
Historic President's Day Price Drop: Score a Brand New 2023 M2 MacBook Pro Now for Just $300 Less - Special Exclusive at ZDNet!

Prime Day Alert: Discover the Most Efficient Laptop That’s Not a ThinkPad or MacBook & Save $300 Exclusive Review
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET
Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate links
If you click on a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
What’s the Amazon Prime Day deal?
Amazon’s October Prime Day event is here, and with its arrival, many laptops are seeing big discounts across the board. The Asus Vivobook S 15 is seeing a $300 discount, dropping from $1,300 to $1,000. It’s the first Asus Copilot Plus PC and comes highly recommended for its performance.
Also: Amazon Prime Day: Best 160+ deals live ahead of October’s Big Deal Days sale
ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The Vivobook S 15 , Asus’ first Copilot+ PC, normally retails for $1,299.
- It’s sleek and lightweight with a gorgeous OLED display, great battery life, and snappy performance.
- The nature of Windows on ARM laptops means it’s not yet optimized for certain apps and games.
Asus’ first Copilot+ PC with the Snapdragon X Elite chip is the Vivobook S 15 , a sleek and lightweight 15-inch laptop with a gorgeous display and ultra-snappy performance. Right now, it’s currently $200 off the regular price, making it a steal for some of the newest processor technology on the market.
The chassis’ minimalist, all-metal design is lightweight and airy, and it feels more premium than last year’s Vivobook S 14 . It’s only 0.58 inches at its thinnest point, and it weighs just 3.13 pounds, making it particularly well-suited for hybrid or remote workers who want a powerful laptop with a gorgeous display that doesn’t weigh a ton.
Also: One of the best lightweight laptops I’ve tested is a remote worker’s dream machine
Like all of the new Windows on ARM laptops released this summer, the Vivobook S 15 is fast and responsive with nice battery life, but it comes with new technology that isn’t fully optimized for all tasks quite yet, which could limit its use case for some users.
For the average consumer, however, this is the epitome of a laptop that looks and feels good right out of the box, and it starts with the brilliant 3K OLED display.
With an 89% screen-to-body ratio and ultra-thin bezels, the screen is brilliant and high-contrast, rocking a max 600-nit brightness and 120Hz refresh rate for some silky-smooth and crisp image quality.
The display’s 16:9 resolution gives it that premium widescreen feel, lending itself well to both watching and editing media, but it might not be for everyone. Most 15-inch laptops come with a 16:10 resolution, which might feel more “natural” for some, but ultimately the distinction is subtle.
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET
With 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, Asus is able to keep costs close to that $1,000 price point with just the right amount of hardware on this machine. And it feels even better in tandem with the snappy, responsive performance the Snapdragon X Elite processor provides.
Also: My new favorite travel accessory is an origami laptop sleeve that’s full of wonder
The Vivobook S 15 features the 12-core, 3.4GHz chip with a 45 TOPS NPU, the same one found in the HP Omnibook X 14 , but slightly below the 3.8GHz chip in the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge .
Newsletters
ZDNET Recommends
ZDNET saves you time and money by delivering the best products and tech deals to your inbox every week.
Subscribe
The benchmarking scores in Cinebench reflect that same hierarchy, with numbers above the Omnibook and just below the Galaxy Book 4 Edge. In testing the CPU’s performance, I got a single-core score of 106 and a multi-core score of 969. In Geekbench , I got a single-core of 2447 and a multi-core of 14384.
Keep in mind that these scores were recorded while the device was plugged into power. While on battery, I got scores about 30% lower – somewhat more of a difference than I expected. This is in comparison to the HP Omnibook X 14, which had a much narrower gap in scores in my testing, something I noted as I was reviewing it .
Also: My new favorite travel accessory gives me an extra screen to work and play on
This paints a picture of a laptop that has somewhat variable battery life, depending on what you’re doing and what kind of mode you have the laptop in. There’s no escaping the power this display requires, and if you’re someone who typically ignores battery setting profiles and keeps your machine blasting at “Best Performance,” you may want to adjust the power modes in either the MyAsus software or in Windows (or both) because you’ll see a drastic difference.
That being said, the 70Wh battery performance on the Vivobook S 15 is good, but the user must manage it to maximize its efficiency. During the battery test that ZDNET runs on all laptops , I got about 10 and a half hours before it died, but that number fluctuated in subsequent tests with different power mode settings.
Also: The best laptops of 2024 under $1,000: Expert tested and reviewed
Optimization is the theme here, and this also extends to its performance. The Windows on ARM architecture provides fantastic up-front performance in ways that are immediately apparent to most users. But when you start looking closely at more specialized tasks, things have the potential to get tricky.
For example, the Vivobook S 15’s aforementioned 16:9 resolution OLED screen seems like it would be perfect for editing video. While the integrated Qualcomm Adreno GPU is up to the task, its interaction with different apps and their performance in Windows (via Prism) is still a work in progress.
