ASUS Vivobook S 15 (S5507) Review – Is ARM Worth The Hype?

Here it is: Snapdragon’s grand entrance into the laptop segment, previously dominated by the x86 duo, Intel and AMD, for more than two decades. The ASUS Vivobook S 15 (S5507) is the first wave of Snapdragon X series laptops that aims to challenge the status quo, but it wasn’t the first attempt at Windows-on-ARM – that credit goes to Snapdragon 8cx, which didn’t make much impact outside of some niche.

But things has changed since then, with Apple making the full switch to ARM with its M-series SoCs powering MacBooks and iMacs. Qualcomm tries again with the help of AI PC hype, but will ARM make as much of an impact towards Windows PCs just like a seismic shift that occurred in the world of Macs? Let’s find out.

Unboxing

Vivobook is ASUS’s mainstream lineup, so its packaging are pretty standard. Oddly, this box omits the numbers which quoted several numbers for its recycled content, but other than that, the box can be lifted open to reveal its contents.

In this box, you get:
– Type G (UK) socket adapter
– 90W USB-C DC power supply
– User guide
– Quick start guide
– MyASUS leaflet
– The ASUS Vivobook S 15 (S5507) laptop

Walkaround

This particular Vivobook comes with the Cool Silver color option (the only one available in Malaysia for now), and inside you’ll find the 3K OLED display – which still runs the 16:9 aspect ratio, unlike the majority of laptops that has since adopted 16:10 in recent years.

Besides that, there is an array of sensors alongside the webcam, all housed in a boxed glass cutout from the top bezel. A physical webcam shutter is present on top of the frame for enhanced privacy.

Pretty standard affair on the keyboard and touchpad side of things, though this being the so-called “AI PC” means Copilot key takes away the spot where Right Ctrl key resided. The keyboard also supports Windows Dynamic Lighting, so you’re getting effectively a single-zone RGB here.

Meanwhile, the hinge allowed the display to lay completely flat, something that is not doable on the Zenbook S 16 we recently reviewed.

The rear of the laptop reveals the full-length cutout, of which a pair of exhaust fans located on either sides of the chassis help push the heat out of the laptop (there are also several hidden cutouts if you look closely). In terms of I/O, you get HDMI 2.1, a pair of USB-C ports, a pair of USB-A ports, a headphone jack, and a microSD card – not much, but just enough for most people’s use cases.

Specifications

ASUS Vivobook S 15 (S5507Q-ADA098WSM)

Full specifications available on product webpage.

CPU	Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 (12 cores, 12 threads)
RAM	32GB LPDDR5X-8448 (soldered)
GPU	Integrated: Qualcomm Adreno X1 GPU (3.8 TFLOPS)
NPU	Qualcomm Hexagon NPU (45 TOPS)
Storage	Micron 2400 1TB SSD (MTFDKBA1T0QFM-1BD1AABGB – PCIe 4.0, M.2 2280)
Display	15.6″ 3K 16:9 OLED 2880×1620@120Hz, 0.2ms response time 100% DCI-P3, 10-bit (1.07B colors) 400 nits SDR / 600 nits HDR max brightness Glossy non-touch panel VESA DisplayHDR True Black 600 certification TÜV Rheinland cerified SGS Eye Care Display
Audio	Downward-firing stereo speakers tuned by harman/kardon Dolby Atmos Support
Webcam	1080p IR camera Windows Hello support Mechanical webcam shutter
I/O	Left: 1x HDMI 2.1 2x USB4 40Gbps (DisplayPort, 90W USB PD, Thunderbolt compatibility) 1x microSD card reader 1x 3.5mm combo jack Right: 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps) Type-A
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 (Qualcomm FastConnect 7800)
Battery	70Wh 3-cell Li-ion
Power Supply	90W, USB-C charger
Operating System	Windows 11 Home
Dimensions	352.6 x 226.9 x 14.7-15.9 mm
Weight	1.42kg

Performance

Note: All benchmark runs are performed and measured on Standard power profile unless otherwise stated.

Storage

The SSD found within this laptop is the Micron 2400 SSD that we’ve been pretty familiar with, and it provides decent performance by PCIe 4.0 SSD’s standards. That said, we found its performance to be slightly slower than that of the Zenbook S 16 we reviewed, despite both machines using the same model.

CPU

Here’s probably what you’re looking for in this review to see Snapdragon X is any good – but before that, let’s explain some terms in order for you to understand how this chart works.

Fundamentally speaking, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite uses a completely different design than what we’ve been known with Intel and AMD chips. Snapdragon, like the one found in Android smartphones, uses the ARM instruction set; meanwhile, Intel and AMD has relied on the x86 instruction set which has served the PC industry for more than 4 decades by now.

One disadvantage for ARM chips like the Snapdragon when it comes to running apps on PC is the compatibility. While the chipmaker promises that most of the common apps will run, some of them will have caveats. For example, in apps that do not come with native ARM support (like Cinebench R20), the performance can tank in half – multi-core performance is about the same as a 2-year-old laptop, but single-core performance is only comparable to a 6-year-old laptop at best.

