It won't impress, but for eight thousand today, you'd be hard-pressed to find better. ASUS Vivobook 14 comes with pre-installed Windows and a backlit keyboard

Let’s be honest: this laptop won’t impress anyone, and in a different era, it wouldn’t be worth attention. The ASUS Vivobook 14 now costs 7,990 CZK with code ALZADNY30 – and precisely in the current situation, where memory prices are soaring and laptops are generally becoming more expensive, eight thousand for a branded piece with Windows and a two-year warranty is a pretty decent offer.

👍 Take it if you need a cheap laptop for emails, Office, browsing, and Netflix – for example, for a student, for a cottage, or as a secondary machine.
🤔 Hesitate if you plan on multitasking – 8 GB RAM is the minimum today, and you’ll fill up a 256GB SSD faster than you expect.
💰 Price tag: 7,990 CZK including Windows 11 Home, but without a charger; add a few hundred for that.

Eight thousand means something different today than last year

Context is more important than parameters here. RAM prices have significantly increased this year, and this is evident across the entire market – manufacturers of cheap laptops are returning to eight gigabytes and smaller drives, which should have long ceased to be the standard. For eight thousand today, you commonly buy no-name machines from marketplaces, so a branded ASUS with a two-year warranty, service in the Czech Republic, and Windows included makes sense at this price point.

What you get for that money: a six-core Intel Core 3 100U with a 4.7 GHz boost, 8 GB of DDR5 memory (a newer generation, albeit only in basic capacity), and a 256GB NVMe SSD. The display is a 14″ IPS with Full HD resolution and an anti-glare finish, which is an advantage over glossy panels – you won’t struggle with reflections by the window. The body weighs 1.4 kg, has MIL-STD-810H military certification, and surprisingly, a backlit Czech keyboard, which is often omitted at this price point.

The connectivity is decent: two USB-C ports, two USB 3.2, one USB 2.0, and HDMI, plus Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and a Copilot button. It charges via USB-C, so even a more powerful phone charger will suffice. And ASUS offers one year of accidental damage protection for free after registration – which is not bad for a student laptop or a household with children.

Don’t expect miracles

This laptop is built for basic tasks, and it shows. 8 GB RAM is borderline today – with twenty tabs in Chrome, Excel, and Teams open simultaneously, the system will start swapping data to disk and slow down. You’ll fill up a 256GB SSD after a few months of photos and updates, so plan for an external drive or cloud storage. The graphics are integrated Intel, so forget about gaming.

The display has a brightness of only 250 nits and a color coverage of 45% NTSC – it’s sufficient for working with documents, but a graphic designer or photographer won’t work with it, and you won’t see it outdoors on a terrace. The webcam is 720p, which is below average for video calls in 2026. And the most important budget item: the laptop is sold without a charger, so if you don’t have a powerful USB-C adapter, factor in another purchase.

For eight thousand, it’s an honest machine for what it’s intended for – no more, no less. For a student, for the kitchen, for a cottage, or as a backup laptop where it doesn’t matter if something happens, it’s a reasonable purchase in today’s situation.

Is a laptop with 8 GB RAM enough for you today, or is it already a thing of the past?