ASUS VivoBook X512DA 15.6 Inch Full HD Laptop (AMD Ryzen 5-3500U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Windows 10), Grey

Amazing value for money with a great CPU and a decent iGPU. Playing games the GPU will struggle but it's a roughly 400 quid laptop you can't expect everything. Check youtube for benchmarks. Awesome for a student like me. For this price range you're giving up an IPS screen for the powerful CPU. That is your biggest consideration. The brightness is pretty decent. The contrast is Ok for what it is. Battery is good, lasts a good 5-6 hours with medium brightness. Trackpad is also good imo. The fan turns on when it's not really needed. So it gets loud for no reason, however this is not an issue windows has always had an option to change how aggressively the fan does or does not turn on. So it's fine. I do not believe you can change the tdp I have not seen that option in the bios. Edit#2: Ryzencontroller software to up tdp from 15 to 30 Watts, noticeable improvement but diminishing returns, I have seen a teardown video showing this laptop has awful cooling, awful heat pipe etc thermal pads may be useful, but the laptop reaches 90° TOO quickly for overclocking to be generally worth it. Also I think the keyboard is pretty good too. Camera is trash but usable (who even uses laptop cameras) Sick lookin bezels too. Edit: I should stress the colours and contrast on the screen is ... Lackluster but ok *for the price*.

What else can I say about this Laptop that hasn't already been said... It is, for the price, an excellent brand name laptop in the upper-mid-range of the Windows laptop market. All the pros have already been listed (there are far more pros than cons) but listing a few cons may actually help you get a better feel for this product before you splash-out the not inconsiderable price on this device. The con I want to address here, (along with the solution) is the fact that Asus Europe DO NOT include the HDD/SSD upgrade kit as standard, as they do for these mode;s in Asia... Knowing this downside actually helps you make an informed decision, especially if you're equipped with the solution, which I will provide. Before I get to that, I want to mention the trackpad... I guarantee, that it will irritate you at some point, more than once. It seems to have a mind of its own at times, and those "times usually occur when you are trying to scroll. It's not a game changer or a mega downside, but it is something to be aware of. The biggest con in the pros-and-cons list is the HDD upgrade failure... Inside these laptops, there is an empty bay and cable connector which is there to let you upgrade the laptop with a 2.5" HDD or 2.5" SSD to go alongside the M.2 NVME SSD drive that comes pre-installed... Asus in Asia supply this range of laptops with a 2.5" HDD upgrade kit, which Asus Europe do not supply. The kit includes the Sata-to-MoBo cable (I think it's ten pin, but don't quote me - I'll link to Amazon's part page for it in a bit). The kit also incudes the flexible caddy for the drive which fits perfectly into the drive bay (see the picture I've attached). For the caddy, got to the Asus Europe website (en.accessoires-asus) and/or search for part number 13NB0KA3L10111 - You will probably have to pay for it in Euros (about 12 Euros at the time of this review, direct from Asus Europe - Maybe they will become available from UK merchants soon). The picture I have attached is of one of these caddies. For the cable, search Amazon UK's website for B07YGT468J (ASIN number) I've bought two of these laptops from Amazon and upgraded them both using these parts to fit a 1TB 2.5" SSD in one, and a 750GB 2.5" HDD in the other... It took a while to find these parts, because there was very little info available about them at the time... This info is everything you need to upgrade these laptops with a second Hard Drive easily and cheaply.... BTW I've upgraded the RAM in one of them from the standard 8GB to 18GB of RAM. RAM upgrade to 18GB using the Samsung 16GB DDR4 SODIMM2400 MHz Laptop Memory Module/Stick - search Amazon UK for: B074PNTC8L (permanent 2GB is already onboard) - Note, there is ONLY ONE slot for RAM, so you will have to take out the installed RAM module to insert the upgrade, so you should buy the RAM module that has your desired capacity, NOT using the method of adding the two chips together, such as 8GB + 12GB = 20GB. EDIT SEP 2022... THE ABOVE RAM UPGRADE IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE. FOR AN ALTERNATIVE, AMAZON SEARCH: B019FRBHZ0 - END OF EDIT go to YouTube and search for Y9R3dMxdHhA where there is a quick demo of how to fit the extra drive in the Laptop... It's not all English, but the demo is self-explanatory, and it is the video I used... Indeed, watching it, made me search for the missing parts, leading me to the discovery that in Asus Europe's laptops, Asus don't supply them like they do as standard in Asia. Grrr. Lol. I really hope all this information helps you with your new Asus VivoBook laptop. I can't recommend this excellent upper-mid range Windows Laptop enough, especially now that you know you can easily and cheaply upgrade them at a later date, despite Asus Europe not including these bits.

