Asus VivoBook has become one of the most popular laptop series due to their rock bottom price and offered hardware. Today we are gonna check out a 17-incher VivoBook model, VivoBook Pro N705UQ-EB76, which is quite new in the market.
Check out the latest price for the Asus VivoBook Pro N705UQ-EB76
Specs:
- CPU – Intel Core i7 Dual-Core (7th Gen), 2.7 GHz
- GPU – 2 GB, NVIDIA GeForce 940MX
- Memory – 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4, extendable upto 16 GB
- Screen – 17.3-inch Full HD IPS (1,920 x 1,080)
- Storage – 1 TB SATA HDD + 256 GB SSD
- OS – Windows 10 Home edition
Benefits:
- Price – Even while delivering all the features mentioned later, it manages to stick to a rock bottom price. Some of the features such as the hybrid storage system (HDD + SSD) and a dedicated GPU could only be found in some far costlier notebooks worth thousands of bucks.
- Performance – But while it’s cheap, it does not necessarily mean that it’s a lacklustre in the performance section. Let’s see what it has got inside that 16-inch chassis. There’s an Intel Core i7 processor, 8 gigs of dual channel RAM which can be upgraded up to 16 GB without breaking a sweat (unlike some others which includes the removal of the whole back cover) and a hybrid storage of 1 TB hard disk drive and a 256 GB solid state drive. Other than these, Asus decided to include a discrete dedicated NVIDIA GeForce 940MX graphics card. More on that later. So the bottom line is that the hardware configuration is enough to tackle day to day productivity jobs and media consumption, but may not be efficient at hardcore gaming and video editing task.
Downsides:
- No optical drive – Now, this is pretty disappointing. While it still could have been forgivable to not include an optical disk drive in a Chromebook, it is just purely irritating for a full-size laptop like this. You have to go for an external one in that case. So many laptops these days just totally skips this part for some reason (mostly for weight issues, I guess; but you can’t say that when one weighs 4.63 lbs).
- No Thunderbolt – While it makes sure to include a USB 3.1 Type C port, it doesn’t support the latest Thunderbolt 3 technology. Due to the absence of Thunderbolt the potential 40 Gbps transfer speed comes down to a meagre 5 Gbps.
- GPU – While the provided NVIDIA GeForce 940MX is enough for casual gaming, it isn’t able to run some of the newer games in higher quality. It is able to run games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (>140 fps), FIFA 17 (90 fps) and GTA V (70 fps) comfortably whereas it barely can run (or in other words, it can’t!!) Dishonored 2, Far Cry 4 and Watch Dogs.
Verdict:
Now everything is not hunky-dory. For a laptop that comes at such an affordable price, there’s gotta be some drawbacks. And we saw some of them. But considering all of them, the rundown of the situation comes down to this- if you want a mid-range laptop for running your everyday errands (and some casual gaming once in a while) Asus VivoBook Pro N705UQ-EB76 is a fine candidate for that.
Check out the latest price for the Asus VivoBook Pro N705UQ-EB76