The Snapdragon X Elite has been making me nervously excited for the past few months. The promises were lofty and benchmarks from Qualcomm’s own reference notebooks were encouraging.
However, these results were chosen to show the company’s chip in the best light (this is marketing, after all), and we knew nothing about battery life except for a few big numbers that appeared around Microsoft Build and Computex 2024.
And now that I’ve been using the Asus Vivobook S 15 with the new ram-based silicon for a while, I can say one thing for sure: Qualcomm wasn’t kidding. Microsoft was looking for its big moment to take on the power of the M3 MacBook Air and all of Apple Silicon. Snapdragon X Elite laptops are ready for it.
From its impressively nimble performance through my day-to-day life (including some pro-user tasks) to its sheer 70Wh battery life, the Arm is a complete turnaround from the x86 story we always see with the best mid-range Windows laptops. decent performance and poor battery life.
There are several reasons to be a little hesitant. The design is very basic, the Copilot+ desktop features take a while to launch due to security risks, and the wait time for native Arm versions of all your favorite apps can also be long.
But such frustrations haven’t stopped me from loving my M1 MacBook Air in 2020. And with this shocking endurance coupled with very competitive speeds, it hasn’t stopped me from heralding the revolution that Windows has longed for.
Asus Vivobook S 15: Cheat Sheet
- What is it? Super premium laptop – one of the first to feature the brand new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip!
- For who is it? For people looking for a large-screen laptop that perfectly balances great performance with stellar battery life.
- How much will it cost? You can pick one up for $1,299 / £1,299.
- what do we like The OLED screen is enticing (of course), and the Snapdragon X Elite is a tectonic shift in the kind of endurance and speed you’d expect from a Windows laptop.
- What don’t we like? The much-vaunted Copilot+ PC features have been delayed, the Arm apps version will also take a while (which means you have to rely on a mostly consistent translation layer). And while it certainly has a premium feel, this laptop looks a little boring.
Asus Vivobook S 15: Specifications
| Header Cell – Column 0 | Asus Vivobook S 15 |
|---|---|
| Price | $1,299 (starting) |
| Display | 15.6-inch 3K OLED with a refresh rate of 120 Hz |
| processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E 78,100 (up to 3.4 GHz, 12 cores) |
| GPU | Qualcomm Adreno GPU |
| FRAME | 16 GB LPDDR5X (up to 32 GB) |
| Storage space | 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD |
| Ports | 2x USB-4, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, MicroSD card reader, HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm audio jack |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 |
| Dimensions | 13.9 x 8.9 x 0.6 inches |
| Mass | 3.1 pounds |
Asus Vivobook S 15: What I liked
This is our first foray into the world of the Snapdragon X Elite – and the love affair with Qualcomm has already begun. But first, just a quick note that these test results are my own and not numbers obtained from our test lab. Be sure to see our official numbers soon!
It’s (mostly) faster than the M3 MacBook Air
The Snapdragon X Elite has its sights set on the MacBook Air M3 — something Qualcomm wouldn’t admit. For that reason, it should come as no surprise that the Vivobook S 15 absolutely holds its own.
| Header Cell – Column 0 | Asus Vivobook S 15 (Snapdragon X Elite) | MacBook Air (M3) |
|---|---|---|
| Geekbench 6 single core | 2418 | 3082 |
| Geekbench 6 multi-core | 14352 | 12087 |
| Handbrake (time to transcode a 4K movie to 1080p) | 6:50 am | 7:19 am |
It’s not the 28% performance increase that the company was talking about, which may be because the TDP (total power driving the chip) of the retail notebooks is lower to achieve a better balance between performance and battery life, but multi-core tasks and rendering processes are intertwined . at a faster pace than what you see on the MacBook Air M3.
What does it mean? Photoshop edits are faster, video transcoding and exports are faster, and multitasking is handled far better than you’ll see elsewhere in the laptop space. All of this happens when your fans are barely kicking up a storm. Thermal management is definitely much better here, temperatures barely touching what I’ve felt on other Intel or AMD laptops.
Interestingly, some of the 3D Mark benchmarks rely on the x86 architecture, which means that the benchmark must be translated by Prism. In general use of non-arm applications, this emulator works well, but in the reflected numbers you will notice that the emulation adds an extra workload on top of the X Elite.
| Header Cell – Column 0 | Asus Vivobook S 15 (Snapdragon X Elite) | Huawei MateBook X Pro (Intel Core Ultra 9) |
|---|---|---|
| 3DMark Time Spy | 2568 | 4048 |
| 3DMark Fire Strike | 5061 | 8708 |
| 3DMark Night Raid | 26284 | 29550 |
For games that run on Windows on Arm, you get a surprisingly good experience on integrated Adreno graphics. Baldur’s Gate 3 looks good and runs at a respectable 30 FPS, while Devil May Cry 5 (provided you turn down some of the effects and texture details on the Medium/Low combo) is capable of a full 60 FPS.
