[REVIEW] ASUS Vivobook 15X OLED M1503 – Premium Budget Mainstream Laptop

ASUS Malaysia has just announced its new popular budget-friendly laptop under the Vivobook series. It’s a 15.6″ AMD-powered laptop that features a premium ASUS OLED with a 2.8K resolution and a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. The best part is, it is only priced at RM 3,299.
I also made a FastView video of this laptop if you prefer to watch

ASUS Vivobook 15X OLED Specifications
  • Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600H (19MB Cache, up to 4.2GHz, 6 Core, 12 Thread) / AMD Ryzen 7 5800H (20MB Cache, up to 4.4GHz, 8 Core, 16 Thread)
  • Graphics: AMD Radeon RX Vega 7 (1,800MHz) / Vega 8 (2,000MHz)
  • Memory: 8GB DDR4 RAM (1x Expansion slot)
  • Display: 15.6″ 2.8K (2,880 x 1,620), 16:9, 120Hz, 2ms OLED Display, 550 nits, 100% DCI-P3, PANTONE Validated & VESA Display HDR500 True Black
  • Storage: 512GB NVMe PCIe Gen 3.0 SSD
  • Ports: 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1x USB A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x USB 2.0, 1x HDMI 1.4, and 3.5mm Audio Combo Port
  • Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6 & Bluetooth 5.0
  • Battery: 70Wh 3, cells Li-ion Battery with 90W Adapter
  • Dimension: 35.68 x 22.76 x 1.99 cm @ 1.7kg/3.75lbs
  • Colors: Quiet Blue
  • PriceRM 3,299 (Ryzen 5 5600H) / RM 3,699 (Ryzen 7 5800H)

Design

ASUS Vivobook 15X OLED

The ASUS Vivobook 15X OLED is well built with a polished chamfered edge that’s pleased to hold. The Quiet Blue color is a matte finishing that looks like matte black at a certain angle. It’s simple with just an “ASUS Vivobook” logo on the back cover. Not too heavy for a 15″ inch laptop at just 1.7kg.

The display bezels are pretty narrow and offer a screen-to-body ratio of 86%. ASUS manage to put in an HD webcam on the slim bezel while including a webcam privacy shield. Features a lay-flat hinge that makes it easy to share and collaborate with a group of people around a table.

Equipped with a full-sized keyboard with a numeric keypad. It’s a backlit chiclet keyboard with 0.2mm dished keycaps and a 1.4mm key travel. It gives good tactile feedback and a comfortable typing experience. Additionally to that, the keyboard surface received a special treatment that keeps the bugs at bay and it’s scientifically proven to inhibit the growth of bacteria by more than 99% over 24 hours. On the trackpad, it has a built-in fingerprint scanner that supports Windows Hello for easier and fast login.

Ports & Connectivity

There’s a single USB 2.0 on the left, while on the right is a barrel charger port, an HDMI 1.4, 2x USB A 3.2 Gen 1, a USB C 3.2 Gen 1, and a 3.5mm combo audio port. Unfortunately, the USB C doesn’t support Power Delivery nor Display out. Equipped with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0.

ASUS OLED

Now, let’s address the elephant in the room. The brilliant and smooth 15.6-inch ASUS OLED has a high 2,880 x 1,620 resolution with a 16:9 display aspect ratio. The OLED panel has a peak brightness of 550 nits, high color accuracy with Delta-E less than 2, 100% DCI-P3 color space, PANTONE Validatedm VESA Certified DisplayHDR TrueBlack 500, TUV Rheinland Certified for low blue-light emission.

With the excellent and advanced display, ASUS allows the user to switch the display’s color gamut for different use, sRGB for creating web content or browsing, DCI-P3 for cinema content, and P3 for movie-grade color editing.

The offering of a 120Hz refresh rate and 0.2ms pixels response time enabled us to see fast-moving visuals look incredibly smooth and with no motion blur. This is very obvious when we watch sports games and even web scrolling.

This expansive display is usually offered to premium laptops, while this ASUS Vivobook 15X OLED price starts at just RM 3,299.

Performance

In this ASUS Vivobook 15X OLED, there are two processor options; AMD Ryzen 5 5600H or Ryzen 7 5800H. Paired with a soldered 8GB of DDR4 memory and a 512GB Intel 670P NVMe SSD storage. Other great things about ASUS Vivobook are its upgradability, which is why I fond the ASUS Vivobook 15 K513 that I reviewed previously. It comes with an empty SO-DIMM RAM slot for an upgrade while the M.2 SSD is also accessible if you think 512GB is not enough.

There’s no dedicated graphics card and runs with the integrated AMD Radeon RX Vega 7/8 graphics.

It performs fairly well and is sufficient for most everyday productivity tasks including photos and video editing projects. Proxy is still required for more complicated video editing like in 4K with some motion graphics and plugins.

Here are the synthetic benchmark test results

Battery

Manage to score about 6 to 7 hours of productivity usage from the 70Wh battery for I need to tether the laptop with the provided 90W brick. It can top up from 0% to 100% in under 100 minutes which is pretty impressive.

Price

This laptop comes in two variants, either the AMD Ryzen 5 5600H or the Ryzen 7 5800H, priced at RM 3,299 and RM 3,699 respectively. There are available now for sale at ASUS official stores and retailers.

Where to buy

More info about the new ASUS Vivobook 15X OLED M1503.

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ASUS Vivobook 15X OLED
  • Design
  • Build
  • Display
  • Performance
  • Battery
  • Value
4.3

Verdict

There are just too many to praise, especially the reasonable price tag for what it offers and the expansive 2.8K 120Hz OLED display. The display is not only bright and brilliant, but it also offers a smoother than ever experience that you can only find on a much more expensive laptop. ASUS could include a USB C that supports Power Delivery and display out, then it would be perfect.