If you are seeking the best laptop with i5 processor and the best laptop, you must’ve gone through a lot of thin and light ultrabooks. The Asus VivoBook S14 S433FA is one of the better ones available at a great price point. And it sports a great display, a fantastic keyboard, and overall great hardware for the asking price.
Why We Like It – ASUS VivoBook S14
The Asus VivoBook S14 S433FA is an excellent cheap thin and light ultrabook for students. It’s very much affordable and comes with a capable 10th Gen Intel processor made on the 10nm efficient node. And the tenkeyless tactile keyboard is excellent here, something not very commonly seen on cheaper ultrabooks.
- 512GB NVME SSD
- Excellent backlit keyboard and a fingerprint scanner for Windows Hello
- Expandable memory up to 16GB
- Battery life shorter than some might expect
Power & Performance
It sports a 10nm Intel Core i5-10210U Quad-Core processor inside. It is indeed a low-powered part, but at just $700, you shouldn’t really be expecting an Intel Core i7 laptop’s level of performance out of an ultrabook. The eight gigs of 2666 MHz DDR4 RAM is upgradable up to 16GB.
Related: See our ASUS Vivobook L203MA review
Battery
Most ultrabooks feature excellent battery life to boot. However, the small 50WHr battery inside the Asus VivoBook S14 S433FA isn’t really that impressive. You can get up to 5 hours of battery life out of it with normal use. That should really be enough as this laptop doesn’t exactly feature any power-hungry component inside (e.g., something like a dedicated Nvidia GeForce graphics card). But something to note here is that even the Dell G5 15 Gaming Laptop provides longer battery life with daily use.
Ports & Expandability
For a thin and light ultrabook, and unlike the Acer Aspire 5 A515, the Asus VivoBook S14 S433FA comes with a lot of ports. You get two full-sized USB 2.0 Type A ports for starters, and you get a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A port for easy file transfers. And don’t worry, a Type C port is included too. The USB C port is also a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port. And you also get a MicroSD card reader, a combo jack, and HDMI.
Related: Check out our ASUS X540LA review
Build Quality
The build quality overall is excellent, and you get two color options, Dreamy White and Indie Black. The latter looks better for us overall, but looks are totally subjective. The keyboard is excellent as it has a tactile feel with a short travel distance. The trackpad, on the other hand, is just mediocre at best.
Value
The value proposition of the Asus VivoBook S14 S433FA is pretty incredible among thin and light ultrabooks. It comes with an excellent Full HD (1920 x 1080p) IPS display with narrow bezels, a good Wi Fi module, and an excellent low powered mobile processor with an outstanding single core and multi core performance. However, it’s not really meant for hardcore gaming. You should pick up something more like the HP Pavilion Gaming 15 in case you need a gaming laptop.
ASUS VivoBook S14 Wrap Up
The ASUS VivoBook S14 S433FA overall is an excellent ultrabook for students to start off with. The affordable price is easily the best aspect of this thin and light ultrabook.
