Asus Vivobook 14 OLED review (12th gen): Pick of the bunch or just another mediocre machine?

Asus Vivobook 14 OLED Review Summary:

Editor’s rating: 3.7/5

Asus has been on a laptop launching spree this year and we saw some of the best devices being introduced by the brand. Asus rolled out the Zephyrus Duo 16 and the Asus Zenbook 17 Fold in the market, catching lots of eyeballs. Now, the company is back with a everyday use mid-tier segment with Asus Vivobook 14 OLED. The Vivobook series by Asus has always been one of the most liked lineups by users who need mid-level specifications and decent capability. The new Vivobook from Asus offers better crisp and innards along with an OLED screen.

Recently, I got the chance to review the Asus Vivobook 14 OLED, which features a vibrant display and a fingerprint sensor integrated with the trackpad. As of now, I have been using the device for around 10 days and have tried to test all the hardware and software-based aspects. Here’s my experience with the device:

Asus Vivobook 14 OLED review: Design

The Asus Vivobook 14 OLED has a pretty minimalistic design and you’ll feel content with the way it has been presented. The rear panel of the display has a striped icon placed on the right side of the machine. The chassis of the laptop is based on polycarbonate with a matte finish which gives it a near to premium look. The laptop only weighs around 1.5kg which makes it easily portable, and you can use it on your lap too, without any sense of discomfort.

The layout of the keyboard is on point, nonetheless, the absence of the Num pad, which we will discuss in the article later, spoils the game a little bit for people who are in the habit of using a separate Num Pad. Another issue that I encountered while using the laptop was a not-so-strong hinge. For example, I could clearly witness the screen swinging to an extent while I was typing something without rigid support. Apart from that, the design has almost no other visible flaws, and it is fit for professional and personal use.

Asus Vivobook 14 OLED review: Display and Sound

It is safe to say that Asus has focused noticeably on the display of the laptops produced by them. The same pattern has been followed in the case of the Asus Vivobook 14 OLED laptop. The device comes with a 14-inch OLED display complemented with a 90Hz refresh rate. The high refresh rate and OLED screen make sure that you get the best experience while streaming videos and other stuff.

The display of the laptop offers a maximum resolution of 2880×1800 pixels. You can also change the refresh rate of the laptop between 90Hz and 60Hz according to your preferences and requirements. The machine offers up to 600 nits of peak brightness and an 86% screen-to-body ratio.

While using the laptops I noticed that I am supposed to put less strain on my eyes to watch content and even while typing as compared to my daily driver. Cherry on the top, the device comes with an SGS Eye Care Display, which also helps in making sure that your eyes don’t get tired while being on for long hours on the screen.

Asus Vivobook 14 OLED review: I/O, Keyboard, and trackpad

Talking about the ports that are offered in the Asus Vivobook 14 OLED review, we get to see a USB Type-A 2.0 port, a single USB Type-C slot, a 3.5mm headphone jack, two USB Type-A 3.2 standard ports, and an HDMI 1.4 port. The absence of ethernet is not going to hamper your experience, as the machine gets WiFi 6 connectivity support for a seamless network. While practically using the laptop, you will feel that the laptop has an ample amount of ports.

As for the keyboard, we get to see a regular chiclet-style keyboard and adjusting to the keys pattern is really easy on this one. The backlighting of the keys is adjustable up to three levels, which helps you while working in proper and poor lighting environments. Coming to the trackpad, Asus has provided a large one in this laptop top that makes the operations super easy. Not only this, but the mouse buttons of the machine are also quite clickable. However, I was not that impressed with the gesture-based response of the trackpad which could have been better as compared to other features.

Asus Vivobook 14 OLED review: Performance

As for the performance, the Asus Vivobook 14 OLED ships with the 12th generation Intel core-i5 1235U processor paired with Intel IRIS XE graphics processing unit (GPU). The processing performance of the laptop fails to outclass any of the heavy-duty machines available in the market for sure. Nevertheless, it is perfect for day-to-day professional work, which has been further proved by the benchmark scores of this laptop.

Before that, I would like to mention a few examples like if you are planning to play games that require high FPS, then don’t, as the max this gadget can hit is 65FPS. It has 16GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB NVMe PCIe SSD that offers reading and writing speeds up to 3,029MB/s and 1,661MB/s, respectively. Keeping the gaming factor aside, the smartphone does sincere justice to all the daily tasks that you will be supposed to perform regularly, like web browsing, running average-level software on the machine, along with multi-tasking simultaneously.

Talking about the benchmark scores, the laptop managed to reach 7,197 on the Cinebench R23. On Geekbench, the machine scored 6,496 in the multi-core tests and around 5,169 in the PCMark 10 multi-core tests. One thing which had most of my attention on the laptop was the fingerprint scanner placed at the corner of the trackpad. I must say that the fingerprint scanner was super quick in registering responses and opening the laptop. This thing took the user experience to another level for people who love the pace.

I was expecting a decent battery backup from the laptop and it managed to live up to that expectation. As claimed by the company, the laptop can go on for eight hours straight once charged completely. At the time of practical testing, it was barely able to manage for five and a half hours or so. On the contrary, the charging speed of the laptop was still decent as it got fully fueled up from zero to 100% in a matter of 2 hours.

Asus Vivobook 14 OLED review: Should you buy it or not?

Now coming to the main point, after using the device for a considerable period of time, I can say that it is only perfect for people who don’t want to run heavy games and software on their laptops and use it for only professional stuff. The laptop is also a boon for people who love high-quality streaming on a vibrant display, as it offers an OLED panel. On the other hand, if you are someone, who is not that much into these things and focus more on stuff like editing on heavy software, and running games like Tekken 7, GTA 5, etc., then you can drop the idea of purchasing this laptop.