Pros | Cons |
+ Light and Portable | - Heats up quickly |
+ Futuristic Design | - Lack of ports |
+ Good performance | |
Another day, another ROG laptop review. However, it is slightly different this time around as it is a 2-in-1 gaming laptop - the ROG Flow Z13.
Unboxing + Design
The ROG Flow Z13 comes in a huge black box as there are multiple freebies. All the contents within the box are as follow:
ROG Flow Z13
Stylus
ROG Strix Impact Mouse
Laptop Bag
Detachable Keyboard
Paper works
Charger and cable
(XG Mobile shown on picture is sold separately)
The design language of the ROG Flow Z13 is rather chic and futuristic rather than plain and boring, which is great to set it apart from all the other laptops in the market.
ROG also implemented a retro-futuristic design that uses spacecraft inspired machining and a full CNC-milled chassis design - and it is then paired with a rear windows that showcases a part of the laptop from within.
The 170° adjustable kickstand allows easy set-up during tab mode which is great as it was my biggest complain during my ASUS Vivobook Slate 13 OLED review. Weighing only 1.1kg, it made my life easy in terms of bringing my laptop to and fro places.
Display
In terms of display, it comes with a 13.4" UHD+ display and an aspect ratio of 16:10. For color, it comes with 85% of DCI-P3 color gamut which made the colors pretty accurate and I had no issues with it.
For display resolution, we have the option to change up the display resolution to a FHD panel and get 120Hz refresh rate - however, if you crave extra crisp resolution, you can change it to 4K and get 60hz refresh rate. I personally enjoyed getting 120Hz for gaming and 4K for content creation work!
Since it can transformed into a tab, I just had a tad-bit of sensitivity issue when using it as a tab because it is not as responsive as I would've honestly hoped for.
Audio
Audio-wise, the speakers are Dolby Atmos supported - however, I find that the bass and sound were not really favorable when it is used as a tablet as the sounds are muffled against the table.
The audio sounded loud and so much clearer while in laptop mode.
Ports
In terms of ports, it comes with 1x USB-A port, 1x USB-C with Thunderbolt 4 port, 1x 3.5mm audio jack and 1x microSD card reader.
I personally wished there were more ports but then again, it is a small and slim factor. For creators on the go, you can add on the ROG XG Mobile (Sold separately) that can offer more ports like DisplayPort, HDMI and an Ethernet Port.
Performance
I'm pretty sure that a good laptop that can perform well is our main target when choosing a laptop. For specs, the ROG Flow Z13 comes with a 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900H processor and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX3050Ti - all this is coupled with 1TB of PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD and 8GB of DDR5 RAM.
Based on my experience, the laptop did not give me troubles in terms of loading or playing games. It could also open multiple tabs at once without slowing down and it was overall nice to touch. The only downside would probably be the poor cooling system it comes with, the laptop would get super hot even in an air-conditioned room.
Buy or no buy?
Overall, the ROG Flow Z13 is not the worse in terms of performance and usage, I just had problems with the cooling as it does tend to get really hot and the lack of ports throws me off.
However, if you are looking to lessen your carbon footprint and would like a tablet that can perform like a laptop, this should be a great pick.
