Asus 15 X509 review

Asus Laptop 15 X509 is an entry-level notebook that comes loaded with features that will make your everyday life easier. It isn’t a very powerful laptop that will take care of your gaming needs and instead aims to do the basics right.

With upto Intel 8th gen. Core i7 processor, Full HD display and a discrete graphics solution, the X509 is created for casual users such as college-goers, home users. For anyone whose use case revolves around a bit of browsing, typing, watching videos and listening to music, this laptop could be a part of your natural selection.

For reasons best known to Asus, the X509 laptop has been officially launched in India under the VivoBook 15 series, however everywhere else online, the same laptop doesn’t show up in the VivoBook range and sells as “Asus Laptop 15 X509”.

Asus sent us the X509 laptop with the highest configuration. Interestingly, the laptop has no mention of VivoBook anywhere on the chassis unlike other laptops in the range. This affirms our earlier speculation that it's not a part of VivoBook series.

Anyway, here’s what we think about the Asus Laptop 15 X509.

Price and availability

Asus X509 starts at Rs 30,990 for the base variant that is powered by Intel 7th gen. Core i3-7020U processor. 

The second variant with Intel 8th gen. Core i5-8265U chip is available at Rs 42,990 while the top-end SKU with Intel 8th gen. Core i7-8565U processor is up for grabs at Rs 59,990.

All the three variants are available on Amazon India.

Look and feel

The X509 is almost made out of plastic and has a brushed metal finish on the lid. It is available in two colours, Transparent Silver and Slate Grey. Taking it out of the box, the laptop doesn’t immediately feel slim and lightweight as other laptops in the VivoBook series.

Asus X509 weighs 1.9 kg which is a decent amount of heft and measures 22.9mm thin. As far as durability goes, the laptop’s chassis is reinforced with a metal brace plate beneath the keyboard to improve rigidity. It also protects the internal hardware against impact.

A similar metal plate runs along the sides of the lid to provide additional support to the display and hinge. It also assists in making the opening and closing of the laptop’s lid smoother.

Inside, there is a HDD shock dampening case which aims to protect the disk against damage caused by impact. The laptop uses a solution which has been developed by EAR Global, a company which has been actively developing shock dampeners for electronic products. 

The X509 doesn’t bring any uniqueness to the design language of budget laptops on the outside, however, it feels sturdy and durable in the hands.

Display

Asus X509 features a 15.6-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution display. It uses an LED anti-glare panel and offers 178-degree wide view angle. The screen is surrounded by 7mm thin bezels which lends it an 82.5% screen-to-body ratio.

The frame stays in the field of view everytime you’re using the laptop and even though the bezels are narrower than other budget laptops, it’s still not a monumental upgrade.

The laptop comes with Asus Splendid display tuning software that optimizes colours to feel more natural on the screen. It also allows users to choose between three different modes-- eye care, normal, vivid and manual mode.

Asus has also preloaded the X509 with its Tru2Life Video enhancing technology which fine-tunes video signals before sending it to the screen. Asus claims that it allows 150% improvement in contrast and optimizes colours to make the video playback look vivid and sharper.

The display on the X509 is fairly good as far as budget laptops go. However, it has its set of issues and the display tilts towards warmer and vivid colour tones. Thankfully the screen can be tuned manually but it won’t make much of a difference if your eyes have seen better screens. Then again, it's targeted at budget users and the fact that it comes with a Full HD anti-glare display should suffice most takers.