Reviews of Asus Vivobook Pro Thin and Light 17 Inch Laptop
COVID-nineteen complications and parts shortages have wreaked havoc on the availability and prices of budget laptops, so if you're wearily sorting through the meager options for an inexpensive, big-screen notebook, the Asus VivoBook 17 M712 ($550 at Amazon.com) might exist a sight for your sore eyes. Yes, it uses an older third-generation instead of new fifth-generation AMD Ryzen processor, simply information technology ticks near every other box. A stylish silver chassis, a comfortable keyboard, and just plenty power for everyday computing tasks brand this 17.3-inch rig ane of the best large laptops you tin buy if you're on a strict budget.
The Large Picture show
This large Asus is a welcome reminder that a self-mandated price limit for your adjacent laptop needn't restrict your choices to a flimsy appliance that will struggle to get y'all through a nighttime of homework or a day of answering emails. The VivoBook 17's star attraction, of course, is a roomy 17.iii-inch, total Hard disk (1,920-by-one,080-pixel) brandish. Most laptop shoppers aren't looking for screens this large, which means they're relatively deficient at pretty much every price signal. So the fact that yous can go 1 this inexpensive in a laptop that has few other compromises is a major win from the commencement.
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(Photo: Molly Flores)
Clad in a bright silverish finish inside and out, the VivoBook 17 looks modern from every angle. The black screen bezels are an exception to the silverish expanses, merely are slim plenty to look like they vest on a $one,000 laptop. If you're hoping to score a jumbo screen without paying for it in weight and bulk, however, you'll have to get realistic: The VivoBook weighs v pounds and measures 0.84 by 16 by 10.1 inches (HWD). Compare that with the slimmest 17-incher nosotros've tested, the LG Gram 17, which is merely 0.7 by fifteen by 10.2 inches and 2.98 pounds.
Under the hood is a dual-core, 2.6GHz AMD Ryzen 3 3250U processor coupled to 8GB of RAM and a 256GB NVMe solid-state bulldoze. It's zilch lavish, but an impressive loadout for a large laptop that costs this petty; in previous years, you would have been lucky to get an Intel Celeron or AMD Athlon teamed with an old-school spinning hard drive for this cost in a desktop replacement. A more current comparison for upkeep laptop shoppers is the Asus VivoBook eleven (L203). Yes, it'south $250 cheaper than the VivoBook 17, merely it has a lowly Celeron CPU, 4GB of memory, only 64GB of eMMC flash storage, and a depression-quality, low-resolution xi-inch display.
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(Photo: Molly Flores)
The VivoBook 17's screen is positively luxurious by comparison. I'm a fan of its matte finish, which lacks touch capability but does an excellent job of reducing glare from ambient light without dulling colors. The LED-backlit panel is rated for a lowish 250 nits of brightness; I mostly tested the M712 in my home part over the grade of some gloomy, thunderstorm-filled summer days and plant the maximum brightness more than than acceptable. If you'll mostly use it in a fluorescent-lit classroom, yous might wish for a brighter screen, nevertheless.
Well-Designed Chassis
Above the screen is a generic webcam that shoots 720p video with enough of noise and not a lot of colour fidelity. Your phone will almost certainly offering a amend platform for WhatsApp or Zoom calls. Only then once again, many laptops twice equally expensive take like cameras, so the lackluster quality isn't as large a mark against the VivoBook 17 as information technology otherwise might be.
Beneath the display, a tasteful Asus VivoBook logo nicely breaks up the lesser black bezel. Asus says the laptop has an 85% screen-to-body ratio, which confirms the modernistic aesthetic—even the sleekest, virtually borderless laptops like the Dell XPS thirteen, whose pixels practically drip off the screen, don't range much higher than 90%.
(Photo: Molly Flores)
The bottom portion of the VivoBook 17'due south chassis is well-laid-out. A comfy keyboard with sturdy key switches and a dedicated numeric pad takes upward most of it. I appreciate the inverted-T arrangement for the cursor arrow keys, and the font Asus uses for the labels is uncomplicated enough to be conspicuously read through the keyboard'south backlight. I do wish that the number pad keys were the aforementioned size as the main keys, just a keypad is rare on laptops of all sizes these days, so it'southward nice to see i included here.
(Photo: Molly Flores)
Below the keyboard, in that location'due south a buttonless trackpad with a satisfyingly sturdy hinge that doesn't give away the VivoBook's budget nature at all. Recent Asus touchpads we've tested accept generally been loftier-quality; even the VivoBook 11'south pad glides and taps smoothly and clicks comfortably.
Plenty of Ports, But Mind the USB Speeds
Other than screen real manor, room for more than input and output ports is a key reason to cull a larger laptop, and the VivoBook 17 has enough. On the left edge are 2 USB Blazon-A ports and a security lock slot, while the right edge hosts the barrel-style power connector, a 3rd USB-A port, a USB-C port, an HDMI video output, the 3.5mm headphone jack, and a microSD card slot.