When it comes to integrated graphics, Qualcomm stands head and shoulders above for fast gaming without the power of a discrete GPU. The Intel Lunar Lake and AMD Ryzen AI 300 chipsets have some catching up to do to come close to power efficiency here.
Lasts longer than a MacBook
In fact, the MacBook Air has been beaten before. Some Intel Core Ultra 9 setups, like the one found in the Huawei MateBook X Pro, managed faster multi-core scores, but that came at the expense of battery life.
However, here, with the mobile chip setup, the Vivobook S 15 stood up to the power of the MacBook (in my own experience). Of course again, this is just a reflection of my own usage.
I’ll go into detail soon but to sum it up, a full day’s work involving lots of Photoshop use, 20+ Chrome tabs, background music and then an evening of binge watching Bridgerton with Mrs on Netflix while sneakily watching the Euro in the background (don’t tell her that i do) saw the battery percentage drop from 100 to 47 in 12 hours.
That’s battery life-free territory for me. It’s a rare feat that only Apple laptops have enjoyed. But now Asus is joining the party.
Let’s not forget about everything else
Of course, there’s also the entire notebook, and the rest of the package is also pretty tasty. This 16:9 OLED panel is super vivid with nice 3K crispness and a smooth frame rate. Couple that with a four-speaker harman/kardon array with Dolby Atmos – with a nice detailed soundstage that has a sneaky note of bass warmth – and you’ve got a beautiful laptop to work on by day and watch by night.
The keyboard has a nice tactile feel, meaning you can type to your heart’s content without the discomfort of low-profile laptop keyboards, and the touchpad is massive, responsive and snappy to click.
And some of the other AI-driven features available here make for a really nice user-friendliness. Presence tracking goes beyond just falling asleep when you’re gone, as it can even dim the display to save battery life based on your eye contact with it.
Windows Studio effects are much more accurate to use and run much faster, and that the NPU is used in more places in third-party applications than you might think – it offloads intensive processes and reduces the load on the CPU to maintain this lifetime.
It’s not just a new chip for the sake of a new chip. Microsoft has really thought about where this applies.
Asus Vivobook S 15: What I didn’t like
There are a few frustrations with the S 15 in particular, along with one bugbear that fades into the background during your use.
It’s a bit pedestrian, isn’t it?
To make it clear. This is not about the quality of the construction. This aluminum construction feels nice and premium while keeping things light and thin. But that’s almost aesthetically utilitarian to a fault. What I mean by this is that the bezel or design details don’t have any unique features that match the Snapdragon X Elite occasion.
I’m not looking for any over-the-top RGB flashiness or bold stylizations that will end up making you feel embarrassed to show this laptop in public. However, when you look at this machine, you get more of a “family laptop” vibe than something you can actually do something on. Some will find this understated design cool, but for this first foray into Arm I wanted something a little more individual.
Also, can we please stop using MicroSD? This is a *review notes* 15 inch laptop – you have room for a full size SD card reader!
You will wait a while to get everything
This covers two different areas. First, as you’ve probably read, Recall – Copilot+ PC’s main feature – is being delayed due to major security issues. This means a more gradual rollout of things that will really take this notebook category into its own space.
And second, while Prism’s emulation layer is mostly reliable, certain applications built for Intel or AMD chips are a little clunky. Given the huge and diverse ecosystem, this transition period will likely take longer than it did during Cupertino’s transition from Intel to Apple Silicon. But fortunately, the most used applications are already supported by Arm.
During this period of growth, there will simply be moments of frustration.
Asus Vivobook S 15: Early verdict
And that’s the story of the Asus Vivobook S 15 – a no-nonsense, legendary laptop that sets Microsoft on a new path to really take on the mighty MacBook line.
While all the features promised for these Windows 11 machines offer a big enough NPU, you can feel a significant difference in its performance and longevity. So much so that you’ll feel your battery life anxiety disappear.
Of course, we will wait for the official benchmark results from our lab and the full set of Copilot+ PC features before we can score. But all signs point to this being a milestone. This is the start of something big.