Verdict
At around £ 500 , the Asus Vivobook Go 15 organic light-emitting diode is a wide-eyed twist on paper . With a stunning concealment that offset its comparatively low work flow performance expectations with great stamp battery animation , there ’s decent portable amusement value for the right person or family .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
OLED tech has come in over leaps and boundary in recent years . What used to fare at a premium in laptop computer is now becoming far more mutual – without automatically jack up the toll a idealistic amount . The Asus Vivobook Go 15 OLED is the late twist to benefit , and it could make a compelling economic value proposition for the right sort of lightheaded user .
Where the higher - end Vivobook laptops still flaunt OLED panels as top - end upgrades , Asus ’ slim and simple Vivobook Go lineup is starting to let in the gorgeously showy CRT screen technical school as standard . Cramming a display with punchy colours into a £ 500 machine is a spry and easy way to increase the limited appeal of a budget laptop .
So long as you ’re properly in the market place for a laptop you do n’t expect to take on the professional world of mammoth spreadsheet , complex sales decks , and big - scale video editing , it could be your Modern favorite medium gadget . Here ’s my full critique .
Design and Keyboard
The Vivobook Go 15 does n’t look out of place in the wider Vivobook lineup . It sports the same stylings as its more expensive siblings , with a simple silver feeling and box-shaped form across the board .
Rather than habituate heavy branding right on on the center of the palpebra , Asus still prefer for a sort of bevelled badge along one side . It ’s not to my particular taste , I do n’t mind a tasteful metallic logotype like theHP Envy x360 15 , but it ’s certainly better than the heavy ROG mark the party antecedently used on its gaming notebooks . Though low , the badge coming is still an easily recognizable trait of the Vivobook line next to most other popular brands of today .
All the ports you want are found on either flank of the equipment , with a barrelful battery charger , full - sized HDMI , USB - A 3.2 Gen 1,USB - C 3.2 Gen 1 , and a headphone diddlyshit stuffed onto the correct side , leaving a dim 2.0USB - Aport jutting out on the left side for affair like commove thebest wireless shiner .
It does protrude out and look a small out of place on its own , but it ’s no far nearer to the earth than the multi - larboard array on the other side . Both are observe from contact down on your board by room of large orange rubber foot , which also encounter to be the only splash of colour you ’ll see on the whole chassis . The lid is also a spot of a fingermark magnet under potent light , so you might desire to keep a material ready to hand if you ’re claim it out to the cafe .
The keyboard itself is full - sized if a footling squashed together on the 15 - in mannequin to tally everything in . The downside to this is that it can take some prison term to align to resting your hand more to the left , but an modification period is to be expected when change keyboards . It can just take a little longer than expect with this one .
Part of that is also down to just how basic a typewriting experience it offers . Low - profile rubber dome switch are , again , expected at this price compass , but they ’re specially wearisome , unwieldy , or rough in how they move , with the pop - back when returning to neutral posture particularly jar for those first few hours .
If this is just another budget laptop you ’re swapping in to replace another , it in all probability wo n’t bother you at all . But if you ’ve used just about any other keyboard for a prolonged period recently – even just at the power – you ’ll likely experience that something is notably off with this one . It also is n’t backlit , which is a major disadvantage in the dark winter month or for late - Nox users , and an upshot that sadly is n’t unique to this exceptional theoretical account .
It ’s all plastic . As you ’d wait around the price point . There is a decent amount of flex when treat it , but it ’s lightweight enough at 1.6 kilo to parade around in one hired hand just fine and carry around in a bag for the day . It keep the signature design doctrine of its sibling means it still looks relatively premium , and the screen alone will have many thinking it ’s a tad more expensive than it is .
Despite the all - plastic habitus , we ’re glad to report that the Asus Vivobook Go 15 organic light-emitting diode does occur in a widely slender and reusable software . The fragile cardboard arm spouts the company ’s sustainability efforts , hold out so far as to admit a QR codification that dresses up the unbox experience with some cute AR wizardry . The handle is still plastic as far as we can tell , but pull that off and it ’s all easily tossed into the recycling .
Display and Sound
In the sub-£500 compass , it ’s with child to see the Asus Vivobook Go 15 OLED ship with a large 15.6″OLEDdisplay . In office of traditionalLED or LCDpanels , where gloss truth can vary wildly even on vastly more expensive political machine , OLED naturally shirks most of the concerns to offer a supremely colorful wake experience . It removes the friction of explore to find the best panel for the Mary Leontyne Price .
Beyond being beautifully colour - precise out of the box at gamy brightness scope , with 99.7 % , 99.5 % , and 99 % coverage of thesRGB , Adobe RGB , DCI - P3colour spaces respectively , the presence of OLED means it ’s reasonable to wait instinctive barrage life benefits as well . OLED tech permit dark , unused expanse of the screen to turn off , keeping magnate usance low-toned . With conscious use of Dark Mode or when watching letterboxed mental object like movies , you be able to get more done on a single charge .
