Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “ASUS ROG Flow Z13 review”.
A magnetic keyboard, a kickstand and small bezels. It sounds like i’m describing a microsoft surface pro, but it’s actually a new gaming tablet from asus called the flow z13 and i’m pumped to tell you all about it. The key difference, aside from its bold design, is that it has considerably more power with the near top of the line intel core i9 processor and nvidia’s rtx 3050 ti graphics card, it’s built for gaming, so i could start playing elden ring on it. If i wanted to, i think i’ll do that right now, but because of its two-in-one design, i can relax on the couch of the movie. I can also do some work on it.
If i want to sure those things can be done with any gaming laptop, but the flow z13 makes it easier and more comfortable to do than say a bigger laptop, it’s as cool as it sounds to be able to play my favorite games wherever i want to Unencumbered by a hefty laptop, i can put it on a small table with some accessories attached or to attach the keyboard and play on my lap. The z13 weighs about two and a half pounds, so it’s easy to carry or slide into a bag, and it’s 100 watt, usbc power, brick, is no bigger or heavier than the one that comes with other small 13-inch laptops. The model that i’m testing costs 18.99. For the tablet and keyboard together, a cheaper 1499 version that cuts the cost by ditching, nvidia’s gpu will be available later this year.
Here’S what’s inside of this 12 millimeter thick tablet, intel’s core i9 processor and an nvidia rtx 3050 ti graphics chip. It has one terabyte of storage and 16 gigabytes of ddr5 memory clocked at 5200 megahertz, it’s just kind of mind-blowing that all of this is in here, and it has just enough ports to connect headphones and a couple of accessories with its usb, a port thunderbolt 4 Port usb c port and its micro sd card slot its 13.4 inch. 1080P touchscreen has a 16 by 10 aspect ratio, so in landscape mode, it’ll look taller than some laptops and tablets out there. That’S generally great for browsing the web as it gives you more vertical space for content, but not every game supports this aspect ratio at worst, a few of your games may run with little black bars at the top and bottom, which can be annoying plus. Most tv shows and some movies were made to display on 16×9 aspect ratio screens so get used to seeing those black bars on the z13. It’S easy to be shocked by that 1899 price, especially since those specs are what you get in a mid-range gaming laptop. But if you were stunned by that sticker, you should sit down because it can get a lot pricier than that there’s also a 3300 bundle that includes a z13 with a 4k screen, along with a mobile version of nvidia’s rtx 3080 packed inside of this little external Graphics card enclosure, it’s called the xg mobile and it connects with a cable that asus says, delivers graphics via 8 pcie lanes for the fastest possible performance, and not only does it inject your games with better graphics, it has multiple usb ports, an ethernet jack video inputs And an sd card slot: if you want this egpu a la carte, it will cost you 1500 asus also has an amd version with the radeon 6850m xt for 100, less and just to say it up front. I don’t think most people who are interested in the flow z13 should get the xg mobile. It’S not because it doesn’t do its job far from it. It’S simply because it balloons the cost well beyond what a comparably powerful gaming laptop should cost. Let’S focus first on what it’s like to use the z13 on its own. It can’t perform gaming miracles by itself, but it’s still a really impressive gadget. I’M usually reluctant to praise companies for cramming glitzy leds into products, but come on.
This looks awesome. Asus should be showing off a little here and most impressively it feels like a laptop while i use it. What i mean by that is well a couple things.
It comes with windows, 11, plus the z13’s keyboard is fantastic. These keys offer a surprising amount of travel. Despite being fitted into a surface pro type cover, look like the layout retains almost all of the same keys. You’D find on something like this at first g14, but with some small changes and of course the keys are backlit. One major difference here compared to most modern laptops, is that this trackpad is teeny tiny, but no self-respecting gamer should play without a mouse anyway. Okay, let’s talk about gaming, the discrete rtx 3050 ti graphics. Chip inside of this tablet has 4 gigabytes of video memory and has 40 watts of total graphics power, which is simply how much power the gpu can draw. A higher number almost always indicates higher performance, and most gaming laptops send 80 watts or more to their gpus. So this is a relatively low power chip, which is forgivable for a slim tablet. The z13 is really good at running games that aren’t the most graphically demanding. In other words, it’s a great machine for playing a lot of indie games like death, store and inscription. Those play perfectly usually over 60 frames per second.
