ASUS VivoBook F512 Thin Review (Cons + Pros)

The budget laptop market is competitive in 2021 due to various component options, supply constraints, and pricing wars. The ASUS VivoBook F512 Thin is a basic but cost-effective alternative for tired buyers looking for a super-affordable gadget.

It has a significantly longer battery life than most similarly priced competitors and a better-than-average selection of ports. The two largest compromises are a display with poor sharpness and brightness balancing and a small (but typical for this price range) 128GB SSD for storage.

It might not be thrilling, but for the money, it’s a 15-inch Windows laptop that can handle simpler chores and last the entire day. One of our best selections on a tighter budget is the ASUS VivoBook F512 Thin.

ASUS VivoBook F512 Thin Review

With this design, simplicity rules in almost every aspect. It is a typical 15-inch system with a simple appearance that is ideal for blending in but not eye-catching. The VivoBook 15 has a grey paint job, which isn’t particularly daring, but it’s not dull either, thanks to a speckled metallic appearance.

The system is lightweight, weighing 3.75 pounds and measuring 0.78 by 14.1 by 9.1 inches (HWD). That’s not incredibly light, but it’s still far from being hefty and should fit easily in your bag or backpack. The chassis is plastic and generally feels sturdy. The texture doesn’t feel too cheap, and if you push on the keyboard or the lid, there is some flex, but not enough to be bothersome or visible in everyday use.

The keyboard and touchpad almost meet the same quality standard, adequate but not outstanding. The keyboard is the better, with crisp white illumination and a reasonable amount of key travel without feeling too mushy (they are a little squishy). Even though the touchpad is a little bit too small and just average, it does have a fingerprint reader in the top right corner.

Screen

Where the quality falls short is in the display. Full HD (1,920 by 1,080 pixels) is a good resolution, but the screen has a little washed-out appearance, especially at maximum brightness. While the black colors are not dark enough, and the whites and light hues are overly bright, there is also some light bleed.

Although it never looks just right, reducing the brightness makes things a little better. The panel doesn’t appear particularly sharp, possibly due to the brightness, but the writing is a little hazy. Even though it’s difficult to see in the shot below (and at least the bezels are tiny! ), it is clear when it is in use.

Additionally, the viewing angles are poor; moving to the side causes the image to darken and discolor quickly. If you’ve ever used a business laptop with a built-in privacy filter, the picture quality seems similar to when it’s turned on because of the yellowish sheen and poor viewing angles. If so, be aware that it’s still functional but undoubtedly not a good display potentially the biggest compromise in the entire construction.

After passing through that rather low point, we reach the ports. There are only two ports on the left edge, both USB 2.0 connectors. A USB 3.0 Type-A port, a USB-C port, an HDMI output, a microSD card slot, and a headphone jack are all located on the right side of the device. That’s a pretty full complement (and then some, even) for a cheap laptop, so I don’t have any issues.

Remember that the laptop comes pre-configured in Windows S mode, designed for notebooks with lower processing power and is better suited for Windows Store programs. You must get the free upgrade to standard Windows 10 from the Windows Store if you wish to install other software (as you would on any complete Windows PC and probably desire to do on this device).

Graphics Tests

We conduct two tests in each two video game simulations. First, 3DMark, emphasizing lighting and particles, renders sequences of extremely detailed, gaming-style images to gauge relative graphics power.

The Sky Diver and Fire Strike subtests of 3DMark are DirectX 11 benchmarks; although the former is better suited to midrange PCs with integrated graphics, the latter is more demanding and designed to show off high-end and gaming PCs. The outcomes are exclusive scores.

Another graphics test, Unigine’s Superposition, renders and pans over a complicated 3D scene similarly but counts outcomes in frames per second (fps). While serious gamers demand 60fps or higher, most people find that 30fps is ideal for smooth animation. We conduct the test with low and high visual quality settings at 720p and 1080p resolutions, respectively.

Similar to the media tests, these laptops only have a graphics component built into the processor, making them unsuitable for 3D tasks or gaming. I recently extensively tested integrated graphics in games and discovered there is still potential for gaming on these computers.

That doesn’t quite apply to this collection of inexpensive computers, though: When coupled with a powerful processor and lots of RAM, integrated graphics can get by, but these laptops don’t offer much of that help, leaving the underpowered chips to handle a lot of the work on their own. Don’t expect to play many games on these devices, save from the most basic ones.

