Asus ROG Flow Z13 (2025) review: hold up, integrated graphics are good now?

The beefy Home windows gaming pill is again, and it’s executed two issues I believed inconceivable. It made me respect built-in graphics, and it satisfied me a Home windows pill will be enjoyable.

The Asus ROG Circulate Z13 is a 13-inch pill with a removable keyboard, a vibrant display, and the heart of a gaming laptop computer. I knew it was one thing particular once I used a clamp-on controller to show a preproduction mannequin into some form of superpowered, supersized Steam Deck. In every day use, it’s extra like a husky Floor Professional, 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 worth.

The ROG Circulate 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 help, 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 assessment unit gives surprisingly good gaming efficiency, particularly for a pill. And the removable keyboard with bigger keycaps and trackpad feels prefer it’s pulled straight from the superb ROG Zephyrus laptops. It makes for a potent transportable gaming system — one you possibly can 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 house on my lap for my cat to twist up. I caught it on my desk, between my big 4K monitor and my mechanical keyboard, and it doubled as my desktop laptop and a useful secondary display. I even plugged it into my TV like a recreation console — one with significantly better graphics than any docked handheld. The power to do all these items makes it numerous enjoyable.

The Circulate Z13’s Strix Halo processor could be very succesful in graphics-heavy video games at its native 2560 x 1600-inch decision. Don’t count on extras like path tracing, however do count on stable framerates within the 50 to 60-plus fps vary on low-to-medium settings. In video games that help FSR 3 and body era, you possibly can 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 take a look at for giving me the itch once more.) At native decision, it was constantly 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, might 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. Nevertheless it’s a lot higher on the brand new ROG Circulate, 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, but it surely’s additionally one other system to maintain monitor of. The Z13’s removable keyboard offers it a few 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 Tremendous Steam Deck.

That is the primary system of any variety 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 Level processors with AMD’s strongest built-in graphics cores. It additionally offers this Z13 significantly better battery life than earlier fashions. It lasted a really respectable 10 hours in our battery rundown take a look at, and I might get via 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 %). The final Circulate 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 lately — in single-core and multi-core CPU assessments. 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 % in Geekbench and 3DMark Time Spy, however Strix Halo proves formidable. And permit me to emphasise as soon as extra: built-in graphics.

To get that efficiency on the Z13, you’ll should 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 Floor Professional 11 is 0.68 inches thick and a couple of.7 kilos with the keyboard. Asus’s upcoming 2025 ROG Zephyrus G14 can 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 dimension and inflexible construct make it really feel extra transportable and knockaround-friendly than you’d count on. The sturdy kickstand actually helps when toting it round the home or repositioning it, since you possibly can stick your fingers underneath it and raise with help out of your forearms, versus simply your fingers. It’s nonetheless finest regarded as a gaming laptop computer with a removable keyboard, but it surely’s stunning how rather more versatile that makes it.

The Z13 additionally has a 5-megapixel webcam and 13-megapixel rear-facing digital camera. You’d should be deranged to take precise footage with the rear digital camera on a Home windows pill; it’s largely helpful for displaying folks issues on video calls. The twin audio system are workable however don’t supply a very full sound, particularly on the low finish, and you might by chance block one when holding it in panorama orientation. And the chunky 200W energy adapter makes use of Asus’ reversible proprietary connector (it helps 100W Energy Supply through its USB-C 4 ports, as effectively).

As a pill that makes a believable gaming laptop computer and even desktop, the ROG Circulate Z13 is as near an all-in-one system as there may be proper now. And like several all-in-one, it’s costly and it makes some compromises in comparison with extra conventional units — worth being the obvious. You may spend much less cash on a extra highly effective (and much more compact) gaming laptop computer just like the Zephyrus G14, or you possibly can go the opposite manner and get a desktop and a Steam Deck. However there’s one thing concerning the Circulate 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 a much 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 manner. However, 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.

Pictures by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge