This laptop breaks my heart

I’ve never heard of a 2-in-1 gaming laptop before CES 2021. Did it even exist? Convertible laptops and gaming laptops are two incredibly different things with unique thermal and performance needs, not to mention they’re designed for two different consumers. But it looks like we’ve finally cut the GPUs small enough, and the processors are running cool enough to combine the two form factors. Opposites apparently attract! Asus made a wonderfully portable transformer of a gaming laptop in the ROG Flow X13.

Without being able to hold or tap the Flow X13 as I normally would at CES during ‘before’, I expected it to be bigger than it actually is. It’s not the thinnest or lightest 2-in-1 on the market, but it’s also a gaming laptop, which makes its size and weight even more impressive. Measuring 11.8 x 8.7 x 0.6 inches and weighing 2.9 pounds with a 13.4-inch, 16:10 touchscreen display, this laptop will fit perfectly just about anywhere in the world. any configuration: laptop, tent, tablet, whatever. The frame design is this versatile, thanks to its 360 degree hinges. The X13 will fight against all other ultra-thin and portable laptops to save space on the file tray table, when it’s safe again.

Style-wise, the all-black design doesn’t bother me compared to other laptops. Maybe it’s the 2-in-1 design. Maybe that’s how the cover is subtly embossed with tiny textured lines, and the space under the keyboard matches that texture with even smaller raised lines. And the keyboard itself has the same layout on the ROG Zephyrus G14 and G15, with well-spaced keys that should be comfortable under most people’s fingers. In fact, if it weren’t for the textured lid and 360-degree hinges, you could mistake the Flow X13 for the Zephyrus G14 or G15 at a glance. It’s a great laptop and it’s easy to fall in love.

At the heart of AMD’s new high-end mobile processor, the Ryzen 9 5980HS. (Asus also has another version with a Ryzen 9 5900HS, which is a step below this one, but still top of the line.) If you’re looking for a 2-in-1 that can handle intense CPU-related processing tasks, you want a laptop with that processor. It outperforms both the 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1185G7 and Apple’s M1 for rendering 3D images in Blender and transcoding 4K video to 1080p in Handbrake, thanks to its dizzying multi-core performance. Its single-core performance is also comparable to Apple’s M1 and Intel’s Core i7-1185G7. It even beats Intel’s 10th Gen Core i9-10885H in raw performance, as well as in Blender and Handbrake. That’s a whole minute of faster rendering of 3D images and about 30 seconds of faster transcoding of 4K video.

We have yet to see how this will compare to The new Core i7-11375H from Intel Special Edition although. Intel claims that it is faster than the AMD 4800HS and 4900H mobile processors, and that it will support Resizable BAR to make the processor and GPU talk to each other directly, which may mean improved performance in some cases. games or applications. The company also has an 11th gen H-series processor coming later this quarter that features an 8-core, 16-thread chip, which I’m sure will rival the 8-core Ryzen 9 5980HS. and 16 AMD threads. But for gaming and slim laptops, the Ryzen 9 5980HS is currently one of the best mobile processors to beat. It should be in more gaming laptops than it actually is.

But like all romance in life, once the honeymoon phase wears off, these once-charming quirks can start to annoy you. For example, I would like the Asus Flow X13 to come with more than one USB port. I’ve always preferred to use a wireless mouse with laptops, and I’ve generally used USB connections in the past, but Bluetooth exists for a reason. That and the X13’s trackpad are so soft my fingers glide over them like an ice skater, so it’s not a deal breaker that this laptop doesn’t have an extra one. Slightly boring, yes, but the HDMI port and the USB-C port that doubles as a charging port make up for that.

Airflow also works in an interesting way. You need to keep the screen tilted about 115 degrees to get the most efficient airflow in laptop mode. If the screen is set at 90 degrees, it can block airflow from the bottom and rear vents, which will impact performance. I have run the Blender performance tests in both directions and having the display at a 90 degree angle will increase the processing time by one minute.

But this laptop has never been too hot to the touch. Skin temperatures remained around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). The processor never broke 82 degrees Celsius (179.6 Fahrenheit) either, and that’s when I was running several gaming benchmarks, with the settings at max, back to back. Processor longevity shouldn’t be of concern to anyone. Battery life is decent at 6 hours, which is longer than average, and on par with gaming laptops, but nowhere near the 21 hours AMD bragged about in its CES talk. on its Ryzen 5000U series processors.

My deciding factor is the GTX 1650 Max-Q inside the Flow X13, and not because I can’t maximize performance at 1080p. I can lower the performance Metro Exodus too low and still around 70 fps. Asus has prioritized the ultra-thin design of the X13 as it should be, because the whole appeal of a 2-in-1 is that it is lightweight and portable. Asus would likely have escaped with a GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q instead, like the Microsoft SurfaceBook 3 (which weighs less and has smaller dimensions than the Flow X13), but thermals were likely an issue. You gain a little, you lose a little.

But you currently can’t buy the Flow X13 without also purchasing Asus’ eGPU with an RTX 3080, which costs $ 3,000. This is a big demand for someone like me who is looking for a new laptop and doesn’t need something with an ultra-powerful graphics card. This eGPU was not provided to us either, so I experienced this laptop more as a 2-in-1 laptop than a gaming laptop, but it is functionally both and I have always been able to play many games of Overwatch above without a hitch. The fact that no one can buy the Flow X13 separately right now means this convertible gaming laptop is a lot more niche than it needs to be.

And this is the story of how the Asus ROG Flow X13 broke my heart. If I could buy the X13 on its own, I would. I would love a laptop with longer battery life, but almost everything else in the X13 is perfect, so I’m willing to sacrifice a few hours. But I can’t put a “recommend” label on this laptop knowing that Asus doesn’t sell it without the eGPU. I don’t see most people going for a $ 3,000 2-in-1 gaming laptop with an RTX 3080 eGPU included. Like I said, it’s very, very niche.

READ ME

• Beautiful design
• Super light and portable
• Good battery life
• I wish the super fast CPU paired with a better GPU
• Currently ships with an RTX 3080 eGPU … for $ 3000. Laptop not sold separately