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The ideal budget laptop offers decent everyday usability, good performance, attractive styling, and seamless portability. In short, it should check all boxes in terms of form, function, and design without pushing the buyer into spending too much. The Asus VivoBook Go (model E1504FA-AS54) appears to be a suitable daily machine on paper, boasting a premium design and a full Windows OS (not limited to Windows in S Mode) – and the price is reasonable for what it offers.
Where the high-end Vivobook laptops flaunt OLED panels as top-end upgrades and the latest chips, this model features a practical 15.6-inch FHD display, AMD Ryzen 5 processor, 8GB RAM, and 512GB SSD storage alongside Windows 11 Home pre-installed. Cramming a display with punchy colors into a sub-$500 notebook is a quick and sure way to increase the limited appeal of a budget laptop.
So, if you’re properly in the market for a budget laptop that you don’t intend to take on mammoth spreadsheets, complex 3D animations, and large-scale scale-video editing, the Vivobook Go E1504FA-AS54 might easily be your next favorite daily-use device. Here’s my full review.
About the Asus VivoBook Go
Here are the specs on the Asus VivoBook Go E1504FA-AS54 laptop in this review:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7520U
- GPU: AMD Radeon Graphics
- RAM: 8GB
- Storage: 512GB SSD
- Display: 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.1
- Size: 14.19 x 0.7 x 9.15 inches
- Weight: 3.59 pounds
Design & Features
The VivoBook E1504FA-AS54 uses plastic for the most part, which makes it incredibly light. Asus has done a good job of offering a metal-like silver finish on the lid; it’s fairly fingerprint-resistant and smooth to the touch. However, I just wish the VivoBook branding was placed more unobtrusively. The laptop has a 180-degree lay-flat hinge and a physical webcam shield for privacy, which adds to the much-needed functionality.
The Vivobook gets a comfortable chiclet keyboard that’s fitted to the entire deck just like you’d find on Asus’ premium models. The large trackpad sits flush on the wrist without being too obtrusive, and it even has the already-mentioned fingerprint scanner for locking up your system.
As with all recent Asus notebooks, the VivoBook 14 features the signature Ergo Lift Hinge that angles the keyboard so that it’s raised a bit for more comfortable typing when seated on a desk, and the 180-degree hinge allows for seamless screen sharing with colleagues. Ergo Lift is a feature carried over from some Asus ROG gaming laptops and does a good job of increasing ergonomics on the go. It’s nice to see that the company opted to implement it into its budget-level laptops.
Port selection is excellent for a budget laptop, and you’ll conveniently dock most of your devices. The left side has a single USB 2.0 port plus a status indicator light. The right side has the rest of the ports: a proprietary power jack, two USB 3.2, a USB 3.2 Type-C, HDMI 1.4, and a 3.5mm Combo Audio jack. Wireless connectivity comes via Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2.
Display
The VivoBook Go’s 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 NanoEdge display has thin bezels on either side, with a bit more at the top to accommodate the webcam with a manual privacy shutter. But beyond the fairly widescreen look, the display’s dim color profile (250 nits rated) and unwieldy viewing angles make it an underwhelming device for consuming online video.
It’s not very bright, typical of budget systems, but the Acer Aspire 3 looks a bit brighter at 300 nits; still, both models are below the industry average of 268 nits. The viewing angles, too, are very tight, so you’ll have to look at the laptop at an exact angle – about 100 degrees – to see the display without shadows.
This affects dark colors, especially black and gray, and if you attempt to use it in dark mode, the issue is hard to ignore within most apps. Whichever way we try to shake it up, the VivoBook E1504FA-AS54 isn’t simply meant for your cinemas and movies. While you can stream YouTube movies and watch some Netflix episodes, it still lacks the cinematic experience of the Asus ZenBook 13 OLED or other top-tier 4K laptops out there.
Performance
The Asus VivoBook Go’s AMD Ryzen 5 7520U processor and 8GB RAM are quite able, despite being bottom of the chain. You can scroll through dozens of Google Chrome tabs, plus shuffle through your cloud-based libraries without the fans sounding like they are about to take off. The integrated AMD Radeon graphics can run your old favorites like Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, maintaining between 18 and 25 frames-per-second, but it won’t suffice for modern titles like Cyberpunk 2077 or Overwatch.
It seems you can do a lot with the VivoBook E1504FA-AS54, but most of these budget laptops initially feel this way. The AMD Ryzen 5 is a mobile processor for entry laptops in the Mendocino series, featuring four older Zen 2 cores, which are similar to the Ryzen 4000 series, like the AMD Ryzen 3 4300U. Its clock rate ranges from 2.4 to 4.1GHz, and it can work on 8 threads simultaneously. That’s pretty decent for daily basic productivity tasks and is fine-tuned for office work and college use.
The Asus Vivobook GO is an effort to deliver a fully-functioning full-sized 15.6-inch laptop for under $500.
Even with the modest spec sheet, none of those facts suggests a high level of performance, but should prove sufficient for day-to-day use, and the good news is that the Vivobook Go can run everyday productivity and entertainment tasks without signs of strain or delay. Running a couple of dozen Chrome tabs and a video in VLC didn’t cause any problems, nor did editing some sizeable RAW image files in GIMP.
Most budget laptops like the HP 14-ep0299nr can last well over eight hours on a single charge of the battery, but the VivoBook E1504FA-AS54 struggles to hit this mark. It lasts only 6 hours and 39 minutes through continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. While it beats out the Acer Aspire 5 (6:13) and the HP 15 (4:58), it’s still below the industry average of other budget laptops (6:41).
Asus Vivobook Go Review: Verdict
The Asus Vivobook Go is a nice 15-inch laptop at a good price. It has solid build quality, solid performance, a Full HD screen, a Ryzen 5 chip, and 512GB SSD storage for a very reasonable price compared to competitors. That’s hard to argue with, especially if you catch it for a few hundred dollars off on a sale.
For simple school studies, portable evening entertainment or distractions, and getting light office workloads out of the way, it’s a great little package with respectable battery life, and a great contender for the best budget laptop. Plus, it comes with Windows 11 Home, giving you better leverage compared to most budget laptops that come with Windows 11 in S Mode.
If you’re looking for a 15-inch laptop with solid everyday performance and fine styling, this should be a great choice. It’s especially a good device for working, browsing, streaming, and basic photo editing. But the battery won’t last all day, the screen isn’t particularly bright or colorful, and it’s far from the most powerful machine out there.
While the strength of competition from Chromebooks and other budget laptops makes it harder to recommend this as an Editors’ Choice, the Asus Vivobook Go (E1504FA-AS54) will still serve you well if you don’t expect too much of it.
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