Asus has launched plenty of good to great laptops in the year 2021. Probably the last to come from the camp is Asus Vivobook Pro 14x, which we got to play around with for the last 7-10 days. If you are in the market to buy a lightweight yet powerful laptop then you should read the Asus Vivobook Pro 14x review by us. Here is everything you need to know about the new notebook.
Asus Vivobook Pro 14x review: Design and Display
Asus has been one of the pioneers to bring out the best looking and the brightest displays in the 14 to 16-inch laptop segment. Laying in the same is the new Asus Vivobook Pro 14x. The laptop is a knockout when it comes to looks. It is built of sturdy plastic with a hint of metal around it. A good example of design is its protruding logo on the top of the lid, which is something very fresh.
Open it up and the first thing you will notice is the large keyboard, which has the side keys like TAB, Entre etc in a lighter shade of grey and the mid part is black in colour. With exception of the Escape key that is dressed in red. The keyboard is accompanied by a fairly large trackpad. Why is it so large? Because it also has the Asus virtual dial pad, which it has borrowed from its Pro Art sibling. There it was a physical dial, but here it is embedded within the trackpad. More about it in the ‘performance section’.
As for the ports, users get 3 USB, 1 HDMI, 1 USB Type-C and 1 audio/mic port along with a microSD card slot. The speakers (powered by Harman Kardon) are bottom-firing which do have a decent output, but a bit louder would have been perfect.
Moving to its screen, which is one of its best features, consumers get a 14-inch OLED NanoEdge screen that supports FHD+ resolution of 2,800×1,800 pixels. 600 nits of peak brightness with HDR support keeps everything lively on the screen. The text is crisp and the colours are very pleasing with super deep blacks. This is by far the finest display we have seen this year. We played a lot of things on the computer including Netflix shows, games like CS: Go and more. Everything on the screen looks very good. It did not give a chance to shame it even once.
While the Asus branding can be seen under the screen, there is an HD camera present on top. This has a special shutter in front of it that slides in, this gives you that extra bit of relief that no one can see you even if they somehow get access to your laptop’s camera.
Also Read: Asus Vivobook Flip 14 (2021) review: 360 degree performance
Asus Vivobook Pro 14x review: Performance
Right, so all of it till now seems like a fairy tale, but the best is yet to come. The Asus Vivobook Pro 14x comes with AMD Ryzen 9 (5900HX) inside with 16GB RAM and 1TB of superfast SSD drive. Graphics are provided by NVIDIA GeForce 3050 Ti graphics card. This combo is very hard to come by at this price point and the way Asus has assembled it all can put some of the best machines slip back into their blankets (and never come out).
We threw everything at the machine including the kitchen sink to find a chink in the armour, but we could not find even one. It can play games like Dota 2 and CS: Go at their respective highest settings. Can play games like Battlefield 2042 in high settings, which is quite good too. We were able to edit 4K resolution videos easily and it could render them out swiftly. Not once did we feel it was underpowered.
The dual-fan cooling system works exceptionally well, too. Yes, these are winter months, but still many in the bracket get hot, but not this one. It got warm only when it was rending 4K videos. Other than that even after 30 minutes of gaming, it was cool.
So, tell us more about the virtual dial pad on the trackpad?
With it, you can do so many things. For example, you can increase decrease brush sizes in Photoshop, can access the volume or decrease/increase the screen brightness too. It can be customised to more programs, but it works best with the Adobe Suite of programs including Premiere Pro and After Effects. Well, the creator in us was very happy with Asus Vivobook Pro 14x, as we love extra keys or feather touch panels that work as a shortcut for the most commonly used commands in a software.
Moving on, the power button on the Asus Vivobook Pro 14x doubles up as a fingerprint sensor, too. This is great as it opens the machine with just a tap and every time you need not key in the password.
As for the battery, it has a three-cell 63Wh battery inside that gave us over 5.5 hours of work time. This is not bad considering how small the device is. It weighs just 1.45 Kg. Other features include WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5, Windows 11 Pro, Microsoft Office suite (onboard) and built-in microphones for daily Zoom meetings.
Also Read: Asus Zenbook 14 review: Definitely a style statement, but at a price
Verdict
And then it boils down to just one thing. Is it worth buying at Rs 109,990? That is a firm yes. If you are in the market looking for a portable powerhouse fit for any creator, artist, video or graphic editor, this is the laptop for you. You can do so much with it. In case you need a little more screen room, then you can look at its bigger brother that has a 16-inch screen.
Asus Vivobook Pro 14x Pros
Excellent display
Good performance
Lightweight
Asus Vivobook Pro 14x Cons
The sound could have been louder
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