The everyday work laptop has made clear progress in recent times. Talk about build quality, and you no longer get boring, boxy contraptions that weigh a ton. On the performance front, both Intel and AMD have ensured that even basic laptops don’t slow down to a crawl within months. SSDs have improved storage stability and boot times, and overall, it’s safe to say you get good value for your money. The Asus VivoBook 15 OLED K513 now seeks to upgrade the budget laptop display as well.
Specifically, Asus’ idea of an upgrade is to add an OLED display to the laptop and pair it with decent specifications. Typically, OLED panels have been reserved for the most premium and expensive laptops — and not just laptops, even smartphones today feature OLED screens at the top of their product lines. With the Asus VivoBook 15 OLED K513, mainstream laptop buyers get a chance to own a crisp display with high contrast, clean whites, and deep blacks — all without breaking the bank.
Key specs
The Asus VivoBook 15 OLED K513 SKU that we’re reviewing here features an Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor, paired with 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM. Storage is handled by a combination of a 1TB HDD and a 256GB NVMe SSD. The star of the show is a 15.6-inch full HD OLED display, bearing a traditional 16:9 aspect ratio and 400 nits of peak rated brightness. The display claims to cover 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and has TUV Rheinland and Pantone Validated certifications.
In terms of connectivity, the VivoBook 15 OLED features two USB 3.2 Gen1 ports — one Type-A and one Type-C. On the other edge, it houses two USB-A 2.0 legacy ports, which may be important for those who still rely on offline work. There’s also a 3.5mm combo port for wired audio, a full-size HDMI port (albeit from an older generation), and a built-in microSD card reader. For wireless connectivity, it supports Bluetooth 5.0 and Wi-Fi 6. The laptop includes a 720p webcam, measures 18mm at its thinnest point, and weighs approximately 1.8kg.
Display: The OLED upgrade does make a difference
Inevitably, the star of this show is the OLED display. Even until a few years ago, the functional laptop around Rs 50,000 featured a very basic 720p LCD display, which was far from great. You might have made peace with it, but that’s no reason to be stuck with shoddy colors, poor viewing angles, and low contrast.
With the Asus VivoBook 15 OLED K513, you get an OLED display at Rs 45,990, which is quite compelling. However, it’s worth noting that even competing mainstream laptops today have better displays than before. On its own, the VivoBook 15’s OLED screen is sharp in both color and resolution. Ample RAM and a new generation processor combine with the precision of OLED panels (compared to LEDs and LCDs) to deliver smoother scrolling.
The high contrast ratio makes night-time usage seamless. You don’t have to constantly adjust brightness due to varying webpage backgrounds, improving comfort more than you might think. And because it’s an OLED panel, you can reduce the brightness very low — easier on the eyes in low-light settings. Viewing angles are better than older mainstream laptops, though the difference isn't drastic compared to new non-OLED laptops in the same price range. If you're upgrading after 4–5 years, you'll clearly notice the improvement.
Is it a standout upgrade? Not entirely. The VivoBook 15 display is reflective, which means you’ll need to adjust your position to avoid glare. While OLED could allow a slimmer and lighter build, Asus has played it safe in this regard.
Build quality and design: Strong enough, but could've been smarter
Asus has kept things simple, and that’s both good and bad. On the positive side, if you're in the market for a straightforward, no-frills laptop that just works, the VivoBook 15 OLED K513 will suit you well. It’s also a sensible move, showing that you can get premium features without experimenting too much or overspending.
On the negative side, the VivoBook 15 could have been slimmer and lighter with better design. OLED panels are known to be thinner than LCDs or LEDs, but Asus hasn’t leveraged this advantage here. The laptop doesn’t fully utilize its chassis space — while side bezels are narrow, the top and bottom ones are quite thick. Its weight also reflects a conservative and somewhat unimaginative approach.
In today's competitive laptop market, this may not be enough. Take the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 for instance — it features the same processor, same RAM, comparable storage (but with a larger SSD), a 15.6-inch IPS LCD, a bigger 57Wh battery, and similar features like ports and backlit keyboard. It even comes at a lower price, with a more compact body and 150g lighter weight.
