The Asus VivoBook 15 X1504ZA is a unique laptop that attempts to deliver a fully functioning 15.6-inch laptop experience for much less than competitors with similar specs. And for the low price, you don’t have to make do with a wretched-up machine, but the VivoBook 15 gives much in terms of style and build quality of laptops costing considerably more.
There’s a lot to like about this laptop aside from the design and build quality. Asus packs in strong processor performance for a midrange 15-inch laptop. Battery life is phenomenal for the category as well. It boasts a 12th Gen Intel Core i5-1235U processor, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD storage.
Competing laptops like the Dell Inspiron 14 7430 come rocking 13th Gen Intel chips, but performance-wise they’re not far apart to justify the extra money you’re going to spend. If you’re looking for a nice-looking laptop for the home office or college and don’t have the money to spend on the most expensive machine around, the VivoBook 15 is easily an excellent choice.
Design and Features
The VivoBook 15 X1504ZA features a sleek design with a silver chassis that’s attractive, also available in other colourways: Quiet Blue and Terra Cotta. Still, the all-silver paint job gives the laptop a modern and premium look. Perhaps more importantly, it’s not a fingerprint magnet. The case is surprisingly solid and the lid doesn’t have too much flex. It looks and feels like it should cost much more than it does, and you can ask for much more at its price point.
Asus has come up with an all-new logo that emphasizes “Asus VivoBook” engraved in silver colour on a metallic patch (in the same Transparent Silver). This new logo which takes around 2×3-inch space on the right side of the lid might bother some users, but it adds some charm to the mundane metallic-finished lid.
The hinge on the VivoBook 15 is the same as found in other Asus laptops, which are encased inside a polycarbonate fitting.
Port selection is robust with the laptop getting a charging port, USD 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, an HDMI 1.4 port with 4K output, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C connector, a micro-SD card reader as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack on the right side. On the left side, there’s a single USB 2.0 port alongside the power and battery indicators.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard is certainly one of the VivoBook 15’s strengths. First, it’s incredibly solid and the individual keys have a nicely weighted 1.4mm travel with good end-stop. The black-on-grey colour scheme makes it very legible, and the 75% width numeric keyboard makes it all useful for office work.
The only drawback here is the lack of a backlight – not a massive surprise at this price point – and the half-height keys are rather small, but you learn to live with those.
Below the keyboard, you have a 105 x 75mm touchpad which, while not the biggest you’ll find on a 15.6-inch laptop, still responds fine, and the click-actions at the corners are perfectly executed.
Asus doesn’t make any lofty claims about the environmental impact of the VivoBook 15, but the packaging is entirely cardboard with no plastic or Styrofoam inserts, making it easy to recycle.
Display and Speakers
Asus offers three types of display for the X1504 VivoBook 15, and only two of them are IPS-Level. Our review unit comes with a TN rather than an IPS display. Typically, TN panels offer low contrast and severely limited viewing angles compared to IPS panels. And that’s proven on the VivoBook 15, unless you look directly at the screen, head-on, you will notice a lot of chromatic shifts. Viewing angles are narrow and the screen washout is visible at extreme angles.
The screen’s colour gamuts are narrow, with just 52.4% sRGB covered, along with just 37.2% DCI-P3 and 36.3% Adobe RGB. With such little colour available, the Delta E accuracy score is never going to be great, registering at an excessive 6 against the sRGB profile in Vivid mode. In standard mode, it’s even worse at 7.3.
Its peak brightness of 250 nits is standard, but not too good, either. However, thanks to a very high black luminance of 0.97, the contrast ratio is a very low 300:1.
The stereo speakers are not something I’d call very loud, but the sound is enjoyable, with a helpful amount of bass and definition across the entire soundscape. The Sonic master-backed speakers are not distorted at all. The webcam is a basic 720p affair but is fairly brighter and sharper than many others I’ve encountered on more expensive laptops.
Performance
The Asus VivoBook 15 X1504ZA comes with a 12th-gen Intel i5-1235U processor, so you can imagine the level of performance the laptop is crunching. This is a midrange CPU for thin and light laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was released in early 2022 and offers 2 performance cores, and 8 efficient cores and supports Hyper-Threading with a 1.3 to 4.4 GHz clock rate.
The Intel i5-1235U has since been replaced by the Intel Core i5-1335U chip with the same core but with higher clock rates (1.3 to 4.6 GHz). We’ve seen the newer chip in laptops released in early 2023 including the Lenovo ThinkBook 14 and Dell Inspiron 14 7430, going for around the same price as the Asus VivoBook 15 in this review.
The processor is accompanied by 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and Intel Iris Xe graphics that offer faster response times for most workloads. You can do some basic stuff on the laptop, like browsing, watching Netflix and videos, using Microsoft Office and so on, and you won’t find any issues in the same. The laptop doesn’t show any problems when running mid-complex, all thanks to the solid processor used here and the generous amount of memory available for a midrange productivity machine.
The laptop comes with a 42Wh Li-on battery that lasts around 8 hours for basic usage consisting of browsing, Microsoft Office, watching videos, and so on. With complex tasks like image and video editing, the laptop should last anywhere around 5-6 hours.
Buy it if…
You need solid all-round performance
The Asus VivoBook 15 X1504ZA despite using previous-gen processors is powerful enough to quickly handle day-to-day computing whether it’s that movie stream, completing office tasks, or doing a bunch of online research.
You need portability and style
A lot of laptops nowadays focus on portability and ease of use on the go, and the Asus offers exactly that plus some class. The design is beautiful enough to rival some expensive options, and it doesn’t weigh too much if you’ll be carrying it daily to work or university.
Don’t buy it if…
You need a productivity powerhouse
As solid as the Asus VivoBook 15 X1504ZA is, it won’t keep up with your gaming needs or content creation needs. For those tasks, you’ll want a laptop with discrete graphics.
You want a touchscreen
The 15-inch display on the VivoBook 15 isn’t the worst we’ve seen, but if you need a touchscreen for your creative needs, you’ll certainly have to look elsewhere.
If my Asus VivoBook 15 X1504ZA review has you considering other options, here are two laptops to consider…
Recommended Configuration
ASUS Laptop Vivobook 15 F1505ZA Full HD 400nits OLED Laptop (Intel i5-12500H, 16GB RAM, 512GB PCIe SSD, Backlit Keyboard, OLED Screen, Windows 11)
The Review
Asus VivoBook 15 X1504ZA
The Asus VivoBook 15 X1504ZA is pretty and powerful too. Its 12th Gen Intel Core i5 chip checks the right performance boxes for work and school.
PROS
- Solid build quality
- Decent 12th Gen performance
- Good battery life
CONS
- Mediocre webcam
- Some bloatware
Review Breakdown
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ARS Guide Score
