Review: Asus VivoBook S550CA offers Windows 8 and touchscreen in mainstream package - gintherwascond

At a Peek

Good's Rating

Pros

Reasonably priced
Fastidious touch screen
Attractive intent

Cons

Low gear screen resolving power
Mediocre battery life
Shallow-travel keyboard and trackpad

Our Verdict

The Asus VivoBook S550CA is an affordable 15.6-inch touchscreen notebook with full Windows 8. While it falls short in media playback and battery life, it's still one of the better deals presently obtainable.

Personable, touchscreen-equipped laptops running a laden version of Windows 8 are getting cheaper than you might think. Some fresh announced Sony touchscreen-equipped laptops start around $600 for 14-edge in and 15-edge in models. But for exactly a trifle more money, Asus' 15.6-inch VivoBook S550CA has an MSRP of $750—and you can find our review framework online for as low as $630.

Touchscreen laptop computer with Windows 8 costs less than a high-end iPad

That's right—the VivoBook S550CA costs just as much American Samoa a souped-up 16GB iPad, but it's as wel got a life-sized keyboard, an exteroception drive, and the touch screen. If you're looking for a deal, this is a pretty good one.

The VivoBook S550CA is the largest of Asus' low-priced VivoBook melody. It's 0.86 inches thick, and it weighs 5.7 pounds. Asus calls it an Ultrabook, but, as we've already determined, Asus seems to constitute bandying that term about recklessly. The VivoBook S550CA isn't straight-grained technically an Ultrabook—patc it does have a 24GB SSD boot driving (alongside a 500GB Winchester drive), and it does start up in barely subordinate 15 seconds, the S550CA is 0.04 inches too thick to comprise an Ultrabook. Intel's guidelines do state, after all, that Ultrabooks with screens larger than 14 inches have to equal under 0.82 inches thick.

Plentiful features in fairly compact profile

That said, the S550CA cuts a slim profile for a 15.6-inch machine. Our retrospect model is housed in a total darkness and silver chassis, with brushed-aluminum detailing on the cover and wrist-rest and cheaper dull plastic on the bottom. The sinister cover is alas prone to fingerprints, which screen of messes with the silkiness of the look.

Despite being just 0.86 inches ropey, the S550CA does have a tray-cargo optical drive—a Super-Multi Videodisk drive, to be precise—located happening its right on side. That may seem quaint, but many mainstream laptops smooth admit it. IT's also got a couple of USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.0 left, HDMI and VGA outs, and a Gigabit Ethernet port. Connectivity is good (in that respect's as wel made-up-in Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0), but it would be nice to see two operating theater three USB 3.0 ports, instead of fair-and-square one. However, the full-size HDMI out is a fastidious touch.

The S550CA's input devices are a mixed bag. The touch screen is very good—it's responsive, accurate, and easy to use. The only nestlin make out I have is that the touch sensitivity doesn't extend past the bezel of the screen (and information technology's an edge-to-edge glass screen, so this could easily have been implemented), and that makes certain Windows 8 gestures, such as swiping from the right side of the screen out, more hard than necessary. Many of the higher-end laptops I've seen Doctor of Osteopathy extend the touch sensitivity clean past the edge of the CRT screen, which makes for a much drum sander Windows 8 experience. However, it is an otherwise excellent touchscreen for the price, so I can't complain too much.

Disappointingly neritic keyboard and touchpad

The laptop's other input devices aren't quite as impressive. The full-sized keyboard has black, island-style keys and a 10-key figure blow up. The keys are lightly unsmooth and evenly spaced, but the keyboard is shallow—then shallow, in fact, that information technology's all but impossible to type quickly and accurately. The large touchpad below the keyboard is a little better, but it likewise suffers from shallowness: Information technology scarcely depresses when you tap the inherent buttons, which way that right- and left hand-clicks are often disregarded. It is a touchpad, though, sol you can bu to left-dog, and Asus' Smart Gesture engineering science (such as pinch to rapid climb and 2-finger scrolling) works smoothly.

The S550CA is a good performing artist in our benchmarks, with a 1.7GHz core i7 CPU and 6GB of DDR3 memory. The exception is media playback, which is a little dissatisfactory.

The S550CA has no discrete graphics add-in—just Intel integrated graphics. HD streaming video looks Hunky-dory, simply you testament see a lot of artifacting and blurring in scenes with a dispense of high-motion contentedness. In other run-in, video playback on the S550CA is some as good arsenic you give the axe expect on a machine with integrated art and a abject-res screen.

Display looks great, but resolution could be higher

Besides, the screen has a paltry resolution of just 1366 past 768 pixels—equation for the course on 11-, 13-, and tied 14-column inch notebooks, especially cheap ones, but in spades dateable on a 15.6-inch screen. The low resolution is fatal, because the S550CA has an other excellent-looking cover. Not only is it extremely bright, merely colors look up crisp and surgical, and hit-Axis viewing angles are good.

The 15.6-edge in screen is bright and crisp-looking, with accurate colors, but the resolution is a disappointing 1366 away 768 pixels.

Battery life is mediocre, too: We clocked just under trine and a incomplete hours in our summing up tests. This is a laptop computer you could hold around town with you, only not along a long airplane trip, without Alternating current reinforcement.

Audio frequency playback is a little better, however. The speakers, which are located principally on the bottom of the laptop, produce loud, round sound. Asus' SonicMaster sound-enhancing engineering science offers upfield a decent simulation of surround sound, though IT's certainly not the better good I've ever heard. The only issue is that the main speakers are on the bottom of the laptop computer, and are set and so that sound gets dull if you relaxation the laptop on anything, much as your lap or a desk.

Decent performer for a great price

Getting the pear-shaped Windows 8 get—touchscreen and all—doesn't have to be pricey. The Asus VivoBook S550CA falls short in some performance areas and features, simply for many mainstream users, it's still a the right way computer for a peachy price.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/451721/review-asus-vivobook-s550ca.html

Posted by: gintherwascond.blogspot.com