With the advent of machines such as the Razer Blade Stealth, compact ultrabooks are getting more popular among gamers, especially as the abilty to cram decent discrete graphics into these form-factors develops. Asus purports to one-up them in 2021 with the ROG Flow X13. It is a 2-in-1 with a 13.4-inch touchscreen that can go up to 3840 x 2400 in resolution.
The X13's design allows it to deploy its display in easel-like modes for editing or drawing, whereas the rest of its internals might handle requirements even beyond that. Therefore, Asus argues that it is versatile enough for both. The 16:10, up-to-116% sRGB nature of its display backs these claims up well, although it covers only 75-86% of the Adobe or DCI-P3 gamuts.
The ROG Flow X13 is touted as being equally effective for gaming thanks to its up to Ryzen 9 5980HS platform and GTX 1650 graphics. Then again, its highest-end model, with the better display option, also supports a 60Hz refresh rate. Furthermore, any SKUs of the new X13 might need its new, optional eGPU for truly demanding tasks.
The ROG XG Mobile is one of the latest takes on such a device that requires a proprietary port on its corresponding PC; however, as the OEM has conferred PCIe x8 rather than x4 on this connection, it might just swing this one going forward. However, it has not been included in the ROG Flow X13's latest release.
In fact, only its GV301 GV301QH-K6034T variant, which combines a Ryzen 7 5800HS processor with 4GB of dedicated graphics, a FHD 120Hz IPS panel and 16GB of RAM, is now available via Saturn or MediaMarkt, where it now costs €1,499 (~US$1,757).