ASUS Vivobook S 16 OLED (S5606MA) review: thin and powerful laptop with high battery life

With power outages, laptop battery life is becoming one of the most important parameters. Today, we're going to take a look at the ASUS Vivobook S 16 OLED - despite its very thin and light body and powerful platform, it offers very good battery life.

Specifications of ASUS Vivobook S 16 OLED

Package contents

Along with the laptop, the box contains only the bare minimum: a charger, a power cable, and a user manual. Given the number of connectors (including full-size HDMI and USB, which is not very common in models of this size), the user is unlikely to need additional accessories to connect peripherals.

Design and layout

We're already used to the Vivobook lineup being thin and light, and the Vivobook S 16 OLED "holds the bar": its body is 1.5 cm thick and the laptop weighs only 1.5 kg - and that's with an all-aluminum body. The model is offered in two color variants: black (Neutral Black) and blue (Mist Blue), and we received the second variant for review.

We should note right away that the case color is rather gray with a slight blue tint, and the fact that this is a "blue" model is first of all evidenced by the blue keys on the keyboard and their blue backlighting.

The bezels around the screen are very thin: ~4.5 mm on the sides and 9 mm on the top, with the screen occupying 89% of the lid area. The webcam lens can be covered with a physical bright orange "curtain", so the user can immediately see whether it is open or closed.

The case feels sturdy, it does not bend or creak. It's easy enough to open the lid with one hand, and there's no need to hold the base. The maximum opening angle is 180°, so the screen can be laid flat on the work surface if desired. The hinges are tight enough to hold the screen well in any position.

All interface connectors are located on the side panels: on the left you can find a full-size HDMI 2.1, two Thunderbolt 4 with Display Port and charging support, a Micro SD card reader, and a 3.5 mm audio jack. On the right side are two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports.

Ventilation holes are located at the bottom and back, so hot air is exhausted mainly behind the lid, not along the sides, and does not cause discomfort when using the mouse.

Keyboard, touchpad

ASUS Vivobook S 16 OLED is equipped with an island-type keyboard, the key travel is quite good for a laptop - 1.5 mm, and it is absolutely silent. The keyboard is full-fledged, with an additional number pad - it is much narrower than desktop keyboards (45 mm), but this does not significantly affect the ease of use.

The main key block is almost the same size as desktop keyboards - a little less than 27 cm wide, so you don't need to get used to a different key layout and size for blind typing. The case doesn't bend while typing - you have to deliberately press down on the keyboard hard enough to make it do so.

The layout is almost standard ANSI, with a long left Shift and single-line Enter. The arrow control unit is embedded in the main block, under the right Shift - for this we had to reduce the space and shift the right Alt to the left. There is no right Ctrl - instead, Vivobook S 16 OLED has a key on the keyboard to launch the Copilot application.

The power button is located in the upper right corner, in the same row as the top keys, just above the NumLock. In this model, it is not recessed into the body, so there is a non-zero chance of missing and accidentally pressing it instead of NumLock. Vivobook S 16 OLED does not have a fingerprint scanner.

The keys have RGB backlighting with three intensity levels and the ability to turn it off completely. The laptop supports Windows Dynamic Lighting, so no additional software is required to configure the backlight behavior - it is done in the system settings: "Start - Settings - Personalization - Dynamic Lighting (Start - Settings - Personalization - Dynamic Lighting).

The backlighting is quite moderate, and you can hardly see it on light keys in bright light, but in a dark room it is much more noticeable.

The touchpad is very large - 150x99 mm, according to the manufacturer, which is 40% larger than the previous generation Vivobook models. The mouse keys are pressed softly, with a noticeable "click", and unexpectedly quite a long stroke.

Screen

The ASUS Vivobook S 16 OLED uses a 16-inch OLED panel manufactured by Samsung (ATNA60BX01-1) with a resolution of 3200×2000 pixels, an aspect ratio of 16:10 and a refresh rate of 120 Hz. The dot density is ~236 PPI, the dot size is 0.1077 mm - in general, the image is very dense, it is almost impossible to see individual dots.

In addition, the model range includes configurations with OLED panels of smaller diagonals - 14" and 15.6", with resolutions from 1920×1200 to 2880×1800 dots.

The MyASUS utility allows you to select different Splendid video modes - Normal, Lively, Manual (allows you to manually adjust the color temperature) and Eye Care (reduces the proportion of blue in the backlight, and also allows you to manually change its degree).

In addition, in the same section, you can select a color gamut separately - the manufacturer offers emulations of the main color spaces sRGB and DCI-P3, an extended version of the latter - Display-P3 and Native (full coverage without any restrictions).

The Native gamut fully covers the sRGB and DCI-P3 color spaces (97% of Adobe RGB), and in sRGB, the coverage very accurately emulates the dimensions of this space (75% DCI-P3 and 75% Adobe RGB). In DCI-P3, we again see full coverage of sRGB and DCI-P3 (93% Adobe RGB), but the Display P3 option, despite its description ("a wider range of realistic colors" compared to "standard cinema colors" for DCI-P3), we see a slightly reduced coverage: 99% DCI-P3, 89% Adobe RGB.

Note that although the Vivid mode offers a brighter image, its quality and color accuracy are worse than the Normal mode, so we would recommend using the latter in conjunction with the Native color gamut. In this case, we have very high color accuracy: the average ΔE value is at the level of one, and the maximum value is below three.