Could Asus have done better? Absolutely. The VivoBook 15 OLED K513 looks ordinary, and the sudden neon green highlight on the ‘Enter’ key doesn’t feel elegant. While the build quality is adequate, it doesn’t look modern or forward-thinking. The OLED display alone isn't enough to justify it when other brands offer smarter-looking laptops with similar experiences.
Inputs, ports and ergonomics: A little bit of a mixed bag
The Asus VivoBook 15 OLED K513 provides a full-size keyboard with a dedicated number pad, and a large enough trackpad with an integrated fingerprint sensor. In terms of ports, the VivoBook 15 offers a healthy mix of essential ports. However, only one of the four USB ports is USB-C, and of the three USB-A ports, only one is the faster USB 3.2 Gen 1 type. Even the HDMI port, though full-size, is the older HDMI 1.4 version, which is a bit disappointing.
The keyboard is decent to type on, but the keys aren’t exactly as ‘clicky’ as you might like. They feel a bit soft, which reduces the tactile feedback that fast and regular typists would prefer. The trackpad is fine, but nothing particularly outstanding — it’s on par with the competition. It’s in the ergonomics where you notice that while the VivoBook 15 OLED isn’t too heavy, it could probably have been lighter. The notch makes opening the laptop easy, but you immediately wish its size were smaller, as there’s clear room to trim down the excess size.
Perhaps the next generation of the VivoBook will feature a bolder redesign, making it clearly better than the competition. Until then, the laptop offers enough ports, a good trackpad, and a usable keyboard, but nothing beyond the ordinary that stands out.
Performance and battery life: Satisfactory enough for its price
The performance from the Asus VivoBook 15 OLED K513 is adequate for its class. It’s powered by an Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor and 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM. Booting speed is swift thanks to a 256GB SSD, while the 1TB HDD adds to the storage volume. The VivoBook 15 is a smooth performer for everyday workloads, capable of running heavy CMS pages alongside about 25 active tabs on a web browser, without much hiccup.
Alongside, you can have a background music app streaming at top quality to a connected Bluetooth speaker or earbuds, while apps from the Microsoft Office suite can be open in the background too. All of this contributes to the VivoBook 15 being a dependable everyday laptop, and with Windows 11 incoming, you’re getting a laptop that should be fine for normal workloads.
The built-in Iris Xe graphics are good enough to run light games such as the Asphalt series from the Microsoft Store, without much ado. Light video and photo editing via Adobe apps like Premiere Pro and Photoshop are doable, but things slow down if you load too many layers in Photoshop, or have a heavy number of layers and effects to render in Premiere Pro. Nonetheless, light editing of both videos and photos are quite feasible, and in these cases, the OLED display’s color fidelity is of great help.
Watching video content on the VivoBook 15 is great fun, thanks to the OLED display. It feels like a miniaturized version of an expensive television, and although the refresh rate is limited to 60Hz, there’s no denying that this is good fun, indeed. The display does impact its battery life as well, but Asus might have pushed its luck here. The cell is 25% smaller than competitors, due to which the VivoBook 15 delivered screen-on working time of 5 hours and 35 minutes, on average. This can be stretched to about 6 hours and 15 minutes with conservative usage, but there might be a need for further optimizations here.
Verdict: It’s good, sure, but do you need the OLED display?
To sum up, the Asus VivoBook 15 OLED K513 is a solid mid-ranger that uses a reliable processor to deliver adequate performance. It has enough RAM to make multi-tab browsing possible, and its integrated graphics chip is good enough for light gaming, as well as photo and video editing. The star of the show is the OLED display, and as far as displays are concerned, it’s definitely among the best in the crop of mid-range, mainstream laptops.
The question, however, is whether you really need OLED displays on your regular laptops, considering that the typical full HD LCDs have become much better? You probably don’t, but you’d realize that you wouldn’t mind if you do. In the long run, having a display that’s cinematically adept makes a huge difference in the way you feel about working on it every day, and the VivoBook 15 feels like it stands out on that front.
That said, it could have been smaller and lighter, its battery life, keyboard, and trackpad could have been better, and its ports could have been of the newer generations. These factors mean that the Asus VivoBook 15 OLED K513 has plenty of room for improvement, but for its price of Rs 66,990 for the model we reviewed, it’s on par with the competition. This makes it a recommendable purchase for those looking for an everyday work laptop under Rs 70,000.