Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED Review: The Performance You Need
Asus Vivobook Pro 16X
RRP $ 1,099.00
“The Asus Vivobook Pro 16X offers everything a content creator needs in a laptop. And the price is right. "
advantages
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Incredible battery life
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Gorgeous OLED screen
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Powerhouse performance
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Great value
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A decent slot machine
disadvantage
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Boring design
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DialPad feels tricky
Asus has set itself the task of making OLED laptops accessible to the masses. The ZenBook 13 was the cheapest 1080p OLED panel we'd seen earlier this year, and now the Vivobook Pro 16X does the same for 4K OLED.
The high-resolution screen is available in a basic configuration starting at $ 1,100. In a world where OLED is typically reserved for laptops over $ 2,000, the Vivobook Pro 16X is a big step in the right direction.
Paired with a Ryzen 9 5900HX processor and an RTX 3050 Ti graphics card, the ingredients for an excellent content creation machine are available at an affordable price. As it turns out, it is just that – and so much more.
draft
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
The design of the VivoBook Pro 16X is not its strong point. This shows the laptop's low price. It's not an unattractive laptop in and of itself, just a very simple one. The dark gray case is not noticeable and the rather large plastic bezels ensure that it does not feel up-to-date. The few design flourishes that it has, such as the orange Esc key and the name tag on the front with the words "#BeExplorers", seem a little weird.
The design just doesn't have the premium look of some of its competitors, like the Dell XPS 15, MacBook Pro 16-inch, or even the HP Envy 15. But this, too, is significantly cheaper than many of these other options. Ultimately, the Vivobook Pro 16X is intended for those who prefer a cheaper laptop without sacrificing performance. Design is not in the foreground.
Fortunately, that doesn't mean the Vivobook Pro 16X is a poorly built device. It's a lot durable. The only weak point is in the middle of the lid along the hinge, but that's typical. It's an otherwise sturdy laptop that can be used and moved around.
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
Asus has also made no compromises in terms of portability. Despite being a very large laptop, the chassis is 0.74 inches thick and 4.3 pounds – slightly thicker than the XPS 15 but half a pound lighter than the HP Envy 15. The Razer Blade remains one of the thinnest Options for laptops of this size and performance level.
A similarity between the Vivobook Pro 16X and the Razer Blade is that both are absolute fingerprint magnets. The lid, in particular, was quickly covered with hard-to-remove fingerprints.
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The Vivobook Pro 16X has a super-glossy OLED display, which is still relatively rare on laptops. You can find it as an option on the most expensive Creator-based laptops, such as the Dell XPS 15. This laptop lets you configure an OLED screen at the cheapest cost for $ 2,300. HP can get you one for its Specter x360 15 for $ 1,580. But $ 1,100? It's unheard of, and yet that's exactly what the Vivobook Pro 16X does.
If you've seen one of the OLED screens on these laptops, you know what you're getting with the Vivobook Pro 16X: jet black, insane contrasts and a warm hue. Reds and oranges are turned up, but not unrealistic. With the “Vivid” color mode in the MyAsus application, you can make the colors stand out even more. You can also adjust the color temperature, either cooler or warmer. I always found these Samsung OLED panels a little too warm for my taste, so being able to cool them down a bit is perfect. This software also comes with some OLED care tips, including pixel shifting, pixel updating, and the ability to automatically hide the taskbar. In theory, these should prevent any possible burn-in that you might experience.
I used a Spyder colorimeter to measure color saturation, brightness, gamma, and color accuracy – and I was impressed across the board. Again, this is almost identical to what you'll find in other OLED laptops like the HP Specter x360 15 or Dell XPS 15, and that's a good thing. In the P3, AdobeRGB, and sRGB color spaces, it is near perfect, and the color error is small enough for more precise color correction. It may be the best laptop screen I've ever tested – especially at this price point.
In addition, the Vivobook Pro 16X is the first laptop with a larger 16:10, 16-inch screen with OLED functionality.
Ports
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
Asus keeps the port selection pretty simple, although it's decidedly old school. That means you get three USB-A ports, HDMI, a barrel connector and only one USB-C port. Although the USB-C port can supply power, Asus unfortunately decided to place it on the same side as the standard power connector.
The Vivobook Pro 16X also has a microSD card slot instead of a full-size slot. This is a little less convenient when uploading content directly from a camera, which seems to be one of the main uses for a laptop like this one. That's too bad.
The take-up of the barrel plug is also not optimal. Laptops like the XPS 15 rely solely on USB-C power, and that seems to give the entire laptop enough juice overall without sacrificing performance. Not only is USB-C more convenient, it also allows full charging on both sides of the laptop.
Keyboard and touchpad
Asus did a good job with the palm deflector, but accidental clicks do occur every now and then.
