Asus VivoBook K15 review: Well rounded, impressive for the price

• The Asus VivoBook K15 brings an OLED display to the affordable laptop segment.
• Along with the display, the laptop also offers decent overall performance.
• Read the full review to find out all about what it has to offer and if it suits your requirements.

Asus is a prominent name in the laptops and PC market. The laptop lineup is diverse as it has various series and segments, that includes VivoBook, ZenBook, ChromeBook, TUF and ROG laptops. With the Asus VivoBook K15, the company brings the high-end OLED display to the entry-level laptop segment. The K15 line-up is Asus’s first VivoBook launch in India with the premium OLED display. As per the company, the laptop is designed especially for younger users and should appeal to both students and professionals who need to use it for their daily tasks.

In this review, let’s see whether the Asus VivoBook K15 with OLED display serves the target audience with promised features and performance.

Price

The Asus VivoBook K15 starts at ₹46,990 for the base model that is powered by the latest 11th Gen Intel i3 processor, 8GB RAM and comes with 256GB SSD storage. The other variants include laptops powered by Intel i5 and i7 processors as well as AMD Ryzen 5 processor.

The maximum RAM you can get is 16GB, and in terms of storage capacity you get up to 1TB HDD and 512GB SSD storage. The colour options are Indie Black, Transparent Silver and Hearty Gold. The unit we received is in Transparent Silver colour.

Here’s a list of all laptops in the VivoBook K15 series with their specifications and price.

Design

The VivoBook K15 features a plastic chassis that is combined with aluminium alloy to give it a premium look and sturdy build. The quality material used is at par with its counterparts in the price range and it is decent for its pricing. Even though it isn’t the lightest or the slimmest VivoBook available in the market; the K15 is still lightweight, weighing only 1.8kg.
The base panel features a full-size keyboard and a touchpad that also houses the fingerprint scanner. One of the key offerings from this laptop is the multiple connectivity ports and down-firing dual speakers. The laptop houses a 720p webcam housed at the top of the display.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The laptop comes with a backlit keyboard that is highly responsive and features a unique ‘Enter’ key that has a bold neon green outline, making it stand out from all the other keys. One issue I faced using the keyboard was using the backspace key, as at times, I would mistype the “+” since they are closely packed. The spacing of the keyboard could have been better as at times it feels cramped up, especially while using the right side of the keyboard.
Given its large 15.6-inch body, it has got sufficient area for resting your arm while typing. The touchpad is comfortable to use. The fingerprint scanner is swift in response and works as intended.

Connectivity
If you have this laptop, you will not run out of wired connectivity options as it comes with one USB 3.2 Type-A, one USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-C, two USB 2.0 and one HDMI 1.4 port. It also features one 3.5mm audio jack and a MicroSD card reader. While the connectivity ports offered should be sufficient for most users, the interesting thing about it is that it is all accommodated in a relatively thin base panel.
Audio
The audio quality of the Harman Kardon bottom-firing dual speakers is quite impressive. It is loud and should be suitable for attending meetings and online classes. But if you wish to enjoy the audio from podcasts and movies, I would recommend you to connect your headphones or speakers.
Webcam
Don’t expect too much from the webcam as the video output came out grainy in indoor lighting. Even so, it should be sufficient to attend video meetings and online classes.

Display

Let’s now talk about its most valuable offering, the OLED display. With this, Asus marches ahead of its competitors in offering the best display for its price. Most of its competitors offer LCDs in the affordable laptop segment.

The display supports FHD 1980x1080p resolution and is enclosed within narrow side bezels, while the top and bottom bezels are much thicker. It offers an impressive screen-to-body ratio of 85%.
In terms of clarity, it delivers brilliant contrast and reproduces accurate colour across various brightness levels. The colours look vibrant, and the blacks are deeper. Watching your favourite video content on YouTube or any other OTT platform should be a pleasant experience with this OLED panel portraying 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut.

The display is certified with VESA DisplayHDR 500 that lets it reach a peak brightness of 500 nits which is quite remarkable. The wider viewing angle of 178-degrees is quite exceptional as the clarity doesn’t get altered even if you are viewing it from various angles. The display also comes with TÜV Rheinland Eye Care certification that should prevent straining of your eyes after long hours of usage.

Performance

The laptop we received for the review comes with an Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor, 16GB RAM and 1TB HD+ 256GB SSD storage. It is equipped with integrated Intel Xe Graphics and features pre-installed Windows 10.

In real-life performance, the VivoBook K15 performs well while multi-tasking with less demanding applications. It allows you to do most of your daily tasks including web browsing, working on spreadsheets, writing, photo editing and light gaming. But these tasks shouldn’t include working on highly demanding content editing applications such as Adobe Premiere Pro for editing large video files since the rendering and visualisation is poor.

Loading of applications and software is quick. One of the Asus VivoBook K15’s best features is its boot time. It takes a very few seconds after you press the power button to reach the start menu. Another key point to note is that the power button is integrated with the keyboard and if you press it accidentally, your laptop will go to sleep.

Overall, the performance of the laptop was exceptional for a laptop in this segment as I did not find any lags or hiccups while using this laptop over the last two weeks. I could multitask across applications and open multiple tabs in Google Chrome. Switching between tabs and applications was very smooth as well.

Gaming
Although the Asus VivoBook K15 isn’t a gaming laptop, it offered satisfactory gaming performance. We tested the first-person shooter game Valorant, and it offered a smooth performance with a quick response time. But, the laptop was heating up after about 45 minutes to one hour of gaming.

Battery

The Asus VivoBook K15 packs a 42Wh battery and comes with a 65W charger. The battery performance disappointed me as my review unit could only last for 3 hours in the best performance power mode and it delivered about 3 hours and 45 minutes of battery life in the better battery power mode. And the charger took about an hour and 25 minutes to charge from 5% to 100%.

Verdict

The display, performance and design of the laptop are at par or above its competitors like Mi Notebook 14, HP 15, Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 and Dell Inspiron 3501. It is a suitable laptop for students and professionals to carry out their daily activities. I didn’t face any issues in my brief experience with the laptop. But as the price tag suggests, it isn’t suitable for pro-gamers, coders or video editors.

We find the display to be a key highlight as it offers you a brilliant viewing experience. If you are looking for an affordable laptop with an extra focus on the display, then you can buy the Asus VivoBook K15.

But do keep in mind the battery life. If you use your laptops during your commute or at places where you may not find a charging point, then rethink your choice.

Overall, it would make a value for money purchase for everything it has to offer at its price.

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