Asus X540YA-XO106D Review: An Affordable Laptop with Decent Performance

Asus has introduced a new laptop in its range of low-cost laptop solutions. The brand new Asus X540YA-XO106D is a 15.6-inch laptop which features some impressive looks along with decent tech specs and performance. With a 2.2Ghz AMD processor, 4GB RAM, 1TB storage, attractive looks and some ignorable drawbacks, Asus’ new VivoBook laptop is completely worth the price being paid for it.

Look and Feel

Asus has been paying some much-needed attention to their laptops’ design. Asus X540YA-XO106D looks attractive thanks to its brushed finish – which gives this laptop a ‘premium’ look. Despite its lightweight chassis, this laptop boasts a solid build which will last some moderate wear and tear during usage.

Its full-size one-piece chiclet keyboard has 1.8mm of key travel to provide solid typing feel. The keyboard feels in place and is easy to use. Its trackpad – improved with ‘Asus Smart Gesture Input’ – provides smooth navigation.

Besides an attractive look outside, this Asus laptop has an impressive design inside, too. Its Asus IceCool Technology helps keep this laptop away from heat, even during prolonged sessions of usage.

Tech Specs and Performance

Asus has tried to pack this laptop with decent tech specs. It carries a 2.2GHz AMD A8-7410 processor and 4GB DDR3 RAM. This AMD processor does an impressive job for an affordable laptop. It powers the laptop without much lag and produces enough processing muscles to handle most day to day tasks.

While the 4GB RAM is sufficient for day to day usage, it could easily use DDR4 RAM instead of DDR3. It would have increased the final price a bit, but the performance would have been better. The 1600MHz 4GB DDR3 RAM still performs pretty well during regular multitasking, but expecting too much from it would not be worth it.

The 1TB 5400 RPM SATA HDD storage provides more than enough space for most users. With plenty of storage at this price, dumping thousands of photos, videos, project files etc. won’t be a problem. There’s not much to add here as the hard disk performs as it should and carries a terabyte of storage.

The 15.6-inch display of Asus X540YA-XO106D has been enhanced with Asus Splendid Technology. According to Asus, its Splendid Technology has ‘color temperature correction’ to produce ‘richer, deeper colors.’ Whatever that means, but a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels just doesn’t feel right in 2017. It’s about time that we get to see higher screen resolution – regardless of the product’s price.

This 15.6-inch display does perform pretty well, though. There’s nothing to complain about its performance if you forget about the resolution and pay attention to its final output.

A 3-cell 33 WHr battery powers this VivoBook laptop. It provides around 6 hours of backup which should be sufficient for most users with low to moderate usage.

Ports and Connectivity

Asus X540YA-XO106D provides 1 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.1 Type C ports. For external display, it carries an HDMI and a VGA port. A 3-in-1 multimedia card reader and a microphone-in/headphone-out jack are also present.

It must be added that including a USB 3.1 Type C port is indeed an impressive decision by Asus.

For wireless network connectivity, this laptop includes an 802.11 WiFi b/g/n which provides acceptable network performance and range. An Ethernet port (RJ-45) is also present to provide you with wired network connectivity.

If you are still using CDs and DVDs, you might be happy to see a multimedia drive on this laptop.

All ports including the power adapter port are on the left while a multi media drive sits on the right side of this laptop.

Asus X540YA-XO106D: Overall Impressions

With some easily ignorable drawbacks, this Asus laptop makes a wonderful laptop in the affordable category. Its tech specs and performance goes perfectly well for the price being paid for this 15.6-inch laptop.

As there’s no operating system pre-installed on this model, you are free to install any operating system of your choice. You can install Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10 as well any Linux distro as required.

This laptop can be recommended for students and both work from home or office users. If your usage mainly involves word-processing (Office Suite), web browsing, school projects and entertainment (music, movies, low-def gaming), this laptop is for you.

Combining its looks, tech specs, performance and most importantly – price, Asus X540YA-XO106D is a decent laptop introduced by Asus.