Asus has adopted the same keyboard from its higher-end ZenBook range. The keystrokes feel snappy and the keycaps don't wobble too much. There isn't a lot of travel here but I found it to be a pretty enjoyable typing experience.
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
In addition to the orange keycap, the keyboard also has a racing stripe on the Enter key and some color differences in between. The keyboard includes a number pad, which makes sense for a laptop of this size. Laptops with a number pad often off-center the touchpad as you type to match the position of your wrists as you type, but the Vivobook Pro keeps it centered. It's visually nice, but it means that your right hand rests on the touchpad while typing. Asus did a good job with the palm deflector, but accidental clicks do occur every now and then.
Asus has experimented with new touchpad functions in recent years – be it with the integration of a calculator or with the installation of a second screen. There's something new on the Vivobook Pro called the DialPad. When you swipe over the small icon in the upper right corner of the touchpad, a small digital clock face will appear on the left side of the touchpad. As soon as you slide your finger over the watch face, a screen dial is triggered, with which you can control various system-wide and app-specific settings. The default controls are just volume and screen brightness, but there are a few more options in the ProArt software that can be added. None of these were particularly useful, and certainly no more convenient than just using the keyboard.
However, its actual use is to set certain controls in applications such as the Adobe Creative Suite. It's all based on the same dialing system developed for the Surface Dial that Microsoft introduced for the Surface Studio All-in-One. The new premium creative laptops from Asus in the StudioBook range make much more use of the dial with physical controls and accessories. I could see someone using the DialPad for the occasional control change, but the combination of the swipe to trigger and the digital watch face makes for a clunky experience that would require considerable habit formation to use effectively.
I didn't find the DialPad particularly useful, but it never got in the way either. Since it requires a swipe, I've never had accidental starts.
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
power
The Vivobook Pro 16X deserves its "Pro" designation with two components. First the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX. This is a 45 watt 8 core processor with lots of power, especially for multithreaded tasks. It's the same CPU we've seen in a number of excellent gaming laptops in 2021 and been a winner across the board. Cinebench R23 multi-core results are impressive, stomping on Intel's 11th generation H-series laptops like the Dell XPS 15. Single-core performance is still a bit higher in Dell's XPS laptop, but the Vivobook Pro is not far behind there either.
The Vivobook Pro also beats the XPS 15 in all PCMark 10 benchmarks, which include testing basic tasks like web browsing and video conferencing, as well as more difficult workflows like multitasking and photo editing. It's only 4% ahead overall – but keep in mind that this is a much cheaper laptop we're talking about. The Vivobook Pro is fast and nimble whether you're doing basic administrative tasks, playing games, or rendering a video timeline.
| Laptop | 3DMark time spy | Cinebench R23 | Underdog bench 5 | PCMark 10 | Fortnite (1080p Epic) | Civilization VI (1080p Ultra) |
| Asus Vivobook Pro 16X (RTX 3050 Ti) | 4601 | 1486/11478 | 1544/8299 | 6287 | 57 fps | 68 fps |
| Acer Swift X (RTX 3050 Ti) | 4073 | 1437/10135 | 1287/6663 | 6247 | 43 fps | 66 fps |
| Dell XPS 15 (RTX 3050 Ti) | 4540 | 1513/9979 | 1556/7692 | 6024 | 50 fps | 73 fps |
| Dell XPS 17 (RTX 3060) | 7039 | 1525/10145 | 1568/8801 | 6209 | 78 fps | 104 fps |
Even ultra-thin 16-inch laptops like the LG Gram 16 don't do well because they use a weaker 25-watt processor and integrated graphics. Gaming laptops like the Ryzen-powered Razer Blade 14 or Lenovo Legion 5 Pro, although often far more expensive, have a similar performance range. The significantly larger XPS 17 is also a better one-to-one comparison in PCMark 10 with its RTX 3060 graphics.
For a similarly expensive competitor, the Acer Swift X achieves the performance of the Vivobook Pro in these benchmarks with a smaller 14-inch size. The Acer Swift X also has a Ryzen 5000 processor and the RTX 3050 Ti for graphics.
Seeing all of this in real applications is of course the most important thing. And the Vivobook Pro didn't disappoint. The great multi-core performance of AMD's Ryzen 5000 chips enables really fast video rendering, which makes the Vivobook Pro super fast in applications like Handbrake and Adobe Premiere Pro. How fast? Well, according to its own tests, the Vivobook Pro 16X has set a new record for laptops when rendering in Handbrake.
These tests were all run with the system's default "Standard" fan profile, which means you can likely see improvements with the built-in "Performance" mode in the Asus software.
