Asus Vivobook S16 OLED Review: The Lightweight Powerhouse?

The Asus Vivobook S16 OLED has a 3.2K high-resolution OLED screen, a sleek design, and a metal build. Under the hood, the Vivobook S16 packs the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, ensuring it doesn’t just look good but performs well, too. 

But does it live up to this claim? This review will dive deep into how the Asus Vivobook S16 OLED fares in the real world. Does it live up to the hype, or is it just another pretty face? So, let’s dig in and find out.

Asus Vivobook S16 OLED Review

Smartprix Score 3.8/5

Pros

• Stunning 3.2K OLED display
• Sleek, sturdy all-metal design
• Good port selection
• Responsive trackpad
• AI capabilities with Intel NPU

Cons

• Poor battery life
• Tends to get very hot
• Bulky and outdated power adapter
• Not-so-loud speakers 
• Mediocre webcam performance

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Asus Vivobook S16 OLED Review: Design and Build

Right off the bat, its all-metal design feels super sturdy, and the new minimal ASUS Vivobook logo gives it that premium feel. At just 13.9 mm thick and 1.5 kg, it’s nearly perfect for taking on the go. It can feel a little big for your backpack, though. And yes, it’s military-certified, so it can handle a bit of rough and tumble. 

The keyboard flex is minimal, the trackpad is huge, and the hinge feels super sturdy—unlike some other laptops in this price range, there are no wobbles. 

You’ll find a 3.5 mm headphone jack on the left side, a microSD slot, 2x Thunderbolt 4 ports, and an HDMI 2.1 port.

On the right are 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 USB-A ports that can hit up to 5 Gbps, along with LED indicators for both charging and power. 

The display lid hinge is soft enough that you can open it with one hand, but it does not flex too much. Flip it over, and you will find the dual stereo speakers, rubber feet to elevate the laptop, and the intake vents. The outtake vents are beneath the display. This means the top keyboard area and display can get pretty warm, especially when charging. 

Plus, there’s a webcam shutter for added privacy, so you can manually shut your webcam. Overall, I am more than satisfied with the build quality of the Asus Vivobook S16 OLED.

Asus Vivobook S16 OLED Review: Keyboard and Trackpad

The Asus Vivobook S16 has a full-size keyboard complete with a convenient numpad. The power button is baked into the keyboard, which I am not a fan of. 

The keyboard is backlit, and the backlight is adjustable via the MyAsus app. The default bluish hue may blend with the key colors. However, this is easily adjustable with three brightness levels. During my testing, I encountered a persistent bug where the keyboard backlight was lit up even after turning it off.

A notable change is replacing the traditional control key with a new copilot key on the keyboard’s right side. Personally, I don’t find this key useful as it doesn’t fit into my workflow. On a positive note, there is a dedicated emoji key (F8) that I find quite handy and use frequently.

Moving on to the trackpad, it is exceptionally large, possibly one of the largest I’ve used on a laptop. The trackpad’s responsiveness and clickiness are impressive; you can click anywhere on its surface. However, it slightly tends to sink deeper than I would like when clicked. 

Asus Vivobook S16 OLED Review: Display 

The display on the Asus Vivobook S16 is truly impressive. It has a 16-inch OLED display with deep blacks and vibrant blushes. It features a 3200 x 2000 pixel resolution, translating to a sharp 3.2K OLED display. It has a peak brightness of 600 nits and a refresh rate of 120 Hz.The display is also HDR-certified.

The display has an 89% screen-to-body ratio with top and bottom bezels are slightly larger to accommodate the camera, IR scanner, and branding, the side bezels are thin.

The display was fairly bright when I used it outdoors, and I had absolutely zero issues with brightness when using it indoors. The default scaling on this thing is 200%, which, I would say, is well-suited for the 16-inch screen with 3.2K resolution. 

It offers various features, like color profile selection and the option to switch between 120 Hz and 60 Hz refresh rates. The 8-bit depth ensures good color accuracy, making it suitable for creative tasks like editing. 

One thing that I particularly liked is the 16:10 aspect ratio, which allows for more content on-screen. Overall, the display on the Asus Vivobook S16 is really good with excellent brightness, sharpness, and color accuracy for various uses.

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Asus Vivobook S16 OLED Review: Performance and Software 

The Asus Vivobook S16 OLED is powered by the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, which has a base clock speed of 3.8 GHz and a boosted clock speed of 4.8 GHz. This processor has 16 cores: 6 performance cores, 8 efficiency cores, and 2 low-power cores. The CPU has a 24 MB L3 cache.

