Asus VivoBook Pro 16 (2023) Laptop Review: Core i9-13900H, RTX 4050, and 3.2K OLED augur well for hobbyist creators

[Redaktion]

The 2023 Asus VivoBook Pro 16 comes across as a capable choice for budding content creators seeking a well-rounded laptop. The combination of a Core i9-13900H, RTX 4050, and the vibrant 3.2K 120 Hz OLED panel indicates good potential, but our review discovers that the VivoBook Pro 16's artistic aspirations are not without limitations.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-VivoBook-Pro-16-2023-Laptop-Review-Core-i9-13900H-RTX-4050-and-3-2K-OLED-augur-well-for-hobbyist-creators.759431.0.html

[LL]

Once again an overpowered CPU put into an incapable cooling solution for it to just jack up the laptop price.

This would have been a good system with a much lower price and a much less powerful CPU.

[Neenyah]

I'm assuming the author wasn't literally dropping french fries all over the laptop and eating them while simultaneously using it for the review (were you, Vaidyanathan? 😁) because the laptop is a royal fingerprint magnet, wow. Asus is always lacking on that field but this is just extreme, especially for a new machine:

• https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_processed_/a/4/csm_vivobook_pro16_keyboard_2_592870fbdb.jpg
• https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_processed_/0/0/csm_vivobook_pro16_case_6_45148e432a.jpg
• https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_processed_/5/6/csm_vivobook_pro16_case_1_f2fa560595.jpg

😨

Why is The Witcher 3 running laptop's bottom to 63.6 °C, hm? That is significantly more than 48.4°C for Max Load at that same identical spot. Very unusual but it's probably related to even more unusual combo of the high end i9 + a lower-end midrange 4050. Despite its other shortcomings, this would be a pretty sweet deal with i7 13700H but with with the 13900H it's just unnecessarily too expensive. It's almost like they placed that i9 inside just for PR/marketing and to justify its high price, meh. Great review overall, thanks!

[Vaidyanathan]

I'm assuming the author wasn't literally dropping french fries all over the laptop and eating them while simultaneously using it for the review (were you, Vaidyanathan? 😁) because the laptop is a royal fingerprint magnet, wow. Asus is always lacking on that field but this is just extreme, especially for a new machine:

• https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_processed_/a/4/csm_vivobook_pro16_keyboard_2_592870fbdb.jpg
• https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_processed_/0/0/csm_vivobook_pro16_case_6_45148e432a.jpg
• https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_processed_/5/6/csm_vivobook_pro16_case_1_f2fa560595.jpg

😨

Why is The Witcher 3 running laptop's bottom to 63.6 °C, hm? That is significantly more than 48.4°C for Max Load at that same identical spot. Very unusual but it's probably related to even more unusual combo of the high end i9 + a lower-end midrange 4050. Despite its other shortcomings, this would be a pretty sweet deal with i7 13700H but with with the 13900H it's just unnecessarily too expensive. It's almost like they placed that i9 inside just for PR/marketing and to justify its high price, meh. Great review overall, thanks!

Thank you :)
Agreed that the Core i7-13700H would have been an ideal choice. Unfortunately, the only other config option available, at least in India, is that of the Core i5-13500H.

Reg fingerprints: That's the french fry benchmark in action lol🤪. The case is indeed a fingerprint magnet, and the keys seem to like my finger oil a lot. But there's also my shadow at play there while taking photos of the device in a light box.

[Vaidyanathan]

Once again an overpowered CPU put into an incapable cooling solution for it to just jack up the laptop price.

This would have been a good system with a much lower price and a much less powerful CPU.

Yeah. They could have taken some cues from the Flow X13's implementation of the 13900H, but that would have made it even more expensive in all probability.

[A]

This doesn't add up, idle minimum consumption 21W, battery 95Wh.
That's around 4 hours idle, how can it last for 10 hours.

[A]

P.S. Nvm, I'm on Apple Silicon side of the fence and totally forgot Intel powers itself down into the ground when working on battery.

[edram]

Memory Upgradable up to 24 GB... ?

WTF ?

Maybe you mean 240 ?

[Neenyah]

Reg fingerprints: That's the french fry benchmark in action lol🤪. The case is indeed a fingerprint magnet, and the keys seem to like my finger oil a lot. But there's also my shadow at play there while taking photos of the device in a light box.

Hehe 😁 Yeah, I saw your shadow but fingerprints are present on all images, it's really weird how they can't find the right coating (is there any coating at all actually?) to minimize them and I hardly doubt that it's anything with your fingers wrong there because pretty much every Asus recently is like that with fingerprints everywhere; there another review from today from another author: Asus ExpertBook B9 OLED (2023) ( https://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/_processed_/3/e/csm_asus-expertbook-b9-oled-b9403-tastatur-und-numpad-2_91d048f573.jpg )

Memory Upgradable up to 24 GB... ?

WTF ?

That's what Asus is claiming on their page: https://www.asus.com/laptops/for-creators/vivobook/vivobook-pro-16-oled-k6602/techspec/

Memory

8GB DDR5 on board
8GB DDR5 SO-DIMM
Max Total system memory up to:24GB
*Dual-channel memory support requires at least one SO-DIMM module.

[Vaidyanathan]

Memory Upgradable up to 24 GB... ?

WTF ?

Maybe you mean 240 ?

Doesn't support downloading more RAM, unfortunately ;)

[JayCut]

Any laptop with Pro branding should have ability to upgrade to minimum of 64 GB memory.
Where did they come up with just 24 ? Hahahahahahah

[A]

Any laptop with Pro branding should have ability to upgrade to minimum of 64 GB memory.
Where did they come up with just 24 ? Hahahahahahah

Nah, Pro has to have 5+ stickers on palm rest. )) Less than that clearly makes a budget laptop.

[edram]

That factory-standard 16 GB will be a bottleneck for many in the Pro world today. Imagine the performance of that non-upgradeable laptop in a few years time.

[toto1234]

This doesn't add up, idle minimum consumption 21W, battery 95Wh.
That's around 4 hours idle, how can it last for 10 hours.

Because battery life measurements are complete BS on notebookcheck (and pretty much all laptop review sites as well)
As a rule a thumb, you can usually devide by 2 the figures they give you.

I've had many laptops in the past that were tested by NBC, and I've never ever had the battery life claimed in the reviews. Not even close.

Laptopmedia and Ultrabookreview are the closest to real life battery, with figures much much lower that on NBC.

[pwel1]

How accurate is the power supply weight measurement? Does that include weight of all the cords? Could You please confirm? Thanks