ASUS Laptop VivoBook S14 S403JA-BH71 Intel Core i7 10th Gen 1065G7 (1.30 GHz) 8 GB LPDDR4X Memory 256 GB PCIe SSD Intel Iris Plus Graphics 14.0" Windows 10 Home 64-bit

Pros: 1. This laptop screams for burst workloads (like email, web browsing, document writing, etc.) which is what I do. I am use to Windows updates being a chore. No longer an issue with the speed of the S14 S403JA-BH71. It took only 20 minutes to install the first twenty two Windows updates on top of Windows 10 Home feature 1909 (the base install). It took only 45 minutes to update to Windows 10 feature 20H2. Then only 3 minutes to install five updates including the 2021-02 roll-up. Most tasks are instantaneous (including Wake after Sleep). Boot after Shut Down (from status lights off) is under five seconds. Decryption was also lightning fast (see Con #1). However, if you are a gamer, video editor, etc. see Con #7. 2. On the left side of the laptop is: the power port, HDMI port, USB 3.1 port, and two status lights (Battery/Charger and Power/On). The right side of the laptop has, USB 2.0 port, SD Card Reader, and Head Phone port. The SD Card Reader is better than noting, but I'd prefer a microSD card slot. See Cons #2 and #3. 3. There is very little "bloat ware" software pre-installed by Asus. You do have the normal Windows 10 pre-installs. I only uninstalled three items: Microsoft 360 (in English, Spanish, and French). McAfee LiveSafe. McAfee Virus Scan (expired). 4. The Caps Lock key has a little light indicating when it is active. I love this feature, since it keeps me from typing entire sentence with Caps Lock on, by mistake. The Backspace button is large. The same size as the left Shift key. 5. The power button is on the Keyboard (not on the side of the Laptop) so it is protected when the screen is closed (but see Cons). 6. Rock solid Wi-Fi connection and stability to my 5.0 GHz Router (at 866 Mbps). 7. The Screen is very clear, thin outside bezel, and 1080 x 1920 resolution. By default, Windows 10 text size is 150%. I prefer the additional screen space and desktop Icons scaled at 100%, but my eyes are getting a little old for 14 inch screen. 8. The case fit/finish/construction is rock solid. Backlit Keyboard has four intensities (including Off). Speaker sound quality is very nice. Battery life is excellent (over 10 hours under my light workloads). 9. This is my first laptop with a Fingerprint Sensor. Setup was easy and it works reliably. Just tap the upper right corner of the Touch Pad. 10. The UEFI Firmware (BIOS) GUI is very modern looking. With all kinds of moving graphics, including a spinning fan reporting its RPM. Use F7 to toggle between "Ez Mode" and "Advanced Mode" which is text based. In Advanced Mode you can turn off Intel AES-NI, but I left it on. Fan speed when entering BIOS was 1800 RPM, slowly growing to 3700 RPM (with fan noise) and then more rapidly to 4200 RPM (with excessive fan noise). Windows 10 "Recovery Restart" takes seven seconds to reach the menu, then eight seconds to enter the UEFI Firmware (BIOS) GUI.

