ASUS ASUS - Vivobook 14 14" FHD Laptop - Intel Core i3 - 8GB Memory - 128GB SSD - Quiet Blue Review

This $293 laptop is in the 95th percentile for ports and 78th for portability, but that's where the good news ends. Its 128GB SSD and 8GB RAM land in the 9th and 12th percentiles, making it a strictly basic-use machine with no room to grow. Only buy if your budget is absolute and your needs are minimal.

The ASUS Vivobook 14 is a $293 laptop that makes a few very specific trade-offs. It lands in the 95th percentile for port selection, which is genuinely impressive for the price, and it's in the 78th percentile for compactness, weighing just 1.4kg. But you're paying for that with some serious compromises under the hood. Its CPU performance sits in the 19th percentile, and the 8GB of RAM and 128GB SSD are in the 12th and 9th percentiles, respectively. That means you're getting a very portable machine with lots of ports, but you're starting with a performance baseline that's well below average.

Let's be direct about the numbers. The Intel Core i3-1315U is a 6-core chip, but its performance lands it in the 19th percentile of our database. For basic web browsing, document editing, and video calls, it'll get the job done, but don't expect any headroom for multitasking or demanding applications. The integrated Intel UHD Graphics are predictably in the 43rd percentile, which is fine for a second screen and basic media playback, but that's it. The real bottlenecks are the 8GB of DDR4 RAM (12th percentile) and the 128GB SSD (9th percentile). Windows 11 will eat a chunk of that RAM, and you'll be managing that tiny SSD from day one.

At $293, the value proposition is simple: you're paying for a new, ultra-portable Windows machine with an excellent set of ports. The performance components (CPU, RAM, storage) are all bargain-bin, but that's how they hit this price. You're not getting performance per dollar; you're getting portability and connectivity per dollar. Compared to used or refurbished machines at this price, you get a warranty and a brand-new battery, but you sacrifice a lot of potential power.

This isn't competing with the MacBook Pros or Legion gaming laptops listed. Its real rivals are other budget ultraportables like the older Lenovo IdeaPad 3 or Acer Aspire 3. Compared to those, the Vivobook's main advantage is its port selection (95th percentile) and lighter weight. However, you can often find competing models with 256GB SSDs and sometimes 12GB of RAM for similar money, which would be a massive usability upgrade over the Vivobook's 9th percentile storage. If you can stretch your budget by $100-$150, you'll jump several performance percentiles.

Skip this laptop if you need to do more than one thing at a time. The 12th percentile RAM means multitasking is off the table. Definitely skip if you plan to store more than a few applications and documents, thanks to the 9th percentile 128GB SSD. And gamers should look elsewhere, as it scored a 10.4/100 in that category. This is a single-task machine for very light use.

We can only recommend the Vivobook 14 to a very specific user: someone who needs the absolute cheapest new Windows laptop possible, values physical ports above all else, and has extremely basic computing needs. For everyone else, the 9th percentile storage and 12th percentile RAM are deal-breakers that will cause daily frustration. Spend a little more for a 256GB SSD, at a minimum.