This Asus F555LA-EH51 review will tell you everything you need to know about this laptop, including its features, performance, battery life, user experience, and more. Keep reading on to discover more.
The F555LA-EH51 is one of Asus’ most successful laptops to this date. When it launched in 2015, it saw a very positive reception from thousands of satisfied users, praising it for its lightweight design, decent performance, and good battery life. It was considered an all-rounder champ in the sub-$600 laptop market.
Fast forward to today, you can find plenty of these units on the used market going for a quarter of the original MSRP. Despite its aging hardware, the F555LA-EH51 is still ideal for light usage, allowing users to run basic Windows applications and get some office work done. Chances are you have plans to purchase one, which is why you are looking for reviews of the device to learn whether it’s still okay to buy one of these.
Asus F555LA-EH51 Review (Recommended)
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Asus F555LA-EH51: Overview
- Dimensions: 10.1” (D) x 15” (W) x 1” (H)
- Weight:3 kg
- Materials: Plastic
- Connectivity: 2 x USB 3.0, USB 2.0, 3.5mm headphone/mic combo, LAN, HDMI, VGA, SD Card Reader
The Asus F555LA-EH51 sports a classy design for 2015 standards. Every corner of the device has a subtle curve, and the top lid boasts the Asus logo and a concentric circle finish, also seen in other Asus products of that era. The matte texture around the entire body not only makes the laptop resistant to fingerprints and smudges but also adds a premium feel. We can’t say the same for entry-level laptops from that year.
Since it’s a budget-oriented laptop, the F555LA-EH51 is completely built of plastic, with a smooth textured finish all around. It was a common practice for most laptop makers to use cheap plastic in the value segment to cut costs, but this Asus device still manages to feel premium in hands. The chassis is only 1 inch thick and weighs around 2.3 kilos.
Of course, the body flexes quite a lot when applied pressure, and so does the keyboard deck. The top lid flex is out of our comfort zone. However, it’s a typical trait of an all-plastic construction. Unless you put a lot of force, it will unlikely snap in two pieces.
Ports-wise, we are looking at a low-profile RJ45 port, VGA and HDMI video outputs, and two USB 3.0 ports on the left, with an SD card reader, 3.5mm headphone/microphone combo jack, and another USB port on the right, this time operating at 2.0 speeds.
The majority of the space on the right side of the laptop is occupied by a DVD±RW / CD-RW drive, which is a common find on laptops of that era. Charging is handled by a barrel-style connector on the left. A Kensington security slot is also available.
Opening the lid uncovers the gray palm rest with the keyboard and touchpad, alongside the standard 15.6” widescreen display with relatively thick bezels all around. The integrated webcam sits around the top bezel, with the Asus branding on the bottom.
Asus Laptop F555LA-EH51: Display & Sound
- Screen Size:6” (diagonally)
- Screen Resolution: 1366 x 768 (HD)
- Panel Type: LED
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Speakers: 2 x Altec Lansing speakers
The Asus F555LA-EH51 has a fairly standard 15.6” display, similar to most other laptops from that year. It is surrounded by relatively big bezels, hiding the internal components within the display panel. This LED-backlit screen is a fairly standard affair, with a native 1366 x 768 HD resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio.
The laptop display comes with an anti-glare matte coating, reducing reflections and overall improving readability in bright indoor conditions. While we don’t have the exact values, the brightness, contrast ratio, and viewing angles are pretty subpar for watching movies and videos, but it does the job.
It’s also not the most color-accurate screen we have seen, so keep that in mind when doing any sort of color-sensitive task on the laptop. Note that the screen doesn’t support touch inputs.
The dual bottom-firing Altec Lansing speaker units are serviceable, offering a loud and clear audio output. However, the audio can get distorted on higher volumes. You do get SRS Premium Sound support with the Asus F555LA-EH51.
Asus F555LA-EH51: Keyboard & Trackpad
The Asus F555LA-EH51 offers a full-size keyboard, with numerical keys on the right. The wide spacing between the chiclet-style switches and noticeable key travel makes typical quite satisfying, albeit slightly mushy due to the membrane design. It’s generally what you would expect from an entry-level laptop keyboard.
However, not everyone may like the smooth texture of the keys. They are also a little bit wobbly, resulting in frequent typos when typing at a fast speed. Additionally, the keyboard doesn’t have a backlight functionality, meaning it will be challenging to type in low-light conditions.
