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Kevin Stratvert

ASUS Vivobook S 15 Copilot+PC Review

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Today, we’re going to look at the all-new ASUS Vivobook S 15. And this isn’t just any laptop, it’s the first ASUS Copilot+PC. What does that mean? Well, you get the power of cutting-edge AI directly on your laptop. For example, you can sketch an image and AI will co-create a realistic image alongside yours. Or you can get captions for any audio you play, irrespective of what language it’s in. It promises to be the most intelligent Windows PC ever. We’ll look at what’s in the box, explore some of the new AI features and discuss whether this is a laptop that you should consider. As full disclosure, ASUS sponsored this video and provided me with this laptop. But I’ll share things that I like and also some of the potential drawbacks that you should keep in mind. Let’s dive in. First off, the packaging is compact and secure. Inside, we have the laptop itself and the power cord. My first impression is that it looks stylish and also feels incredibly solid. It’s very slim and only 14.7 millimeters. It’s almost as thin as my phone. It’s also super lightweight and only 1.42 kilograms. You’re not going to build any muscle curling with this. When you open it up and you could open it all the way back, you’ll see a spacious RGB keyboard, a number pad and also a very large touch pad. On the keyboard, you’ll see a new key with the Copilot logo. This is the Copilot key and this is what you press to dive into the various Copilot and AI experiences. Let’s look at what some of those are. When I press the Copilot key, this opens up the Copilot experience that comes with Windows 11 and you can now prompt the AI. For example, write a song about the Kevin Cookie Company and there it produces what I think is a very nice song. Currently, the Copilot key only opens up the Copilot experience on Windows and that’s all it does. It would be nice to see it behave like the Windows key where you can use it together with other keys to interact with the AI in more ways. Let’s say for example, you’re in Microsoft Word and maybe you highlight some text and then press the Copilot key. It would be nice if it would take the context of that text selection and perhaps rewrite it. The good news is this is software, so they can always add more features in the future. Here in Microsoft Paint, you can click on the Image Co-creator and then describe what type of image you would like to create. For example, here I’ll type in Island with palm tree and then I’ll sketch it. It now generates an image in almost real time alongside mine. Another AI feature is called Live Captions. Simply search for and launch Live Captions. With it, you get captions for any audio playing on your computer or even audio that your microphone hears. It’ll even translate 44 different languages to English. You also get a wide variety of different camera studio effects. You can turn these on here by clicking in the bottom right-hand corner and then Studio Effects. For example, you have Portrait, Light, Blur, different creative filters. You can even turn something on called Eye Contact, which keeps your eyes focused on the camera. When you turn these on, these effects will be used in any app that uses your camera. Say for example, Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Speaking of the camera, when the ASUS Vivobook S 15 detects that you move away from it, the screen automatically dims because it detects that you’re not there anymore. Once you return, it lightens up again, which is really good for privacy and also security. The last AI feature that I want to highlight is ASUS Two Way AI noise canceling. When you join meetings, ASUS has AI technology that removes the background noise and any other noise that will detract from what you’re trying to say. Right now, I have a fan running next to me and this thing is loud. You can hear how well the noise cancellation works. The AI features are all very impressive, but this laptop has even more goodness. The ASUS Vivobook S 15 comes with a 3K 120 Hertz OLED display and a 16 by 9 aspect ratio. With 3K, you get super sharp images. With 120 Hertz, that means that your screen refreshes 120 times every second. That way, it’ll be incredibly smooth, whether let’s say you’re watching a movie or even playing a game. Now, most typical displays give you 60 Hertz, which isn’t as smooth. The OLED display means the laptop consumes less power and it shows true blacks, helping colors stand out more. I found high color accuracy and perfect contrast. You also get very wide viewing angles. Overall, the display is bright and sharp. I really found that it’s perfect for watching videos and also working on projects. You’ll also notice that the display takes up most of the screen with an 89% screen to body ratio. That bezel is really thin. Up on top, you’ll see the microphone array, the webcam, the IR camera, and the microphones. The microphones sound fine and the AI enhancements help improve the sound quality. This is a test of the microphone. What do you think of this quality? Underneath the laptop, there are two speakers which deliver high quality audio for a laptop. The webcam delivers 1080p footage at 30 frames per second. It’s not a DSLR camera, but it does the job. This is what the video quality looks like. It even includes a physical privacy cover integrated into the bezel. That’s a really nice touch. The IR camera detects your presence and works with Windows Hello, so you don’t have to type in any passwords. Simply detects your face and then signs you in. Connectivity is essential and the ASUS VivoBook S 15 doesn’t disappoint. On both sides of the laptop, you’ll find a full collection of ports. On the right, you have two USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A ports. You also have a power indicator and a charge indicator. On the other side or the left-hand side, you’ll find an HDMI port, two USB 4 ports, which you can use to connect to an external display to charge your laptop, and I also found that it’s perfect for super-fast data transfer. There’s also a microSD card reader and one audio jack. I found you get all the ports you need to connect all of your different devices. This laptop is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor and this is a brand-new processor and one of the highlights of this device. These have an especially good battery life of 18 hours and offer very solid performance. It basically gives you performance all day and is significantly better than other laptops in the market. It’s especially good if you’re highly mobile, but you still want solid performance. You can power and charge the laptop using USB-C. You’ll get a 60% charge in just 49 minutes. The processor also includes what’s called an NPU or a dedicated AI engine. That way, when you’re running AI, say to remove background noise on a conference call, the dedicated NPU or AI engine can take care of that task while you continue to use your PC. A little bit of a technical term, you get 45 trillion operations per second or TOPS to work with. Now, that might not mean much, but basically that tells you that this laptop is especially well-suited for AI tasks. Overall, I found the laptop performed well and handled multitasking with ease. Here, I have a spreadsheet and video playing and they both run very smoothly. The keyboard is comfortable to type on. There’s backlighting that you can control through the ASUS app. You can pick a solid color or different animations. I found this helped to see the keys at night, although I found I could see the keys better during the day by turning off the backlight. The key presses are also very quiet. You get a variety of different function keys on top, which allow you to adjust things like the volume, the screen brightness, and also other settings. On the side, you also get a number pad. It’s a little small, but many laptops don’t even have this, so it’s nice to see it included. The touchpad is large and you can use a variety of different gestures, say for instance, to adjust the volume or the brightness. We’ve looked at lots of great things about this laptop, but are there any drawbacks? One, I love the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor and it truly has lots of advantages that we’ve already talked about. As an ARM processor though, it doesn’t have compatibility with x86 architecture. That means that it cannot run traditional Windows applications without emulation. Emulation is when one computer pretends to be another computer, so it can run programs or games made for that other computer. Now, most app developers are writing their apps to work natively with ARM processors, so you don’t have to emulate. That way, you get better performance. In fact, Microsoft says that 90% of the apps that people spend time on have native support and more should come. Native ARM support is growing, but it’s something to keep in mind. Two, this is a solid productivity machine. It can handle casual gaming with ease. However, it won’t match the performance of dedicated gaming laptops, but if that’s not what you’re looking for, that shouldn’t matter. And there you have it. Overall, the ASUS Vivobook S 15 is a fantastic choice for anyone looking for a stylish, portable, and powerful laptop that brings the power of AI directly onto the device. It offers great performance, a beautiful display, and excellent battery life, all at a reasonable price. If you’re in the market for a new laptop, the ASUS Vivobook S 15 should definitely be on your short list. To watch more videos like this one, please consider subscribing, and I’ll see you in the next video.

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