The approach also means greater contrast for the picture that remain . Being able-bodied to dim its picture element so well to fork out the tech ’s signature inky Negro naturally complement the bluff and punchy people of colour reproduction OLED tech is known for .
It is shiny , which makes it bewilderingly heart - catching in most situation . But it also intend the Asus Vivobook Go 15 OLED struggle with strong sunlight or harsh artificial lighting . Reflections and glare can be reason enough to crank up up the brightness to its sizable 400 nits peak to see clearly , but you ’ll see battery life suffer substantially .
The overall performance of the Asus Vivobook Go 15 wo n’t be enough for studio - course television and photo redaction where exact colour reproduction is key , but you ’ll at least be able to see content in its best light . Whether that ’s professional picture taking , your next Netflix bout , or the 50th watch of Disney ’s latest animated megahit as decreed by your kid , it ’ll all look fantastic compare to your ageing television .
Once you see OLED in soul , it ’s hard to go back . It just may free up your tv set if you dwell in a in use menage . A 15 - inch screen is just about good enough to cower on the sofa around , too . The minuscule twin down - provoke verbalizer on the base of the machine flank the touchpad are n’t just astral , but they ’re not the worst we ’ve heard on a laptop of this calibre . You ’ll rapidly lose detail at higher loudness , but it ’s respectable that they can get gaudy when necessitate .
Chromebooks tend to have good hardware audio solutions , at which point you could consider the Acer Chromebook Plus 515 if you have a couple spare hundred to pass and need a good all - round experience , but you may hook up phone , or even your TV ’s soundbar if you ’re close by , if you do demand squiffy , louder audio . For most drug user , however , it ’s seldom a big flock .
One last thing to note is that the showing is a simple 60Hz instrument panel . That just mean it wo n’t be as buttery smooth as even most smartphones these days . But unless you ’re using it for recollective piece of work shift , it ’s unlikely to be a problem for your middle . This is n’t a play auto either , so you ’re not missing out by being flummox at that traditional refresh rate .
Performance
Though theIntel Core i3 - N305processor at the heart of the Asus Vivobook Go 15 is n’t much to write household about , it being twin with 8 GB of memory and a pocket-sized 256 GB NVME SSD is enough to give this picayune laptop some decent staying power .
What ’s good to mark is that the SSD is a proper warehousing gimmick , too . Not the sluggisheMMCflash storage you could still find in some budget laptops that do little but trick unwitting consumer into purchasing machines they ’ll plainly fatigue of using in a issue of week when it fills up and grinds to a arrest .
With the Asus Vivobook Go 15 , you ’re not getting a monumental amount of warehousing . Not by today ’s touchstone , at least . But with a machine like this that ’s not gestate to play graphically rich ( and huge ) games or become your go - to music simple machine , it ’s more than enough . School projects wo n’t phase it , and even a lavish Netflix library will shinny to fill up it up .
In general use scenarios , the Asus Vivobook Go 15 is equipped to tackle things just fine . Playing around on the internet wo n’t be a job , and screen your on-line foodstuff shop wo n’t be too much to inquire of the parred - down1.8GhzCPU . A 1080p Netflix film through the Microsoft Edge internet browser have around 20 % of its efforts , with a full - screen4KYouTube video recording sapping around twice that .
In Geekbench , the underpowered Intel processor on show here scored just 1187 and 2878 across the undivided and multicore tests respectively . If you may find a good deal , you could potentially tally double the public presentation with the aforementionedHP Envy x360 15 ( 2023 ) , advance better verbaliser , a backlit keyboard , a touchscreen and a to the full rotating flexible joint for easy take in for not a whole mickle more money .
It ’s enough to still get plenty done while some content keep open you going in the nook of the 15 - inch screen , but it wo n’t wield the large workloads you might bear from most desktop machines – typically wide edits of photos or the splicing of gamey - firmness footage from a flagship phone or consecrated television camera .
Those unnecessarily complex role spreadsheets can , however , still pose a job . Even under light work load , the 8 GB of memory fly the coop in the ground is often near capacity just with Windows doing its thing while YouTube course in the background signal .
You ’ll have to be doing some above - average multitasking for it to start causing problems like famous slowdown and crashed tabs , but so long as you ’re aware of what ’s been leave lingering from potentially days past , you should n’t have much trouble getting stuff done once you remember to properly trade one major job for another .
You ca n’t promote either component by busting this one surface , and the onboard Intel UHD art chip – the far sometime edition of the more advanced Intel Iris Xe solution – wo n’t be playing anything beyond the simplest of plot , so be sure it ’s all you need before you open your wallet . You could make up for the latter by using streaming service likeXbox Cloud Gamingalongside theWiFi 6E / Bluetooth 5.3chipset run under the hood here , however . Times have changed .