The gamma in this mode is almost perfectly matched to the standard value of 2.2, and the color temperature is constant throughout the brightness range and is 6800-7000K. This is a bit too high compared to the standard 6500K - if the image seems a bit cool, you can fix it by selecting Manual mode and manually adjusting the color temperature using the slider (adjusts from 5600K to 8000K).

The brightness in SDR mode is adjustable from 5 to 390 cd/m². This display also supports HDR mode (the laptop has DisplayHDR True Black 600 certification): its peak brightness can reach 620 cd/m² - in terms of these indicators, the screen is very similar to the one we saw in the Vivobook Pro 15 OLED (where it was also made by Samsung). And just like it, if you turn on HDR in Windows settings, the color gamut for regular content is also narrowed to the size of the sRGB space.

Traditionally for OLED technology, the brightness is adjusted using pulse width modulation, so at low levels (below 120 cd/m²), the display flickers slightly. However, the brightness at which flicker is not felt even by a sensitive eye is quite moderate and fully complies with the brightness recommended for office work.

But if this becomes a problem for a user with sensitive eyesight who works at a laptop in a dark room, you can use the "Flicker-free OLED shading" option - in fact, this is the same DC Dimming that can be found in some smartphones with OLED screens.

The corresponding slider effectively reduces the brightness up to 5 cd/m² without noticeable flicker - however, this function does not work with HDR mode and is not as convenient as traditional brightness control using hotkeys. However, if your eyes get tired of OLED flicker, this option will be indispensable.

Due to the absence of additional backlighting, the OLED panel demonstrates very good results in tests for uniformity of brightness and color temperature across the entire screen area: the maximum fluctuations in these parameters do not exceed a few percent (in the case of conventional LCD screens, typical deviations are usually more than 10%, if not 20%).

The main advantages of OLED over conventional LCD displays are, of course, the pitch-black color due to the lack of additional backlighting in the panel and the maximum viewing angles. When you look at the Vivobook S 16 OLED screen from the side, the image remains as rich and almost as bright as when you are sitting behind a laptop.

Hardware platform

The ASUS Vivobook S 16 OLED lineup uses Intel Core Ultra 5/7/9 processors; the model we reviewed has a Core Ultra 9 185H. This is the flagship Core Ultra processor of the Meteor Lake family, which was announced at the end of last year.

It has 16 cores (6 productive and 10 energy-efficient, including 8 main cores and 2 additional cores located separately on the I/O chip) and can process up to 22 threads. The productive cores can operate at frequencies up to 5.1 GHz, while the efficient ones can operate at frequencies up to 3.8 GHz. It also includes built-in graphics - an 8-core ARC GPU that can operate at frequencies of up to 2.35 GHz, and the Intel AI Boost NPU AI accelerator.

There are no configurations with a discrete graphics card in Vivobook S 16 OLED. The RAM is soldered on the board, so there is no way to add more capacity. The only available option is 16 GB LPDDR5X, which works in dual-channel mode. The manufacturer also notes that the only available storage option is a 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD.

The Intel AX211 module is responsible for the wireless connection: Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax) (two bands) 2*2 + Bluetooth 5.2. Vivobook S 16 OLED does not have a wired LAN connection option.

Productivity

Intel Core Ultra 9 185H demonstrates high performance in both complex synthetic benchmarks and purely processor tests - its performance is the same or slightly higher than Intel Core i9-13900H with the same TDP (45W). Therefore, it can be noted that the ASUS Vivobook S 16 OLED platform is powerful enough to work comfortably and meet the requirements of the average user.

The 1TB WD PC SN560 NVMe SDDPNQE-1T00-1102 from Western Digital is the system drive in the model we reviewed. It demonstrates typical performance for its class: read speed of 5,000 MB/s and write speed of 3,500 MB/s.

The MyASUS utility allows you to choose one of four laptop modes: "Speedy, Performance, Standard, and Whisper (the first two are not available when running on battery power).

We compared how the laptop works in each of them using the Cinebench R23 utility under all cores. As you can see from the table, the system changes the thermal package in the range from 17 to 52 W, while the processor temperature rises from 65°C in Quiet mode to 98°C in Speed mode. The noise level of the cooling system in "Whisper" mode is very moderate, at "Maximum" it rises significantly, but still remains within acceptable limits.

As for performance: as you can see, there is a small increase even in the single-core test, while in the multi-core test the difference between Standard and Speedy is quite significant. As for the "Whisper" mode, it is suitable for cases where the system's power is not important, but rather long and quiet operation, for example, for the Internet or watching videos.

We also checked how battery operation affects performance and how it differs from operation when connected to the mains. As you can see, the laptop demonstrates a noticeable performance degradation in most tests, except for CineBench R23 and 3DMark gaming tests, which for some reason even achieved slightly higher performance than when operating from the mains.

ASUS Vivobook S 16 OLED is not positioned as a gaming model, and in the absence of a discrete graphics card, its results in games are expected to be low. However, if you want to play not very demanding games in Full HD with medium graphics quality settings, you can still do so, albeit at an average frame rate of 30-40 frames per second.

Performance in games, average graphics quality, 1920x1080 dots (frames/sec):

ASUS Vivobook S 16 OLED battery life

The laptop is equipped with a 75 Wh battery, which is very good for such a thin and light model. At the same time, it demonstrates very good autonomy: with a brightness of 100 cd/m² in the PCMark 10 battery test, it worked for 10 hours in office mode, a little over 9 hours when watching videos, and as much as 15 hours in standby mode.

As for gaming, there are no surprises here: in the corresponding test, the laptop managed to last a little more than an hour and a half.