Review: ASUS VIVOBOOK S550CM

ASUS VIVOBOOK S550CM REVIEW

At a time when manufacturers are focusing on compactness and portability of Ultrabooks,Asus is giving preference to
notebook-like functionality in this
15.6-inch touchscreen VivoBook.Everybody loves a slim, small yet
powerful Ultrabook. It’s an absolute bliss for the mobile professional, but when you’re in college, you need more than just portability. You need a full keyboard, an optical drive, and
probably a good graphics card too if you’re an avid gamer.
With the VivoBook S500CM, Asus is offering just that package. It is a 15.6-inch Ultrabook with an optical drive, a dedicated graphic memory, and a mid-range processor. But does this package
deliver? We find out. Design and build The first impression about the Ultrabook that pops up is that it
is one robust notebook. The entire casing is brushed
aluminium shrouded, which is a good thing as apart from durability it also keeps the notebook scratch and smudge
resistant up to an extent. It’s definitely not one of its super
slim cousins, and at 2.2cm thick,it can be called a bit fat. And
weighing in at 2.6 kilos, it is not light as well.
But when you flip that screen open, you feel that the heft is
somewhat justified. On the inside lies a full keyboard, complete with a num-pad, and an amply
sized trackpad and palmrest. The keys offer decent finger travel and good tactile feedback, but are not backlit. This full keyboard came in very handy while playing first-person-shooter games on
the S500CM.
Asus has utilised the big form factor optimally and thrown in a decent number of ports, spaced comfortably. You get two USB 2.0s and one 3.0, and we have a
problem with that as we think that there should be at least two
USB 3.0s and one sleep-charging USB port. Apart from that, there’s an Ethernet RJ45 port, a 3.5mm
headset port and one HDMI, one VGA port and an SSD card reader.
So it has all the basic ports that an average user would need for
good computing.
What Asus could’ve done better with the design is heat dissipation. There is a huge vent on the bottom left side, but after even 40 minutes of usage, I
could feel the heat coming out from between the keys.

Specs & Performance:
The VivoBook S500CM is powered by a 3{+r}{+d} generation Intel Core i5 3317U
3M processor that clocks in at 1.7GHz. By default, the Ultrabook
comes with 4GB RAM, but users can expand it up to 8GB as there
are two DDR3 slots. Further, it is augmented by an NVIDIA GeForce GT 635M 2GB dedicated graphics memory. For storage, users get a
hybrid of a 750GB SATA drive with a 24GB SSD.
These numbers translate into top-of-the-class performance.
Asus promises a 2-second instant on feature, and while
resuming from sleep, it delivers on it. Power-up from a cold state also takes just 8-9 seconds. The
processor is good enough to handle almost anything that’s
thrown at it. Throughout the review process, there were no lags or freezes anywhere, using any software or game.
On Novabench, our usual benchmarking software, we got
an average score of 580 points,which is less than the Dell
Inspiron 15z Ultrabook’s 741,but as that has a Core i7
processor, it is bound to score higher.
We installed some video and image processing software and worked on them, and to our delight the S500CM took it all very well. It did slow down a bit while
rendering 720p videos, but didn’t freeze. This laptop is also a must-have for amateur and
enthusiast gamers.

Multimedia:
The 15.6-inch LED backlit panel remained bright and glare-free throughout our usage, and
watching movies on DVDs (hail optical drive!) was a good
experience. Although the video quality was great, we sorely
missed full 1080p resolution on the display (we missed it on the VivoBook S400 as well). The touch panel on this Ultrabook is quite good too.
The speakers too, were quite good. While playing Call of Duty or DiRT Showdown, the audio
was quite rich. Even while watching DVD movies, the audio
fidelity was quite good, and even on highest volume levels (which is not too loud, but not feeble as
well), the audio maintained character.

Battery Life:
We were a bit disappointed by this VivoBook’s battery life. The large form factor allows for a big,efficient battery, but all we got was just average performance.With intermittent surfing and video usage, we got around 4.5 hours of battery life. But while using the maximum processing
power while gaming or processing videos, this slipped down to just over 3 hours.

We Say :
The Asus VivoBook is definitely
not one of the feather light Ultrabooks around, but what it
lacks in portability, it makes up for in all-round performance and functionality. There is a good optical drive and a decent number of ports too, though we
hoped for more USB 3.0s.

Rs. 57,999

Love : Good Multimedia, Allround Performer

Hate : Average Battery, Poor Heat Dissipation

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