For round-eyed authority workloads , homework , shoal projects , and eve entertainment , what little is actually live on under the hood of the Asus Vivobook Go 15 should be enough to see it through . Just remember that it ’s not the car to send your Thomas Kid off to college with .
Though it was stable under most of our tests , it in all probability wo n’t keep up with anything beyond taking simple musical note in talking to . If there ’s any real number crunching in your syllabus or nontextual matter work , it will struggle to keep up when it matters . For that , you may look to the recent swathes ofAMD Ryzen - powered laptopsto keep monetary value low , or last year ’s i5 - equippedAsus Vivobook 16 , which throw away the OLED panel at the humbled end for some more performance - focused internals .
Software
Surprisingly , the Asus Vivobook Go 15 ship with very little of what we ’d consider bloatware pre - installed . Though McAfee is present , it ca n’t go in the default Windows 11 S mode , which is a simplified adaptation of the full - fat Windows 11 experience that removes being able-bodied to install software the traditional way in the interest of safety and security .
Much like how you ’ll struggle to install anything to an iPhone without the App Store , this limits you to only using apps available in the Microsoft Store . throw out of Windows 11 S and into the proper experience , which you then ca n’t switch back from , and you ’ll be back to that full - featured operating system , at which item McAfee will make itself known and request to activate to keep you safe .
Outside of that one potentially supererogatory souvenir of a bygone epoch , you ’ll find a duet of things like Spotify , simple game , and relatively new Microsoft apps like ClipChamp and To - Do .
There ’s also the MyAsus app on the taskbar . Unless you ’re eager to set up an extensive warranty , download Asus multitasking apps like ScreenXpert and GlideX that wo n’t perform particularly well on this Core - i3 model anyway , or get “ exclusive offers and discount ” on Adobe apps , NordVPN , or Dropbox , you should n’t find much reason to click it .
Battery life
So long as you ’re not force it to the absolute brink , the Asus Vivobook Go 15 should still well see you through the absolute majority of the day .
Managing just about 8 hour of the PCMark Office focus run , which model a busy day of spreadsheets , Logos processing , and telecasting calls , you ’ll only set out to deviate out from that number if you crank up the luminosity , take a few too many YouTube breaks , or potentially decide to fire up Solitare and leave to shut it after tiffin . Even then , you ’ll still be able to see most of the daylight through without make to reach for the pocketable 65w charger .
It ’s great to see ultrabook levels of battery life on budget notebooks these days , but it ’s still disappointing to see a trust on barrel - style connection to juice them up .
take just about two hour to fully juice up while in use , the Asus Vivobook Go 15 is n’t the fastest to get back up to full , but at least it does n’t churn through its mission in the same amount of time . And if you dead must get a couple more hours in , shelling - saving preferences and dimming the filmdom can get you above and beyond that 8 - hour benchmark . You ’ll just have to sacrifice some useableness . Those bigger spreadsheets might have to await until tomorrow .
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Should you buy it?
You need a simple , low-priced laptop for faint use and afternoon entertainment . The OLED panel on the Asus Vivobook Go 15 could just be your favorite way to watch movies , with the rest of the laptop computer being desirable for lite busywork .
The Vivobook Go 15 organic light-emitting diode has simple specification . This means that it is n’t suited to dealing with heavier tasks or time - sensitive workloads . A more powerful set of internal factor is need for that . you could find better time value - for - money functioning if you could go without the organic light-emitting diode .
Final Thoughts
At £ 500 , the Asus Vivobook Go 15 is a good pick if you ’re looking for one gimmick to tackle a bunch of smaller problems . At this price , sire an OLED panel could realistically turn the TV from being the childminder back to the family ( or gaming ) focalize living way centerpiece it once was .
For simple school study , portable evening entertainment or distractions , and getting household admin or light office work load out of the way , it ’s a great footling parcel with respectable shelling life , and a great contender for the advent of cloud gaming with its included Xbox Game Pass subscription if you have the cyberspace connective and controller to make proper use of it .
If the security of Windows 11 S is a major marketing point for you , checking out thebest Chromebookscan get you that with a familiar look and feel if you ’re an Android phone menage , with theAsus Chromebook Plus CX34orAcer Chromebook Plus 515both being heavy choices if you could spare the little price uplift . And if it ’s just for work or school , theHP Pavilion SE 14should have all the power you need at a slightly modest footmark . you’re able to also check out ourbest budget laptopguide for a broader selection .
Trusted Score
How we test
Used as a main twist for around a calendar week .
Tested and compare against similar products in competing toll brackets .
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FAQs
No , the OLED panel on this fashion model is not a touchscreen .
No , the flexible joint can lay flat at 180 - degrees , but it can not turn all the way over like a translatable ( or 2 - in-1 ) laptop computer .
Though it ’s gentle to get rid of the bottom panel to aid with clean house junk from the fans , you ca n’t swop out or kick upstairs either the SSD or RAM on this laptop computer .
Yes , the connection card in the Asus Vivobook Go 15 maxes out at the WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 standards .
