges. The striped pattern running along the bottom of the Enter key is the only notable feature.
Still, I have no complaints about the Vivobook’s appearance, which is similar to last year’s Vivobook Flip 14. The laptop is 0.74 inches thick and weighs 3.3 pounds.
Surprisingly, the Vivobook S 14 Flip is one of only a few Asus laptops to include the company’s Bacterial Guard technology. This is a coating that covers the entire laptop and prevents the growth of 99% of bacteria, making the laptop less likely to spread disease.
It does not protect against COVID-19 or other viruses, but it is beneficial against the common bacteria that coat electronic devices. It’s also a nice feature for a low-cost machine.
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Asus Vivobook S 14 Flip Keyboard
The keyboard has plenty of space and large enough keycaps, and the switch mechanism has plenty of depth and a light feel. Midway through a keystroke, there is a confident click, but the bottoming action is harsh.
It doesn’t have the same keyboard as premium laptops like HP’s Spectre and Dell’s XPS lines, but it’s better than some other budget options. The touchpad is large and roomy, with a smooth surface and firm clicks that are too loud.
Asus included its NumberPad 2.0 technology, which embeds an LED numeric keypad in the touchpad and can be easily switched on and off, as a nod to the “S” designation in the laptop’s name. If you enter a lot of numerical data, you’ll love it; if you don’t, just turn it off and forget it’s there.
However, it is not something you would expect to find on a $690 laptop. Finally, given the price, the display is touch-enabled and supports the active Asus Pen 2.0 with 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity and USB-C charging.
Asus Vivobook S 14 Flip webcam
The webcam is Full HD, whereas some newer premium laptops, such as the Dell XPS 13 Plus, are only 720p. It features Asus’ 3D noise reduction technology and produces a high-quality image with plenty of detail in a variety of lighting conditions. However, the resolution is excellent for a laptop at this price. A physical shutter, on the other hand, provides privacy assurance.
There is no infrared camera for Windows 11 passwordless login support; instead, Asus incorporated a reliable fingerprint reader in the power button, which is the ideal location.
Finally, connectivity is excellent. A single USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port (no Thunderbolt 4 due to the AMD chipset), a USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 port, a USB-A 2.0 port, a full-size HDMI 2.0 port, and a 3.5mm audio jack are available. A proprietary connection provides power at 90 watts, leaving the USB-C port open for connectivity. With Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, wireless connectivity lags behind.
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Asus Vivobook S 14 Flip performance
We reviewed the Asus Vivobook S 14 Flip with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600H, a six-core/12-thread CPU that runs at up to 4.2GHz and has a default 45-watt TDP that can be adjusted between 35 and 54 watts. On paper, the CPU should deliver solid productivity results.
The Vivobook S 14 Flip outperforms the slower Vivobook Flip 14 AMD and the VAIO Fe 14.1 with a 15-watt Core i7-1255U in our tests. It is unable to compete with the 28-watt Core i7-1260P.
Surprisingly, the Ryzen 5 5600H performed well in Cinebench R23 multi-core but poorly in Geekbench 5 and our Handbrake test, which encodes a 420MB video as H.265. It also performed well in the PCMark 10 Completely benchmark, which tests productivity, multimedia, and creative tasks.
Overall, the Vivobook S 14 Flip delivered as expected in terms of productivity, but it won’t be suitable for anything more than light creative tasks.
Its Radeon graphics performed unusually poorly in the 3DMark Time Spy graphics test, scoring only 727, which is roughly half of what Intel’s Iris Xe graphics achieve. In Fortnite at 1200p and epic graphics, the laptop managed only seven frames per second (fps).
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Asus Vivobook S 14 Flip battery life
Battery life is also important here, as it was once a feature that old-school budget machines lacked. However, the Vivobook S 14 Flip performs admirably.
The Vivobook S 14 Flip performed well in our web browsing test, leading our comparison group with its 50-watt-hour battery (a 70-watt-hour version is available with the OLED display configuration). It trailed in our video test but still received an average score.
Overall, with a light enough productivity workload, the Vivobook S 14 Flip can likely handle a full day’s work. It was unable to complete the PCMark 10 Applications battery test, which is the best indicator of productivity battery life, like some other AMD systems I’ve reviewed.
Display
So, where did Asus Scrimp get such a low price? The display could be considered. While it was bright enough at 321 nits, exceeding our 300-nit standard, and had a good contrast ratio of 1,230:1, its colors were narrow and inaccurate.
It performed similarly to the Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 while falling far short of current premium and midrange display standards. You should avoid doing any photo editing or design work on this laptop unless you have access to a better premium monitor.
The audio was adequate, with two downward-firing speakers providing sufficient volume and clear mids and highs. However, the bass was lacking, implying that you’ll need a good pair of headphones for binge-watching Netflix and listening to music.
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Competition
At $690, the Asus Vivobook S 14 Flip is an appealing laptop with solid, if not spectacular, performance, a good battery life, and a sturdy build. The laptop’s main flaw is its lack of color on the display. That’s not uncommon at these prices, even today.
When you step up to the $1,000 configuration, you’re competing more directly with laptops like the HP Pavilion Plus 14 and the Acer Swift 3 OLED, which have better displays and faster performance. Choose the low-end configuration to get a good deal.
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