ASUS Vivobook Flip 2-in-1 Laptop: Ryzen 5 5500U, 14" IPS, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD Expired

I have this laptop. AMA

Wifi card is 8265, upgradable to whatever you want.
RAM is 4gb soldered + 4gb sodimm, 3200 cl22. I swapped in an 8gb 2666 cl19 I had lying around for 12gb total and it works. It'll run dual channel up to 8gb only.
SSD is Samsung mzvlq256hajd-00000. It's a budget nvme but sufficiently fast.
Dedicated VRAM is 512mb minimum, dynamically adjusts to however much it needs. Not configurable.
It can kinda run older games like CSGO on low (marginally better performance than the 4500u, so check out any video showing gaming on that processor). Not a buttery smooth or lag free experience but it's doable in a pinch.
CPU is a beast for the form factor, and the heat sink is pretty standard so it doesn't severely cripple the clocks. Turbo boost is disabled when unplugged, and max clocks can't be edited via regedit.
Battery life is pretty poor, does about 4-7 hours. If you use a CPU wattage limiter, you can get 7-10 hours. No USB C charging.
Screen is pretty washed out but it's forgivable for the price. Touch functionality works fine.
Plastic chassis and hinge seem sturdy enough. The plastic is a fingerprint magnet though.
Should be compatible with any MPP pen. I bought a generic MPP 2.0 pen on amazon and it works fine.

Overall verdict is that it's excellent bang for the buck and honestly nothing in its price range comes anywhere near. I would buy again if I had the choice.

Most LCD panels are made by LG, Samsung, or AUO. IPS is a patented and trademarked LG technology. The Samsung equivalent is PLS. The AUO equivalent is VA (correction, AHVA). They all do pretty much the same thing, just slightly differently to avoid infringing on each others' patents. (Chi Mei is the other big LCD manufacturer. I dunno if they have something similar.)

To avoid confusing buyers, stores and review sites call them all "IPS". But the official specs from the manufacturer can't call it IPS if the screen isn't made by LG. So more than likely this has a Samsung or AUO screen in it. It's as good as IPS (better I would say ever since LG created its cheap version of IPS about 7 years ago). But because it's not an LG screen they can't call it IPS in the official specs.

(The cheap version of IPS has very poor contrast when viewed at 45 degree diagonals. So if you display a black image on the screen and tilt it so a corner is pointed at you, it becomes almost white. It's more an issue on phones and tablets than on monitors, but still...)


Surprisingly, yes. According to Asus' tech specs, the 8 GB model comes with 4 GB soldered, 4 GB in a SO-DIMM. So you could replace the SO-DIMM with a larger module, although that would result in losing dual channel on the memory above 8 GB.

Only downsides seem to be the screen is 45% NTSC (which is about 60%-70% sRGB), has one USB-C port but it's not Thunderbolt or Power Delivery capable, and one of the two USB-A ports is USB 2.0. Annoyingly that USB 2.0 port is on the left side, which isn't ideal if you're right handed and you plug a mouse into it. All the other ports (including power) are on the right, so the cables will get in the way of your mouse if you plug other devices into the other ports.

But it wasn't enough just to annoy right-handers. If you're left-handed and use a mouse, then the fan exhaust gets blown onto your mousing hand. They really should've swapped the locations of the two USB-A ports. Probably used the same USB 3.x controller for both ports on the right side, and went with a cheaper USB 2.0 controller on the left.