Deciding between 2 Asus Laptops - Need some advice!

[Teo Ming Ern]

I'm about to pull the trigger on a laptop. This is meant as a gift for a nephew who is doing computer science overseas. He's not doing 3D stuff or video rendering etc. Mainly just coding and compiling. At least that is what I understand it to be. I have no idea what it is he exactly does in his course but it's computer science. He's not gaming on it at all, so can discount that.

I walked through Harvey Norman today and thought this was quite suitable. I was intrigued that there are 2 models that are almost identical. Thought to ask which I should get. They don't seem all that different.

Asus Vivobook Go 15 15.6-inch OLED AMD Ryzen 5 7520U/16GB/512GB SSD Laptop - Mixed Black E1504FA-L1373W​

https://www.harveynorman.com.sg/com...6-inch-laptop-mixed-black-e1504fa-l1373w.html

Asus Vivobook 15 15.6-inch Intel Core i5-1235U/8+8GB/512GB SSD Laptop - Quiet Blue (X1504ZA-BQ1317W)​

https://www.harveynorman.com.sg/com...html?#ins_sr=eyJwcm9kdWN0SWQiOiIyMDQ2MDY5In0=

It would seem the main differences are the following:
1. CPU - one's an AMD Ryzen 5 7520U, the other is an Intel Core i5-1235U. Both are U specifications hence they're for light and thin laptops.
2. The AMD one has an OLED screen, the Intel one is not specified but I gather it is an IPS screen. Only the AMD model was on display.
3. Price. The Intel one is $3 more at $899, and that's after a $100 discount on the AMD one ($896, $996 before discount)
4. The AMD one seems lighter at 1.63 kg while the Intel one is heavier at 1.70 kg. Minimal but every gram counts when you have commute daily it would seem.

Which should I get? Trade the OLED screen for the Intel processor?

Any advice is appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[clearsky7]

The Intel one has a 250 nits brightness and NTSC 45% color gamut display. That sits pretty much at the bottom rung of IPS displays. Abit surprised they still selling such panels. Put it beside an OLED, the diffrence is night & day. Already a dealbreaker for me. That said, I do personally prefer intel cpu over AMD tho

 

[Teo Ming Ern]

The Intel one has a 250 nits brightness and NTSC 45% color gamut display. That sits pretty much at the bottom rung of IPS displays. Abit surprised they still selling such panels. Put it beside an OLED, the diffrence is night & day. Already a dealbreaker for me. That said, I do personally prefer intel cpu over AMD tho

Yeah you know what I feel lar... the OLED screen is swell! But the processor is a bit weak although I guess it's kind of ok... that's why I'm asking...

What kind of battery life am I looking at? 3-4 hours tops? At 50% brightness?

I have no idea how poor the IPS screen is cos of the 4 variants for this laptop that Harvey Norman carries, only this with the Ryzen 5 comes with an OLED screen and it's the one on display. There are 2 other models, with only 8GB RAM, one with a Ryzen 3 7320U (which I gather is Intel Celeron standard) at $659, and another with the same Ryzen 5 7520U but only 8 GB RAM with the IPS screen at $725... it seems the OLED screen & extra 8 GB is worth $154...

There's actually a 3rd model with comes with an Intel i7-1360P & PCIe4.0 NVME SSD and an OLED screen at 2.8K 120 Hz and extra year of international warranty (2 years total). But that's like $1507, an extra $611 more... don't need something so powerful and exotic I guess...

 

[caterham7]

personally would check which model has backlit keyboard, which one has type-c charging as an option

both features are useful

searched website specs, unfortunately not mentioned

 

[Teo Ming Ern]

personally would check which model has backlit keyboard, which one has type-c charging as an option

both features are useful

searched website specs, unfortunately not mentioned

No back lit keyboard unfortunately... I think charging is via USB-C from my memory...

 

[wifi_18Z]

Before going down to view the physical models, do ur research via the Asus website. Then u know which models to look out for

 

[qhong61]

I'm about to pull the trigger on a laptop. This is meant as a gift for a nephew who is doing computer science overseas. He's not doing 3D stuff or video rendering etc. Mainly just coding and compiling. At least that is what I understand it to be. I have no idea what it is he exactly does in his course but it's computer science. He's not gaming on it at all, so can discount that.

I walked through Harvey Norman today and thought this was quite suitable. I was intrigued that there are 2 models that are almost identical. Thought to ask which I should get. They don't seem all that different.

