Asus ROG Flow Z13 (2025) evaluate: maintain up, built-in graphics are good now?

The beefy Windows gaming pill is again, and it’s completed two issues I believed unimaginable. It made me respect built-in graphics, and it satisfied me a Windows pill may be enjoyable.

The Asus ROG Flow Z13 is a 13-inch pill with a removable keyboard, a brilliant display, and the heart of a gaming laptop computer. I knew it was one thing particular after I used a clamp-on controller to show a preproduction mannequin into some type of superpowered, supersized Steam Deck. In day by day use, it’s extra like a husky Surface Pro, with an AMD Strix Halo processor that includes highly effective built-in graphics for gaming and a battery that lasts a full workday in non-gaming duties. It’s a captivating and versatile system that would plausibly substitute a desktop, laptop computer, and a pill or handheld for a sure sort of PC gamer — one who doesn’t thoughts the $2,100 beginning value.

The ROG Flow Z13 is a pill that’s additionally attempting to be a hardcore gaming machine. It has a 13.4-inch, 180Hz IPS touchscreen with pen assist, 32GB of unified reminiscence (as much as 128GB), a 1TB m.2 SSD, and ample port choice, beginning at $2,099.99. The Ryzen AI Max Plus 395 APU in our $2,299.99 evaluate unit gives surprisingly good gaming efficiency, particularly for a pill. And the removable keyboard with bigger keycaps and trackpad feels prefer it’s pulled instantly from the wonderful ROG Zephyrus laptops. It makes for a potent transportable gaming system — one you’ll be able to even use in your lap with out your legs burning up.

I used it keyboardless on the sofa for a Discord film and recreation night time with some buds, and it left sufficient area on my lap for my cat to twist up. I caught it on my desk, between my large 4K monitor and my mechanical keyboard, and it doubled as my desktop pc and a helpful secondary display. I even plugged it into my TV like a recreation console — one with a lot better graphics than any docked handheld. The skill to do all this stuff makes it numerous enjoyable.

The Flow Z13’s Strix Halo processor may be very succesful in graphics-heavy video games at its native 2560 x 1600-inch decision. Don’t anticipate extras like path tracing, however do anticipate strong framerates within the 50 to 60-plus fps vary on low-to-medium settings. In video games that assist FSR 3 and body era, you’ll be able to push issues additional: with these scaling choices enabled, Cyberpunk 2077 hit over 60fps and even pushed into the 70s at excessive settings on a 4K exterior monitor.

I’ve additionally performed a bunch of Elden Ring on the Z13. (I blame the latest Nightreign community check for giving me the itch once more.) At native decision, it was persistently within the 50fps vary on excessive settings, and at 1200p, it hit the sport’s 60fps ceiling. By comparability, the primary Z13, again in 2022, may barely muster 30fps at 1200p on medium settings within the Lands Between. That wasn’t far off from the less expensive and fewer highly effective Steam Deck, which tops out round 40fps at 800p and medium settings, with loads of framerate dips.

Elden Ring stays one of many most-played titles on Valve’s $400 handheld. But it’s a lot higher on the brand new ROG Flow, and the delta between the Z13 and the Steam Deck is now a lot wider. You may even play for round 90 minutes on battery on the Z13, versus 70 minutes on the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck is cheaper and comfier to make use of, however it’s additionally one other system to maintain observe of. The Z13’s removable keyboard offers it a number of the play-anywhere good thing about the Steam Deck whereas nonetheless being good for different issues. If the Z13 simply had devoted controllers like I attempted to adapt, it’d be like a Super Steam Deck.

This is the primary system of any form we’ve examined that makes use of AMD’s new Ryzen AI Max Strix Halo processors, which mix speedy CPU cores like those on AMD’s Strix Point processors with AMD’s strongest built-in graphics cores. It additionally offers this Z13 a lot better battery life than earlier fashions. It lasted a really respectable 10 hours in our battery rundown check, and I may get by an eight to nine-hour workday if I wasn’t reckless (no video games, round 200 to 300 nits brightness, energy effectivity mode, and battery saver at 30 p.c). The final Flow Z13 we examined, in 2023, with an Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and Nvidia RTX 4070 cell GPU, lasted round 4 and a half hours in common use and simply 48 minutes whereas gaming.

In our benchmarks, the Z13’s AMD Ryzen AI Max Plus 395 beats the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 of the Asus Zenbook S 16 (a productiveness laptop computer) and Zephyrus G16 (a gaming laptop computer) — and just about any Intel chip we’ve seen in a laptop computer not too long ago — in single-core and multi-core CPU exams. And the 40-core Radeon 8060S is astonishingly highly effective for an built-in GPU, rivalling Nvidia’s RTX 4060. The RTX 4070 within the Zephyrus G16 nonetheless handily wins in GPU efficiency by 40-55 p.c in Geekbench and 3DMark Time Spy, however Strix Halo proves formidable. And enable me to emphasise as soon as extra: built-in graphics.

To get that efficiency on the Z13, you’ll need to pony up $2,299.99 for the configuration with the Ryzen AI Max Plus 395. That’s $200 greater than the AI Max 390 chip within the base mannequin, however in line with YouTuber Cary “The Phawx” Golomb’s hourlong deep dive into each variations of the Z13, the improve, which will get you 4 extra CPU cores and eight extra GPU cores, is definitely worth the cash.

All configurations of the Z13 are 0.51 inches thick and a couple of.65 kilos with out the keyboard, which provides 0.86 kilos. By comparability, a Surface Pro 11 is 0.68 inches thick and a couple of.7 kilos with the keyboard. Asus’s upcoming 2025 ROG Zephyrus G14 shall be 0.63 inches thick and three.46 kilos, which is barely lighter and thinner than the chonky-for-a-tablet Z13. Hefty because the Z13 is, its compact measurement and inflexible construct make it really feel extra transportable and knockaround-friendly than you’d anticipate. The sturdy kickstand actually helps when toting it round the home or repositioning it, since you’ll be able to stick your palms below it and raise with assist out of your forearms, versus simply your fingers. It’s nonetheless finest considered a gaming laptop computer with a removable keyboard, however it’s shocking how rather more versatile that makes it.

The Z13 additionally has a 5-megapixel webcam and 13-megapixel rear-facing digicam. You’d need to be deranged to take precise footage with the rear digicam on a Windows pill; it’s largely helpful for exhibiting individuals issues on video calls. The twin audio system are workable however don’t supply a very full sound, particularly on the low finish, and chances are you’ll by accident block one when holding it in panorama orientation. And the chunky 200W energy adapter makes use of Asus’ reversible proprietary connector (it helps 100W Power Delivery through its USB-C 4 ports, as properly).

As a pill that makes a believable gaming laptop computer and even desktop, the ROG Flow Z13 is as near an all-in-one system as there’s proper now. And like all all-in-one, it’s costly and it makes some compromises in comparison with extra conventional units — value being the obvious. You can spend much less cash on a extra highly effective (and much more compact) gaming laptop computer just like the Zephyrus G14, or you’ll be able to go the opposite approach and get a desktop and a Steam Deck. But there’s one thing concerning the Flow that’s charming and joyful. If it weren’t fairly so costly, I’d be tempted to purchase it as an alternative of a standard gaming laptop computer and handheld.

The Strix Halo chip contained in the Z13 could find yourself being an even bigger deal than the pill itself. That’s already evidenced by its implementation in Framework’s endearing little Desktop and extra conventional laptops on their approach. But, for now, this intriguing chip takes one of many quirkiest and coolest tablet-laptop hybrids and makes it extra highly effective, extra environment friendly, and much more compelling.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge