There's nothing much to the Asus VivoBook S15, but, then again, that's sort of the point. It's a 15.6-inch laptop, but since Asus shaved off some of the frame around the screen, the brushed aluminum-clad body is smaller (and yes, it also looks like a MacBook).

The PC is also remarkably light for its size at 3.6 pounds (1.6 kg). That's not quite as light as the 15-inch Samsung Notebook 9 or the 15.6-inch LG Gram, though the S15 costs a lot less for specs that aren't all too different.

Based around a dual-core 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-7500U, the S15 starts around $800 (approximately £600 or AU$1,000), but there are several configurations available. They're mainly just variations on amounts of RAM and storage, but there is a Windows 10 Signature Edition that upgrades the integrated graphics to a discrete Nvidia 940MX GPU -- definitely worth the $50 extra. We reviewed the base model here, the S510UA-DB71.

Asus VivoBook S15 Price as reviewed $800 Display size/resolution 15.6-inch 1,920x1,080 display PC CPU 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-7500U PC memory 8GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,400MHz Graphics 128MB dedciated Intel HD Graphics 620 Storage 128GB m.2 SSD + 1TB HDD Networking 802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.1 Operating system Windows 10 Home (64-bit)

Aside from the "big screen in a slim, lightweight body at a reasonably price" thing though, the S15 is a somewhat unremarkable mainstream laptop. The full HD display, for example, has good color and contrast for entertainment and office work, but not good enough for anything that demands precision. Its matte finish helps with reflections, but it doesn't get bright enough to use comfortably outdoors. Basically, it's fine for what you're paying, neither exceptional nor disappointing.

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That sentiment carries over to the keyboard and touchpad, too. It's a spacious keyboard with three levels of backlighting and it should be a comfortable typing experience for most. However, I hit the keys somewhat hard when typing so the response felt too flat for my comfort. Plus, there's a lot of flex in the keyboard deck, which gives the notebook a less than sturdy feel.

The precision touchpad is smooth and responsive and while there was some cursor movement from dragging my palm, adjusting the sensitivity helped. It responded quickly and correctly to multitouch gestures for everything from scrolling and zooming to switching apps and launching Cortana for search. There's fingerprint reader in the upper right corner as well to sign in using Windows Hello.

For those times when you want to use an external keyboard and mouse, there are two USB 2.0 ports on the left side joined by an SD card slot. The right side has a full-size HDMI for an external display in addition to a USB 3.1 port, a USB 3.1 Type-C (gen 1) port and a headphone mic jack. There is no support for Thunderbolt 3 on the Type-C port, however.