Asus Vivobook S410

Design and Appearance

While the lid features a brushed aluminium makeup, the entirety of the keyboard deck is completely made from plastic.

The exterior of the chassis is sure to turn heads as it is styled in color options of Icicle Gold and Star Grey, fancy names that seem to have been coined especially for this laptop.

Away from the bells and the whistles, the build is not particularly convincing when you get a feel of it. The material strength is not rigid enough in its plastic or metal form to stem the tide of flex that creeps in when you flip the lid or tap on some parts of the keyboard.

As for the hinge, you might resort to the use of both hands to flip the lid open as it offers a slight resistance that will wear down on a one-handed attempt.

To the good part, at 3.2 pounds this laptop is lighter than other laptops in its size class. In comparison, the Lenovo 320S’ weighs in at 3.75 pounds while the HP Pavilion tips the scales at  4.85 pounds.

Ports and Connection

The ASUS VivoBook S410 is equipped with two USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports along with other provisions that enable connection with device peripherals and external displays.

The standout is unarguably the USB 3.1 Type-C port as a result of its impressive speeds of data transfer and compatibility with a host of other devices.

There is an HDMI port that offers seamless connections to external output devices, while the microSD card slot will come in handy for expanding your storage horizon.

The dual-band 802.11ac wi-fi and Bluetooth 4.2 provisions are on hand to deliver reliable wireless Internet connectivity and they hardly ever disappoint.

Keyboard and Input devices

Aside from the three-stage backlight provision and the passable 1.4mm of key travel, the keyboard on this laptop does not serve up any spectacular highlights.

The keys on being actuated will reel back stiff feedback along with a degree of flex that is felt on the keyboard deck, both of which respectively belies and underlines their plastic build.

Still, these flaws do little to detract from what is ultimately a comfortable typing experience on this laptop.

With their island-style, well-spaced, and well-sized key layout, the keyboard will suffice for a fluid typing session that will not wear out your hands.

The touchpad fares considerably better with its design and its operation.

A fingerprint scanner sited in plain sight at the top left of the touchpad is the obvious highlight due to its compatibility with the windows hello platform.

With Windows Precision Touchpad (PTP) support to boot, this laptop is wired to be super-responsive to a host of multitouch gestures. It also enables precise cursor control across the entire surface of the touchpad for accuracy and ease of navigation and tracking.

And if you inadvertently bump your palm against the touchpad, the Integrated palm rejection technology will get the message and keep your cursor on the right track.

Audio

Soundwise, the S410 does not deliver any spectacular performance for those that tune in, but it does not disappoint either.

Its two speakers are sited at the bottom of the laptop and they get audio horsepower from the stables of the SonicMaster software, the very best from Asus.

The audio output will not thrill its listeners but the quality will just about hack it for regular in-house entertainment, and that is despite the best efforts of the SonicMaster software to ramp up the bass and the volume.

The performance of the SonicMaster software in this laptop is soundly beaten by the TrueHarmony software of the Acer Spin 3 or the Waves MaxxAudio Pro software of the Dell 7460 both of which are 14″ laptops.

Display

The display is a bright spot for this laptop, especially with the suitability of the 178-degree range of viewing angles and the sharpness of the colors that dot the screen. The screen is not deficient in brightness level. And with its matte screen finish serving as an anti-glare provision, it will most likely not present viewers with a visibility challenge in outdoor areas.

Its Full HD display resolution is the standard offering and it serves up a display that mostly features crisp text and sharp imagery. The bezels grow in size across the top and bottom of the screen but they still allow for a useful 77% screen to body ratio that is sure to thrill.

Throw in the AsusSplendid package and you get the luxury of switching between a variety of display modes with varying degrees of display clarity and vibrancy to match the demands of the on-screen content.

And with Asus Tru2Life video technology, the visuals are enhanced in the smallest of details to deliver an output that is both striking and stimulating.

Graphics

The Nvidia GeForce MX150 is a discrete graphics card that makes its presence felt in this laptop by the decent quality of graphics that it churns out.

With this graphics card, the S410 will be able to do some basic photo editing on Photoshop and to do justice to some light graphics tasks on Adobe Illustrator.

However, this laptop will struggle for long periods with more graphics-intensive tasks that incorporate advanced 3D rendering techniques. It will also plod through editing tasks that involve the application of special effects, or with tasks that require extra color consistency.

Gaming

The 2GB GDDR5-VRAM and a clock speed of 6000MHz on this laptops’ graphic card will suffice for light gaming and some heavier games with a bit of luck and a couple of concessions.

While this laptop will not always serve up the intense thrills of high-end gaming, it will hold out quite well with less demanding titles.

And if you want to stretch your luck with the latest AAA games or non-VR games, lowering the display resolution and graphic settings may be the only practical option available to use.

Even then, the games will play at lower frame rates and may throw in the occasional fits of stuttering or lags.

Battery

Battery life is on the average side of the spectrum with this laptop. It will last for an average of 5 hours with run-off-the-mill computing tasks and a lot less with more intensive system tasks.

On the flip side, this laptop needs just around 55 minutes to charge up to 70% with support from Asus fast charge technology.

And as Asus also allows users to peg the charging capacity to 60% or 80% with this laptop, your battery will be able to pool more recharge cycles and maintain a healthy working condition in the process.

Cooling and Noise Emission

With ASUS IceCool technology pulling the strings inside this laptop, you can expect a quiet and serene backdrop against which you can engage in work or play.

This technology employs the service of thin heat pipes and a well-structured internal system to drive the heat away and keep the engine running smoothly.

The solitary fan located under the palm rest is the culmination of the graft of this ingenious technology. It revolves steadily and quietly in response to the pressure of workloads and will only ever make a scene when it is overly stretched with a ton of processor-intensive workloads.

Performance

With the 8th Generation Intel Core i7-8550U to call on, the VivoBook S410 is in a position of considerable strength.

This quad-core processor will find adequate support in the 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD provision along with an effective cooling system to take on a host of system tasks with expeditious speed.

From the quick boot-up times to the snappy execution of system commands and the speed with which apps and programs are launched, there is a pervasive sense of haste with this laptop

If the bulk of your regular computing workloads involves word and image processing, or heavy internet patronage, then the S410 is poised to fit the bill.

And when you plunge into the thick of serious computing work as with data analysis or media transcoding, this laptops’ processor can clock in at its peak speed and deliver a hyper-threaded performance that is fairly equal to the task.

Still, it will be best not to overstretch this laptop with intensive workloads as it is not a performance powerhouse.

The impact of its supposed energy efficiency, occasioned by a tolerable TDP of 15W is more pronounced on the overall system health of this laptop than on the staying power of the battery.

It is also good with multitasking; with a plethora of open web browser tabs and a window of data-laden spreadsheets on the front burner, this laptop will not skip a beat.

Add a 1080p video and some Google doc sheets to the mix and the trajectory might change course to a tether on the brink, without necessarily tumbling over.

It is still a credible performance to bring to the table.

Final Verdict

If you’re out in the market for a laptop and your checklist features boxes for a speedy SSD provision and a vibrant big screen display, along with a price that hovers around the $1000 orbit, then you should probably check out the Asus Vivobook S410, that or the Vivobook 17.3″.

There are some notable concessions in the form of a weak battery and the omission of the Thunderbolt port. But for the price point on offer, it is not much of a surprise.

This laptop also comes with the added benefit of being equipped with fairly powerful processors, along with an effective cooling system and a fingerprint scanner. It looks and feels like a good catch at this price range, and when you get down to business with its processors, you will need no further convincing. 

It is only held back by a battery that feels like a disservice and a build that is missing a gear or two despite its lightweight and sleek design. 

Device Specifications

Diagonal display size      

‎14 Inches

Max Screen Resolution   

‎1920 x 1080 Pixels

Processor 

Intel core i7-8550U

RAM

‎8 GB DDR4

Hard Drive 

‎256 GB SSD

Graphics Coprocessor    

‎NVIDIA GeForce MX150

Operating System

‎Windows 10 Home

Item model number 

‎S410UN-NS74

Item Weight

‎3.2 pounds

Product Dimensions

12.8 x 8.9 x 0.7 inches