The medium-sized trackpad below the keyboard deck is also pretty average, though it does support multi-touch gestures. The left and right-click zones at the bottom feel somewhat flimsy and are a potential point of failure.
The touchpad doesn’t use Windows Precision drivers, so response and accuracy can be a hit or miss at times. However, you can still take advantage of the default Windows 10 trackpad gestures.
Asus F555LA-EH51: Performance
- Processor: Intel Core i5 5200U (5th-gen Broadwell)
- Memory: 8 GB DDR3L 1600 MHz
- Storage: 1 TB 5400 RPM HDD
- Graphics: Integrated (Intel HD Graphics 5500)
- Wireless Connectivity: Gigabit Dual-Band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
The Asus F555LA-EH51 is powered by Intel’s 5th-gen Core i5 5200U Broadwell processor. It’s a dual-core hyperthreaded (2C/4T) chip with a base clock of 2.2 GHz and a max turbo clock of 2.7 GHz. The 14nm processor in this laptop is configured to run on 15 watts of power.
The dual-core i5 processor is paired with 8 GB of DDR3L memory in a rather unusual configuration. 4 GB of RAM is soldered on board, with the remaining filled by a removable SODIMM module. Both run at a 1600 MHz memory speed. Video is handled by Intel’s integrated HD Graphics solution.
In terms of day-to-day tasks, the Broadwell-era i5 chip is still capable of running basic applications like word processors and web browsers without too many issues. That said, the two hyperthreaded cores can sometimes struggle to keep with, especially with multiple applications running in the background.
The F555LA-EH51 doesn’t have a discrete GPU and relies on onboard processor graphics. Unfortunately, gaming isn’t even a question on the Intel HD Graphics 5500, but it’s capable enough to run older PC titles on the lowest settings, as well as browser games.
Plus, the preloaded 64-bit copy of Windows 10 Home on the laptop uses around 3-4 GB of memory on its own, leaving you less than half the laptop’s RAM capacity for your applications. Fortunately, you can take out the default 4 GB module for a similarly-specced 8 GB SODIMM kit to upgrade the total memory capacity of the F555LA-EH51 to 12 GB. It will give you some overhead for opening more Chrome tabs without chugging down the operating system.
The major drawback of using the Asus F555LA-EH51 regularly is the 1 TB spinning rust, which not only results in longer boot times but also makes app launching slow and painful. Given how frequently Windows 10 asks for installing updates and reboots, the slow hard drive will certainly hamper your overall productivity.
Still, you can always replace the internal 5400 RPM SATA hard drive with an affordable 2.5” SATA SSD to give the laptop a new life. It will make booting to Windows, installing updates, and app launching times almost instantaneous.
Coming to the thermals, the Asus F555LA-EH51 doesn’t break a sweat thanks to the efficient 15W Intel processor. The internal fan and heatsink keep the chip adequately cool and move the dissipated heat away from the palm rest so that you can type comfortably for hours. The fan can get a bit whiny on max speed, but it ramps up only when running CPU-intensive applications.
Asus F555LA-EH51: Battery Life
- Battery Capacity: 37 Wh
- AC Adapter Output: 65 W
The Asus F555LA-EH51 has a 37 Wh two-cell battery, which is quite low for today’s standards. It also isn’t easily replaceable since the battery sits behind the bottom cover of the laptop.
You can expect 4-5 hours of light usage utmost on lower screen brightness, or even lower depending on what type of applications you use. Enabling “Power Saver” mode on Windows might give you some extra screen-on-time only if you are okay with a substantial performance hit.
For charging, you get a 65W charging brick that charges the laptop via the barrel-style port. There’s no fancy USB-C power delivery, which is fine considering the age and price point of the device. It takes two hours or so for the battery to get charged from 0% to 100%.
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Asus F555LA-EH51 Review: Is it Still Worth Buying?
The Asus F555LA-EH51 was 2015’s best-selling laptop for a reason. It came with a striking design, speedy Intel Core i5 processor, ample amount of memory, a 15.6-inch LED-backlit screen, good battery standby – all at a remarkably affordable price point. For a sub-$600 laptop, it stood out among the rest of the competition that year.
While the same can’t be said for today, you can still get some light tasks like word processing and web browsing done on this six-year-old Asus laptop. Hence, we see no reason to not recommend the F555LA-EH51 as long as you can find one at a fair price in the market. It even comes with a copy of Windows 10 Home (64-bit), so you will keep receiving the latest security updates until 2025. With that said, you should definitely upgrade the memory and storage solution to get the best performance out of the F555LA-EH51.
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