This is very much a new era for Microsoft Windows computing devices, called Copilot+ PC, led by Qualcomm’s new chips that hope to replicate the sort of success Apple has had with their silicon pursuits. If it does (and initial indications are positive), that’ll mean everyone benefits – consumers get better experience, PC makers have a selling point to bank on and Microsoft gets to showcase Windows’ AI strengths. The PC ecosystem needed that evolution. In no mood to eschew potential benefits of the Snapdragon X Series platform, Asus draws on a first mover advantage in India, wasting little time in adding the Vivobook S 15 OLED laptop to its portfolio. In a way, this is very much in tune with the precise form the PC maker has shown since the turn of the year.
For what is essentially a generational showcase machine, premium pricing is to be expected. Asus has kept things simple, at least for now, with a single spec variant that’s up for sale for now. The price tag it sports (exact model number is S5507QAD-MA751WS) is ₹1,24,990 and for that money, you get the ARM-based Snapdragon X Elite chip, a Qualcomm Hexagon NPU or neural processing unit, 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD. Expect more configurations to arrive in the coming months, some potentially slightly lower priced.
This wouldn’t be our first tryst with an ARM architecture chip, the first being the Microsoft Surface Pro X a few years ago. Between then and now, the Windows ecosystem is much better prepared for apps that are natively compatible with this architecture. I’ll snapshot that for you. Popular web browsers including Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Vivaldi and Firefox are updated for this architecture, as are work focused apps such as Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, Todoist and Zoom, social media apps Instagram and X, editing suites including Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom as well as Serif’s Canva owned Affinity apps. There are many more to come. For now, the Prism emulation layer works well enough for most apps that remain in the previous era.
Considering how anticipated the arrival of the Snapdragon X Elite was over the months gone by, there was a definite mix of excitement and trepidation as I approached this for the moment of reckoning. From the very outset once Windows 11 was set up and as each day passed with extensive use, it is clear Qualcomm were not kidding. For a really slim laptop that’s as less as 14.7mm thin, the Asus Vivobook S 15 is more than matching its immediate rival (that’d be the Apple MacBook Air with the M3), exhibits great control over thermals and returns the sort of battery life that often-made Windows PC look towards the MacBooks with a mix of helplessness and envy.
The Snapdragon X Elite experience is in complete contrast to anything the x86 chips (mostly Intel, but AMD has its fair share in the space too) delivered on the performance scale. I’m not one to base or sway any opinions based on synthetic benchmarks, but in like-for-like use cases (mind you, operating system differences do play a role), the Vivobook S 15 is more than keeping pace with the Apple M3 chip. Tab intensive web browsing on Chrome or Vivaldi, Lightroom photo edits or some fairly serious multitasking involving a bunch of browser tabs, Microsoft 365 documents and Adobe Photoshop all vying for your attention, for once, feels as smooth on Windows 11 as it always has on macOS.
Is gaming very much on the agenda for ultra-slim laptops too? The answer seems to be resoundingly affirmative, at least with the potential on display. It must be kept in mind that the many current titles on Windows will run in emulation mode for Arm, at least till the optimisations roll out. F1 22, available on Xbox Game Pass, is one such example of a title that’s now up to date. Slightly lower down on the optimisation quality ladder is Grand Theft Auto V, which is more than playable if you try to dial down the settings. And then, you see the other side of the coin, such as the Forza Horizon 5, which hasn’t even begun the journey towards optimisation on the new platform.
It is clear from the games that work well, that Qualcomm’s integrated graphics is far better than anything Intel or AMD offer as integrated graphics with their latest generation chips. Again, worth pointing out that for an ultra-slim Asus Vivobook S 15 to hold gaming performance, is indicative of the generational leap we are witnessing. A lot remains to be unlocked, as time passes by.
No matter how much software and hardware tried, Windows laptops thus far were unable to consistently match the battery stamina that Apple MacBooks could effortlessly deliver. That’s changed now, something the Asus Vivobook S 15 OLED tells us rather resoundingly. I’ll illustrate with an example of a day with the Vivobook S 15 – from 100% to 40% in about 13 hours of usage that included on average 25 Chrome tabs open at all times alongside 5 Microsoft 365 documents, music for a few hours in the background via headphones, some Lightroom editing and two hours of watching Bodkin episodes, a series based in beautiful Ireland, on Netflix.
It is now also up to Microsoft to sort its own AI feature set, with functionality such as Recall temporarily held back due to privacy concerns. After all, the Copilot key now resides within the keyboard, and it should be able to do more.
The core strengths of Asus laptops are very much providing the foundation for the Vivobook S 15 as well. The OLED display, for example, has often been the deciding difference between Asus’ machines of 2024 and their immediate rivals. This one, for instance, is rated at up to 600 nits of brightness. Once you start using an OLED display on a laptop, typical LEDs that otherwise dot the laptop landscape, simply feel like a step down. An all-metal design too, while keeping the weight well in check (around 1.52-kg for a 15.6-inch screen, isn’t a bad deal.
You can, and rightly so, complain that the design of the Vivobook S 15 is no different to any Windows laptop they sell alongside, and that takes away from a chance to define this Snapdragon X Elite machine as a new chapter for laptops. In tandem, somehow the direction towards really slim power adapters seems to have been lost too, Asus having reverted a much thicker brick in comparison. Not exactly a hardship, but I’d have expected that premium proposition to extend to this touchpoint as well.
That’s where we are, embarking on a new chapter for Windows laptops. After many, many years of hope, expectation and in the last few months, anticipation. Qualcomm leads the writing here with the Snapdragon X Elite chips, and Asus has proved to be more often than not on the same wavelength as the co-author. The Asus Vivobook S 15 is joining the remaining pieces to match the performance potential. Perhaps the design could have done a bit more to stand out as a Snapdragon Elite machine, apart from that one sticker. Not everyone may feel that’s a drawback though. At least we are definitively moving towards a new direction.
