Asus Vivobook S16 review

The moment you lift the lid, you realise this thing is big - but not bulky. It’s 1.7kg, which is about the weight of a 14-inch MacBook Pro with a bigger display. At 17.9mm thin, it’ll slide into your bag without protesting, and it won’t throw your spine out during commutes.The Cool Silver chassis is classic Asus - all-metal top, sturdy hinge, clean lines. There’s a laser-etched “Vivobook” logo on the lid that tries its best to look premium (and almost succeeds). It’s not a looker in the flamboyant sense, but it’s quietly confident - like a minimalist who occasionally wears statement socks.Port selection is commendable: two USB-A ports, two USB-C (one supports display and charging), full-size HDMI, and a headphone jack. It’s rare to get a laptop this thin with that many ports, and you won’t need to carry a dongle bouquet.The hinge opens flat to 180 degrees, which is surprisingly useful if you ever need to collaborate over coffee - or lie down sideways while pretending to be productive.

Also Read -  Asus Zenbook Duo OLED Review

The 16-inch WUXGA (1920x1200) IPS-level screen is a 16:10 panel - meaning you get more vertical space than standard 16:9 displays. It’s one of those things you don’t notice until you go back to a normal screen and suddenly everything feels cramped. It covers 100% sRGB, and at 300 nits, brightness is sufficient for indoor use, though not searing enough for direct sunlight. But the headline is the 144Hz refresh rate. For a productivity laptop, that’s a godsend. Scrolling feels fluid, animations are buttery, and even mundane Excel work feels... sportier? Watching content on this screen is enjoyable! Colours are punchy, blacks are decent (though not OLED-deep), and text is sharp. This is a screen designed for multitaskers who live in split-screen territory. It’s a working canvas, not just a media display.

At its core, the Vivobook S16 runs on Intel’s Core Ultra 7 255H processor, part of Intel’s Meteor Lake family. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill CPU. It’s got 16 cores (6 performance, 8 efficiency, 2 low-power), and more importantly, a dedicated Neural Processing Unit that lets Windows 11 offload AI tasks like real-time noise cancellation, background blur, auto-framing on video calls, and even AI art tools like Cocreator. And it works. In my testing, video calls were noticeably cleaner and audio was great too, even when the Mumbai auto-rickshaw symphony kicked in. There’s no fanfare about it,  the AI features run silently in the background, subtly smoothing out your life. With 16GB LPDDR5 RAM (soldered) and a 512GB PCIe Gen 4 SSD, day-to-day performance is snappy. Chrome with 25 tabs? Easy. Figma, Lightroom, and Spotify together? Handled. Gaming? Yes... but with caveats.

The integrated Intel Arc graphics are far better than your average integrated GPU. You can dabble in casual gaming, think Valorant, CS:GO, Dota 2 - and even run older AAA titles at medium settings. But don’t expect ray-traced glory in Cyberpunk or buttery 60FPS in GTA V on high. This is a work machine first, gamer machine third (second being “Netflix binger”).Where the Arc GPU shines is with GPU-accelerated creative apps - Canva, Photoshop, Premiere Pro (light edits), and even DaVinci Resolve, to an extent. The integrated Intel Arc graphics are far better than your average integrated GPU. You can dabble in casual gaming - think Valorant, CS:GO, Dota 2 - and even run older AAA titles at medium settings. But don’t expect ray-traced glory in Cyberpunk or buttery 60FPS in GTA V on high. This is a work machine first, gamer machine third (second being “Netflix binger”).Where the Arc GPU shines is with GPU-accelerated creative apps - Canva, Photoshop, Premiere Pro (light edits), and even DaVinci Resolve, to an extent.

Typing on this thing is a pleasure. The backlit keyboard has decent travel and satisfying feedback. It's quiet, well-spaced, and the arrow keys are actually usable - a rare thing these days. The trackpad is large, smooth, and supports Windows Precision gestures. No complaints here. Asus could’ve included NumberPad 2.0 (the virtual numpad on the trackpad) - but they didn’t. Still, for regular typing and navigation, this setup is excellent.

Asus claims up to 20 hours of battery life thanks to a 70Wh cell. In real-world use - Chrome, Slack, Spotify, and a bit of Lightroom - I got around 9 to 10 hours, which is solid for a screen this size and brightness.Charging is via a 65W USB-C adapter, and it juices up fairly quickly - around 50% in 30–35 minutes. Thermal performance is fine for most tasks, but under heavier loads (like extended video exports), the laptop does warm up near the keyboard. Not uncomfortably so, but enough to remind you it’s earning its keep.

The Vivobook S16 isn’t flashy, and it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s a smart, capable, big-screen laptop for people who do a little bit of everything - coding, content creation, meetings, binge-watching, a dash of gaming. It delivers enough AI smarts to justify the Intel Ultra branding, enough polish to be taken seriously, and enough display to make your eyes thank you.It’s not the cheapest at ₹88,990, and yes, you can find Ryzen-powered alternatives with better raw GPU muscle. But none of them deliver this combo of screen size, portability, AI performance, and versatility with quite the same swagger.