Battery Rundown Test

In preparation for our unplugged video rundown test, we fully recharge the laptop, set it up in power-save mode (as opposed to balanced or high-performance mode) when available, and make a few additional battery-saving adjustments.

(Wi-Fi is also turned off, and airplane mode is activated on the laptop.) In this test, we loop a video with screen brightness set to 50% and volume set to 100% until the system shuts down. The video is a locally stored 720p file of the Tears of Steel clip we use in our Handbrake test.

Overall, the battery life test results are better than the other benchmark tests, with some strong run times. It’s difficult to have many complaints regarding the VivoBook 15’s ability to operate for around one workday without a charge (this will vary considerably depending on the use case). About all, you can ask for is the ability to move away from the outlet or travel with this system without constantly checking the battery life.

Editors Rating:

4.5

Performance Testing

We still want to see how it performs, even though no one is anticipating a powerhouse in this price range. Let’s first examine the components of this model. An 8GB memory chip, a 128GB SSD, and an Intel Core i3-1005G1 processor with Intel UHD Graphics. This processor is undoubtedly a low-cost chip with only two cores and four threads.

Again, it’s not a workhorse, but that’s okay. Although the storage capacity may be an issue depending on the use case, these are modest parts suitable for the pricing. Word pages and other equally straightforward items won’t fast fill it up, but an excessive number of huge local films, images, and some (basic) games will.

We run the VivoBook through our standard battery of benchmark tests to see if it’s powerful enough for routine tasks and some light work. The details of the competition to which we will compare its outcomes are listed below.

The PC benchmark experts at UL created the comprehensive performance suites known as PCMark 10 and 8. We mimic many real-world productivity and content production routines in the PCMark 10 test. We utilize it to evaluate the system’s overall performance when performing office-related operations, including word processing, spreadsheet manipulation, web surfing, and videoconferencing.

In the meantime, PCMark 8 contains a storage subtest that we utilize to evaluate the system’s boot drive’s speed. Higher scores are preferable for both tests, each producing a unique numeric score.

These are not the quickest machines available, in case you still need to have your expectations managed despite seeing these stats and price tags. The field falls short of the benchmark of 4,000 points on PCMark 10, which we consider a good score. However, some are closer than others (and the MSI Modern 14 kept crashing the test), while the VivoBook 15 is among the best performers.

While it is proficient at the abovementioned duties, occasional delays or slowdowns are not unusual. Although there are some wait times when many browser tabs and programs are open, opening files is still quite functional.

In the end, that is acceptable to tolerate, given the cost. Leading here is positive because this is the test that matters the most for this class of computers (you won’t be performing much media editing or gaming).

Although there is far less variation, this system is once again among the fastest in terms of storage. The Asus Laptop L410, an outlier with slower eMMC flash storage instead of an SSD, failed to complete this test. The VivoBook starts up fairly quickly, and most Windows navigation is adequate.

The media tests are up next, which I’ll evaluate all at once. The first is Maxon’s CPU-intensive Cinebench R15, which is fully threaded to utilize all cores and threads of the machine. Cinebench puts more strain on the CPU to render a detailed image than the GPU. As a result, a PC’s appropriateness for processor-intensive workloads is indicated by a proprietary score.

Comparison

The Asus Laptop L410, which costs the least when compared, has a low-power Intel Celeron CPU, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage. The MSI Modern 14 costs $369 and, with a smaller 14-inch screen, is comparably equipped to the VivoBook 15. Another 15-inch laptop priced similarly to the VivoBook 15 as tested is the Dell Inspiron 15 3000 (3505).

Lastly, while being larger and costing a little more, the Asus Vivobook 17 M712 is still one of our top selections for any budget laptop. ASUS VivoBook F512 Thin is good because it has Comprehensive connections.

To Sum Up

The performance and design of the Asus VivoBook F512 Thin won’t impress anyone, but all things considered, it’s a good product for the price. Since it is a bit speedier than its competitors, it might have been the outstanding device we tested in this price range if it weren’t for the bad screen.

Another drawback of this laptop at this price is its somewhat limited storage capacity. On the plus side, it features an above-average port selection and a decent keyboard. Additionally, the battery life is adequate. This VivoBook 15 model can serve as an economical daily driver for straightforward home and office duties if you require the fundamentals and won’t be deterred by a few sacrifices.

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