ASUS X515 (2020) Review

The ASUS X515 is a budget Windows laptop with a 15.6 inch display. It has an all-plastic construction that feels reasonably well-built, with a thin and light design that makes it very portable. Its full-size keyboard includes a numpad and provides an okay typing experience; however, its lack of backlighting makes it hard to use in dark settings. Unfortunately, the screen looks dim and washed out, and the webcam doesn’t capture any fine details due to its low resolution. Also, its battery doesn’t last long enough to get you through a typical 8-hour day, and although it has a USB-C port, you can’t use it to charge the laptop or connect an external display. Its Intel 10th Gen processor and integrated graphics can handle light workloads like web browsing and video playback with ease, but it isn’t ideal for heavy tasks like video editing or 3D rendering. On the upside, it doesn’t get overly hot or throttle under load.

Our ASUS X515 has a 720p TN display, an Intel Core i3-1005G1 CPU, Intel UHD Graphics for 10th Gen processors, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. If you need more processing power for heavier workloads or better multitasking, you can upgrade the CPU to an Intel Core i5-1035G1 or i7-1065G7 as they have more cores and threads. There are entry-level NVIDIA discrete GPUs available; however, the performance gain they provide over integrated graphics is minimal and will likely shorten battery life.