Asus VivoBook Pro 16X OLED review: Built for creators, designers

However, Asus recently launched some new additions to the VivoBook series, including the VivoBook Pro 16X OLED that we have in for review today. The laptop comes with a buffed spec-sheet but also some key features dedicated to creators who don’t want to spend as much as they would have on the ZenBook series.

But at a starting price of Rs 1,24,990, does the VivoBook Pro 16X OLED make sense, or should you look at the ZenBook models? Read on to find out.

Asus VivoBook Pro 16X: What’s good?

VivoBook Pro 16X has a number of great additions, but my favourite, and what makes this laptop primarily stand apart is the gorgeous 4K display. This 4K OLED panel is stunning to look at from the moment you open up the screen.

The display doesn’t have the smallest bezels, but it supports 100 per cent DCI-P3 color gamut and 133 per cent sRGB color gamut coverage along with a Pantone Validated certification. (Image Source: The Indian Express/ Chetan Nayak)

It doesn’t have the smallest bezels, but it supports 100 per cent DCI-P3 color gamut and 133 per cent sRGB color gamut coverage along with a Pantone Validated certification. This gives you great colour accuracy, which is crucial for designers and creators. Pantone Validation also means the colours you see on the screen are the exact colours you’d see on print or another Pantone Validated display, ironing out any colour inconsistencies. The screen can also get pretty bright, at up to 550 nits on the 16X variant.

The laptop comes with a full keyboard with the numpad, and has big keycaps with decent travel. (Image Source: The Indian Express/ Chetan Nayak)

It has a sleek, minimal design, but with a few extras like the 3D metallic logo on the lid, an orange Esc key and an Enter key with a pattern underneath it. While not everyone may fall head over heels with the minimalism here, this is certainly a good-looking laptop. The laptop also comes with a full keyboard, and big keycaps with decent travel, ensuring you have a comfortable typing experience, even for longer text sessions.

One thing we did miss in the design, however, is the signature ErgoLift hinge that tilts the keyboard at you when the laptop is open.

Asus Dialpad

Another USP of the Asus VivoBook Pro 16X OLED laptop is the new Asus Dialpad which lays on the trackpad and comes with its own gesture trigger for when you need it. The Dialpad is a contextual menu that you can navigate through by a combination of taps and circular swipes.

The Asus Dialpad will bring new menus and controls depending on the program you have open. (Image Source: The Indian Express/ Chetan Nayak)

Fire it up on your desktop and you’d only see a system volume and system brightness toggle, which isn’t that impressive, but once you open up any Adobe program like Photoshop or Premiere Pro, you will see many more menus which are more than just handy.

Tools like brush size and opacity in Photoshop, and timeline zoom and height in Premiere Pro, all controllable from one circle can give you an amazon productivity boost once you get a hang of the Dialpad. Meant to be used by your left hand, the Dialpad frees up your right hand from switching between a number of options that creators will have to often switch between hundreds of times in a project (if not more).

This works well with the large trackpad, but gets even better with a wired/wireless mouse, letting you create your project with your right hand while you have complete control over tools and keyboard shortcuts with your left.

The Asus VivoBook Pro 16X also comes with powerful specifications, including a Ryzen 9 5900HX, 16GB DDR4 RAM, up to 1TB SSD storage and an Nvidia RTX 3050Ti GPU. This translates to blazing speeds for pretty much any use-case. From booting up to rendering 4K footage on Premiere Pro, everything is quick here, and the RTX 3050Ti GPU also means users get a much better experience creating or editing graphic-heavy tasks.

The laptop features impressive specifications and a good i/o panel. (Image Source: The Indian Express/ Chetan Nayak)

Other features include an average 720p webcam with a dedicated physical shield for extra privacy, which was a nice addition. There is also support for Dual-Band WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0 and Harman Kardon certified speakers which sound great, but aren’t too loud.

The i/o panel includes a single USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A port, a single USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type C port, two USB 2.0 Type A ports and one HDMI 1.4 port. There is also a 3.5mm combo audio port and the DC charging port.

The Asus VivoBook Pro 16X also excels at battery life and the 96 WHr battery lets you work all day with moderate usage and a fast charging technology also tops up the laptop pretty quickly. There is a power button with a built-in fingerprint scanner that is small, but very accurate.

Asus VivoBook Pro 16X: What’s not good?

There isn’t a lot to complain about the VivoBook Pro 16X, which is a rather well-balanced package for creators, office goers and pretty much anyone except gamers. If we were to nitpick, we’d point out the brushed finish lid which picks up fingerprints and smudges instantaneously, but that is pretty much it.

However, we would like to point out that while the Asus Dialpad feature is great, it is still inferior to the brand’s own ScreenPad 2.0 and ScreenPad Plus dual-screen tech which offers more flexibility and contextual use-cases, while having a relatively smaller learning curve.

Is the VivoBook Pro 16X for you?

The Asus VivoBook Pro 16X OLED is a great laptop for its target audience, but with its hefty price, I feel it may not be the right device for all creators. For those with more video-editing use-cases, a ZenBook-series laptop with the brand’s signature ScreenPad Plus or Dual-Screen implementations may still make more sense.

However, if you want a larger 16-inch panel with a brilliant OLED display (something all the ZenBook variants don’t have) along with newer, more powerful specifications, the VivoBook Pro is also a solid option to look at, depending on your personal taste.