The gap between ASUS’ consumer-accessible laptops and their more premium offerings tends to be pretty obvious. But it seems like that gap is closing because they made a very premium S series Vivobook, that rivals their own Zenbook series. Here’s our ASUS Vivobook S16 S5606M Review.
ASUS Vivobook S16 S5606M Review
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What’s Good?
The Modern Minimalist Design and Build
For starters, the ASUS Vivobook S16 S5606M gets a more revamped design and this time around it goes for a minimal look overall – which I am a huge fan of. The matte-like finish all around with a clean “ASUS Vivobook” text in this new typeface, makes a minimalist like myself love the laptop through and through. Not just that, the S16 weighs 1.5kg, making it light enough for a 16-inch laptop and has a hinge that goes all the way to 180 degrees.
Because of its all-new metal build from the ground up, it is well built and sure, since it is thin – it might worry some if it would flex easily or if the display would break. But ASUS has done the necessary to make sure it’s structurally rigid as much as possible. The display area and the lid do have some flex if you do flex it but as long as you are handling it with a certain level of care, you will be fine.
New ASUS Lumina OLED Display with Windows IR
There’s nothing to rave about ASUS equipping all their laptops with OLED display because they are the only one in the market to offer OLED across all their laptops. Sure, the quality would vary (although not by a lot we feel) but the benefits outweigh the drawbacks – making them a great choice for laptops for various factors. You do get a higher refresh rate, better colours and most importantly, with OLED and ASUS own technology, you do get DC Dimming and other better battery performance and experience while using this display on the move.
I took this laptop to Singapore for a work trip, which you can click here to check out – and the display was pretty impressive for editing tasks when I needed to do some. The colourwork on this display is pretty accurate.
Impressive Battery Life
As I mentioned earlier, I took the laptop to Singapore, which means I would spend a lot of time working on the laptop, at every opportunity I can get. Now, before I go any further, I need to let you know that this is based on my use case – so it will vary. Throughout 2-3 days, from Saturday till Monday, I was running on a single charge with the laptop and had an average use of 3-4 hours per day. On Monday, as I flew to Singapore, landed and got to my hotel – the laptop still had about 28% per cent left. I consider this to be a good battery life.
While the processor powering up the laptop isn’t necessarily a low-powered one – it is surprisingly efficient in handling tasks and if you are going to get some light-to-moderate tasks on the move – the battery will last a fair bit. But if you do want to charge the laptop up, it uses USB-C and it comes with a 90W adapter – although you can find GaN-based adapters to replace these and have an even lighter hand carry.
Intel Core Ultra with Intel Arc is Amazing
Intel Core Ultra processors in general have that appeal to it from a performance standpoint. Powering this ASUS Vivobook S16 S5606M is the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H with 14-cores, 18-threads with 16GB RAM and for graphics, it relies on Intel Arc. Now, Intel has this scale of how “AI and Performance-worthy” their laptops can get – honestly, forget about that. We are going to do our benchmark to show the score and you can take a look here.
For a laptop with this processor, it performs way too well – and when you translate it to real-world experiences – it does live up to your expectations. Years ago, when I said I wanted a good processor that gives me the right performance and endurance depending on my need – this is exactly what I meant. During the same trip I was on, I installed Lightroom Classic, played Honkai Star Rail and did a bunch of multi-tasking with Word, Chrome, Spotify and/or Netflix running almost all the time – and boy the performance was fantastic.
The Zenbook I used which has a 1165G7 processor with a discrete GPU does have its hiccup with Lightroom. Not this Vivobook S though. This is pretty good. Sure, the processor doesn’t give you enough power like the Ultra 7 or the 9 – but for a base Ultra Processor to perform this good is already an indication that this new Ultra processor is heading in the right direction and is giving consumers the experience that justifies the price they pay.
Nice Keyboard and a Monstrous Trackpad
The keyboard here uses dished keycaps with a 1.7mm key travel. Usually when a brand uses dished keycaps, it is supposedly better to type on as it is supposed to match your fingertip as the pressure applies. You won’t be able to tell the difference, however, coming from a laptop that has a flatter keyboard, the typing experience on the ASUS Vivobook S16 S5606M feels more natural – in fact, this entire review is typed on the same laptop.
Oh, and the trackpad, just keeps on getting bigger – it looks like someone is about to build a 5000 sq. ft house on it. The trackpad uses Windows Precision drivers, and the clicks feel solid but since it’s too big, sometimes when I click, I realize I am not really on the left side to click. But yes, a big trackpad makes you forget about having a mouse when you are in a tight space.
What Could be Better?
I/O needs to be rearranged
I love the I/Os on this laptop – but it needs some rearrangements. So, the laptop has 2-USB-C on the left and 2 USB-A on the right – making it a bit harder to use, especially if you have a big USB device, it blocks the other port – making it completely unusable. As for the other ports, it’s alright. You do get a HDMI 2.1 and a Headphone/Microphone Combo.
SD Card slot for MicroSD Card Slot
My reasoning for this is pretty simple. If consumers are going to opt for this laptop as a light editing laptop – you’d probably want a full-size SD Card slot over a MicroSD card slot.
Conclusion
Despite all of that, if you told me that, for the price of RM 4,699 – I get a laptop this good, which offers good display, keyboard, trackpad, Intel Ultra Processor performance and not to forget the build quality – this is an amazing treat. I can strongly recommend the ASUS Vivobook S 16 for those who want an accessible and nimble laptop for a price lower than RM 5000.
However, if you are like me and aren’t a fan of big laptops then you can turn your head to their Vivobook S14 because at RM 4,399 – you get all the same experience but on a smaller display, making it more portable. I like that a lot. Both the laptop comes in this Black finish and Blue, which happens to be my favourite.
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