ASUS VivoBook S400CA

Thanks to the courtesy of Asus Spain, I have been able to enjoy for fifteen days the modern ultrabook from the factory, the ASUS VivoBook S400CA; and of which I want to share the impressions of its use on a day-to-day basis.

Between the moment I was notified of the loan of the equipment and the moment I received the box, a little more than a day passed and, with all the enthusiasm in the world, I prepared to unpack it and start looking for tickles.

ASUS VivoBook S400CA Technical Data

In this case I am talking about an excellent ultrabook that incorporates an Intel® Core™ i5 3317U, with 4Gb of RAM and a disk classic hard.

All of this stuffed into a metal casing with a very careful design and pleasant both to the touch and to use. Offering a feeling of robustness and durability.

The screen is 14”, which has caused me a very positive impression, since the equipment with which I have made comparisons are 13” and 15.5” respectively. It's a size that offers more than enough work surface to work with large amounts of information, without the inherent weight of laptops.

The weight, 1.8kg, seems to be less. It is an ultrabook with all the letters, which allows you to hold it with one hand without any problem and without much effort. Compared to an Asus i7 laptop, it is very light and manoeuvrable. Obviously without reaching the level of a tablet, but being especially comfortable for transport.

This is also favored by its size, which allows it to have a full keyboard – although it has not been to my liking –, a large multi-touch TouchPad with two integrated buttons, and which is outstanding in finesse.In other words, it is a piece of equipment that when closed fits perfectly in the palm of the hand, while holding it with the thumb on the opposite side.

The graphics card, as in almost everything in this range of equipment, is not designed to offer great performance in games or applications that use graphics intensive. But behaves in a more than respectable way in most situations, such as watching FullHD video, or playing at medium quality.

Connectivity, as Asus has accustomed us, is excellent. WebCam, HSD reader, Wifi, Bluetooth, Ethernet 1000 base/T, HDMI, 2xUSB 2.0, 1xUSB 3.0, audio connector, VGA, etc. Everything necessary to connect our most unusual accessories to the ultrabook.

The keyboard is complete, without auxiliary numeric, but I don't quite like it The touch is somewhat rubbery and doesn't support it very well a high rate of beats per minute.But I also have to admit that, with the number of words I type per month, my minimum keyboard requirements are above the average for the user this laptop is designed for.

The touch screen makes the difference

The 14”, with a 16:9 aspect ratio that offers a resolution of 1366x768 pixels, is built with Glare panel backlit LED technology. And it is fully tactile.

This gets the ASUS VivoBook S400CA fully into the new interface paradigm that Microsoft and its Windows 8 ecosystem are committed to. Thus, Windows PRO can be used in all its essence, by supporting the screen multitouch manipulation.

In ModernUI the operation is completely fluid, thanks to the i5 that is the heart of the device and that has more than enough computing power to handle any situation.

On the other hand, on the Desktop, things are not so fine since the screen is not precise enough both in the situation of the contact, and in the perception of pressure. Being the manipulation of, for example, a Word document, somewhat stuttering. Although much of the fault is that the Office interface is not optimized for gesture manipulation.

If anything the two main drawbacks are, on the one hand, that the backlighting of the screen is a bit poor for working outside on a particularly sunny day; and on the other hand, the screen is bright, as has become fashionable in recent years, for which the “great fingers” stand out, and overwhelms the most maniacal to have a pristine screen (like the one who writes these lines).

General conclusions

Without a doubt This is a team to recommend.

It is a “big” ultrabook that falls somewhere between the small 13” and heavy 15” laptops, it has everything you would expect from a device where battery life is a premium , about 4 hours and a half, and the weight.

That its touch capabilities make a difference, which allow us to get all the power out of Windows 8 Pro that comes from the factory, and the touch applications that run on this operating system.

And that it will achieve, with its careful design, that it receives more than one look of admiration.

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