Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED Review: This mobile workstation is a content creator's dream

The Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED laptop recently joined the ranks of the company’s creator notebooks. Asus’ Vivobook line-up has always been targeted towards consumers, always offering a practical solution rather than an over-the-top, innovative, or premium one.

However, the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED takes things a step further, debuting as a powerful laptop designed for content creators, who aren’t quite satisfied with a good-old consumer notebook. But unlike traditional, Vivobook laptops, the 16X OLED is a creator laptop with solid specifications and a huge price tag. With a starting price of Rs 1,59,990, the Vivobook Pro 16X doesn’t come cheap, while our model costs Rs 1,99,990. But does the Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED lose its practically due to its hefty price; let’s find out.

Design and Build

The main design theme behind the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED is subtlety. The laptop is extremely comfortable to use with angular corners and a large palm rest. The notebook weighs 2 kg and is over 18 inches thick, making it light and convenient to use while travelling. For a 16-inch laptop, the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED feels quite portable. Asus maintains this lightweight design despite the laptop’s aluminium build, which also gives it a premium feel.

The lid also has the Asus and Vivobook logos in a separated area on the lid. The Vivobook Pro 16X OLED comes in two colours – Cool Silver and 0°Black. The hinge on the laptop is pretty sturdy and let’s tilt the screen back to around 150 degrees. The Vivobook has a straightforward design that focuses on convenience and comfort without compromising on aesthetics and build quality.

In terms of ports, the 16X OLED opts for one USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, and a USB Type-C port with support for Thunderbolt 4 and PD. The laptop also features a full-size HDMI port, a 3.5mm combo audio jack, and a microSD card reader. You also get a port for the charging adapter. Overall, the port selection on the Vivobook 16X OLED is quite strong, although we could have done with another USB Type-C port.

The keyboard and trackpad are two of the best aspects of the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED. The keyboard is quite large with a Numpad to the right, while some of the keys feature a unique finish. We found the keyboard extremely comfortable for working, typing, or gaming with more-than adequate spacing between the keys and a nice key-travel for that tactile feel. The power button on the keyboard also doubles as a fingerprint reader, while the function keys double as multimedia keys. The keyboard also features backlighting for working in the dark.

While the trackpad on the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED looks nothing out of the ordinary, there is more going on here than meets the eye. First off, the trackpad is large and is made of glass for smooth navigation. It is comfortable to use and quite responsive. However, this is not your ordinary trackpad, Asus calls it ‘DialPad’, and it is standard on the company’s Studiobook line-up but somewhat of a surprise addition to the Vivobook Pro.

The virtual DialPad on the You can use the DialPad on the Vivobook to control volume as well as screen brightness. The DialPad can also be used in Adobe’s Creative Suite apps, including Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, and AfterEffects. Asus’ proprietary Creator Hub app can also be used to customise the DialPad for use in non-supported apps. The MyAsus app also gives you complete control to optimise your laptop’s performance and take advantage of a huge range of popular app downloads and exclusive offers. Asus also offers a 3-month subscription of Adobe Creative Cloud with the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED.

Display

For the screen, this creator version of the Vivobook opts for a 16-inch 4K (3840 x 2400 pixels resolution) OLED panel. The screen boasts a 60Hz refresh rate and a 0.2ms response time. Additionally, the display is PANTONE Validated and VESA HDR True Black 500 certified. Moreover, you get 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut and over 100% sRGB coverage with an average Delta-E < 2, thereby ensuring excellent colour reproduction and consistent image quality. Apart from content creation, the screen is also excellent for consuming content, producing images with vibrant colours and excellent levels of detail.

The 16:10 aspect ratio coupled with good viewing angles also makes for a comfortable watching experience. The screen also boasts a peak brightness of 550 nits with HDR, which is on the higher side and makes the notebook ideal for outdoor use as well. Overall, there’s little to complain about here; the screen is colour accurate with vibrant picture quality making it ideal for content creation and entertainment. However, it isn’t the best for high-paced gaming due to that limited 60Hz refresh rate.

