At first you might think that the Asus Vivobook F510UA is just another classic 15.6 inch budget laptop; well that’s not the case. The Vivobook F510UA not only packs a powerful 8th generation intel processor, but also comes in a sleek and slim design and has the footprint of a 14 inch notebook. The Vivobook F510UA is simply one of the best laptops under 500$ you can get; it is perfect for use at home and it’s also light enough to carry around.
Design and features:
The Asus VivoBook F510UA is thinner and lighter than most other laptops in the same price category. The body is made of plastic with a premium looking finish. It weighs 3.7lbs and has a maximum thickness of 0.8 inch. And thanks to very narrow bezels (Asus NanoEdge), the F510UA has a screen to body ratio of 80%, and is only 9.6 inch x 14.2. That is noticeably smaller than the similarly priced 14 inch Lenovo 320s. With the Asus F510UA-AH51 you basically get a 15.6 inch full HD screen into a 14 inch body.
Just like any slim notebook, the Asus F510UA has a classic amount of connections: 1 USB Type C port, 1 USB 3.0, and 1 USB 2.0. It also comes with an HDMI port and card reader. The F510UA has no Ethernet port on the other hand.
The F510UA comes with an ergonomic chiclet style keyboard. There is no flex when you press the keys, and the key travel distance is pretty good. There is no dedicated number pad, and the keyboard is not backlit, which is no deal breaker at this price tag. If this feature is important to you, you can check our other guide to find the best budget laptops with backlit keyboards.
Screen and audio:
The Asus vivobook F510UA sports a beautiful 15.6 inch full HD IPS display that offers crisp and stunning visuals. The screen has a matte finish, which eliminates reflections and light bleeds. Asus also equipped this laptop with their Tru2Life technology, which tweaks the screen setting when you’re watching a movie for example. The color reproduction is very accurate, and can also be improved with a little calibration. The Asus F510UA is recommended if you’re on a budget and need an affordable laptop for graphic design. On the other hand, the screen is not the brightest we’ve seen on a budget laptop, and thus can make it difficult using the laptop outside.
The speakers are placed at the bottom of the device, and produce a decent quality sound. They are however not loud enough to use in a noisy environment or a very big room.
Performance and battery life:
The Vivobook F510UA gets the latest 8th generation intel core i5-8250U processor, and 8GB of RAM. For your daily computing tasks, browsing, word processing…etc, the F510UA won’t show any signs of lagging. Bu as expected at this price range, it comes with a standard 5400rpm hard drive, which will bottleneck the performance. You can however overcome this by adding an SSD drive. Asus equipped the vivobook F510UA with a free M2 SATA 3 slot; this means that you can have two drives, a standard 1TB mechanical drive, and faster M2 SSD where you can store your system and programs for faster access. Please note that the F510UA is compatible with a M2 SATA 3 slot, and not an NVMe SSD. There is also room to add more RAM, and you can add up to 32GB.
Battery life on the vivobook F510UA is average, managing about 5 to 6 hours of normal use.
Asus Vivobook F510UA specifications:
| Processor: | Intel Core i5-8250U |
| Graphics: | Intel UHD Graphics 620 |
| Memory: | 8GB (Up to 32GB DDR4 at 2,400MHz) |
| Single storage: | 1TB 5,400RPM HDD |
| Screen resolution: | 1920 x 1080 |
| Audio: | 2x speakers |
| Connectivity: | Wireless AC 1×1 ( + Bluetooth 4.1) |
| Ports: | 1x Headphone / Microphone combo 1x HDMI 1.4a1x USB Type C 1x USB 3.0 2x USB 2.0 1x SD card reader |
| Cameras: | 720p webcam |
| Backlit keyboard: | Yes |
| Battery: | 42 WHr 3-cell |
| Dimensions: (in inches) |
14.2 x 9.6 x 0.8 inches |
| Starting weight: | 3.7 pounds |
| Color: | Star Gray |
