ASUS Laptop Vivobook 15 X1504ZA 15.6 inch Full HD Laptop (Intel i5-1235U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Windows 11)

Powerful but otherwise very “budget”
This is for the X1504ZA model which is i5 12th gen and 16gb ram.I snatched this for under 400 as a warehouse deal – at this price this laptop can be really great value because it’s so hard to find many affordable options with 16gb ram. However, you need to be aware there’s no magic pricing here – significant corners were cut which may or not matter to you.1. Screen: the specs say “IPS-level” but I wonder if this is actually a glorified TN panel? The viewing angles are incredibly poor, using this laptop on the couch is very complicated since you have to be facing the screen at a perfect angle. The colours are mediocre as with most budget laptops but OK but surfing the web etc. The brightness is quite low, lower than the MSI Modern 15 and an HP 14s-dq2502na, probably very difficult to use on a sunny day (but those don’t come all that often eh?)2. Battery life: appalling. You can get 4.5hs of light use if you’re lucky. (I profiled it extensively) This was the same as the 1 year old HP 14, and 1-1.5 hours less than the MSI Modern 15 with Ryzen 7730U with a marginally smaller battery (39Wh vs 41Wh). The vivobook draws on average on idle 1.5W more than the MSI Modern which is almost to be expected as the i5 can’t beat the ryzen in power consumption. This, paired with a small battery and probably low quality components that are very power inefficient (and a larger screen) means you just can’t get much battery life. People claiming it’s great are likely coming from ancient dusty laptops that can barely hold a charge.3. Ports: so outdated. The USB-C port does not support charging nor video out. The poor battery life could be compensated by easy charging via USB-C but no, you have to carry the (albeit small) proprietary barrel charger everywhere which is highly impractical if you move around the house or generally use this on your lap… Also because of this, you can only ever support 1 external monitor so OK but not ideal for say, working.If you don’t care about any of the above then the laptop is actually very good value depending on the price you get it for. The build is really good for the price, I really enjoyed the keyboard (minus the unusual bottom row of the numpad). The touchpad was very good even if the mouse did skip a few times. The bezels are small and the whole unit feels solid for a plastic build and actually looks sleek if you don’t look too hard at it. As a last negative, I’m personally not a fan of the 16:9 aspect ratio, the 15.6″ screen seems too wide and short – I find the newer 16:10 to be far more practical and enjoyable but you can’t have it all at a budget level, just consider this as well. Lastly, as you’d expect the performance with the recent 12th gen i5 and 16gb of ram (and a decent NVMe SSD) is actually excellent for a budget laptop, super speedy.

Gave it 8 week test so review is proper
Not the cheapest but still affordable. Very cool style, doesn’t feel plasticy or cheapDoes everything its supposed to do, battery life on full charge using WiFi in airport probably 3 hours or close so not badI prefer to use external mouse and keyboard but this is not as frustrating as othersDivery was made a day early so I missed it but guy was back round the next day no issues

For the price, this computer is a good choice for general needs.
I bought this computer because of the price and technical specification. I am not interested in playing demanding, graphic intensive games or editing video files. All I want to do is surf the ‘net, compose e-mails, shop at Amazon (grin!) and other similar tasks. Moreover, I am starting to teach myself website design, but not using resource-hogging programs like Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I will be using software that does not need as much RAM and CPU resources.For £460 (or thereabouts) this computer is a real bargain. These days it is hard to find a computer with 16 gigabytes of RAM for less than £500. One thing I want to point out (I have tried) is that this laptop will NOT detect your internal WiFi card if you are trying to run Linux. I tried installing Fedora Linux and Zorin OS (a Windows-like Linux distribution) and neither of them could detect my WiFi connection. I have had no problem with Windows. If you can live without Linux, then this is not a bad choice.

Review 8 months on
I bought this laptop about 8 months ago. I use it mainly for work. All in all I am quite happy, but the battery does no longer last very long at all any more.Pros: I like the keyboard which feels robust and stylish in its way, I have never had any issues with processing power, it generally does all the usual office and web based tasks quickly, and is quite light weight.Cons: You have to look at the screen at 90 degrees for best image quality, I have had comments that my voice was somehow distorted in the laptop mic (so eventually I bought a headset). I experienced the occasional wifi connection issue at first which I resolved by making settings adjustments. I have to tap the touch pad lightly as when I press it hard a pop-up menu appears by the cursor.Battery performance has dropped significantly, even though I did not use it in battery only mode a great deal.All in all I am happy with this laptop, given the budget.