Asus Vivobook Go 15 15.6-inch OLED AMD Ryzen 5 7520U/16GB/512GB SSD Laptop - Mixed Black E1504FA-L1373W​

https://www.harveynorman.com.sg/com...6-inch-laptop-mixed-black-e1504fa-l1373w.html

Asus Vivobook 15 15.6-inch Intel Core i5-1235U/8+8GB/512GB SSD Laptop - Quiet Blue (X1504ZA-BQ1317W)​

https://www.harveynorman.com.sg/com...html?#ins_sr=eyJwcm9kdWN0SWQiOiIyMDQ2MDY5In0=

It would seem the main differences are the following:
1. CPU - one's an AMD Ryzen 5 7520U, the other is an Intel Core i5-1235U. Both are U specifications hence they're for light and thin laptops.
2. The AMD one has an OLED screen, the Intel one is not specified but I gather it is an IPS screen. Only the AMD model was on display.
3. Price. The Intel one is $3 more at $899, and that's after a $100 discount on the AMD one ($896, $996 before discount)
4. The AMD one seems lighter at 1.63 kg while the Intel one is heavier at 1.70 kg. Minimal but every gram counts when you have commute daily it would seem.

Which should I get? Trade the OLED screen for the Intel processor?

Any advice is appreciated!

Thanks!

Why not give him cash.
Let him buy himself.

 

[watzup_ken]

The Intel one has a 250 nits brightness and NTSC 45% color gamut display. That sits pretty much at the bottom rung of IPS displays. Abit surprised they still selling such panels. Put it beside an OLED, the diffrence is night & day. Already a dealbreaker for me. That said, I do personally prefer intel cpu over AMD tho

I agree. I used to own a laptop that comes with a display with these sort of brightness and color gamut, and it was terrible. At home, I am already using like 200+ nits. With some indirect sunlight, I may have jack up the brightness to the max and still find it quite dim. Some people may like dim screens, but I think it is too hard to read anything under common lighting conditions.

But going with the AMD laptop also means you may be losing performance since this 7520U is based on Zen 2. Why don't you wait for 11:11 sale and see if like Acer have some decent deals. Asus laptops tend to be overpriced based on my observation. Like 900 bucks for a Zen 2 based laptop certainly don't sound cheap to me even with the OLED display.

 

[Teo Ming Ern]

I agree. I used to own a laptop that comes with a display with these sort of brightness and color gamut, and it was terrible. At home, I am already using like 200+ nits. With some indirect sunlight, I may have jack up the brightness to the max and still find it quite dim. Some people may like dim screens, but I think it is too hard to read anything under common lighting conditions.

But going with the AMD laptop also means you may be losing performance since this 7520U is based on Zen 2. Why don't you wait for 11:11 sale and see if like Acer have some decent deals. Asus laptops tend to be overpriced based on my observation. Like 900 bucks for a Zen 2 based laptop certainly don't sound cheap to me even with the OLED display.

Thanks bro! The decent Acer laptops are pretty expensive... the Swift range is totally out of my budget... the Swift Edge 16 is really nice... there was an offer at the Harvey Norman near my place for $1268 for a display set some weeks back... still out of my budget...

Anyway I bought the OLED model... decided that the much better screen was worth the trade off for a less powerful CPU since I don't think what's being run on it isn't too demanding... I asked a friend who's a computer science graduate and doing coding and writing applications now... and he said that even an Intel Pentium N100 was definitely sufficient... more important was the amount of RAM... as long as no 3D rendering or heavy video editing...

 

[hkchew03]

Acer Swift Go 14 with 8845HS, 16GB and 14" OLED was going at $950 2 weeks ago in Amazon , now can only get 8645HS at $1150, still way better than both.

 

[Teo Ming Ern]

Acer Swift Go 14 with 8845HS, 16GB and 14" OLED was going at $950 2 weeks ago in Amazon , now can only get 8645HS at $1150, still way better than both.

Prefer the larger screen... and it's still $50 more... too close to the $1000 mark... anyway it's a done deal...

 

[hkchew03]

Prefer the larger screen... and it's still $50 more... too close to the $1000 mark... anyway it's a done deal...

Up to you too decide, $50 more for double to triple the processing power, only downside is smaller size but you do have 250g tho. Bonus is he can even run some games when he's bored.