Asus ROG Flow X13 (13.4-inch, 2021)

Superb, versatile design of laptop and dock ; RTX 3080 delivers great gaming speed ; GTX 1650 is a solid eSports chip ; High-quality display

Laptop and dock design won’t suit everyone ; Laptop is sometimes too hot ; Middling battery life ; Minimal laptop connectivity

“The ROG Flow X13 is an ultracompact and surprisingly powerful gaming laptop.”

Versatile 2-in-1 design ; GTX 1650 runs games admirably ; Great 16:10 display

'meh' without the eGPU ; Underside can get pretty toasty ; Dissapointing battery life

The Asus ROG Flow X13 (2021) has some serious potential, but without the ROG XG Mobile eGPU it doesn't meet the standards of other devices on the market, especially with modern gaming laptops being so slim and professional-looking these days. Still,...

Strong gaming performance ; The laptop is light and portable ; Well priced for a gaming laptop

Laptop RTX 3080 doesn’t run as fast as the desktop version ; Disconnecting the Docking Station is complex ; External GPU can’t be upgraded like a desktop card

The Asus RoG Flow X13 offers a lot of gaming punch for the price, but it has some compromises.

Compact, well-built chassis ; Excellent performance from fifth-generation AMD Ryzen 9 ; Accompanying eGPU can boost graphics performance ; Comfortable keyboard ; Crisp 4K display ; 360-degree hinge

Short battery life for an ultraportable ; Pricey

A quirky 2-in-1 convertible, the Asus ROG Flow X13 offers decent gaming performance, extraordinary speed on CPU-centric tasks (thanks to a fifth-generation AMD Ryzen 9 CPU), and as compact a chassis as you’ll find on any premium gaming laptop. Plus, a...

Compact convertible chassis ; Powerhouse processor ; 16:10 screen with stylus support ; Comfortable keyboard

Battery life isn’t great ; Comes in a $3,000 bundle ; Some screen wobble ; XG Mobile doesn’t always deliver 3080-level performance

Asus’ ROG Flow X13 is a 2-in-1 convertible gaming laptop, with the most powerful processor you can find in a 13-inch chassis. It comes with the XG Mobile, an external GPU that delivers high-end frame rates when it’s plugged in.

High-end Ryzen 9 5980HS performance in a tiny laptop ; High-end GeForce RTX 3080 performance in a tiny laptop

eGPU is cumbersome on the go ; Cover for eGPU port is flimsy

Besides the Ryzen 5000 CPU, Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080 is the other star of this show. Sure, compared to the RTX 3080 desktop it’s a slight letdown, but it’s also completely unrealistic to expect identical performance from the laptop version of any GPU,...

Excellent battery life for a compact machine ; Fantastically portable ; Good for productivity and gaming ; Decent frames per second - even without the XG Mobile external GPU

Lacks USB ports without the XG Mobile external GPU ; Fan design makes it hot on the lap

This 13-inch ultraportable with a 2-in-1 design style is tiny, lightweight and we think pretty fascinating. Assuming you purchase it with the XG Mobile external GPU as a complete package then you've got a real winner here.

Head-turning, versatile design ; Great gaming and overall performance ; Excellent battery life ; XG Mobile is a compact, portable eGPU

Keys are a bit small ; Display could be brighter and more vivid ; Expensive

The Asus ROG Flow X13 gives gamers versatility, power, endurance and innovation in one gorgeous chassis.

classy black design, well built and portable for what it is ; good inputs and IO ; beautiful and fast QHD wide-gamut display ; excellent performance for the format and versatile power profiles ; no longer throttled when running sustained loads in...

smudges easily ; heat builds-up in the middle of the chassis with demanding loads ; average audio quality ; 32 GB RAM only available with the expensive RTX 4070 model