Intel’s AI chips rest hopes on Asus Vivobook Flip 14’s versatile consistency
The Asus Vivobook Flip 14 is that unique, subtle set of changes, for when an upgrade doesn’t feel like one, till you use a previous generation laptop
There was something deeply impressive about Asus’ very much on-point laptop refreshes through the best part of last year. Many firsts too, in those moments. Specifically for the portfolio, the Vivobook S15 ushering the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite era, the Vivobook S14 marking Intel’s arrival into the AI PC race, while the Zenbook S16 did that resoundingly for AMD. A year later, that trajectory continues. The Asus Vivobook Flip 14 marks the arrival of the Intel Core Ultra 7 (Series 2) chips for India’s computing device landscape. Considering Intel’s troubles off late, they need these chips to succeed. At least on their part, Asus have given it a Vivobook Flip 14 collective that doesn’t have any weak links.
It isn’t often that we find that balance of a rather interesting, versatile form factor with the sort of performance that’d hold you in good stead, below the ₹1,00,000 price point. In fact, the Vivobook Flip 14 is priced at ₹96,990 which may just be the ticket if a 360-degree hinge is what you’re looking for. The spec that we tested builds with an Intel Core Ultra 7 - 256V processor as well as an 47 TOPS (or trillion operations per second) neural processing unit (or NPU), 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD storage. An Asus laptop without a brilliant OLED display is nigh impossible to imagine these days, and this one’s no different.
A lot of the NPU potential will be fulfilled in times to come, but using Copilot on the Vivobook Flip 14 versus a laptop with a much inferior NPU, and the difference in speed and clarity of responsiveness becomes very clear.
There is little to complain about in terms of performance, and how well the Vivobook Flip 14 holds that performance even when you may think you’re straining it. To that point, it is incredible that I barely ever heard the cooling fan speed up when using this laptop for work on unusually hectic workdays milling between different apps, windows and carelessly strewn around web browser tabs. Even if you do stretch it further in terms of multitasking. That said, there will be moments when the further areas of the underside (closer to the display hinge, so to speak) do feel a little tepid - such as for a few minutes after Windows 11 has booted up.
Speaking of which, Windows Hello camera on this laptop was a bit of a hit and miss. It is difficult to be certain if this is a one-off trouble for this particular unit, or the camera’s finicky reaction to inconsistent ambient light (which may often be the case, as you move around with the Vivobook Flip 14).
In terms of frugality and battery stamina, we were able to draw close to 16 hours on a single charge with moderate multitasking. For slightly lighter workloads, that stat sees an improvement of up to 2 hours. Impressive, in either case. The Asus Vivobook Flip 14 is surprisingly frugal with video streaming (Asus’ Lumina OLED implementation improvements over time contribute to this), unlike laptops with simpler LED screens. The Lumina OLED is particularly good with keeping reflections at bay, even though this isn’t a matte screen by any stretch of the imagination. Deep blacks, bright and well separated colours as well as smart add-ons including OLED power saving and burn-in prevention should hold your laptop ownership in good stead.
The Asus Vivobook Flip 14 is that unique upgrade when an upgrade doesn’t feel like an upgrade, till you use a machine thats inferior. There are consistents, namely a fine display and a comfortable keyboard to work with. It is then that the magic of subtlety begins to shine through. It all adds up. There are smart touches everywhere, which become clear with the passage of time. The Wi-Fi 7 future proofing, touchpad with smart swipe gestures for volume and brightness control, a bundled Asus Pen 2.0 stylus and software utilities such as Shared Cam between the Vivobook Flip 14 and your phone, add even more versatility to a 360-degree hinge laptop that can really twist and turn.