48 hours with the new Asus ROG Flow Z13

After using the laptop-tablet hybrid for about 48 hours at home and at work, I have a few things to say about this nifty little gadget. So let’s break it down to the good parts and the not so good parts.

The good parts

This laptop is powerful. It’s powered by AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395, with a 16 core 32 thread CPU and an integrated 8060s GPU. I used it at work as a replacement for my old laptop, and it handles everything smoothly. I could have 9 PDF documents open, Edge and Chrome with more than 9 tabs, Co-pilot, and Outlook with several email drafts without any issues. The 32GB RAM meets my needs perfectly and efficiently manages all tasks.

The screen is bright and sharp. At 500 nits, and 2560 x 1600 resolution, texts look sharp. Despite being an IPS panel, I wouldn’t have to worry about burn-in when I am working long hours on productivity software with lots of statics images and icons. In fact, it achieves the perfect balance of having sharp, crisp images for productivity work as well as having color accurate panel for watching or streaming videos.

It’s not that bulky to carry. I carried this in my backpack to work and it wasn’t uncomfortable to carry it all. Sure, the iPad Pro and the Macbook Air is lighter and has a smaller footprint than the Asus Flow Z13, but remember that this thing is a beast as well when it comes to actual gaming. The fact that Asus manages to cram all that power into a 12mm thick chassis in a form of a tablet is impressive.

The removable keyboard and trackpad are great. Although some people dislike the chiclet-style keyboard, I find it comfortable. Having used a Macbook Air and Pro before, I enjoy using chiclet-style keyboards. They fit my hands well, so I never have to stretch my fingers too far. The trackpad is large, and the button response feels good.

The not-so-good parts

I wish the battery life was better. When not plugged in, the tablet goes into silent mode, which reduces performance to save battery. Although it’s possible to use the tablet for a whole workday without charging, it really depends on the workload. I used to have a MacBook Air, and nothing compares to Apple’s silicon for power efficiency. Those devices can last much longer without needing a charge. I hoped the Asus ROG Flow Z13 would be similar because it has an efficient AMD mobile chip. However, both AMD and Intel still need to improve to match Apple’s performance and power efficiency.

That being said, because the AMD Ryzen chip is so powerful, I believe they should give customers an additional power mode below ‘silent’ performance. I feel that if there is an additional option, for example, ‘efficient’ or ‘low-power’ option, pushing the performance of the laptop further down, just enough for simple tasks to run smoothly, I think it will be possible to achieve Macbook Air like battery life. One possibility is to just shut down 8-cores and leave the remaining 8 running, which is more than enough for most day to day tasks when using the laptop.

The sound system could be better. Again, I am comparing to the likes of Apple’s Macbook Pros, with its loud and big bass sound system all coming out from the laptop. Between that and the ROG Flow Z13, I’d say that the Z13 manages to eke out just 60% of what the Macbook Pro can achieve, in terms of volume. On the other hand, sound separation between the stereo speakers within the chassis is pretty good, making it a somewhat immersive experience when using this device as a tablet for watching movies.