Asus Vivobook Flip 14 Tp401na-uh21t 2 in 1 Pc Review

The Asus VivoBook Flip xiv (starts at $399.99; $499.99 as tested) oozes style for a upkeep convertible. In clamshell-laptop mode, the thin, flat, aluminum blueprint will turn heads, and that thinness makes it experience fairly natural as an oversize tablet. Backed by a Core m3 processor and eMMC flash storage, our examination configuration rests nearly the upkeep end of the Flip 14 lineup. The good news nigh this component pairing is that the Flip 14 tin run all day and deliver enough oomph to power Windows ten smoothly—and fanlessly. The bad news: Media editing will require patience, and the local storage is practically nil. On the whole, however, the VivoBook Flip 14 makes smart allotment of your upkeep dollars, particularly if y'all have embraced cloud storage.

Aluminum on a Upkeep?

Asus would take a hard fourth dimension denying it borrowed inspiration from the Apple MacBook ($389.90 at Amazon) when putting together the VivoBook Flip 14 ($389.90 at Amazon) . It features an impressively sparse keyboard deck with rounded corners and straight edges that don't taper. The two 360-caste display hinges feel sturdy and concord the display in identify, no matter the angle y'all choose. The thin, slab-like shape of the arrangement looks cool, and when you rotate the display effectually and put the Flip fourteen into Tablet mode, it doesn't feel bulky and awkward like some larger-screen convertibles exercise.

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I challenge you to detect a more compact, lighter 14-inch budget convertible. The VivoBook Flip xiv measures 0.6 past 12.nine by 8.9 inches (HWD) and weighs just iii.31 pounds. It's not quite as sparse as the pricier Asus ZenBook Flip 14 UX461UN ($389.xc at Amazon) (0.55 by 12.9 past viii.9 inches), simply it's thinner, trimmer, and lighter than the similarly priced Acer Spin 3 (0.82 past 13.2 past ix.1 inches; 3.75 pounds).

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Like the laptop itself, the keyboard is thin and quiet. The keys provide a pleasing, springy experience with a muffled click sound that makes it ane of the quietest laptop keyboards on which I've had the pleasure to type. The keyboard lacks backlighting, which is a bummer simply a feature that's ofttimes left off of upkeep models.

The touchpad feels responsive and has a smooth, matte surface for easy gliding and swiping. Its clicks are a flake pronounced, though, and the necessary depression requires besides much travel, which makes using information technology a bit of an effort. Compared with the quiet keyboard, the clicky-sounding touchpad is even more noticeable.

A wide palm rest holds court below the keyboard, and a fingerprint reader sits in the summit-left corner of the touchpad. The keyboard deck feels rigid, but the lid and bottom panel each flex a bit under your fingers when you lot're carrying the laptop with the lid airtight. The example's flex isn't a big bargain otherwise.

Solid-Plenty Panel, Surprising Speakers

The fourteen-inch full Hard disk drive (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) affect screen looks sharp, but I needed to tweak the display scaling (Settings > Organisation > Display) out of the box, something I don't normally notice myself adjusting on Windows laptops. Asus set up the organization to scale Windows 10 at 150 pct, which fabricated windows, text, and icons as well large (to my optics, at least) and fabricated the desktop thereby feel cramped. I dropped the scaling down a notch, to 125 pct; text remained legible, and I was able to juggle multiple windows more easily.

The brandish isn't wearisome, but it'south not the brightest panel I've encountered. The glossy screen coating tin also be troublesome in terms of glare and reflections if yous use this auto outdoors or under harsh indoor lighting. Colors look accurate, however, and the touch screen feels snappy and responsive.

The screen bezels are narrow on the sides but a fleck wider above the brandish and much wider on the bottom. This gives you lot a couple of comfortable zones on which to rest your pollex without interfering with the screen, if you're gripping the laptop in tablet style.

I take no complaints near the organisation'due south speakers. Despite using small-scale, two-watt stereo drivers, the VivoBook Flip 14 kicks out the jams. Music usually sounds tinny on a budget laptop and distorted at the maximum book level. Non simply does the VivoBook Flip 14 offer total, convincing sound, but it also stays clear at its meridian book setting. Honestly, I was shocked at how adept its audio output sounds. While watching Vulfpeck videos on YouTube, the high tones of the funk rhythm guitars and keyboards came through cleanly, while the bass was able to fill out the bottom end. The laptop'south audio won't fill a large room, but you'll be able to bask your tunes in pocket-sized and medium-size ones. For personal listening, information technology'south surprisingly good.

To cut such a trim profile, the VivoBook Flip 14 jettisons USB Type-A ports for the smaller, thinner Type-C diversity in the grade of a lone USB 3.1 Type-C port, along with a (likely less useful) micro USB 2.0 port. You'll also need to make practise with a micro HDMI port instead of the full-size flavour, which ways even so another dongle to carry in your laptop pocketbook. The Type-C port and the micro HDMI are on the laptop's correct edge, forth with the AC-adapter connexion signal and an audio jack.

You do get a full-size SD card slot, yet. Also on the system's left edge is the power push button and a book rocker, the latter of which is particularly useful in tablet mode when y'all tin't access the function-row keys that double as volume controls.

Efficiency Over Oomph

Our Asus VivoBook Flip 14 test configuration (model TP401CA) features an Intel Core m3-7Y30, which is a 1GHz (2.6GHz turbo) dual-core processor, forth with 4GB of RAM and merely 64GB worth of eMMC flash storage. (Notation that eMMC is flash storage, but don't confuse it with a true solid-state drive, or SSD.)

You'll come across many configurations for the VivoBook Flip fourteen, from entry-level Celeron- and Pentium-based models to pricier units rocking Core i3, i5, and i7 U-serial chips. The Core m3 processor is a lower-end processor designed for efficiency over power. It has a stock thermal blueprint ability (TDP) rating of only 4.v watts, but Asus has it configured in the VivoBook Flip xiv at an upticked TDP setting of 7 watts, which sets its base frequency at 1.6GHz. By comparison, the Acer Spin three ($389.90 at Amazon) features a Core i3-8130U, a ii.2GHz (3.4GHz turbo) dual-core processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive.

Run across How Nosotros Test Laptops

While the speedy eMMC storage helped the VivoBook Flip xiv keep pace with the Acer Spin 3 on PCMark 8, the limits of its Cadre m3 processor are clear when you await at its scores on our media processing tests. They are well backside the Spin 3 and ii other Cadre i3-based systems, the Dell Latitude 3390 2-in-1 and the Lenovo Yoga 720. The VivoBook Flip 14 had no trouble, still, outpacing the Celeron-based Acer Spin one.

All of the systems assembled here characteristic integrated Intel graphics and, thus, fail to distinguish themselves on our 3D graphics and gaming tests...

The VivoBook Flip 14 uses the Intel HD Graphics 615 variant and is about a half-step backside the scores posted past the Core i3-based systems and their Intel Hard disk drive Graphics 620 silicon.

One aspect in which modest eMMC memory paired with a depression-ability CPU come into their ain is on bombardment life. The VivoBook Flip 14 puts its efficient Core m3 processor to good use on our battery-drain exam, lasting eleven hours and 17 minutes playing back our test video. That tops the Acer Spin iii's splendid fourth dimension of 11 hours flat and is five hours longer than the Latitude 3390'south showing on the test.

A Budget 2-in-i With Some Potent Points

The biggest hang-ups for the Asus VivoBook Flip 14 are its minuscule storage capacity (which really puts it in a class with under-$400 models that we accept seen in recent years) and the limited operation potential of the CPU. The Core m3 processor will struggle with media-editing tasks, and the 64GB of eMMC wink storage (of which just 24.9GB was free of the bachelor 57.1GB, when the system first powered on) leaves niggling room for storing photos, to say nothing of videos. The Acer Spin 1, our Editors' Choice among budget 2-in-one models, may not lucifer up to the Flip xiv in performance, but it costs almost $200 less and sports long bombardment life and a healthy choice of ports. If yous tin stretch your budget by $300, the Lenovo Yoga 730 ($389.90 at Amazon) is another Editors' Option 2-in-1, simply i that packs plenty of power in a sparse-and-light body.

Every bit an affordable and versatile laptop for consuming rather than creating media, even so, the VivoBook Flip 14 brings the appurtenances. It looks like a much pricier convertible, and the audio but has no business organization being this proficient in a budget laptop. In substitution, yous'll merely demand to exist comfortable using cloud storage or SD cards for storing your files.

Asus VivoBook Flip 14 (TP401CA)

The Lesser Line

It doesn't pack much local storage in our test configuration, but the Asus VivoBook Flip 14 is a long-running, sleek-looking, and sugariness-sounding 14-inch convertible laptop.

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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/asus-vivobook-flip-14-tp401ca

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