Original Post
Written by
Edited February 13, 2024
at 11:36 PM
by
Bought this a few weeks ago and am quite happy with it for the price. Best specs I've found lately for a ~$400-$450 NEW laptop (versus refurb if that matters to you). I'm very happy with it so far. I compared it head to head with the lower powered Acer Aspire 3 ($266 but only has the Ryzen 5, 16GB, 512SSD) that was available as a refurb on eBay, and decided to keep this and return the Acer. And yeah, I posted this a couple weeks ago and am posting it again as the price went back up to $799.99, then just came back down - I like it enough to keep highlighting it.
Specs (source):
15.6" FHD (1920x1080) 16:9, 300-nits, 45% NTSC, Anti-glare, On-cell, 10-point Multi-touch, IPS Display
AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (8C / 16T, 1.8 / 4.3GHz, 4MB L2 / 8MB L3)
16GB (8GB Soldered + 8GB SO-DIMM) DDR4-3200
512GB SSD M.2 2242 PCIe 4.0x4 NVMe
Integrated AMD Radeon Graphics
Wi-Fi 6, 11ax 2x2 + BT5.1
HD 720p with Privacy Shutter
Non-backlit, English Keyboard
42Whr Battery
65W Round Tip (3-pin) Adapter
1.61 kg (3.55 lbs.)
Ports:
1x Card reader
1x HDMI 1.4b
1x Headphone / microphone combo jack (3.5mm)
1x Power connector
1x USB 2.0
1x USB 3.2 Gen 1
1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 (support data transfer only)
Warranty: 1-Year Manufacturer's Parts & Labor
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/leno...Id=6555683
31 Comments
Your comment cannot be blank.
Featured Comments
The processor difference is a quite a bit leap.
5700u is a Zen 2/GCN 5 processor with a full fat then generation GPU. AMD has no exact equivalent in the 7000 series as the Zen 2 version 7320u has a 4 cores with a heavily gimped GPU.
Personally think the $420 on sale Vivobook 16x with Zen 3 - 5800HS is a better laptop at this price.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
If you want to upgrade in compute, you should get a Zen 4 based 8 core CPU like 7840 U/H/HS or get an Intel 13700H or better.
$499 at BJs
https://www.bjs.com/product/asus-...0004649321
ASUS VivoBook M1603 16" Notebook, 12GB RAM
Performs well as a college laptop. Even trained some heavy ML models and it held it's own. I like the screen size and matte finish.
Battery life is average, not bad. Touch response is also average. Speakers are average too.
Biggest disappointment is the weak build and keyboard. Sometimes the trackpad doesn't work (cursor won't show) right after waking up from sleep. You have to touch the screen for it to work again.
Performs well as a college laptop. Even trained some heavy ML models and it held it's own. I like the screen size and matte finish.
Battery life is average, not bad. Touch response is also average. Speakers are average too.
Biggest disappointment is the weak build and keyboard. Sometimes the trackpad doesn't work (cursor won't show) right after waking up from sleep. You have to touch the screen for it to work again.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Forgot to mention earlier that 12GB RAM is sometimes a bottleneck in my tasks(Docker, coding, even extended browsing). GPU takes 2GB from that so just 10GB system memory left. 16GB or higher is the way to go.
With all that said, $430 for this laptop is a really good deal.
Forgot to mention earlier that 12GB RAM is sometimes a bottleneck in my tasks(Docker, coding, even extended browsing). GPU takes 2GB from that so just 10GB system memory left. 16GB or higher is the way to go.
With all that said, $430 for this laptop is a really good deal.
Right? Pretty happy so far as well. I don't think I'll find something I like as much in the $400 to $450 range.
https://www.samsclub.co
Separate charger? What do you mean? I ordered this laptop 2 days ago before I even saw it on Slickdeals.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
I assume it means this has a proprietary charge port rather than USB-C