Review: Asus Vivobook 14 Copilot+ PC

Everything changed last year for Windows laptops. For the first time, Qualcomm's Arm-based Snapdragon processors brought all the efficiency Mac users love to Windows, resulting in some of the fastest and longest-lasting laptops we’ve ever seen, like the Surface Laptop 7.

But if all that goodness is only reserved for expensive, high-end laptops, it’ll never truly change the PC landscape. That’s what makes a laptop like the Asus Vivobook 14 X so important. It employs Qualcomm’s entry-level Snapdragon X chip, and while there are some shortcomings, the battery life alone makes this a smart choice for folks on a tight budget.

Photograph: Luke Larsen

Cheaper Than It Sounds

While $700 might not sound that cheap for a laptop, the details matter because this Vivobook 14 is more than just an entry-level machine. The base configuration comes with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage, so it qualifies as a Copilot+ PC and can access a few of Microsoft's artificial intelligence features.

If this laptop had a cheaper starting configuration, it would have been closer to $500. That’s important when considering the value of the Vivobook 14, because really, the Vivobook 14 is a more highly configured $500 laptop, not a true mid-tier device. That has both huge advantages and a couple of significant compromises.

The pricing in the context of Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite laptops matters too. These laptops with their more powerful processors originally started at $999 (and many with just 256 GB of storage), but a lot of those prices have dropped. For example, you can now get an HP OmniBook X for $680, which gets you a faster processor and a better display.

Photograph: Luke-Larsen

Dull but Dependable

From the outside, the Vivobook 14 is nothing special. It’s a basic, silver laptop that feels a bit thicker and heavier than it should be. At over 3 pounds and 0.7 inches thick, it’s not egregious. The bezels are large and plasticky, and there’s more flex in the lid and keyboard deck than I prefer. I like the look of the black model as opposed to the “Cool Silver,” but it doesn't appear to be available for purchase online right now.

It matches the definition of a true budget laptop in 2025—at least, the stereotype of one. But I appreciate that Asus didn’t skimp on the keyboard and touchpad. If a keyboard and touchpad are crappy, it doesn’t matter how little money you spent on the laptop: You’ll regret it. Thankfully, the Vivobook's keyboard doesn’t have sloppy actuation or short travel, instead offering a comfortable and precise typing experience. It may even take you a bit to adjust to the 1.7 millimeters of travel, which is longer than the keyboards on most laptops.

Photograph: Luke-Larsen

The same is true of the touchpad, which is even more shocking. It’s large, and the smooth surface feels great to glide your fingers across. That goes a long way toward improving the daily experience of using this laptop. Don’t get me wrong, I'm not head-over-heels over the inputs, but I’ve had enough bad experiences on budget PCs that Asus’ implementation feels refreshing.

The ports are fairly limited, though they cover the bases. Two USB-A ports, two USB-C ports, HDMI, and a headphone jack. My only complaint is that both USB-C ports are on the left side, meaning it’s the only side you can charge from.

Another area where budget laptops tend to cut corners is in the webcam, but the Vivobook 14 sports a decent 1080p camera. There's some discoloration in the image quality, but that might have more to do with the screen than the camera (more on this later). It includes an infrared camera for hands-free face recognition via Windows Hello. There is no fingerprint reader to use as an alternative.

Photograph: Luke-Larsen

Efficient, Long-Lasting Performance

The Snapdragon X series of chipsets is all about efficiency, using the same Arm architecture that powers smartphones and MacBooks. But as the bottom rung of the chip family, the 8-core Snapdragon X chip (X1-26-100) inside the Vivobook 14 aims to highlight that efficiency rather than impress with brute force. That’s not to say there’s not some solid performance here, though.

Its benchmark scores in Cinebench R24 put it in line with the M1 MacBook Air. Compared to that almost five-year-old laptop, the Vivobook 14 has slightly better multi-core performance but is a bit behind in single-core performance. As long as you don’t expect to run AI models, advanced 3D modeling software, or AAA games on this machine, there’s enough here for your school, work, and after-hours play. The integrated graphics are nothing to write home about, though.

Photograph: Luke-Larsen

You might wonder why I insist on comparing performance to a laptop nearly half a decade old, but it’s a big deal. Budget Windows laptops have struggled to offer a compelling alternative to that old MacBook, especially in performance and battery life. That’s exactly what the Vivobook 14 does. The battery life is particularly impressive. It lasted around 16 hours in a local video playback, an achievement that much more expensive laptops still can’t offer. Even better, performance doesn’t significantly drop while on battery, like on Intel-powered laptops. This has been a feature of all the recent Snapdragon X line of chips, but seeing it in a laptop this affordable showcases how big of a deal it is.

When you compare it to the M1 MacBook Air, which currently sells for $50 less, the Vivobook 14 offers double the RAM, four times the storage, better multi-monitor support, and even a more powerful neural processing unit that's capable of up to 45 tera operations per second (TOPS) of AI performance.

Elephant in the Room

Here’s where I stop and tell you about the Vivobook 14’s Achilles’ heel: It has a really poor screen. If there’s one aspect of this laptop that feels like a $500 laptop instead of a $700 machine, it’s undoubtedly the display. What you get is a 1,920 x 1,200-pixel resolution, 14-inch nontouch LCD panel. That’s not particularly sharp, but it’s standard for this price. It’s a matte screen, meaning it’s good at deflecting glare but isn’t as clear as glossy panels.

The display is dim enough that I was using it at max brightness almost all the time, reaching only a high of 280 nits. The colors are really what threw me off. I noticed how off all the colors looked right when I booted up Windows for the first time. The screen has a sickly green tint and looks desaturated. I tossed my colorimeter on, and it confirmed what I was seeing. The panel covered just 66 percent of the sRGB color space and 50 percent of AdobeRGB, while the color accuracy was some of the worst I’ve seen on a laptop in years, with a Delta-E of 7.22. This is not a laptop you want to do photo editing on or spend a lot of time consuming content on.

Photograph: Luke-Larsen

The speakers don’t do much to complement the experience either. They aren’t noticeably worse than most laptops, but are tinny and unenjoyable. They’re there and are enough to cover you when you need them.

I won’t lie and say the screen quality doesn’t seriously detract from the experience of using this laptop. It takes it down several notches in my book. But for a student or remote worker looking for an affordable, long-lasting machine with some oomph behind it, this one will do.