Test: ASUS VivoBook X405U: A decent daily driver

Sometimes you just need to get work done as quickly and painlessly as possible. A good laptop or PC can do that for you. Does the ASUS VivoBook X405U deliver in this regard? We find out below.

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Cool looks. The VivoBook X405U is a sleek-looking laptop. With its metallic “Star Gray” color, it makes it eye-catching enough without it looking too out of place, say, in an office. It does, however, look like it has more heft than it does. It’s a light laptop. It’s easy to slip into a backpack or laptop bag without having to worry about it.

Expansive screen. If there’s one thing that immediately caught my eye with the VivoBook X405U is its NanoEdge display. I like how thin the bezels are on this laptop. It let ASUS put in a 14-inch screen in a 13-inch laptop. And it’s a pretty good screen. It’s not blindingly bright and has excellent viewing angles. It’s not a touchscreen, though, so if you’re like me who’s gotten used to touch displays on laptop, it’ll take some time getting used to this.

Solid hardware. While there is a plastic feel to it (which I think helps keep the weight down), it does still feel like a quality device. Audio is decent and sounds pretty solid, even when you max out the volume. Granted, it doesn’t get as loud as I’d like it to get. But at least it doesn’t break when you max it out.

The trackpad is pretty responsive and tactile feedback on the keyboard is pretty good. The keys are nicely spaced out. If there’s one big issue I have, it’s the placement of the Power button on the top right corner, which places it right beside the Delete button. I’ve shut off the laptop one too many times because of this. One other minor complaint is the lack of a backlight for the keys.

Putting through the paces. The VivoBook X405U is a capable daily driver for basic office work and internet use. It can handle your Netflix binges, too.  It stays cool through most of this. And you get around five hours or so on a single charge while working, which is okay.

But it isn’t without its faults. The 8GB memory and display resolution of this laptop limit its capabilities. It’s not the fastest machine out there and you experience some lag loading apps. But one thing with this laptop is you can add more memory so that can be remedied. I do have to talk about the display resolution and magnification, though. While a 1080p screen is great, the recommended magnification for this particular screen is set at 150 percent, which makes icons larger and changes scaling. So if, for example, you use Adobe Premiere Pro, editing is going to be a bit tough. You can change it to 100 percent but the user interface will shrink considerably. It’s doable to work on this one but it won’t be a great video editing experience. You’d have to connect the laptop to a larger monitor to work properly.

VERDICT

The ASUS VivoBook X405U isn’t top-of-the-line, best-of-the-best kind of machine. But this lightweight laptop can deliver in other ways and for some people that’s more than enough.