The only exception I saw was timeline playback in Adobe Premiere Pro. This is one area where Intel’s optimization has an advantage over AMD. That means a laptop like the XPS 17 will do better overall in Premiere Pro. You'll also see a slightly better overall Premiere Pro experience with a gaming laptop like the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro, which has more powerful GPU performance with its RTX 3070.
But these are not fair comparisons either. When was the last time you heard of a $ 1,100 laptop that can handle 4K video edits like a breeze? This is the Vivobook Pro for you.
Gaming performance
Of course, you can't try out some games with an Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti. And the Vivobook Pro 16X does better than you might think. The Vivobook Pro 16X does much more with the RTX 3050 Ti than some other laptops with this graphics card. In games, it achieves significantly better frame rates than smaller laptops with the same GPU as the Acer Swift X and the Asus ROG Flow X13.
You shouldn't buy this laptop just for gaming, but it's certainly powerful enough to handle modern games on the side.
In Fortnite, for example, the Vivobook Pro 16X is 25% faster than the Acer Swift X, averaging 57 frames per second (fps) in 1080p at epic settings. This even exceeds the 50 fps that the Dell XPS 15 gets, even with the RTX 3050 Ti. This is not bad, especially since the screen only has a refresh rate of 60 Hz.
The XPS 15 got the upper hand in Civilization VI, the other game I tested on the Vivobook Pro. While the Dell system can play the game in 4K Ultra with a smooth 55 fps, the Vivobook Pro 16X got stuck with a choppy 39 fps. This advantage is less obvious in 1080p, where both systems easily landed at over 60 fps.
That makes the Vivobook Pro 16X a decent gaming machine, but of course not as good as an RTX 3060 laptop like the Dell XPS 17. You shouldn't buy this laptop just for gaming, but it's certainly powerful enough to run on the side cope with modern games.
Loudspeaker and webcam
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
There are two main locations for speakers in laptops – either towards the top right of the keyboard deck or along the edges facing the surface below. However, Asus chose a unique position for the Vivobook Pro 16X – right on the front. If you sit back while watching a movie or video, you will get decent quality sound from these speakers. It's not the richest, most full-bodied audio I've ever heard, but it's not bad.
Oddly enough, if you hear something while typing or using the laptop, your arms are undoubtedly blocking the sound. An odd choice no doubt, but they'll get the job done during a video conference. Asus even offers some "AI-supported" noise-canceling for the microphones.
Speaking of video conferencing, the webcam here is only 720p, so don't expect the crisper image quality of any of the rare 1080p laptop webcams out there. I have to say, however, that the Vivobook Pro's imaging isn't as bad as many of the other 720p webcams I've tested. This is an example where the larger top bezel can accommodate a higher quality sensor than laptops with a thin bezel like the Dell XPS 15.
Battery life
I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw how long it was taking.
A 16-inch laptop with an RTX graphics card and a 4K screen with amazing battery life? Yes that's it. The Asus Vivobook Pro 16X achieves an incredible battery life, although all of these factors work against it.
Asus didn't go into the details, but this new OLED panel in the Vivobook Pro uses different materials when it comes to power consumption. The battery life improvements from using AMD's Ryzen 5000 platform probably won't hurt either. Whatever the secret sauce is – it works.
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
In our light web browsing test, the Vivobook Pro 16X lasted over 16 hours on a single charge. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw how long it was taking. It revolves around laptops like the Dell XPS 15, which was dead after just five hours in the same test. It even beats the lightweight LG Gram 16, which was previously a battery life champion in this test.
In our lightest test, which repeats a local video file, the Vivobook Pro 16X even earned 30 minutes more.
Don't necessarily expect two full days of work with the Vivobook Pro, especially if your typical workload is using the discrete GPU. But you will have a hard time finding many laptops, especially none with that much power, that can outlast the Vivobook Pro 16X on a single charge.
Our opinion
The Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED occupies a wonderful niche in the laptop market. It's boldly said that powerhouses and high-end displays don't have to be reserved for people with deep pockets. There are still elements that set this "midrange" laptop apart from the more expensive options, but none that will slow your workflow or make you regret your purchase.
Are there alternatives?
There are a variety of larger laptops sold to a "content creation" audience. The HP Envy 15 is most similar in price and performance, although it is not as powerful and a bit more expensive.
The 14-inch Acer Swift X is a good alternative. Although smaller, it offers similar performance for almost the same price. Of course, the huge OLED screen is missing.
After all, if you have the money, the XPS 15 or XPS 17 won't let you down – they only cost you an arm and a leg.
How long it will take?
The Vivobook Pro 16X OLED should be a solid laptop for five or six years, although you can't get a warranty for that long. However, the components inside are high-end and should be able to adequately supply workloads, games and applications for many years to come.
Should you buy it?
Yes sir. It's a laptop with high-end components at an amazingly affordable price.
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