Is Asus Vivobook Pro 15 worth the money for graphic design jobs? Is it better than buying a much more expensive Macbook Pro? Can it run Photoshop without lagging a lot? Plus, can I play AAA games with it too?
The short answer is YES. Though some Apple fans will always disagree. But it does not matter. The fact that I have been using this laptop for around 2 years now, it's been a pleasant experience.
For around $1000 for Asus Vivobook Pro 15, specifically series M3500Q, you get a quite powerful laptop that can run . With the Ryzen 9 5900X series, 16GB of RAM, and powered by Nvidia RTX 3050 mobile GPU, it runs all Adobe apps easily. Added with a storage of 512gb M2 Nvme SSD, there's no lag day guaranteed for just graphic design work.
Here are some answer to common questions when buying laptop for graphic design.
Can it run Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and other Adobe apps?
Absolutely yes. This laptop can run all those Adobe apps very smoothly. I have been using this laptop for heavy PSD files with hundreds of layers and high resolution 300ppi, there's no lag at all.
The GOOD side.
Performance
This laptop is intended as a content creator laptop. From my experience it is indeed holds the tagline pretty well. I use it for various graphic work and pretty diverse graphic software, from all of Adobe Creative Cloud apps, Affinity Photo, Cinema4d, and Unreal Engine.
Can it run Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom? Absolute smooth. I have zero laggy experience with this laptop when running these apps. For graphic design that works heavily on branding or visual identity project, this laptop sometimes feel overkill, but it's worth the investment for the long run.
Can it run 3D apps like Cinema4d or Unreal Engine? For simple to medium scenes, this laptop is definitely capable. Rendering also take decent time. But for speedier result, I think this laptop is not the perfect fit. You need to go for much faster GPU, CPU and more RAM.
Video editing is also pretty capable, though I rarely edit videos as it is not in my skillset. Though I am sure, The recent Macbook Pro would do better for this business.
Gaming wise, I am not gaming a lot these days. Would love to, but time is so much limited. With decent its hardware specification, playing games at 1080p and 60fps at nearly maxed setting shouldn't be issue.
All in all, this is a solid laptop for performance task.
Design
For a powerful Windows laptop around $1000, it is easy to fall into gaming laptop realm of choice. But the thing is, I am not a gamer anymore, and I am looking for a sleek minimalist professional looking laptop. And this Vivobook is the perfect choice. Less arrogant looking unlike the gaming laptops counterpart and less bulky.
I pick the silver matte finish and it is definitely stunning for me. The screen bezels is quite thin. The keypad is pretty big and responsive. The Asus Vivobook chiseled name on the outer screen looks pretty elegant yet futuristic as well.
If you are looking for a professional looking laptop with good performance, and without a bulky gaming look, this Vivobook is indeed the perfect choice.
Ports
The recent trends of minimalist ports, thank to Apple for this, this Vivobook still have what current laptop users' actually need, and less worry about buying extra dongles stupidity.
It has three USB ports, one USB type C, one HDMI port, one MicroSD slot, and.... phew, one jack cable port! You can call me a boomer, but jack audio port is still much better and offers extra convenience for listening music. Not as aesthetic as wireless audio system, but less hassle for electric charging.
With all these ports are available in the box, you save yourself from splashing extra cash for stupid dongle, unless you need much more extra ports. Or maybe you need a PC than laptop, lol.
Screen
For graphic designers, a good screen will translate a good output of your creative product. This laptop has an amazing OLED screen, with great color accuracy. With an OLED panel, you will see extra richness of black color in your design, which indeed brings more clarity into your design. I am well aware of OLED burn-in problems, but Asus said that they have technology for avoiding it. Seems it's true, because for nearly 2 year now using this laptop, I do not see any burn-in symptoms yet.
For gaming, OLED is showing it's true beauty. When I play the same game on my IPS panel, I can easily see how washed the IPS panel compared to this OLED. I can affirm some comments in some tech groups saying that, once you play games in OLED, you will never go back to other classic panels.
The BAD side.
Battery.
If you expect Apple Macbook type of battery, you cannot. Apple advantages over this is because they are so well optimized and integrated from software to hardware. While Microsoft Windows is only a software, yet the hardware is developed differently by various of brands, so it will never reach the solid integration of Apple's.
For this Vivobook laptop, the battery is decent. For heavy workload programs like Photoshop or video or 3d work, the battery can last for up to 4 hours from full charged. But for lighter task like in Microsoft Powerpoint, web browsing, typing in Docs, you can expect extra length of battery usage.
So it is always important to carry the battery while you are on the go.
Fan Noise.
Whenever I plugged the charger, the fan start making some quite noise. It sounds like rain going down to the ground. Yes, I sometimes get fooled by this noise.
Though it is not as super loud like it will compete with the speakers' playback, but sometimes it does a bit nuisance.
Actually, this is caused by the Performance mode activated whenever you plug the power cord. When the cord is plugged, the CPU performance is increased up to 54W, and the fan need to keep it cool by speeding up their blades.
You can choose to disable this. But for me, it does not really matter. For my work, top performance is above all else. Or is it just a gimmick? Actually no. Because I have experience it.
When I run Photoshop or Illutrator with battery mode, it feels pretty sluggish. But when it's charged, the performance difference is obvious. That's why I sometimes just keep the laptop plugged in. This is actually not a significant bad side, at least for me. A little trade-off.
Verdict
Asus Vivobook Pro 15 M3500Q is a recommended graphic design laptop for budget around $1000. The OLED screen is fantastic for both design work and gaming stuff. It will run all Adobe apps with an ease.
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