ASUS VivoBook F556UA-AB32 Review - Quick Verdict
The ASUS VivoBook F556UA-AB32 is a solid entry-level laptop in the VivoBook series from ASUS. It comes with an i3 processor and 4 gigs of RAM that is more than enough for most light users. The laptop is a great fit for students and home users as it is not meant for anything taxing. If you’re looking for a simple laptop that does media consumption well, then the ASUS VivoBook F556UA-AB32 is a pretty good choice.
- Affordable price
- Suitable for everyday tasks
- Decent battery life
- Mechanical hard drive is not that great
Author's Rating
Are you on the lookout for a simple laptop that can help with your everyday computing activities? Then you’re in the right place. The ASUS VivoBook F556UA-AB32 is a mid-range laptop from ASUS that can help you with your daily needs without bringing too much to the table.
In this ASUS VivoBook F556UA-AB32 review, we’re going to take a good look at this entry-level laptop and find out its pros and cons. The price point is surely affordable but is it worth taking out your wallet and paying the extra for this well-made laptop? How good is this notebook in day to day usage? Let’s find that out.
Design
The ASUS VivoBook F556UA-AB32 is primarily made out of plastic. The laptop makes use of simple materials so as to not increase the overall cost of the machine. Though you can feel the plastic on touch, it doesn’t feel like that bad of a build. The black and silver combination looks good and laptop comes with the classic ASUS texture on the lid as well.
Though the laptop has a 15.6″ screen, it does come with a lot of weight. It weighs around 5.1 pounds which is easily portable if you’re someone who moves a lot. You can quickly slide this notebook into your bag and get on with your travel as well.
On opening the laptop, you’re greeted with the screen and the keypad. The bezels around the screen are pretty thick but that’s what you usually get in entry-level machines. The keyboard is nice to type on. It’s not the best keyboard in the world but it comes with decent key travel and also has a dedicated number pad. The touchpad is also pretty standard stuff as well.
ASUS VivoBook F556UA-AB32 Specs
The ASUS VivoBook F556UA-AB32 comes with a 15.6″ screen with a Full HD resolution. With this resolution, this screen automatically becomes a good fit for media consumption and other pixel-related stuff. You get sharper texts and crisper images.
The viewing angles of the screen might not be the best but if you sit straight enough, then you can see some really good picture on the screen. The colors are more than decent and have a bit of punch to them. The display is perfect for watching Netflix, Prime Video, and other video streaming platforms.
The sound coming out of the laptop is nothing extraordinary. The laptop can fill up a small room without any problem. The audio can be quite distorted if you’re going to go full volume but that’s the case with most entry-level laptops. If you’re serious about the sound quality, then you should get a good set of speakers for the laptop.
Performance
The ASUS VivoBook F556UA-AB32 is an entry-level laptop and it comes with a processor that is best suited for a machine like this. We have an Intel Core i3 processor from the 6th generation of Intel chips. The 6100U is a low-power processor that comes with a couple of cores and a clock speed of 2.3GHz. As this is an i3 processor, you don’t have the luxury of turbo boosting this processor.
The processor is a pretty average one when you compare with what’s available right now. It gets a CPUMark score of 3606 which confirms the same. When it comes to real life performance, the processor does well in your everyday activities. You can browse the web without any hiccups. You can listen to your songs, stream your favorite videos online, and download all the stuff you want. You can even get some office work done as well without any problem.
The processor gets complemented by the memory department. The 4 gigs of RAM is a decent amount and allows you to multitask to a certain level. You can run a couple of applications side by side without impacting the performance of the laptop. You can increase the memory inside manually but with an entry-level processor at the helm, it’s not going to make much of a difference.
Gaming and Storage
The ASUS VivoBook F556UA-AB32 is not a gaming laptop. It comes with the integrated graphics card in the processor and is not meant for gaming. You might have some luck when it comes to playing some light games but that’s pretty much it. If you want to play some mid-range or high-end games, then you should be looking at more expensive gaming laptops.
The storage in the ASUS VivoBook F556UA-AB32 laptop is a 1TB mechanical hard drive. This is a slow hard drive that comes with a speed of 5400RPM. ASUS could have at least gone for the 7200RPM option, but they’ve chosen to cut some corners here. With a slow mechanical hard drive like this, everyday use is going to be a bit slow as well. The opening and closing of apps are going to take more time but that’s what we have here.
Connectivity and Battery Life
The ASUS VivoBook F556UA-AB32 comes with a ton of connectivity options for the everyday user. For data transfer, you can a couple of USB 3.0 ports and also a USB type C port as well. It is nice to see ASUS throwing in the Type C port making this laptop somewhat future-proof. We also get an SD card reader to make use of card readers. This way you don’t have to use adapters to make your hardware work.
The laptop also comes with an Ethernet port that can help you connect to high-speed internet. There is also an HDMI port which allows you to hook this laptop up with a higher-end display. The laptop also comes with support for Bluetooth and WiFi as well.
The battery life on this laptop is decent. With a light load, you should get about 4 to 5 hours which is not that bad for an entry-level laptop. However, with a heavier load, you will see the number going down which is unavoidable.
Bottomline
The ASUS VivoBook F556UA-AB32 is a simple laptop for a normal user. It doesn’t come with flashy design or unnecessary bells and whistles. It has the bare minimum and is accompanied by a decent price tag as well. The processor and other specs give you a solid everyday performance if you don’t want anything extra. If you’re looking for a neat entry-level laptop with an emphasis on media consumption, then this could be it.