Cons: 1. Encryption is turned on by default (Windows 10 Home). I did not notice this until creating a System Image (which gives you a warning). I did not turn encryption off (in Windows) until after installing 20H2 (with 175 GB of 236 GB free, or 61 GB used). When you turn encryption off, decryption needs to run. This took about seven minutes to complete. Task manager indicated the SSD was running 225-250 MB/s (both read and write simultaneously). Seven minutes is 420 seconds @ 225 MB/s yields about 95 GB, so a third of the time is spent on something else. 2. This disk (SSD) has one visible partition OS(C:). I prefer a second partition Data(D:). There is a hidden Recovery partition after OS(C:), so you can not really re-partition (see Other #1). I will likely shrink the OS(C:) Volume and add a Data(D:) Volume at some point, but have not done this yet. 3. Many Flash laptops have a microSD slot on the side, where you can add additional storage. This laptop has (postage stamp size) SD Card Reader on the right side. You obviously can use a microSD adapter. However, you can not push a SD Card or Adapter all the way into the laptop, flush with the frame. It sticks out almost an inch. I almost took an Egg off for this. 5. On the top of the keyboard are 17 very small keys (including the Power button). These include Escape, twelve Function keys (which do not line up with the normal size Number keys), Print Screen, Insert and Delete. The Delete key is very small, and right next to the Power button. I've put the laptop to sleep a couple of times by accident already. 5. Comes with Windows 10 Home (not Pro) feature 1909 (not the latest 20H2) but updates are very fast (see Pros #1). 6. No Wired (Giga-bit) ethernet port, but I rarely use Wired ethernet on laptops anymore. 7. The internal fan speed (RPM) increases with CPU temperature. Nominal for me was ~40 to ~60 degrees C. Fan noise becomes quit audible when Extended CPU utilization exceeds ~35% or ~55 degrees C. I almost took a Egg off for this. Not for gamers. The Intel Core i7-1065G7 Processor Base Frequency is 1.30 GHz, Max Turbo Frequency 3.90 GHz. The highest I saw was 3.87 GHz. The CPUs begin throttling at ~65 degrees C. Throttling continues until ~45 degrees C. Three threads red line the CPU temperature. I did not run any official benchmarks. To control the environment, I ran multiple threads of an Othello program I recently wrote in C. CPU utilization as reported by Task Manager. Temperature as reported by CPUID HWMonitor (which unfortunately does not report fan RPM).

Overall Review: 1. The SSD is partition as follows: DISKPART> list disk Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt -------- ------------- ------- ------- --- --- Disk 0 Online 238 GB 0 B * DISKPART> list part Partition ### Type Size Offset ------------- ---------------- ------- ------- Partition 1 System 260 MB 1024 KB Partition 2 Reserved 16 MB 261 MB Partition 3 Primary 236 GB 277 MB Partition 4 Recovery 1250 MB 237 GB DISKPART> list volume Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- Volume 0 C OS NTFS Partition 236 GB Healthy Boot Volume 1 SYSTEM FAT32 Partition 260 MB Healthy System Volume 2 RECOVERY NTFS Partition 1250 MB Healthy Hidden 2. I own one Motherboard, two Optical drives, five Monitors, and two Laptops (dual core, 4GB RAM, 1366 x 768) from Asus (F502CA-EB91 from 2013, and TP200SA-DH01T from 2017). The later has a Touch Screen, but I prefer using a Mouse and Keyboard. All ten still work perfectly today. However, neither laptop even approach the performance of this four core, eight thread, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, 1920 x 1080 laptop. 3. I did not significantly test the Bluetooth, or Touchpad. If you are not a gamer, and can live with the 256 GB SSD storage, I recommend this product. The more I use it, the better I like it.

Pros: I can't say enough good things about this laptop. I picked up 2 on sale and highly recommend. The 1.00GHz cpu I was a little concerned about but it is a 10th Gen Core i5 and performs like a processor much faster. Having worked for 10 years in military aviation(AH-64D Apache Longbow), you will appreciated the Mil-Std these laptops go through. What's not to like about a battery that lasts 24 hours and the charge time is very quick. I needed to get familiar with Windows 10 and it is very intrusive. I'm surprised Microsoft didn't want to know my blood type. Cortana is not a digital assistant but more like a digital spy. Why should my voice be transmitted to Microsoft. I removed most of the Windows software and replaced with programs I use. There are some good websites that will help you with this and setting up file associations for VLC for example. The OS seems more like Windows 7 and I don't see what the complaints are about Win 10 being a failure. Vista was a complete failure.

Cons: None at all.

Overall Review: This laptop will not disappoint and I highly recommend it. If I ever need to purchase another laptop, I will have no problem getting another ASUS VivoBook that goes through the rigorous testing of the mil-std these are put through..

Overall Review: 10/10