ASUS Vivobook Flip 15 F512FA-AB34 Review

Finding the best budget laptop to suit your needs can be harder than you think. There are tons of options that’ll confuse you and get you back to the point where you started. The ASUS Vivobook Flip 15 F512FA-AB34 is the latest laptop in the budget land and comes with enough convincing to become your next laptop.

In this ASUS Vivobook Flip 15 F512FA-AB34 review, we are going to take a deep look at this new budget laptop and find out its good and bad. The laptop comes with decent specs and aims at the light and mid-range users who need a budget computer. Let’s dive into the full review to find out if this laptop is worth your hard-earned money.

Design

Though the ASUS Vivobook Flip 15 F512FA-AB34 is a budget device, ASUS has taken good care in the design department. The laptop makes a good first impression and doesn’t look that cheap. The construction here is mostly plastic but you don’t get the super cheap feel when you pick up the laptop in your hand.

The first thing you’re going to notice when you open the laptop is the screen and the thin bezels around it. ASUS calls it the Nano Edge Bezel display and thanks to that, the laptop attains a screen-to-body ratio of 88%. As a result of shrunken bezels, the laptop itself gets a smaller footprint which makes it more portable.

The laptop weighs around 3.75 pounds and can easily fit into any backpack, thanks to the smaller form factor. With a decent battery life at play, you will easily be able to pull off working on the go with this new VivoBook.

How good are the keyboard and the touchpad?

The keyboard here is a tactile one with backlighting. It comes with good key travel and you’ll enjoy typing on this laptop. You get a dedicated number pad which is nice if you work with numbers often. The position of the keyboard is slightly lifted and that makes up for a better typing experience. The touchpad is smooth and tracks your movements responsively.

There is a fingerprint reader on the top right portion of the touchpad which allows you to login with your fingerprint. It is quite fast and makes logging in, a breeze.

ASUS Vivobook Flip 15 F512FA-AB34 Specs

The laptop comes with a 15.6″ display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. We have a TN panel here and not an IPS panel. This is purely because of the fact that this is a budget device. However, the display does well when it comes to reproducing colors on the screen. The viewing angles are not that great so make sure you’re in the right place.

You can enjoy watching Netflix or other stuff on your laptop. The audio output, however, is not that good. The speakers are paltry and are not good enough to give you a solid sound experience. If you’re keen about getting good audio, then you should invest in a good set of speakers or some decent headphones.

Raw Performance

The ASUS Vivobook Flip 15 F512FA-AB34 is powered by an Intel Core i3 8145U processor. This is a dual-core processor that comes with a base clocking frequency of 2.10GHz. The processor supports 4 threads and can be clocked up to a maximum of 3.90GHz. The 4MB cache memory will also come in handy as well.

The processor gets a benchmark score of 5509 in the CPUMark tests. Being an entry-level processor, it excels in everyday activities. The laptop handles things like browsing the web, social media, streaming videos online, playing light games and other stuff without any problem. The laptop might also have some luck if you have to run some mid-range applications as well.

There are 8 gigs of DDR4 memory in the memory department. For a budget laptop, this is a pretty good amount of memory and will serve the user will. You can run quite a few apps side by side without having any performance issues. Switching between apps will also be smoother than you’d expect.

Gaming and Storage

If you’re looking at the ASUS Vivobook Flip 15 F512FA-AB34 model for gaming, then you’re looking at the wrong laptop. The laptop is not made for gaming. It comes equipped with only an integrated graphics card and does okay with light gaming. With luck, you might be able to do some mid-range gaming, but that’s it.

For storage, ASUS has gone with an SSD option rather than sticking with a traditional hard drive and that’s a good move. SSDs are much better for everyday performance and can keep the experience snappier. But the problem here is that you only get 128 gigs of space and that might not be a lot of most people. If you need more storage, either opt for a bigger SSD or get an external hard drive which is usually a lot cheaper.

The operating system you get is the Windows 10 S mode. The S mode is very restricted and comes with a tight experience. Even downloading applications can be a bit confusing as you have to use the Microsoft store for that. If you can afford, switching to the original Windows 10 will surely help.

Battery Life and Connectivity

For a budget laptop, the ASUS Vivobook Flip 15 F512FA-AB34 does well when it comes to battery life. The laptop can last for about 5 to 6 hours with light use cases like browsing the web and streaming videos online. If you’re going to do something heavy, then the laptop will probably last for about 2 to 3 hours at best which is still impressive.

The ASUS Vivobook Flip 15 F512FA-AB34 comes with a wide selection of ports. You get 3 USB 3.0 ports, a USB type C port, a micro SD card reader, an HDMI port, and a headphone jack. The laptop comes with support for both Bluetooth and WiFi wireless standards as well.

Bottomline

The ASUS Vivobook Flip 15 F512FA-AB34 is a solid budget laptop that is suited for students and home users. The full HD screen makes consuming media on this device a pleasant experience. The laptop can handle everyday stuff like a boss and also has the legs for heavy tasks as well. If you’re looking for a budget laptop that offers you a well-rounded performance, then this is it.