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET
During my testing, I ran DaVinci Resolve for Windows on ARM, and it worked mostly fine, but the performance is still not 100% optimized. There was some lag, graphic stuttering, and quirkiness, especially with 4K video. Adobe Photoshop, however, ran smoothly, with local AI-generative tasks popping off seamlessly with help from the NPU on board the Snapdragon. I expect performance to continue to improve as Windows gets better and developers improve their products for the platform.
The other elephant in the room is gaming, which is not entirely up to speed with Windows on ARM. Yes, technically, you can game on this laptop, but many titles still don’t run, and the ones that do are not well-optimized. Although the Vivobook S 15 looks like something you might want to game on, I wouldn’t recommend it as a dedicated gaming laptop. At least not yet.
Also: Google’s new Chromebook Plus AI features could give Windows Copilot a run for its money
Instead, I see the Vivobook S 15 as a primary driver for remote workers or digital nomads who are already integrating AI into their workflows and appreciate an aesthetic laptop with a brilliant display that handles media well. Supporting that use case, it has a generous selection of ports: two USB-A ports on the right-hand side, two USB-C on the left, an HDMI port, a MicroSD slot, and a headphone jack.
It also has a “full” keyboard (the number pad on the right side has slightly smaller keys, as typical for sub-16-inch machines), which is satisfying and responsive to typing on. The keyboard has colorful LED backlighting that can be configured in many different lights and effects, but again, this is not something that I would consider high on the priority list when optimizing battery life.
ZDNET’s buying advice
The Asus Vivobook S 15 is a sleek and lightweight laptop with a gorgeous OLED display and solid battery life – as long as you’re mindful about your power usage. I’d recommend it to forward-thinking digital nomads who want a performant, AI-ready laptop with the blazing-fast Snapdragon X Elite processor. It’s a solid investment for people who regularly swap between creative work, productivity software, and media.
All things considered, the sale price of $1,099 is very competitive for this laptop, particularly for the display alone.
Featured reviews
3 features in Apple’s new AirPods 4 that made me ditch my AirPods Pros
Why I’m recommending the standard iPhone 16 over the Pro this year (and I’m not alone)
The Windows laptop I recommend to most people undercuts the MacBook Air (but is just as capable)
One of the best pool-cleaning robots I’ve tested proved its worth in the most extreme conditions
- 3 features in Apple’s new AirPods 4 that made me ditch my AirPods Pros
- Why I’m recommending the standard iPhone 16 over the Pro this year (and I’m not alone)
- The Windows laptop I recommend to most people undercuts the MacBook Air (but is just as capable)
- One of the best pool-cleaning robots I’ve tested proved its worth in the most extreme conditions
Also read:
- [Updated] 2023 | How to Autoplay Facebook Videos for 2024
- [Updated] Rectifying the Curved Illusion in Your GoPro Videos
- 3 Facts You Need to Know about Screen Mirroring Tecno Pova 5 Pro | Dr.fone
- Apple's Projected Inexpensive Vision Pro Glasses Still Seem More Myth Than Reality – An Analysis by ZDNET
- Effortless Techniques to Share IGTV in Stories for 2024
- In 2024, How to Fix Pokemon Go Route Not Working On Realme C55? | Dr.fone
- In 2024, Yuneec Typhoon H Examined An Extensive Review
- Low-Cost Twitch Channel Setup? Check if Your Current Equipment Fits the Bill!
- Meet the Innovative Duo: Raspberry Pi Pico 2 Revolutionizes with Its Twofold RISC Blueprint
- Next Gen AirDot Charger with Adjustable Volume Feature Desired
- Optimal Gaming Performance with Mid-Range Processors: Why Top-Tier Options Aren't Necessary
- Review & Guide on Installing BlindsMagic Smart Motorized Roller Shades - A Comprehensive DIY Smart Home Upgrade
- Struggling with WiFi Issues? Discover 10 Proven Fixes for a Stable Internet Connection
- Surprise Reveal: The Remarkable, Undiscovered Use for Logitec's Latest Pen!
- The Journey Swiv Universal Charger Reviewed: More Than Meets the Eye Beyond Simple Travel Convenience
- Updated The Best Boxing Streaming Websites for the Latest Match Coverage
- What You Need To Know To Improve Your OnePlus Ace 2V Hard Reset | Dr.fone
- Title: Historic President's Day Price Drop: Score a Brand New 2023 M2 MacBook Pro Now for Just $300 Less - Special Exclusive at ZDNet!
- Author: Joseph
- Created at : 2025-02-24 21:31:16
- Updated at : 2025-03-02 22:20:00
- Link: https://hardware-help.techidaily.com/historic-presidents-day-price-drop-score-a-brand-new-2023-m2-macbook-pro-now-for-just-300-less-special-exclusive-at-zdnet/
- License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.