Performance

The Vivobook Pro 16X OLED compromises little on performance. It is powered by a 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12650H paired with 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM. The laptop also came with 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 storage. There’s integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 laptop GPU to handle graphic intensive tasks. Moreover, the dedicated Nvidia GPU here uses Studio drivers as opposed to Game drivers, which is best suited to artists, developers, and creators. Throughout our usage of the Vivobook, we noticed that the laptop had no problems with multitasking, no matter what you threw at it.

In Geekbench 5, the Intel Core i9 on the Vivobook score 1971 points and a multicore score of 14654 points. We also tested the laptop in Cinebench R23, which revealed a single-core score of 1801 points and a multicore score of 15045 points. We did see scores drop when testing the laptop on battery life, getting a single-core score of 1601 points and a multi-core score of 11501 points in the Cinebench test. In Crystal Disk Mark, the SSD managed an overall Read speed of 4011 Mb/s and Write speed of 3140 Mb/s. The benchmark results reveal that the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED can easily handle a range of productivity and demanding content creation tasks.

Additionally, we also tested a few games on the notebook, including Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Apex Legends, Overwatch, and Battlefield V. Considering the panel was limited to 60Hz, we didn’t deep dive into titles and try to push them beyond 60fps. While more demanding titles like Call of Duty and Battlefield will require you to drop the resolution for 60fps gameplay, other titles like Overwatch and Apex Legends hit the 60fps threshold with 4K resolution. Additionally, the 4K panel provides excellent visuals in open world and adventure titles. We were pretty impressed with the Vivobook’s gaming capability.

#AsusVivobook Pro 16X OLED Laptop for content creators can runs games without any hurdles...@ASUS @intel @NVIDIAGeForce pic.twitter.com/e5mvwICyPl

— Carlsen (@Carlsen0491) November 27, 2022

Asus has also done a solid job with the cooling on the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED. The laptop remains relatively cool under pressure and the keyboard areas is mostly free any heat, so you won’t have any issues using the keyboard for demanding tasks over prolonged periods. However, we did notice the notebook get a little hot after 40 minutes of gaming, although most of that heat was directed away from the keyboard area. There’s no doubt that the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED is not substitute for a gaming laptop but its primary use case is content creation. And considering this laptop is heavily tailored towards that task, it is nice to see that it can run games if needed. This is definitely one of the best-performing non-gaming laptops we’ve tested and you aren’t going to have any productivity hurdles when using the Vivobook Pro.

Speakers & Webcam

The audio on the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED is handled by Hardman Kardon-certified speakers. For a laptop this slim, the speakers pack quite the punch and gets loud enough to fill a room. If you are in a jam with no headphones or external speakers, the integrated speakers will serve as an adequate substitute. You also get a 720p webcam with a privacy shutter that works well for video calls in adequate lighting. The microphone also has a background noise cancelling feature called ClearVoice in the companion app.

Battery

Asus has packed a massive 96Whr 6-cell Li-ion battery in the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED. In our testing, we got around seven hours of battery life on a single charge. Our testing included browsing Chrome, playing music on YouTube, and editing text in MS Word on battery saver mode with screen brightness at 50 percent. Considering the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED features an Intel Core i9, 4K OLED display, and Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU, the battery here is well-above average. This makes the Vivobook a reliable companion for work on the go when you’re travelling.

Verdict

With a starting price of Rs 1,59,990, the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED comes with a hefty price tag. But is this price tag justified considering what’s on offer. Well, there’s no simple answer to that question. If you are looking for a mobile workstation for professional content creation, then the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED is very easy to recommend. The notebook offers excellent performance with that powerful CPU and GPU complemented by reliable cooling. Moreover, the Vivobook has a vibrant display, comfortable keyboard, convenient form factor, premium build, and solid battery life, which further serves to sweeten the package. There are a few flaws though, like the laptop’s subpar webcam and the lack of a touchscreen option.

On balance, the Vivobook is an excellent creator laptop and has few rivals, although it does have one glaring flaw, its hefty price tag. Considering the Vivobook series has always gone the practicality route, going over-the-top does seem like a poor choice. You need look no further than Asus’ very-own Vivobook Pro 14X OLED, which is half the price of the 16X OLED and offers a much better balance of specifications relative to pricing. So even though the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED is still an excellent choice for professional creators, we don’t think it offers the best bang for your buck in the segment.