The review unit we received had 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM clocked at 7467 MHz. For graphics, it uses the Intel Arc integrated GPU with 8 GB of shared memory. Additionally, it has the Intel AI NPU and 8 GB of shared memory. 

The laptop comes with up to 1 TB of M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD storage. There is no additional SSD slot, but the existing one is swappable. I ran the CrystalDiskMark test and got a read speed of 4.9 GB/s.

To test out the performance, I ran several benchmarks. In Cinebench R23, the laptop scored 1243 for single-core and 9921 for multi-core. Then, I ran Geekbench CPU tests, getting a single-core score of 1730 and a multi-core score of 9480. 

I also ran the 3DMark Steel Nomad Light test, which gave me a score of 2950 and an average FPS of 21.85. On PCMark 10, I scored 6693, which is solid.

Although this laptop is not meant for gaming, I tried playing a few games on it to see how well it can handle games when you want to relax. In Cyberpunk 2077 with Ray Tracing on RT Low at Full HD resolution, the average FPS was 20.36. Without Ray Tracing at High settings and Full HD resolution, the average FPS was 27.08. At Medium settings, it reached 33.36 FPS. 

CarX Drift Racing gave me an average FPS of 34.8 and a maximum FPS of 52.8 on default settings. In CS2, the laptop managed an average FPS of 75.21, which is commendable for the Intel Arc-integrated GPU.

During gaming, the CPU touched the 93 °C mark. Speaking of temperature, the laptop tends to get hot even with regular usage, like browsing multiple tabs. It becomes extremely hot during charging and gaming, especially around the display and the top-half of the keyboard. 

So, make sure to place it on an elevated surface to help with cooling. Despite this, the thermals are not ideal. The fans are almost always spinning, even when I have only a few tabs open in my browser.

The Asus Vivobook S16 OLED supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.4 for wireless connectivity. I have not encountered any connectivity issues yet. 

The software on this machine is Windows 11 Home, and you get Microsoft Office 2021, too. The software experience was good—no major issues thus far.

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Asus Vivobook S16 OLED Review: Battery Life & Charging 

The Asus Vivobook S16 OLED has a 75 Wh battery that Asus claims will last 16 hours on a single charge. Well, I am quite disappointed to report that this claim is far from the truth. In my testing, the Vivobook S16 lasted for about 5 hours on a single charge on the default configuration.

I tried switching to 60 Hz and the Low Power Mode for better efficiency, but that did not help much. Even after tweaking every possible setting, I only got about 6 hours of battery life. The Intel Core Ultra 7 155H with the 3.2K display is truly a battery hog. 

The laptop supports up to 90W fast charging using the included power adapter. Speaking of which, it’s high time that brands switch to more modern adapters and get away with the bulky ones, at least for thin and light laptops. 

You can charge the laptop using either of the Thunderbolt ports. When you do, it takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes to charge the laptop completely from 0 to 100%. However, during charging, both the laptop’s top half and the bottom area get extremely hot, and even the adapter gets burning hot.

The Vivobook S16’s stand-by drain is acceptable. During my testing, I witnessed a stand-by drain of 14% (several apps were open) over the course of 12 hours. Finally, I encountered a very frustrating bug where the screen turns off when you plug or unplug the charger. 

Overall, the battery and charging department of the Asus Vivobook S16 OLED don’t seem alright. Hopefully, the company can fix these issues via an update.

Asus Vivobook S16 OLED Review: Speakers and Webcam

Onto the speakers, the vocals are clear and I could easily hear individual voices in a track. The lower bass is almost non-existent but the treble is decent. The stereo separation is really good. 
However, the speakers are quieter than I would like. Sure, they are good for use in a quiet environment, but the loudness takes a major hit even if you have a fan running in the room.
The webcam on the Asus Vivobook S16 is a 1080p one. It does a decent job but it could be more impressive. There’s an IR scanner (Windows Hello) for face unlock, which works 7/10 times. I would have preferred a fingerprint sensor, but it does the job.

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Should You Buy the Asus Vivobook S16 OLED?

Now, should you get the Asus Vivobook S16 OLED? The answer is straightforward—if you want a 16-inch laptop with a stunning display for your creative work that’s also powerful enough, the Asus Vivobook S16 OLED is for you. You do have to keep the battery life in mind, though.
However, suppose you are someone who wants a machine with a good battery life. In that case, you might want to look at Asus’ upcoming Snapdragon X series laptops. And, of course, if you are a hardcore gamer, look out for a laptop with a great graphics card instead.

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