Asus Vivobook S16 (Snapdragon X) review

The “Peachy” colour variant I tested was an instant personality boost. It manages to be playful without looking juvenile, and subtle enough to carry into a boardroom. If pink isn’t your thing, Asus also sells it in safer shades like grey and a calm sage-green option.

At 1.74kg and 15.9mm thick, it's surprisingly portable for a 16-inch laptop. The build feels reassuringly solid, no flex around the keyboard, no creaking, and a stable hinge that doesn’t wobble even when you type fast. The machine also carries a MIL-STD 810H durability rating, adding a layer of confidence if you’re rough on your gadgets.

Open the lid and the layout feels familiar in the best way. The full-size keyboard, complete with a number pad, offers great key travel and a soft, cushioned feel that makes long typing sessions comfortable. The keys are quiet, well-spaced, and responsive, which is not something every thin-and-light laptop can boast about.

The touchpad is wide, accurate, and smooth to use. It supports Asus Smart Gestures and feels natural whether you’re scrolling, pinching, or switching between apps. Asus has also added a dedicated Copilot key to summon Microsoft’s AI assistant instantly, handy if you’re getting into AI-based workflows.

If I had to nitpick, the speakers fall into the “okay-ish” category. They’re loud enough for casual videos or launch livestreams, but they don’t pack enough low-end punch for movies or music. Not a deal-breaker, but worth noting.

This is where the laptop punches above its weight. The 16-inch OLED panel is vibrant, sharp, and immersive, with a tall 16:10 aspect ratio that’s great for productivity. Colours are rich thanks to the 95% DCI-P3 coverage, blacks look deep and contrasty, and even everyday tasks feel more enjoyable because of how crisp everything looks. The panel’s 300-nit brightness is respectable, and in a real-world test, an outdoor brunch run, the display held up surprisingly well considering it was a sunny day.

That said, this isn’t a high-refresh panel. The 60Hz refresh rate is fine for work, content consumption, and editing photos, but it’s not meant for gamers or anyone hoping for ultra-smooth frame rates. There is also some reflectiveness in office environments, but adjusting your angle solves that quickly. Overall, the OLED screen is one of the strongest value-adds here, it genuinely makes the laptop feel more premium than its price tag suggests.

Powering the Vivobook S16 is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X (X1 200) processor paired with 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and a 512GB Gen 4 SSD. It’s not a hardcore performance machine, but it handles everyday workloads with impressive consistency. Apps launch quickly, multitasking is smooth, and even with 20+ Chrome tabs open, the system didn’t choke or heat up noticeably. It stayed stable, cool, and responsive through writing sessions, media streaming, and light photo editing.

Asus also bundles its utility apps like MyAsus and ScreenXpert, which actually make system management easy. You can adjust power modes, monitor temps, run diagnostics, change display settings, and handle driver updates all in one place.

The dedicated Copilot key launches the AI assistant without any lag, genuinely instantaneous. The laptop also features an AI-enhanced FHD IR camera with Studio Effects for things like background blur or face tracking. A nice touch is the physical privacy shutter, which every laptop honestly should have.

Connectivity-wise, Asus keeps it quite practical, two USB-C and USB-A ports, a HDMI 2.1, and a 3.5mm combo jack. Having USB-A on both sides is a tiny detail but a very thoughtful one.

This is the laptop’s biggest win, and what truly sets it apart. The battery performance is exceptional to the point where it almost feels unreal. Through a typical workday filled with Google Docs, Chrome (10–15 tabs), YouTube, and a bit of image editing, the battery barely dipped. After several hours, I was still around 80%, and by the end of the day roughly 55%. For a device this slim and this large, that endurance is impressive. You practically cannot kill it in a single day unless you deliberately try to.

The Asus Vivobook S16 OLED with the Snapdragon X chipset places itself firmly as a dependable, stylish, and thoroughly modern everyday computer. It’s ideal for professionals, students, writers, remote workers, and anyone who values portability, design, long battery life, and a great display. But, and this is important, it’s not meant for gamers or heavy editors. The 60Hz display and integrated GPU limit its ability to push high-demand graphics workloads, so if you’re buying a laptop for editing, gaming, or 3D work, this isn’t the right category.

For everyone else, however, the Vivobook S16 is a genuinely delightful, well-rounded machine that mixes practicality with personality, and for its price, it’s a very solid choice!