Construction
A very classic design. © The Digital
The VivoBook 14x in our test has an all-plastic silver gray chassis, but it also comes in midnight blue. A simple “Asus VivoBook” inscription is present on the cover, the rest of the design is very basic.
Opening the screen reveals the keyboard in the same color as the chassis. The matte screen is surrounded by a grainy black plastic with poor quality rendering.
If the keyboard has a backlight, we know that the gray keys do not mix well with it. Thus, during the day, if the backlight is activated, the keys become unreadable due to lack of contrast; a problem that disappears on the midnight blue version which has black keys.
The gray keys are not very readable in bright light. © The Digital
The sensations of typing on the keyboard are correct, although the mechanism of the keys is heard quite quickly.
The NumPad on the touchpad is screen printed directly on the touch surface. © The Digital
The touchpad provides a good glide takes into account the gestures of Windows. Note that the VivoBook 14x has the simplest version of the NumPad, with a numeric keypad screen that is activated by pressing for one second in the upper right corner.
Note that the VivoBook 14x does not have a fingerprint reader, a very practical system for quickly unlocking a Windows session.
Almost full box on the connectivity side. There are thus three USB-A ports, including one in USB2.0 and two in USB3.2 (5 Gb/s). A USB-C port is present, but does not support charging. Finally, an HDMI 1.4 port and a mini-jack socket complete the 4 USB ports. All that’s missing is a memory card reader to complete this connection.
Full connectivity, but not the latest generation. © The Digital
Wireless connectivity is provided by a Mediatek MT7921 chip which offers wifi 6 at 2400 Mb/s and Bluetooth 5.2. The webcam located above the screen has a 720p sensor with a particularly fuzzy and noisy rendering in the dark. A sliding physical cover hides the sensor for more privacy. This webcam is however incompatible with Windows Hello.
The cooling system is made up of two heat pipes which transfer the calories released by the Ryzen 5 5600H to two radiators arranged in the left corner of the chassis. A single fan evacuates the heat from the two radiators.
After our traditional encoding test, the thermal camera reveals a hot spot of 41°C on the keys of the keyboard and nearly 45°C on the piano. On the other hand, noise pollution is relatively contained (36.7 dB measured). In use, the fan remains off as long as the laptop is not used. It only triggers during Windows updates or while in use. A Performance mode allows you to increase the ventilation to obtain more power, but the noise pollution goes away.
The Asus VivoBook 14x heats up under heavy load. © The Digital
Access to the components requires the removal of 10 Phillips screws and the unclipping of the shell. The VivoBook 14x proves to be upgradable. It is possible to replace the RAM, the SSD, the wifi card and the battery. 8 GB of RAM are soldered and an 8 GB module is installed. It will therefore be possible to switch to 24 GB by replacing the latter with another 16 GB. Despite this good scalability, Asus announces a repairability index of only 6.3/10 for this VivoBook 14x.
The arrangement of the components is surprising. © The Digital
Performances
The VivoBook 14x is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H processor with 6 hyperthreaded cores running at 3.3 GHz and up to 4.2 GHz with a thermal envelope of 45 W. This processor is regularly used in laptops gaming entry-level. Asus accompanied it with 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD.
Processor performance index (the bigger the better). © The Digital
The VivoBook 14x thus obtains a performance index of 105, which places it between the MSI Modern 15 and its Core i7-1255U (95) and the ZenBook 14 Oled with a Core i7-1260P. The Huawei MateBook 16 equipped with the same processor obtains a performance index of 110 thanks to a larger and better cooled chassis.
Thus, during our twenty-minute encoding, the Ryzen 5 5600H runs at an average of 3.43 GHz in a 35-watt envelope. The cooling system (set to normal mode in MyAsus) is therefore a bit limited for the Ryzen 5 to fully express itself. However, it is possible to switch to Performance mode to overcome this problem.
The VivoBook 14x does not have a dedicated graphics card. It is therefore the Vega 7 graphics part integrated into the processor which takes care of the task. If you really want to play, you will have to limit yourself to games that are a little dated or that do not consume much graphic resources.
The 512 GB SSD from Micron reaches 2.24 GB / s in reading and 1.15 GB / s in writing. We’re far from the best SSDs, but it’s still more than enough for Windows, which starts up quickly and is perfectly responsive.
Screen
Asus has therefore abandoned the Oled and equipped this VivoBook 14x with a 14-inch IPS panel. Small novelty, we are entitled to a panel in 16/10 format displaying 1920 x 1200 px at 60 Hz. Apart from this small gain in height, the integration does not benefit from particular care and the screen occupancy rate reaches a ceiling at 83%.
Note the physical cache for the webcam. © The Digital
Under our probe, the panel selected by Asus lacks accuracy. The delta E reaches 5.3, well above the threshold of 3 below which the eye no longer perceives colorimetric drifts. The color temperature is 6227 K, a little below the video standard (6500 K), which causes a somewhat warm rendering. The contrast is on the other hand rather good for an IPS panel (1560:1 measured). We are certainly far from the infinite contrast of an Oled panel, but it is always good to take. Finally, the maximum brightness of 327 cd / m² allows you to take full advantage of the screen indoors, but not outdoors, despite the low reflectance of the panel (18.7% of reflected light).
We offer you a color profile which makes it possible to reduce the delta E to 3.7, while retaining the other characteristics; only the brightness drops to 290 cd/m².
1. Delta E by color
2. Color temperature curve
3. Gamma Curve
Audio
The two speakers of the VivoBook 14x are located under the chassis. A placement that modifies the sound reproduction depending on the surface on which the laptop rests. Also, the hands cover the sound when typing.
Listening, the sound volume is not very high. It is possible to hold a conversation even with the volume pushed to the maximum. The rendering is characteristic of a laptop PC, with a sound stage centered on the mids and which is sorely lacking in bass.
Close-up of the right speaker. © The Digital
The headphone output has good characteristics. Distortion is low, dynamic range high and crosstalk limited. Only real flaw, the output level is particularly low and requires pushing the volume to enjoy it; headphones with high impedance are therefore to be avoided.
| Asus Vivobook 14x | Average PCs tested | |
|---|---|---|
| Output level | 80 mVRMS | 156 mVRMS |
| Distortion+Noise | 0,008 % | 0,015 % |
| Dynamic range | 93 dB | 100 dB |
| Diaphonie | -56 dB | -64 dB |
Mobility / Autonomy
The Asus VivoBook 14x measures 32 x 21 cm and is 1.99 cm thick. It therefore takes up little space, but is particularly thick; without any real reason for that, since it does not embed any non-standard component. Its weight of 1.6 kg places it 400 g beyond the LG Gram 16 which nevertheless has a 16-inch screen and an 80 Wh battery (compared to 50 Wh for this VivoBook 14x). The 90 W charger weighs 333 g and is therefore close to the 2 kg bar for the whole. Asus could also have offered a more compact USB-C charger and thus dispensed with a proprietary socket.
Asus provides a 90 W charger with proprietary plug. © The Digital
In terms of battery life, the Asus VivoBook 14x does well. It lasted 7 h 28 min in video playback with its screen set to 200 cd / m² (70% of its maximum brightness) under our usual protocol (Netflix video playback, 50% volume and Bluetooth off). A correct autonomy, especially if we take into account the capacity of the battery of 50 Wh.
The Asus VivoBook 14x offers very good battery life. © The Digital