8.0 Score
One of the exciting things to have happened in the laptop segment is the new ARM Windows laptop, powered by Snapdragon X Elite and Pro processors. This time both Windows and Qualcomm have put in too much effort to make this work. That said, In this ASUS Vivobook S15 S5507Q Snapdragon X Elite Review – we do have a lot to share and find out if ARM is here to stay.
ASUS Vivobook S15 S5507Q Snapdragon X Elite Review
Things to Address
There are a few things we need to explain before we dive into the performance. Qualcomm made two different X Processors for Windows on ARM laptops: The X Elite and the X Pro. We saw the X Pro briefly on the ProArt whereas this Vivobook S15 S5507Q is powered by X Elite. Just like other semiconductor makers, Qualcomm has 4 different SKUs for vendors to pick from and to differentiate which is which, is going to be an absolute headache for you all consumers.
So, here’s what you need to know. The Snapdragon naming looks like the following:
X1A-BB-CCC
X indicates the Snapdragon X Processor. 1 or any numeral after the X will be the generation. A indicates which tier Snapdragon X processor it is. So, at the moment we have P for Plus and E for Elite. BB indicates the variant/SKU of it, more specifically on the Max Multithread Frequency, Dual Core Boost and TFLOPS for Adreno GPU. Finally, CCC are digits reserved for something we have no idea. At the moment, all the processors have the number 100 and the top tier X Elite has 1DE.
When you buy any Snapdragon X-powered laptop, you must look for the detailed naming to make sure you are picking up the right spec you need. Now that’s out of the way, let’s dive into the performance.
Diving right into the Performance
Under the hood of this ASUS Vivobook S15 S5507Q, we will find the following specifications:
- 12-cores, 42MB Cache, 3.4GHz Max Multithread Frequency and no Dual Core Boost.
- Adreno GPU with 3.8 TFLOPS
- Hexagon NPU with 45 NPU TOPS
- 32GB LPDDR5X RAM
- 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD
We tried running it in every way possible but PCMark only allowed us to do Modern Office and 3DMARK allowed us to do certain things and even crashed during one benchmark. But since it has an NPU, we ran Procyon to do Office Benchmark, Snapdragon SNPE for Deep Neural Network and Battery Life Benchmark. Finally, we did Cinebench R23 as there’s an ARM version.
To give a bit of context or better understanding, we compared the performance with the Vivobook S16 Intel Core Ultra 5 to show what’s going on in certain benchmarks.
From this benchmark, you can see that the Snapdragon Vivobook has no scores for Port Royal, Fire Strike, and Time Spy – the reason simply because – unlike a traditional Windows device running on x86 architecture, reviewing this ARM laptop was a huge challenge. For benchmarking, a lot of our tools just failed to run because of the ARM architecture and Prism Emulation did its best it could.
That said, the tools it could run, provided scores that can put the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H to shame because Night Raid, Wild Life, Solar Bay and Steel Nomad, scores are so close to the Intel processor. The only score where we saw the Snapdragon X Elite surpass the Intel processor is in Wild Life Extreme. With Procyon, we ran Office Productivity, which scored 5936 and 210 000 depending on the comparison parameters which you can see below the scores.
The Snapdragon X Elite has the potential to shine but its Architecture is its own Achilles Heel, at least for now.
The Experience on ARM
To be very upfront, after setting up the laptop, I must say that the ASUS Vivobook S15 S5507Q is a lot more usable than any of the 8cx-powered laptops we have tried in the past. It struggled so badly that launching Chrome or the built-in edge browser would take ages. Not this one though. The Snapdragon X Elite has some good things going on.
If we are talking about the work and productivity standpoint, this laptop excels in those very well. We had no issues using Office suite, Chrome or any of the browsers, Spotify and even content consumption. So, handling your everyday tasks isn’t a big deal here. Gaming, however, takes a bit of a hit. Qualcomm didn’t disclose what Adreno we are getting here for some weird reason.
