Asus ROG Flow X13 (2023) in review: Impressive 13.4-inch gaming convertible that performs as good as it looks

When we first reviewed the Asus ROG Flow X13 with an AMD Ryzen 9 5980HS and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q back in 2021, we were impressed by how well the convertible performed despite being constrained due to the slim 13.4-inch chassis. Asus continues to improve the Flow X13 each year, and this year's Flow X13 GV302XV is much faster and fixes some of the niggling issues found in the previous generations.

The Flow X13 is a convertible while its Intel-based cousins, the Flow Z13 GZ301V and the Flow Z13 ACRNM, are detachables. This year's Flow X13 brings several notable changes which make using the device a pleasurable experience.

With last year's AMD-powered Asus laptops, users had to separately flash a beta BIOS to enable USB4 and hope that it didn't nerf existing USB connectivity or cause sleep/standby issues. That is now a thing of the past as the Flow X13 comes with a native USB4 port. Additionally, you also get the ROG XG Mobile interface, which further expands the port selection and brings desktop-class gaming with the RTX 4090 in the ROG XG Mobile eGPU.

This year's Flow X13 offers 165 Hz QHD+ G-Sync displays across the board, save for the base model that comes with an FHD+ 120 Hz panel. The QHD+ 16:10 is a more practical resolution that helps with battery life compared to the UHD+ panels we've seen before. In our testing, the Flow X13's display offers good response times and shows no PWM flickering.

The Flow X13's display has decent color reproduction out-of-the-box, but creatives can make use of our calibration file provided in the review for color-accurate workflows.

Asus hasn't shied from combining a 65 W Ryzen 9 7940HS and a 60 W RTX 4060 Laptop GPU in the Flow X13's chassis. Though both the CPU and the GPU can utilize only up to 110 W under stress, the performance is still plenty and is not too far from the competition. The use of a 75 WHr battery together with power-efficient hardware results in nearly 12 hours of web browsing and video playback run times at 150 nits brightness.

The primary negatives against the ROG Flow X13 are its high heat and noise emissions, especially when used in the higher power profile. Expansion options are also limited owing to the soldered memory and the lone M.2 2230 NVMe SSD slot. In fact, the only way to get your hands on a 32 GB variant is to opt for the SKU with an RTX 4070 Laptop GPU that costs a pretty US$2,500.

Despite these negatives, the 2023 Asus ROG Flow X13 has little competition in the 13-inch gaming convertible segment.

Check out our full review of the Asus ROG Flow X13 (2023) for more information and performance comparisons.