The next generation of Windows laptops has arrived. With Qualcomm’s new ARM-based Snapdragon X Elite chip paired with Microsoft’s Copilot+PC AI tools, laptop manufacturers across the board are preparing to introduce this new combination to their customers I've spent the last week with Asus’ new Vivobook S 15 laptop to find out more.
In one sense, the latest Vivobook S 15 is pretty much as expected. The Vivobook range targets a wide range of use cases but generally acts as the all-rounder laptop; there’s a focus on thin and lightweight design, long battery life, and everyday use. The new S 15 takes all of those features and magnifies them in spectacular size.
The modifier is the processor choice and its impact on those key features.
This S 15 is one of the first “Copilot+ PC” laptops which use Qualcomm’s X Elite chipset (here with the X1E 78 100). This is an ARM-based chipset rather than the vastly more common x86 architecture the PC industry has used for over two decades. Just as Apple saw a significant performance and battery life increase when the Mac platform moved away from the x86 Intel chipsets to its own Apple Silicon ARM-based Mxx chipset, so will PC manufacturers.
Qualcomm has been quick to draw comparisons with the M3 that currently sits in the MacBook Air. The S 15 certainly sits in that window; while the M3 MacBook Air has the better benchmark performance, the S 15 wins out on multi-core performance. I expect to see countless edge cases online on which platform is “better," but the fact that there will be narrow wins across many comparisons is enough to say that Qualcomm’s chipset has closed the gap with Apple.
That’s clearly on show with battery life. I’ve not had enough time with the laptop to really dig into the battery life, but it is getting through each day comfortably. Starting at dawn with a full battery, I was happily working through some audio editing for podcasting, the usual daily work of writing and browsing with background music, and some baseball video streams in the evening… broadly speaking, I was looking at forty percent battery left at the end of the day.
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None of this is pushing the envelope, yet this run-of-the-mill workload would normally trigger battery anxiety in me after four hours. That it comfortably reaches twelve hours is the real talking point. Pair this up with the performance specs, and you realise that this consumer-focused all-rounder offering can be comparable to the similarly targeted MacBook Air.
There is one area where Apple still leads: app support, both natively and emulated x86 macOS apps.
Thanks to the relatively closed nature of Apple’s macOS app store, it could move its developers over to ARM with relative ease, and by restring older API calls, it could ensure that the x86 apps that consumers relied on in 2020 when Apple Silicon was deployed would run comfortably under x86 emulation on macOS.
Unlike macOS, which rapidly depreciates old code, Windows has a long legacy of apps running on Windows 11. That means the ability to run x86 apps on ARM-based hardware is vital. This area has improved significantly since the Surface Pro X debuted the modern emulation layer.
Now called Prism, the design challenge is to run any x86 Windows app on ARM hardware. Broadly speaking, this has been achieved. It’s not perfect, and there will no doubt be cases where x86 apps are just too awkward to run in the current emulation version.
Many of the core apps for a Windows experience have ARM versions—notably, Google’s Chrome web browser joined the ARM-based catalogue in March 2024. Naturally, these leverage the new chipset to the best of their ability. If there’s an ARM version of an app, you should be looking at that first of all.
While the S 15 is not a gaming laptop, gaming titles require far more performance and memory than a good web browser. Throwing some intense x86-based games into the Prism emulator offers a good insight into the capabilities of the laptop to run existing demanding apps.
The results were good enough for my needs, but it’s clear that gaming will need more work. The closer you get to current AAA titles, the lower you must drop framerate and resolution. Cyberpunk 2077 struggles to go above 25fps on a low-graphic setting, and you’ll be looking for 1080p and 30fps for titles released in 2022 and 2023.
Going back further you’ll find more frames and performance can be asked. Heading back to one of my favourites, the 2016 version of Doom offers a similar experience to running on an x86-focused gaming machine. However, when first entering large cavernous areas in this first-person shooter, there are the occasional moments of lag as data loads in.
It’s never going to be as clean as running native apps, but given the wide footprint of Windows apps, the Prism emulation system delivers on the promise and the needs of consumers.
Some titles, especially online multiplayer games, will refuse to run, warning that they are not designed for ARM-based systems. Anti-cheat technologies are likely at play here, but if you have a game or app that is a deal-breaker for you, checking that it can run before purchasing the S 15 (or any of the new Copilot+ PC laptops) is vital.
The move to ARM is a significant one, which offers a new trade-off for consumers to understand, but at the end of it all, the Asus 15 is still an everyday laptop that is pushing into the premium space.
The 15.6 inch OLED display pops out and is very noticeable when watching video. Given the 16:9 ratio screen, most modern TV and films will fill the display, but for productivity, some may prefer an aspect ratio with a taller screen. I’m disappointed that the screen is not touch-sensitive. Paired with the 16:9 display, it gives the air of leaving space for leisure and work.
It’s been some time since I’ve worked on a laptop with the once ubiquitous number pad to the keyboard's right. With the trackpad offset to sit under the spacebar rather than in the middle of the laptop, I felt like I was leaning left to do everything. It’s clearly a matter of taste, and no doubt if this were my personal laptop, I would get used to it, but it’s worth noting that there’s no choice on this or any other specification There’s one model, and this is it.
Part of being a Copiolt+ PC means the inclusion of several AI-based features. Microsoft has called out three key features, although I think only one has a genuine impact out of the box. The Recall feature (allowing users to search back through their personal history created by screenshots taken over time and analyzed by AI) has, after some heated online discussion, been left out of the initial package. A preview version for Copilot+PC owners will arrive in the next few months, but for now, the feature is not yett available.
Co-Creator is an image generation tool that can run from text prompts or basic sketched imagery. It’s a nice touch but when was the last time you opened Paint to do any creative work from scratch?
Then, you have the Windows Studio Effects. These work on video captured by the webcam and allow you to add real-time filters over your image, including a useful ‘portrait lighting’ filter to bring your face into the light a little more than may offered by your environment. This is a nice use of AI, staying subtle but providing something useful without too much overhead.
The Asus Vivobook S 15 offers a great screen, class-leading battery life, and a significant lift in performance over last year’s model. Asus does have an advantage here in being one of the first laptops to run the Snapdragon X Elite chipset. It won’t be the last, either. But it has been packaged in a laptop that isn’t threatening, flashy, or garish. It’s a workhorse laptop that quietly lets you get on with your work.
Given it is early days with the Snapdragon X Elite, I’d suggest that for many people waiting to see how the software scene develops, as well as what is offered by other manufacturers, would be a smart choice. Yet even though this is incredibly early in the X Elite life cycle, the Vivobook S 15 is a competent, well specced laptop that’s ready for a general audience.
Disclaimer: Asus provided a Vivobook S 15 for review purposes.