I paid £450 for this model in Feb 2020. I haven't used it much and hadn't planned to, so I stuck to a low budget. I can confirm it works fine with Windows 11. Downsides.. the screen is pretty washy - a little worse than I expected. The battery is average. The speakers are just ok. I also understand thermal throttling happens although it doesn't affect me for what I use the laptop for (no gaming or graphic intensive software). These are compromises which I suppose are to be expected at this price point. The UK keyboard is fine to type on except for the awkward positioning of the enter key and # symbol compared with most other keyboards. One thing that attracted me to this over other budget laptops was the presence of a number pad, although the non-standard layout of it makes it a chore to use at times. Negatives aside, a good value laptop.

It is quick to wake up. Very good screen. This is my first experience of Windows 10, so it is taking me a while getting to grips with it. The new Microsoft browser seems fine, but I have installed two others for differing reasons. The keyboard seems to be very good. So far, the Myzen chip seems to be handling anything with ease, as I hoped it would. I am concerned that the battery has only charged up to some 79% (although ONCE in 4.5 months it read 80%). This is my first Asus laptop, and I am very much enjoying the mute/on sound button (so much more efficient) and the on/off button for the touch pad, which is also a boon. The video camera was not mentioned in the sales brief, but it is included and seems quite a decent one. So does the mike and the sound system in general. I feel this was a good buy and I am pleased with the laptop.

Bought for son for school and to get him off my gaming pc. Excellent for everything so far altho not yet loaded any serious games on it yet. Lightweight, fast processor speed and good screen quality with big screen a real bonus. Definitely worth buying if you need a good all rounder for school/play.

The laptop is more blue than the dark violet shown in the images, but otherwise all other specs match its description; the keyboard has the standard uk english layout, although being a 14-inch the numeric keypad you see in the images is not there. I only gave 3* because connecting the laptop to my wi-fi was a nearly impossible feat: the laptop kept saying “connected, no internet” (or something similar); it took several tries before it connected properly. If the laptop hadn’t been purchased to be a secondary machine, I would almost certainly return it. EDIT ON 14/03/2021 ::: After the first time the laptop connects to wi-fi normally without issue; sadly, though, the laptop has already started to run a bit slow at times, and the battery drains super fast - I just installed Windows’ latest updates, and in the hour and a half it took for the updates to be completed the battery went from 92% to 37%. That might’ve been because of the update, but it’s still not a good sign. If the return windows wasn’t closed, after this I would definitely send this laptop back to Amazon’s warehouse. EDIT ON 12/08/2021 ::: After about 10 months from purchase, the laptop isn't charging anymore. I don't know if it's the charging brick or the battery (it's definitely the laptop though, I've tested it on a dozen different sockets and plugs), but it can no longer be charged....so I've no choice but to chuck the laptop for good. After less than a year....but it'll be way more than a year before I buy an Asus laptop again.

Really looks and feels like laptops twice the price, it is plastic (I got the grey version) but high quality with no flex. The screen quality lets it down a little but the really narrow bezels make up for this by providing a comparitively small form factor for the size of the screen. Performance is fine for what I need it for (just get the right spec for you). Overall, very impressed.

Good metrics but a bit fragile and already slowing down a bit. But I think worth the money