Asus’ Vivobook S series of laptops is targeted at working professionals. These notebooks are known to offer lightweight designs and powerful chips.
The company has been regularly updating this lineup ever since it was introduced. The 2024 models were first showcased at CES 2024.
Months later, almost all of these newer laptops are now available in India. However, as always, Asus has only brought select variants to the country spread across different price segments.
The brand sent me an AMD version of the product to try out. The notebook is also offered in Intel and Qualcomm flavors.
The said AMD model is sold in a single trim in India as Asus Vivobook S 14 OLED (M5406). It is the most affordable offering in the region priced at ₹89,990.
Having used it over the past few days, I have shared my thoughts on it in this article.
Before I begin, I want to let the readers know that Asus had no early look or editorial input. The opinions stated in this post are mine alone.
What can you expect from Asus Vivobook S 14 (M5406)?
1. Durable and Classy
The Asus Vivobook S 14 (M5406) flaunts a design that’s ideal for office goers and likes. Its thin and light body weighing around 1.3 kg makes it suitable for daily commutes.
The metal chassis is sturdy and gives an assurance that it can easily take a beat or two. In fact, the laptop is MIL-STD-810H compliant for durability.
The product is offered in a lone Neutral Black color option. The paint job has a matte finish, which unfortunately makes it a smudge magnet.
As much as the notebook looks classy and durable in stealth black, it is difficult to keep it free of smudges. So you may want to have a fiber cloth with you always.
Interestingly, Asus has equipped the computer with an RGB backlight for the keyboard. I can understand the company is providing an option to have some fun.
But personally, I think it is out of place on a laptop targeted at professionals. On the other hand, the large 129 x 84 mm touchpad is quite useful.
2. Average Display
As the name suggests, the Asus Vivobook S 14 (M5406) sports a 14-inch display. This OLED panel offers a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels (WUXGA) and a 16:10 aspect ratio.
An FHD-equivalent display on a laptop priced at nearly a lakh does not make sense to me. Having used notebooks with higher resolution at around the same price and more, I could easily notice the lack of details as pixels are visible.
Not everyone can notice this if they are accustomed to only FHD and HD displays on their computers. But if they are coming from a laptop featuring a higher resolution display, they will be disappointed.
Additionally, the panel is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate. It would have been nice to have at least a 90Hz refresh rate. As for brightness, it is fine for indoor usage which is what the notebook is designed for.
The panel is actually good but it does not belong on this product. Asus provides a similar spec’d display on laptops almost half the price of this one.
As for speakers, they are loud enough but lack bass due to the notebook’s thin form factor. While the microphone is fine for video calls and so is the physical shutter-enabled web camera, which is accompanied by an infrared sensor for Windows Hello authentication.
3. Adequate Performance
The Asus Vivobook S 14 (M5406) arrives in a single configuration in India. It houses an AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS processor.
This chip consists of 6 cores clocked at 3.3 GHz. It supports up to 12 threads, 12 MB cache, and 4.55 GHz max boost.
The silicon is paired with 6400 MHz 16 GB LPDDDR5x RAM and 1 TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD. There’s an additional M.2 slot to increase the storage size by 1 TB.
The thermals are kept under control by dual heat pipes and cooling fans. With this hardware config, the computer is capable of delivering adequate performance for day-to-day tasks and some more as you can notice from the attached benchmark scores.
The notebook is not as powerful as many in the price segment, especially those gaming models. But none of them offer a sleek body as this one. And more importantly, this computer is not meant for gaming.
Anyways, Asus still provides several useful ports, such as 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C, 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, an HDMI 2.1, a MicroSD card reader, and an audio jack.
As for software, the laptop boots Microsoft Windows 11 Home. It comes with a dedicated Copilot key, which could be useful for those who use the app often.
4. Lasts a Work Day
The Asus Vivobook S 14 (M5406) is backed by a 75 Wh battery. In my daily usage, I had to charge it only once a day.
My usage mostly includes web apps on Google Chrome and productivity apps like Microsoft Office. That’s what the targeted customers of this product would use.
So I believe the computer would survive the day for intended users with light to medium usage. If you are a heavy user, you may want to charge in between.
Talking about charging, the notebook takes about an hour and a half to charge fully from 20% with the included charger. Since it uses USB Type-C, it can be charged using any compatible USB PD power adapter and power bank ranging from 5-20V.
5. Should You Buy Asus Vivobook S 14 (M5406)?
At ₹89,990, the Asus Vivobook S 14 (M5406) is a compelling option in India if you could forego the lower resolution display.
But when you compare it with Asus Vivobook S 15 (S5506), that one makes more sense. It is ₹7,000 costlier with a price tag of ₹96,990.
For around a 7% price hike, you get a larger 15.6-inch OLED display offering a 3K (2880 x 1620 pixels) resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. However, the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H processor underneath is slightly less powerful.
Anyways, if you strictly want a 14-inch notebook, the alternative from Asus is not ideal. So you have no option but to either buy Vivobook S 14 (M5406) if needed urgently or wait for a price drop.
As for competitors from other brands priced below ₹95,000, there are only two models as of writing this article. They are Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Gen 9 and HP Pavilion Plus 14-ew1082TU.
Both these computers are powered by Intel Core Ultra 5 125H processor.
The HP model has a 14-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600 pixels ) display with a 48-120 Hz refresh rate, however, the panel is IPS LCD. Also, it comes with only 512GB SSD. On the other hand, the Lenovo laptop is almost the same as Asus’ offering.
