ASUS Vivobook 15X 2023 arrives with a choice of the latest Intel and AMD processors from just RM3,099

Last year’s Vivobook 15X OLED (M1503) was a fantastic laptop, delivering excellent performance with a powerful Ryzen 5000 H-series processor and a stunning OLED display. This year, ASUS decided to drop the high performance H-series processor and OLED display, instead opting to offer the Ryzen 7 7730U and Core i5-1335U instead, along with an IPS LCD display, which is going to be a very noticeable change.

Speaking of changes, the Vivobook 15X 2023 comes with a new metal lid, a nice improvement from the all-plastic build of last year’s model. Another significant upgrade is the USB-PD support. And if you remember my main complaint about the Vivobook 15X OLED, it’s the fact that it can only be charged with its included barrel charger. The 2023 Vivobook 15X still comes with a barrel charger, but at least now you have more options to feed it juice.

Next, let’s talk about the processor. We have a U-series processor now, which means a lesser 15W TDP. This should translate to a cooler laptop, and longer battery life… but the 42WHr battery is also nearly half the size versus the 2022 Vivobook 15X OLED which had a 70WHr one. Hopefully at least the former is true, but we will have to run our benchmarks to find out.

You get 8GB of DDR4-3200 RAM soldered onto the motherboard, with a vacant SO-DIMM slot for you to expand the memory if needed. Up to 1TB of storage comes standard, which should be plenty of space for a productivity-focused machine. The most contentious decision that ASUS did is probably dropping the fantastic 2.8K 120Hz OLED display for a cheaper FHD IPS panel. This is presumably to save some costs… but…

ASUS Vivobook 15X 2023 Price and Availability in Malaysia

The Intel-powered Vivobook 15X (K3504) with 512GB of storage is priced at RM3,099, a mere RM200 less than the Vivobook 15X OLED (M1503). Meanwhile the AMD-powered Vivobook 15X (M3504) features 1TB of storage and comes in at RM3,199. Both variants of the Vivobook 15X will be available starting this month.

To be entirely honest, I don’t know why are we getting such major downgrades with this year’s model with such minimal cost savings, as the only main upgrades being the metal lid and USB-PD support. I guess, just like my comments about the Vivobook Go 15, ASUS did too good a job with last year’s pricing?