To put this in context, Apple and Microsoft used to be neck-and-neck in the laptop market until around 2020. Things changed this year, however, when Apple ditched Intel processors for its own M1 chip based on ARM architecture, resulting in massive performance and battery life gains, along with a better user experience due to software and hardware integration.
With the new Snapdragon X series processors, Microsoft and its OEM partners such as Asus are looking to replicate some of these gains, while also trying to jump on the AI bandwagon that has been the talk of the town for the better part of two years.
Asus S15 Copilot+ PC:
As for the star of the show, Asus’ revamped S series laptops were already pretty impressive, as evidenced by the S16 OLED I reviewed earlier this year. Asus has now given the S15 a big boost with the addition of the Snapdragon X Elite chipset, in a bid to take on not only other Windows OEMs, but also the MacBook’s of the world.
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But does the first Snapdragon X Elite powered laptop in India really live up to the promise of powerful performance and long battery life, or are there still a few kinks to be ironed out? Well, I used the S15 Copilot+ PC for about 15 days and below is my detailed analysis of how the laptop fared in real-world use.
Design:
One of the pain points for me with the S16 OLED was its massive 16 inch display which despite being lightweight was a bit too much to carry for me. However, I had no such complaints with the new S15 Copilot+ PC. With a weight of around 1.42kg and a thickness of just 14.7mm, the new S15 laptop is definitely easy to carry for long periods of time.
Like its siblings, the S15 comes in a metal body design which gives the laptop a very premium touch and for its worth, it has also received the US MIL-STD 810H military-grade standard which does ensure a certain peace of mind in the long run. In terms of real world usage, the laptop easily opens with one finger and there is very little keyboard or display flex when typing.
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There are plenty of connectivity options on the laptop including 2 USB 3.2 ports, 2 USB 4.0 ports, 1 HDMI port, a Micro SD card reader and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Asus has also provided support for Wi-fi 7 with this laptop and while it may not come in handy for most Indian users right now, it is always a good thing to have advanced features for a premium device.
Display:
The S15 Copilot+ PC features a 15.6-inch 3K OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 16:9 aspect ratio. With a peak brightness of 600 nits, there are no problems using the laptop indoors or on the move.
It has the same customisation as the S16, so you can switch between different display profiles, sound modes and fan profiles to suit your needs. One feature that I really liked about the Asus S Series laptops this year is the ‘Pixel Refresh’ feature, which refreshes the pixels on the screen to prevent burn-in problems with the OLED display.
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The S15 Copilot+ PC features a dual speaker setup with Dolby Atmos support, which acutally provides a pretty decent output and should be good enough for most users. But since my room is a little noisy, I opted for volume enhancer option in the My Asus app that boosted the audio by 300% while causing only minor loss in clarity.
The exceptional clarity and colour accuracy of this panel really enhances the viewing experience and, combined with the stereo speaker setup, makes it the ideal device for media consumption.
Performance:
As mentioned above, the S15 Copilot+ PC runs on the Snapdragon X Elite chipset, and there is also a dedicated NPU to handle AI-related tasks on the device. However, as things stand, there aren’t many AI tasks that you can perform with this Copilot+ PC. Windows Recall is, well, recalled, and there aren’t a whole lot of other things that necessitate a dedicated NPU.
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For anyone wondering, yes, there is a designated Copilot button on this laptop, along with other Copilot+ PC features like Live Captions and Cocreator on Paint. Hopefully Microsoft or Asus will add support for more AI tools in the future that can take advantage of the powerful hardware on board.
All the other interesting Asus features that I talked about in the S16 review, such as Auto Framing, Eye Contact (which helps you maintain eye contact during video calls even when looking elsewhere) and Background Blur, are all here. There are also some cool new trackpad gestures this time around. For example, swiping up on the right-hand side of the trackpad increases the volume, and the same action on the left-hand side increases the brightness.
I’m not much of a gamer, but it’s safe to say that the new Copilot+ PC can easily handle light gaming. Given the slim form factor and the lack of a dedicated GPU, it’s hard to expect more. However, I had no problems with my day-to-day tasks and the laptop never broke a sweat, no matter how many tabs or even browsers I had open at the same time.
While software support for ARM-based Windows PCs has been an issue in the past, I had no problems with any of my everyday applications such as Slack, Google Chrome, Firefox, Arc and even media players such as VLC. As these are early days for ARM based processors, some applications have yet to be ported and there may be minor software glitches with some applications.
Battery:
The S15 Copilot+ PC has a massive 70Wh battery and comes with a 90W fast charger. Asus claims 18 hours of battery life for this laptop, but my usage suggests that this figure is a bit inflated and the actual number is around 13-14 hours or 1.5 hours of work on standard display settings.
However, switching to DCI P3 colour gamut in the display settings reduces the battery life to around a day or so. In any case, this is definitely a benchmark for Windows laptops, and this was the first time I had used a Windows laptop where I didn’t have to worry about carrying a charger when going out for all day meetings. Charging is also relatively fast, I found that the battery went from 0-50 percent in around 35-40 minutes, while a full charge took around 1 hour 40-50 minutes.
One problem I noticed with the S15 Coplilot+ PC is that it tends to heat up quite a bit when plugged in. This means that you cannot use it on your lap while charging and have to move the laptop to a solid surface instead.
Verdict:
The Asus Vivobook S15 Copilot+ PC with Snapdragon X Elite processor is a definite buy for people who want a Windows laptop that looks good (and is easy to hold), is powerful enough to handle all the everyday tasks and, most importantly, has great battery life.
While there aren’t many AI features on this Copilot+ that take advantage of the powerful chipset on board, I liked the customisation options provided via the My Asus application. Plus, the addition of new gesture controls via the trackpad really improved the user experience for me.
While the price tag of ₹1,24,999 may put many people off, I believe that this laptop actually has what it takes to actually qualify as a flagship offering worthy of this price tag.
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Published: 27 Jul 2024, 08:28 PM IST