There are countless games that should run really well on the z13, but playing big aaa games with high-end graphics, like cyberpunk, 2077 and eldon ring, is not the z13 specialty, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Cyberpunk runs best at medium settings, hovering between 25 and 30 frames per second, while running off the battery, depending on the scene, while plugged in with its turbo performance mode, enabled it got a more stable, 35 to 40 frames per second and bumping details up to high. Only slightly worse than the performance, that’s not bad, especially considering this tablet is running cyberpunk, which is not a sentence i thought i’d ever say, but the fidelity is a little lower and slower than i’d prefer to play this game on playing. Elden ring delivered similar results, but i’m hopeful that performance will improve here when the developer releases some more patches.
It’S currently not running great on most hardware period, while running on battery elden ring on the z13 hung it around 25 frames per second at medium settings. Then jump to a bumpy average of 40 or more frames per second while plugged. In again, i wouldn’t want to put all of my precious runes on the line with his choppy performance. As far as how long you can expect the battery to last during a gaming session, well, it depends on the game running through a half hour of testing with cyberpunk and eldon ring pushed the z13 really hard, and it had just about a third of its battery. Left afterward, but with less demand in games, you’ll get a little more longevity, we’ll have more complete battery testing in our full review up on the site.
Depending on the games you like to play, the z13 may feel like a brilliant product designed just for you. Oriole hit it’s performance ceiling immediately, incurs its existence, but either way. One thing is for sure, and i’m gon na say this a lot.
It’S a costly tablet that doesn’t deliver the same kind of performance you get from a similarly priced gaming laptop. But what happens when you plug in that xg mobile external gpu? Well, you get extremely good performance in cyberpunk 2077. I was getting above 60 frames per second on ultra settings with the full suite of ray tracing settings and dlss switched on. It was the same story for elden ring and everything else that i ran with the xg mobile connected.
Everything ran at or above 60 frames per second on the highest settings. The delta between what the internal rtx 3050 ti and the rtx 3080 and the egpu can deliver is evidently pretty enormous. But of course, the xg mobile dock is fast, you’d hope. So right, though, performance will likely be less impressive if you pair the xg mobile with the z13 that has the 4k display compared to the 1080p version that i’ve been testing buying. The xg mobile add-on is a tempting proposition for more reasons than just faster gaming performance. In the case of connectivity and power, it helps the z13 reach well beyond its means, but it also flies in the face of the flow z13’s core concept to make your gaming more portable. Just because you can post up at the cafe with the tablet and the clunky egpu doesn’t mean you should you’ll, have its awkward cable management on full display, you’ll hog the table and, worst of all, you’ll be guilty of spending way more than you need to. For a portable gaming machine, but hey at least the xg mobile’s fans run quietly well, kinda, it’s not too bad, but it’s definitely noticeable.
The world isn’t facing a shortage of capable and portable game ready devices outside the world of windows. The ipads, with the m1 processor, give the flow z13 a run for its money in some ways like with their brilliant screens and peerless, build quality, and for what it’s worth. The m1 is surprisingly capable at running games, just not the full suite of pc games.
You probably want to play and hey what about the steam deck, that handheld starts at just 3.99 and for a fraction of the cost of the flow z13. The deck is a compelling alternative that can play your steam games and with a little tinkering, it can even offer a full os, giving you flexibility to play games outside of steam’s ecosystem, i’d like to recommend the steam deck. There’S one big problem, though: the steam deck is impossible to get if you haven’t already pre-ordered it, and this asus tablet doesn’t require workarounds to run laptop apps or other pc game platforms, so in terms of availability and ease of use, asus gets another win, but if You want to maximize performance per dollar. I’D recommend a handful of gaming laptops. Instead, assuming that all you want to do is play games, you can get way more for your money with something like asus’s, zephyrus, g14 or the g15 lenovo and acer also make some cost-effective gaming laptops. That could be good alternatives. It sounds like a failure on asus’s part that i can’t recommend the flow z13 to most people, but it’s far from a failure.
It offers a glimpse of how awesome the future of portable gaming will be, and none of the laptops that i just recommended come close to being as thin or versatile as the z13. With that in mind, this tablet is a reminder of how awesome the now of portable gaming is, and the flow z13 is a peak example of how asus leads the industry by actually bringing concepts like these to life price, be damned it’s a good laptop and with Expectations in check it’s a good gaming tablet too. Now, if you’ll excuse me, i have some important work to get back to [ Laughter, ], hey everyone thanks for watching this video. I have a question for you, though, do you need the power of a gaming laptop, or do you see yourself being able to live with a gaming tablet? Let us know in the comments below .