While the quantity and variety of ports is impressive, I note a few drawbacks that clearly identify this every bit a budget laptop. For ane, we commonly like to see more than than one USB-C port on whatsoever laptop, since the oval-shaped connector is the future of the interface. USB-C ports tin can also double as connectors for AC adapters. The barrel-style power connector is probable a cost-saving measure that both takes up room that could otherwise house a second USB-C port and prevents yous from charging the laptop with a backup USB-C adapter if you accidentally lose the proprietary adapter that comes in the box.
(Photo: Molly Flores)
Finally, while it'south squeamish to have so many rectangular USB Type-A ports, the 2 at left are limited to the painfully tedious USB 2.0 spec, which makes them useful only for plugging in keyboards, mice, and printers. They're too slow for transferring large amounts of information to and from an external drive. (The right-side Type-A and Type-C ports meet the USB 3.two standard.)
(Photograph: Molly Flores)
The VivoBook 17'due south wireless connections include Wi-Fi v (802.11ac) and Bluetooth 4.ii. We don't expect the latest Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) or Wi-Fi 6E capabilities on budget laptops, and I experienced no bug staying continued to my home network over several days of testing.
Output from the VivoBook 17'due south speakers is startlingly loud. The maximum volume is overkill for watching a movie or videoconferencing at abode. With plenty of room for substantial speakers, this result isn't surprising, although the output is quite tinny and has hardly a hint of bass.
Older Ryzen Nonetheless Gets Work Washed
I experienced no lags or sluggishness while installing apps and browsing the net during my time testing the VivoBook 17 M712, fifty-fifty though it's equipped with an older Ryzen iii processor from AMD'southward tertiary generation. The 8GB of memory and speedy SSD likely help this laptop pick up the pace; a paltry 4GB of RAM and slower eMMC storage are not uncommon on Windows laptops priced below $500.
UL's PCMark 10 suite simulates real-globe role apps and content-cosmos workflows; a score of four,000 points or more indicates excellent productivity, so you can see the VivoBook 17's three,200-odd points are pretty good, well higher up the Inspiron with its humble AMD Athlon CPU and 4GB of RAM though not in the same league equally the Pavilion and its latest-generation Intel Core i3. PCMark eight's storage subtest tin can often reflect poorly on economy models with spinning hard drives or eMMC flash storage, simply these systems' speedy SSDs ace the test.
The VivoBook 17 isn't designed for processing-intensive workflows like image editing or video conversion. It took 33 minutes to transcode a 12-minute prune of 4K video to 1080p resolution using the Handbrake app, a painfully long wait.
While the Asus avoided a last-place finish in the Cinebench rendering test, it couldn't lucifer the superior score of the Pavilion x360 fifteen. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to return a complex image, and then it'due south a skilful illustration of the difference newer-generation silicon can brand in CPUs that are otherwise every bit matched.
The VivoBook 17 as well dodged a 5th-place end in our Adobe Photoshop imaging benchmark, just simply because the Inspiron fifteen 3000 doesn't take enough memory to run Photoshop at all (the app requires a minimum of 8GB of RAM). Our Photoshop test involves applying a serial of 10 complex filters and effects to a JPG image, timing each operation and adding upward the total.
Calorie-free Gaming Only, Delight
The VivoBook's AMD Radeon Vega integrated graphics are more capable than you might wait from an inexpensive laptop. In our 3DMark and Superposition gaming simulations, the big Asus held its own with the Surface Laptop Go, which is equipped with Intel's UHD integrated graphics.
Notwithstanding, Intel'south newer Iris Xe graphics, equally seen in the VivoBook S14, will certainly exist improve at playing graphics-intensive titles.
While the VivoBook 17'due south middling scores in our productivity and gaming benchmarks don't backbite too much from its appeal, its relatively short battery life does. Likely hampered by a puny 32-watt-hour battery, the plus-size Asus managed simply over 7 hours of unplugged video playback, a few hours less than all of its competitors. With ostensibly plenty of room for a larger battery in the roomy chassis, it's a shame that the M712 doesn't include 1, although it'due south understandable from a production-toll standpoint.
What Most People Desire in a Budget Laptop
The VivoBook 17 delivers what near entry-level laptop buyers are looking for, specially if screen size and quality are top of heed. For $550, you get a capable 17.three-inch screen with 1080p resolution and a matte finish that does an fantabulous job of filtering out ambient calorie-free without excessively degrading color brilliance. Y'all'll also discover plenty of input and output ports forth with a stylish silver chassis and a speedy solid-state bulldoze.
Every bit with any budget laptop, there are some tradeoffs, including a previous-generation Ryzen processor and Wi-Fi 5 instead of 6. The but unequivocal negative is the organization's disappointing battery life, just it's not plenty to hold the Asus back from earning an Editors' Choice honour.
If cost is no object, the LG Gram 17 is the cream of the 17-inch laptop crop. Otherwise, the VivoBook 17 is the obvious choice for anyone who wants the largest screen available for the least corporeality of coin.
Asus VivoBook 17 M712
The Lesser Line
The Asus VivoBook 17 M712 offers enough AMD Ryzen-based musculus to brand calorie-free of elementary tasks, and its 17-inch screen and stylish silverish chassis belie a very bonny price.
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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/asus-vivobook-17-m712
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