Asus Vivobook S 14 OLED review: a simple and efficient laptop

It's easy to let yourself be carried away by the brilliance of laptop specifications and designs in the high-end segmentbut sometimes you just want a smooth experience without too much flair. That's exactly what the Asus Vivobook S 14 OLED offers, offering quality hardware in a rather unpretentious shell. It's also reasonably priced at $900, which is out of the ordinary. range of budget laptops but strikes a good balance between performance and not harming your wallet.

The model Asus sent me for review is the Vivobook S 14 OLED (S5406MA-AS96), which features an Intel Core Ultra 9 Series 1 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB of solid-state drive storage. Another version swaps the processor for a Core Ultra 7 Series 2 processor and 32GB of RAM for $1,200. If that's not confusing enough, another model forgoes Intel altogether for a $1,200 AMD Ryzen AI 9,365 processor.

A simple power plant

The base model reviewed here probably has more than enough power for most people. The Core 9 processor handled almost all of my daily tasks without breaking a sweat. You'll want to look elsewhere if you do graphically intense work (like video editing or gaming). We're not yet at the point where 16GB of RAM is restrictive, and the amount of storage on board leaves enough wiggle room for the long term.

Photography: Dan Thorp-Lancaster

I really like the screen, although it's not the brightest screen I've used on a laptop. The crisp OLED panel gives you vibrant colors and infinite contrast, making it ideal for relaxing and watching a movie or a YouTube marathon. The 16:10 aspect ratio also provides more vertical space on the screen at the expense of width, which makes it ideal for documents, but means you'll see horizontal bars with full-screen video.

The camera setup is another positive that, frankly, surprised me at this price. You get an HD webcam that looks clear during video calls and works well in low-light situations. It also has facial recognition that you can use with Windows Hello to quickly log into your PC, while an easily accessible privacy shutter lets you quickly cover the camera when not in use.

The Vivobook has a nice selection of ports, with almost everything you could want from a modern laptop. There are two USB-A ports for existing accessories, two Thunderbolt 4 compatible USB-C ports, HDMI 2.1 for external monitors and a microSD card reader. There's also a 3.5mm headphone jack if you haven't jumped on the wireless headphones still the train moving.