Early Verdict: Intel is bringing the heat with its new 11th gen processors, and laptops like ASUS’ VivoBook S14 S433EA are reaping the benefits. The newly refreshed laptop from the Taiwanese brand is more powerful than its 10th gen brethren, thanks to its Iris Xe graphics, plentiful storage, and improved innards.

The ASUS VivoBook S14 S433EA is priced at Php 49,995

Pros

• Comes in different colors
• Relatively color-accurate screen
• 11th gen processors come with new built-in graphics that can handle mainstream games

Cons

• Can’t upgrade RAM
• Only comes with single Type-C port

Another day, another 11th generation laptop refresh for prolific Taiwanese brand ASUS, and this time it’s their mid-range VivoBook S14 S433 that’s getting the treatment. The youth-focused laptop is getting new Intel silicon along with Iris Xe Graphics that should give it a graphical boost VS its competitors.

Design and display

The VivoBook S14 line is marketed to the younger side of the market, with the laptop sporting several unique colorways. Our Indie Black variant might be more on the conservative side, but other colorways like Resolute Red, Dreamy White, and Gaia Green look stunning when they’re out of your bag and on the table.

Just like the model released earlier this year, ASUS throws in a couple of stickers in the package so you have the option to give it a more visual variety of the striking colors aren’t enough for you.

The laptop uses a mostly metal chassis and lid, with chamfered edges all around. The laptop weighs in at just 1.4 kilos which is the Goldilocks weight for devices like it since it’s neither too heavy or light. The power brick is nice and small, which makes the laptop easy to store and use when you need to leave.

The display measures in at 14-inches and is a Full HD panel with an 85% screen to body ratio. The bezels are relatively small, and the panel itself is advertised to have 100% sRGB coverage. While that might be good news for anyone looking for a relatively powerful laptop to use as a photo or video editing platform, a few technical hiccups prevent you from using the laptop as such – we’ll be diving into that later on.

Keyboard and ports

Despite the VivoBook S14’s relatively compact size, there are still plenty of ports to be had positioned all along its chassis. here are three USB 3.0 ports, as well as a single USB Type-C port, HDMI port, and a microSD card reader.

The keyboard feels great to type on, and has excellent travel for what it is. The keys are backlit, and ASUS has color-blocked the enter key to make it stand out from the rest of the keys, further adding to the youthful aesthetic.

Performance and storage

If you’ve read this hands-on so far, you probably see the similarities between this particular laptop VS the earlier 10th gen variant released earlier this year. And while the externals of the two laptops are very similar, it’s the innards that differ this time around.

The VivoBook S14 S433EA comes with Intel’s new 11th generation processors, specifically the Core i5-1135G7 chip.

That comes with higher frequency 8GB 3200MHz DDR4 RAM, along with 512GB PCIe SSD.

Unfortunately, though the RAM is soldered on and can’t be upgraded, which makes the VivoBook S14 slightly unfit for RAM-demanding tasks like video editing. Make no mistake, you CAN edit videos on it, but the experience isn’t going to be as smooth as on a notebook with 16GB or more RAM.

One thing that really puts the 11th gen chips over the previous generation is the inclusion of Iris Xe graphics. The new integrated graphics in Tiger Lake processors like the one in the VivoBook S14 S433EA gives laptops armed with them graphical processing muscle, so much so that Intel claims they’ll be able to deliver above 60 FPS performance in mainstream titles like Dota 2, CS: GO, Valorant and Leauge of Legends.

We’ll be testing those claims in our full review coming later this week, but if it’s true then it’ll give VivoBook S14 S433EA users more value in the long run as they’ll be able to use their laptop for both work and play.

Wrap-up and early conclusions

While the externals of the VivoBook S14 S433EA look identical to the 10th gen model released earlier this year, the insides couldn’t be more different.

The inclusion of Intel’s Iris Xe graphics should give the VivoBook S14 S433EA more graphical power compared to the last generation, finally allowing users to play more mainstream games on a non-gaming laptop. We’ll have to see how it fares on our full review to pass a solid verdict but things are looking promising.