The ASUS Vivobook lineup has always been targeting those who wanted a laptop with some reasonable performance, not too powerful but still be able to perform beyond certain tasks without paying too much.
We have been reviewing quite a number of Vivobook series and its time to checkout the newly released Vivobook 16 (M1605Y) to see what it has to offer.
Design
At first glance, the ASUS Vivobook 16 is still pretty much following the same language across all 2023 Vivobook lineup with most of the material used surrounding the build is made of plastic, while the lid is metal and the final color touches made it as if it is completely build up of metal. However a lot of efforts have been made, like the improved Ergolift Hinge which helps in dissipation of heat right below the display and it can lay flat up to 180 degrees. Overall the chassis build quality is good and seamlessly sticks equally in terms of design language and it is US MIL-STD-810H military-grade standard certified that can withstand drops and it is part of ASUS way of showing the sustainability of the laptop, making it travel friendly.
The Laptop is weighted at 1.88KG with thickness measured at 1.99cm which is not too bad on the overall weight and thickness of it, to compare, even some of the 15 inch laptop can reach 2.3kg with similar specifications competing within the same class of pricing.
Moving over to the operational area of the laptop, the ErgoSense keyboard part is fairly sizable and easy to type on as ASUS implemented chiclet design to it with 0.1 mm key cap relief and ASUS Antimicrobial Guard Plus that combined, a keyboard that does not sink in, yet cares for your health at the same time with a subtle white LED light so that you can work at slightly darker areas too. Oh yes, the touchpad is comfortable on the touch and it is Windows Precision Drivers certified with a very small space taken as fingerprint scanner for Windows Hello authentication along with a 720P webcam with privacy shutter.
You get plenty of ports too, 1 USB 2.0 port, 2 USB A 3.2 ports, a USB C port which support data, display and charging, 1 HDMI port and a 3.5mm combo audio jack. This also enables you to have up to 3 displays at once including the laptop display while you can charge your laptop with the USB C port in case you forget to bring the supplied charger.
Display & Audio
The display is a 16 inch IPS panel at 1920 x 1200 resolution, the ASUS Vivobook 16 (M1605Y) provides a productivity focused front view that is placed at 86% screen to body ratio, and widescreen of 16:10 aspect ratio that is highly suitable for work based app such as Microsoft Office Suite with some of your streaming contents all together. With just a maximum of 300nits brightness, this is definitely works well for most indoors and some outdoor area. As this a matte display, practically it works well in many area since it is non glaring, yet pleasant. The only downside is the 45% NTSC color gamut which may not be desirable for accurate color image editing.
Audio wise the pair of speakers is located at the bottom. Over day to day usage for normal conference, listening, music and some movies, it does work as it should be but since this laptop is part of the Vivobook series, serious multimedia content is not the main focus, and during our test, it indeed sounded bland at some level and definitely lack of bass also, otherwise it is still pleasant to our ears with no statics detected. Should you need more tuning to it, ASUS does provide an included DTS tuning app and MyASUS noise cancelling settings for your microphone.
Performance, Software, Experience
Now towards the hardware, the ASUS Vivobook 16 came with either the AMD Ryzen 5 7530U or Ryzen 7 7730U with integrated Radeon Graphics that supports latest DirectX 12 feature levels. It does come default 8GB of soldered DDR4 3200Mhz RAM but there is a vacant spot to slot in an additional 8GB of RAM which I highly recommend as you can take advantage of the Ryzen’s dual channel RAM speed capability, effectively increasing some performance on workloads and editing tasks.
The included Wi-Fi combo card is from MediaTek, and while the brand isn’t an issue, the 1X1 mode limits you to only 150MBPS when operating in the 2.4Ghz channel, whereas in the 5Ghz channel only, you can get a decent 1.2GBPS link (with a capable router, of course), which is still modern in terms of transfer speed, but just set the preferred connection to 5Ghz first in Windows when necessary to get the best speeds.
I am leaving the benchmarks scores here but if you wanted to ask for an experience with it, I am more than satisfied basically mainly due to the fact this laptop will just last you at least for 7 hours without requiring to recharge and able to take on any light games to medium tasks in daily usage. Gaming is possible as long you know what you should be expecting from the listed specifications.
Technical Specifications
| Processor | AMD Ryzen™ 5 7530U Mobile Processor 2.0GHz (6-core/12-thread, 16MB cache, up to 4.5 GHz max boost) | AMD Ryzen™ 7 7730U Mobile Processor 2.0GHz (8-core/16-thread, 16MB cache, up to 4.5 GHz max boost) |
| Graphic Card | AMD Radeon Graphics (Integrated) | AMD Radeon Graphics (Integrated) |
| System Memory | 8GB DDR4 3200Mhz Soldered + 1 Vacant Slot – Total Max 16GB | 8GB DDR4 3200Mhz Soldered + 1 Vacant Slot – Total Max 16GB |
| Display | 16.0-inch, WUXGA (1920 x 1200) 16:10 aspect ratio, IPS-level Panel, LED Backlit, 60Hz refresh rate, 300nits, 45% NTSC color gamut, Anti-glare display, TÜV Rheinland-certified, Non-touch screen, (Screen-to-body ratio)86% | 16.0-inch, WUXGA (1920 x 1200) 16:10 aspect ratio, IPS-level Panel, LED Backlit, 60Hz refresh rate, 300nits, 45% NTSC color gamut, Anti-glare display, TÜV Rheinland-certified, Non-touch screen, (Screen-to-body ratio)86% |
| Primary Drive | 512GB M.2 NVMe™ PCIe® 3.0 SSD | 512GB M.2 NVMe™ PCIe® 3.0 SSD |
| Ports | 1x USB 2.0 Type-A 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C support power delivery 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A 1x HDMI 1.4 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack 1x DC-in | 1x USB 2.0 Type-A 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C support power delivery 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A 1x HDMI 1.4 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack 1x DC-in |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 6E(802.11ax) (Dual band) 1*1 + Bluetooth® 5.3 Wireless Card | Wi-Fi 6E(802.11ax) (Dual band) 1*1 + Bluetooth® 5.3 Wireless Card |
| Battery and Charger | 42WHrs, 3S1P, 3-cell Li-ion, 45w barrel charger included. Optional USB C charging | 42WHrs, 3S1P, 3-cell Li-ion, 45w barrel charger included. Optional USB C charging |
| Operating System | Windows 11 Single/Home | Windows 11 Single/Home |
| Weight and dimensions | 35.87 x 24.95 x 1.99 ~ 1.99 cm @ 1.88KG | 35.87 x 24.95 x 1.99 ~ 1.99 cm @ 1.88KG |
| Warranty | 2 years Warranty | 2 years Warranty |
Verdict & Conclusion
The ASUS Vivobook 16 (M1605Y) is an inexpensive laptop in our view, and provides a host of modern necessity with work focused form factor, design and a display that is large, sufficient for most productivity and multimedia content consumption that towards some of the users, it is their daily gear on most usage as with the integrated Radeon Graphics, one can also play some light games and editing on it at the same time. ASUS does provide two years of warranty on this laptop and with the price stated, this is another worth to consider list if you need to replace your older laptop. Besides that the ASUS Vivobook 16 (M1605Y) also offered 4A Guarantee (2years) on 24/7 Always-on Support, All-around Coverage with easily accessible services all around the world, and Added-value Experience with comprehensive warranties that even cover accidental damage.
Price & Availability
The ASUS Vivobook 16 (M1605Y) is now available for RM2599 for the Ryzen 5 model and RM2999 for the Ryzen 7 variant, for more information, CLICK here to find out more and Click Here to know where you can get one.