However, if the apps does support ARM natively, then the performance can be powerful – we’re talking taking Intel’s top Meteor Lake chip (Core Ultra 9 185H) and AMD’s top Strix Point chip (Ryzen AI 9 HX 370) head on. What about the power draw? This gets a bit muddied. At current state, Qualcomm’s telemetry doesn’t provide power draw information to software like HWiNFO64, though we can deduce a rough figure from the battery discharge rate and its relative performance.

The battery draws around 25W during the Cinebench 2024 multi-core test, though the performance are significantly worse than what it can do with connected power (roughly half of the performance under Standard Mode in AC). We think the actual power draw is likely between 40-50W for Standard mode (official figures suggests 45W), and a fair bit higher with Full Speed mode active, depending on the power scaling characteristics of this chip. However, without any reliable data, it’s hard to say exactly how much power it consumes.

GPU

Next is GPU benchmarks, and there are two takeaways: one, the Adreno GPU in the Snapdragon chip lacks DirectX 12 Ultimate support – meaning all games that feature ray tracing is an automatic no-go for this laptop (it also couldn’t run the 3DMark Speed Way or 3DMark Port Royal, for that matter). Two, for the games that do run, don’t expect its performance to be competitive, as the numbers presented here indicate that Adreno has a big hill to climb if it ever hopes to catch up to its competitors.

System

The benchmarks that we managed to run is Novabench (both the ARM and x86 versions), though its performance on both CPU and GPU fronts has lagged behind its Team Blue and Team Red counterparts. The performance naturally worsens when we use the x86 version to see its compatibility mode performance, but it’s quite a significant gap based on the numbers. Note that we couldn’t PCMark 10 Modern Office benchmark as the applications used for the test are not currently supported in ARM systems.

Battery

Since we couldn’t run the PCMark 10 battery life test like we usually do to x86-based laptops, we opted for UL Procyon’s video playback loop test to see how long it lasts (with display calibrated to 200 nits of brightness, or around 75%). It managed to last over 12 hours before the laptop shuts down – but the real killer of the Snapdragons comes down to its idle and standby power.

From our testing, we found out that the laptop loses so little power when you put it to sleep, you can basically treat it like a smartphone. The same kind of stuff that Apple has done for its ARM MacBooks, now in a Windows machine! If all you’re after is a laptop that can last a whole day without you worrying about its battery level and go through the shutdown and boot process, then Qualcomm has made a very compelling point here.

The Good

Much of the hype surrounding Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon chips comes down to its efficiency potential – Apple has made a strong case when it switched to ARM-based M-series SoCs in 2020, and since then the Windows world has expected similar things to happen when Qualcomm is entering the laptop market with new chips based on Oryon cores.

The end result? Highly power-efficient laptops that can outperform its x86-based rivals at the same amount of power, and it behaves just like a smartphone, where you can just close the lid and not worry about battery dying when you need it. Still, I’m going to slow down the hype train here and say, both AMD and Intel aren’t immediately knocked out of the competition just yet – Intel still has Lunar Lake coming up that may prove x86 still has it in the bag.

As with most laptops today, the display has been on point for the most part thanks to the high-resolution OLED panel. It’s good enough to use in relatively bright environments, and the color accuracy is solid for color-critical work. The I/O is decent, enough to expand on a few accessories – and a pair of USB-A ports is always handy if you need it more than just connecting a mouse or a USB drive.

The Bad

While Qualcomm promises excellent efficiency with ARM chips, one downside with ARM laptops today is the rather spotty compatibility issues. If you’re just a regular user that uses nothing more than Google Docs, Office, and mostly relies on the web, it’s unlikely to be any of your concern; however, anything more specialized than that and you’ll soon get into trouble with getting the apps to run.

While setting up the drivers for our display calibration tool, it was only a few failed attempts that we realized it might just not be supported on ARM systems at all. For gamers, any games that comes with ray tracing will not run – since the Adreno GPU lacks DirectX 12 Ultimate API support that is required. On that note, the Adreno GPU is fairly lacking in terms of performance – so keep your expectations low if you want to play games on these laptops.

Oddly, ASUS has chose to use a 15-inch chassis for the Snapdragon variant of this laptop – both Intel and AMD versions has already adopted the now-common 16:10 aspect ratio, while this one remains on the 16:9 ratio. You lose some vertical space as a result, and it really doesn’t help that Windows 11’s taskbar is already taking a big chunk of vertical pixels, so you might need to scroll more often to read a long-form content, or navigating through spreadsheets.

Finally, a bit of nitpicking on our part – under Full Speed mode, the fans spins so fast that it produces extremely loud noises (in excess of 60dB) that can certainly rival that of the gaming laptops. It’s a stark contrast to the company’s new Zenbook lineup where it’s downright reasonable to run on maximum fan speeds, and we honestly wouldn’t recommend anyone using it because it’ll annoy just about everyone in the same room.

Verdict

At RM6,299, the ASUS Vivobook S 15 (S5507) is, in many ways, not too different than a regular x86-based laptop; however, in other ways, it’s a night-and-day difference in terms of user experience. My suggestion? Keep your expectations reasonable – if you think you will use any tools that are more exotic than usual (or just wants a peace of mind that everything will just work), it’s better to stick to x86 laptops from AMD and Intel, for now.

Special thanks to ASUS Malaysia for providing the Vivobook S 15 (S5507) for this review.