Asus Vivobook Pro 14X OLED Review: Powerful Laptop for creators!

The Asus Vivobook Pro 14X OLED is one of the laptops you may be considering if you are a creative professional who needs a powerful yet portable laptop. This is not the most powerful laptop for creators from Asus as that title is held by the Asus ProArt StudioBook which is a bit more expensive than this. 

The Vivobook series from Asus is generally more affordable than the ProArt models and does compete with the likes of the M1 MacBooks. The Vivobook Pro 14X OLED that I am reviewing is available in Kenya for Ksh 175,748 and you can get it from the Text Book Centre. 

The Vivobook Pro OLED has a lot going on with it. Having used this laptop for a short while, I am very impressed with what it has to offer.

Some of the things that should get you excited with this laptop include:

• The OLED display
• Very good performance
• Well built and durable design
• Decent number of ports
• Good battery life

Before we get into the full review, let us first highlight the key specifications of the Asus Vivobook Pro 14X OLED.

Design

The OLED Display

The display used here is very sharp and vibrant. It is a Samsung made OLED panel after all and you just never go wrong with these displays. Most laptops use LCD displays and comparing those to this, you will see why the display is my favorite feature on this laptop. 

The model I have is the 14 inch one that has a resolution of 2880 x 1800 pixels. It also supports 90Hz refresh rate and is Pantone Verified. The colour accuracy of this display is just unmatched. If you do any graphic design or video editor, you do want a colour-accurate display and this is what this display is offering. 

ASUS Vivobook pro 14x oled display

This display has a 16:10 aspect ratio which means it is a bit taller than what we are used to seeing on other laptops. This is a good aspect ratio for those who do a lot of photo and video editing as the display feels less constrained. This is especially so for this 14 inch model. 

The display gets very bright making it easy to use this laptop outdoors or in a very bright room. With that, as a creator, you can get to work anywhere without any issues. Since this display is OLED, the pixels can turn themselves off so the blacks are actually black. This guarantees a better viewing experience no matter what is on the display. 

If you are planning to use this display for extended periods of time, you will be glad to know that it emits 70% less harmful blue light without compromising on the colour accuracy.

The one downside to this aspect ratio is you will get thicker black bars at the top and bottom parts of the display when watching videos and movies. 

Vivobook Pro 14X OLED Performance

When it comes to performance, the Asus Vivobook Pro 14X OLED is no slouch. There are different variants of this laptop but the one I have has the 11th Gen Intel Core i5-11300H processor, 8GB or RAM and 256GB of storage. This is paired with the Intel Iris XE graphics and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU.This is a decent combination and should get you going without any issues.  

Taking a break from editing your photos and videos, you can use this laptop for some gaming. The GPU can handle most games and the 90Hz refresh rate makes the whole experience worthwhile. 

ASUS Vivobook pro 14x oled performance

I have been using this laptop extensively, opening a number of applications and multitasking and it has handled that well. You can play around with the different performance modes on this laptop by using the MyAsus application.

At the bottom the laptop has large vents that help dissipate heat. The laptop has downwards facing stereo speakers that are tuned by Harman/Kardon. The sound quality is crisp and they have decent bass but they do not get very loud. 

Build Quality

The design is also different with some gaming-laptop inspiration sprinkled throughout. The body is made of aluminum and feels solid and premium. It weighs less than 2KG which is not that heavy and makes it perfect for using when on the go. 

The keyboard feels nice to type on and the trackpad is huge and very easy to use. The keys are soft and they do give good feedback. With almost all other laptop keyboards looking the same and a bit boring, Asus has taken a different approach with this laptop giving the keyboard a unique touch. The keyboard has three levels of brightness (back light) and the power button also has a fingerprint scanner that is accurate and works all the time. 

ASUS Vivobook pro 14x oled keyboard

The trackpad has intelligent palm rejection which helps deal with accidental touches. Swiping the display from the right corner activates the virtual dial pad. With this dial pad, you can change the volume and brightness of the display. This virtual dial pad is useful when using Adobe creative suite apps as you can do way more with it when using those applications. 

Decent Number of ports

Given the fact that this laptop is made for creators, the input and output ports are important. It does have two USB 2.0 Type A ports and on the right it has the power jack, 1 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A port, HDMI 1.4 port, Audio jack, MicroSD card slot and 1 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C (Thunderbolt 4) that supports fast charging and fast data transfer speeds.

If you are a creative and fancy having multiple external displays, this laptop is perfect for you. 

Above the display is a 720p webcam that has a privacy shield that you can slide to block it when you want some privacy.

Still on the webcam and video aspects, the laptop has two microphones with AI noise cancellation support. This should help filter out the background noise when you are having your meetings on zoom etc. I did try this and it does a very good job at isolating background noise and the people I was talking to could hear me clearly. If you use your laptop in coffee shops or in any noisy environment, this laptop will make sure the people on the other end don’t have any troubles hearing you. 

Battery Life

The biggest selling point of many laptops is the portability aspect. The Asus Vivobook Pro 14X OLED can last an entire day on a single charge. I mostly have dark mode enabled on all applications supporting it and so far I have had 8 hours of normal usage. I have also squeezed some minutes to watch a few videos on YouTube and some light gaming. So far I am impressed, the battery does not drain so fast and you will be ok leaving the house without the charger when using this laptop. 

Verdict

The Asus Vivobook PrO 14X OLED is very easy to recommend for any creator or anyone in general to be honest. The laptop is powerful enough for any graphics work. I love its design and build, battery life, performance and the display. The display is particularly impressive and is one  you have to interact with to truly appreciate. I am saying this as someone who has used so many laptops recently.If I was on the market looking for a new laptop, this would definitely be my top choice. 

Read: Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 (GX550) Review