Asus has introduced two laptops to its Vivobook Go line of budget and mid-range notebooks. The new Asus Vivobook Go 14 (E1404F) is a notebook with a 14 inch LCD display, while the Asus Vivobook Go 15 OLED (E1504F) sports a 15.6 inch OLED display.
Both laptops are powered by up to a 15-watt AMD Ryzen 5 7520U “Mendocino” processor with four Zen 2 CPU cores and two RDNA 2 CPU cores, making them some of the first Asus laptops to feature Mendocino chips.
As I discovered when I tested Acer’s Aspire 3 laptop with a Ryzen 3 7320U processor, AMD’s Mendocino processors present an interesting value proposition. They’re budget chips that offer the the same level of CPU performance you would have gotten from a mainstream laptop processor a few years ago.
Graphics performance was underwhelming in my tests, so don’t expect these laptops to be spectacular gaming machines, but you shouldn’t have any problems watching videos, playing less demanding games, or using other applications that can leverage the GPU for hardware-accelerated graphics.
While Asus hasn’t revealed pricing or availability details for tis new laptops yet, it’s likely from the name and processor that these won’t be positioned as premium systems. But the 14 inch model will most likely be the cheaper of the two. Not only does it lack the OLED screen
15.6 inch model does have a few premium features that will likely make it more expensive, including an OLED display that its big sibling has, but Asus will also offer entry-level configurations of the new Vivobook Go 14 with less RAM, less storage, and slower wireless capabilities.
| Vivobook Go 14 (E1404F) | Vivobook Go 15 OLED (E1504F) | |
| Display | 14 inches 1920 x 1080 pixels 60 Hz 250 nits IPS and non-IPS LCD options | 15.6 inches 1920 x 1080 pixels OLED 60 Hz 400 nits (600 nits peak) |
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 5 7520U AMD Ryzen 3 7320U | AMD Ryzen 5 7520U |
| RAM | 8GB or 16GB LPDDR5 Onboard (not upgradeable) | 16GB LPDDR5 Onboard (not upgradeable) |
| Storage | 256GB or 512GB M.2 PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD | 512GB M.2 PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD |
| Ports | 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A 1 x USB 2.0 Type-A 1 x HDMI 1.4 1 x 3.5mm audio 1 x DC power input | |
| Wireless | WiFi 5 / BT 4.1 WiFi 6E / BT 5 | WiFi 6E / BT 5 |
| Webcam | 720p w/privacy shutter | |
| Security | Fingerprint sensor | |
| Battery | 42 Wh | 50 Wh |
| Charger | 45W AC adapter | 65W AC adapter |
| Dimensions | 325 x 214 x 18mm (12.8″ x 8.4″ x 0.7″) | 360 x 232 x 18mm (14.2″ x 9.2″ x 0.7″) |
| Weight | 1.38 kg (3.04 pounds) | 1.63 kg (3.59 pounds) |
via Geeky Gadgets
Cool story, still waiting for 12-13.3″ 1080p (2k is only worth it starting at 14″, barely) with 12h battery life, maybe in spring.
That would revive the cheap netbook dream (but with a LOT more capability), with the steam deck we don’t need powerful gpus on the go anymore, that front is covered.
I would like to see that too, but I’m guessing manufacturers won’t want to make such a device that could cannibalize sales of more expensive machines.
2k is basically the same as 1080p, just like 4k is basically the same as 2160p (“true” 4k has slightly more pixels, meaning 4k TVs aren’t true 4k and it’s basically the same as 2k and 1080p)