This is a bit of a frustration I feel. But there is a site called worksonwoa – where you can see if the games you want to play are playable or not. We did try some games like MTG Arena, which had some issues running the VisualStudio Redistributable but we managed to get it up and running, then we tried Honkai Starrail in the following settings and it was playable. But if you were to go for a more intensive title, the processor doesn’t stand a chance. Again it is not a gaming laptop, so we can only wait and see how Qualcomm is going to make that happen.
Editing on the other hand, oh boy, we tried running Adobe Suite and we had issues through and through. When we were reviewing this laptop, we saw the news that Premiere Pro can now run on ARM but after doing some digging, it doesn’t work out of North America.
Davinci Resolve on the other hand does work, more specifically the 19 Public Beta as it is designed to work with ARM too. Capcut works but since it’s very web based, you won’t have many issues.
What blew my mind was the stunning battery life this laptop offered. Windows laptops and Battery life is something I have learned to take with a pinch of salt as it never lives up to your expectations. With ARM, it is a lot different. I can use the laptop nonstop the entire day on a single charge for 8 hours 28 minutes with 35% battery life left. This is extremely impressive. You can charge the laptop with the included 90W USB-C charger. Honestly, this is a much better battery life than an Intel Ultra 5 laptop.
Here’s a Procyon benchmark, where you can see in the Video Playback Battery Life test, that it got 11 hours+ which is pretty much accurate as we can get similar battery life in real life.
But What’s Missing?
With this being the third proper attempt for Windows on ARM, I must say that we are in the early stages where things may and may not work. All we can do is wait and see in what direction it goes. The reason why I say this is, we have seen Microsoft abandon ARM before and that doesn’t instil the confidence you need. So have Qualcomm given up on ARM Windows, though not as obvious as Microsoft. We shall wait and see.
And for those who are opting in for these ARM-based laptops, do take note that you are getting an early adopter product. If you are okay with signing up for that, then sure. If not, I’d suggest you wait and preferably be a potential threat to Intel and AMD-powered laptops in some way.
One thing is for sure…
There is hope for Windows on ARM after all and if this was released instead of 8cx, it would have given a lot more confidence. But let us just hope, that the third time is the charm and it’s finally going in the right direction.
As for the rest…
In terms of experiencing this processor on the ASUS Vivobook S15 S5507Q, there’s nothing much for me to worry about because it is a nice laptop to use. I was happily using this to work on most of the time because, the ridiculously good battery life on this which surpasses the Vivobook S16 I review, makes this a crazy good Office work or a Word Processing laptop.
The display is great – your usual OLED stuff. The keyboard is full-sized with a number pad. The trackpad, however, has some gesture controls for volume, Brightness, Skipping video and what appears to be the CoPilot Recall which is not working on this laptop at the moment. Oh, and the display on this is 16:9 instead of the 16:10 ratio which we see with the other Vivobooks.
Conclusion
Take the laptop out of the equation for the moment and let’s just look at the processor – the Snapdragon X Elite. They have finally gotten the formula right, and it’s a matter of polishing the experience by giving wider support it cannot happen alone as they need Windows to help with it. As for Windows, Prism Emulation is genius and even if that means, taking a page out of the Cupertino book – it had to be done.
But that doesn’t mean this laptop is all perfect. I will give it a generation or two to become more mainstream first and then I must say, Intel will be shivering to their core. Thank goodness, this did not turn out like the cursed Snapdragon 8cx, a processor that made Celeron look better out of the box.
Now back to the laptop itself, ASUS opting in for the higher turbo boost capable Snapdragon X Elite is such a missed opportunity because that additional performance does play a vital role in giving much more. But that said, I can’t wait to check out more of these laptops and at RM 6,299 – if you are looking for a laptop that does light to moderate tasks without breaking a sweat, but most importantly, an endurance that can challenge Apple, this is it.
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