Asus vivobook s15 s533
Proudly sporting a beautiful 15-inch Oled display, the Asus VivoBook S15 Oled rides the wave of technology that has revolutionized TVs. As for the rest, its Intel 11 series processor makes it ideal for office and multimedia tasks.
Presentation
After the ZenBook and VivoBook Pro, Asus is now equipping its more affordable chassis with Oled panels. The VivoBook S15 Oled is one of these models, with a plastic shell, but still adorned with a 15.6-inch Oled panel.
The chassis of the Asus Vivobook S15 Oled (S533EA-L1895T) is entirely made of plastic, with a satin effect on the shell and a shiny logo. The rendering is nice... before any manipulation, after which this nice satin effect tends to get covered with fingerprints.
The opening of the screen reveals the same finish as the outer shell. The screen frame retains the grainy plastic finish of the VivoBook 15.
The keyboard is backlit on 3 levels and its smooth keys offer a pleasant touch. The typing is marked, but we regret a pumping effect in the central part due to a chassis not rigid enough. Asus managed to fit a numeric keypad on this 15.6-inch by reorganizing the "+", "-" and "Enter" keys.
The touchpad slightly shifted to the left would have deserved a little more height. Gliding is fluid and all Windows gestures are perfectly taken into account.
Although not very modern, the connectivity is provided: two USB 2.0 ports on the left side, complemented on the right side by a mini-jack, a USB 3.2 Gen1 port, an HDMI port, a microSD reader and a USB-C 3.2 Gen1 port. The latter does not support charging or DisplayPort, and that's a shame.
Wireless connectivity provides the basics, with Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) at 433 Mb/s, far from the 2400 Mb/s offered by the Intel AX200 chip in Wi-Fi 6 usually on board. Bluetooth 5 is also included. Surprising choices since the VivoBook 15 (S513EA) that we recently tested was equipped with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. The webcam, on the other hand, has not changed and remains as mediocre as ever with its 720p sensor. It is also not Windows Hello compatible. The absence of a fingerprint reader is therefore detrimental: no Windows Quick Unlock system is available on this laptop!
The cooling of the Asus VivoBook S15 Oled is provided by a single fan located under the left side of the keyboard.
The thermal imaging illustrates the situation perfectly. The right side of the keyboard above the processor is the hottest spot (we measured nearly 41°C). The hot air is evacuated in front of the screen, on its left side (nearly 48°C). The touchpad remains cool under all circumstances.
Noise pollution is limited to 37 dB, a relatively low level, especially since this level is reached after 5 minutes of video encoding. The fan noise is quite audible for the user, but much less so for his office neighbors.
The disassembly of the Asus VivoBook S15 Oled is done by removing the 10 Phillips screws of the shell. All that remains is to unclip it.
Once the shell is removed, the design is relatively simple and identical to that of the VivoBook 15 (S513EA); the name on the motherboard reference is even identical. Half of the RAM is soldered in, the other half in the DDR slot. The SSD and Wi-Fi card are also removable. Asus did not see fit to put a larger battery while a 2.5-inch slot is available. Again, the manufacturer did not provide the connectivity to add an SSD of this size. The battery, on the other hand, can be removed easily enough to be changed.
Performance
Our Asus VivoBook S15 Oled (S533EA-L1895T) is equipped with an Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor with 4 hyperthreaded cores clocked at 2.4 GHz and can reach 4.2 GHz in boost, all in a thermal envelope of 28 watts. In practice, it reaches an average frequency of 2.6 GHz when all its cores are used for a long period (video encoding). The CPU is accompanied by 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD.
With its Core i5 Tiger Lake, the VivoBook S15 gets a performance index of 78, which puts it above the Surface Pro 8 and its Core i7-1185G7. It matches the AMD Ryzen 5 5500U processor in the Zenbook 13 (UM325), which scores the same performance index.
We also briefly evaluated the in-game performance of the integrated graphics part on the processor, the Iris Xe and its 80 execution units. Under Diablo 3 with full detail in Full HD, the Iris Xe struggles to reach 28 fps. Under Overwatch with all details at minimum, still in Full HD, we get barely 30 fps.
A word about the on-board SSD: Asus has, it seems, found some old stock as it's a 512GB Intel 660p SSD released in 2018 that's installed - a QLC memory model. In practice, the throughputs are 1.6 GB/s read and 972 MB/s write. There is a drop in throughput to 51.5 MB/s as soon as the SSD's SLC cache is saturated. This is not a problem for office use. On the other hand, it quickly becomes limiting if you handle several tens of gigabytes of data on a frequent basis.
Screen
As its name suggests, the VivoBook S15 Oled is equipped with an Oled panel displaying 1920 x 1080 px. Oled has the advantage of offering infinite contrasts, an extremely low response time and particularly vivid colors, at the risk of saturating them if the panel is not properly calibrated.
Under the probe, we can only notice the advantages of the Oled panel, especially since Asus applies a calibration profile that allows to obtain a Delta E of 2; the colorimetric drifts are thus imperceptible to the naked eye that the delta E is lower than 3. With the absolute black due to Oled technology, the contrast is obviously impossible to measure and tends to infinity. The temperature was found to be 6749 K, slightly above the video standard (6500 K). However, the MyAsus software allows you to adjust the temperature to correct this problem a little.
The maximum brightness, which reaches 379 cd/m², is correct, but is not enough to counterbalance the reflections of the Oled panel coating; the reflectance is 48%. Outdoor use in good weather or in offices with many light sources may be difficult.
Audio
The audio part of the VivoBook S15 Oled didn't get much attention from Asus. The two speakers integrated under the plastic chassis deliver a narrow midrange sound. The voices are nasal and the stereo effects are limited. We find here the typical rendering of an entry-level PC.
The headphone output is essential to enjoy your multimedia content. However, the latter offers an output level that is almost twice as low as the usual levels. Fortunately, the other features are average.
Mobility / Autonomy
The Asus VivoBook S15 Oled measures 35.9 x 23.5 cm, with a thickness of 1.99 cm and a weight of 1.56 kg. The 65W charger, quite compact, weighs 176g and brings the whole to less than 1.8kg. Its all-plastic chassis ensures a certain lightness. It is easily movable, but a USB-C type charger would have been preferable to the proprietary charger.
The autonomy of the VivoBook S15 Oled does not impress the counters since with its small 42 Wh battery it lasts only 6 hours in video playback (Netflix under Chrome, screen calibrated at 200 cd/m²). It's hard to last a day away from the charger under these conditions.
Conclusion
The Asus Vivobook S15 Oled is a notebook that shines with the quality of its Oled panel, but the rest of the equipment does not meet the same level of requirements. The Wi-Fi 5 card and the SSD, for example, are dated, and the barely satisfactory autonomy doesn't make up for much. In short, a nice slab embedded in an entry-level chassis.
