ROG Flow X13 Experience

[Sacriledgy]

So, i decided to ditch my Zephyrus GU502GU for this Laptop that linus dubbed "Wonderbook" in his videos. Why? Simple, when i bought that said Zephyrus it was the Thinnest and Lightest gaming laptop on earth, but now 2 years into owning the thin beast, it's starting to get annoying to lug around 2,5 KG for the Laptop and 230W Charger around. Besides, i don't need the GPU power from that GTX 1660Ti, so the extra weight and size is basically deadweight to me.

 

Second, kind of unrelated reason is the fact that it surprised me how high maintenance that Laptop is. For the time i owned it, i has been going for service 3 times. Twice for the same issue of RGB lights getting messed up and once for GPU VRM problems which resulted in Motherboard changes. 

 

As i said, I Pre Ordered the thing back in March 30th. And by the 31st, they told me it's ready to ship. It arrived in my hand on April 2nd. The whole process only took literally 4 days. I definitely got lucky. So when the Flow X13 arrived, it's like a whole new world to me. It's so thin and light, but somehow has a dedicated GPU and such a powerful CPU that it beats many 15 Inch laptops. High performance-Gaming laptop, that is. Now on to my experience: 

 

Pros: 

1. The first thing that jumps out to me is the build quality. Asus definitely spends way more time perfecting their build quality this time around. The thing is rock solid and the ice cold metal screams premium in the hands.

2. The high performance in the tiny package is definitely nice. It's almost like they broke the law of thermodynamic with this. Ryzen 5th gen is THE go to CPU.

3. As expected, it's super responsive.

4. It's also surprisingly quiet compared to my earlier 15 Inch Zephyrus M.

5. The coating and design is comparatively resistant to Fingerprints than other dark laptops.

6. The 13 Inch, 16:10, 120Hz, super color acurate, adaptive refresh rate, touchscreen (gawd dayum, what a combination) is a literal godsend in my use case, which is mainly paper based research which requires a lot of reading. I never understand linus's obsession with these kind of screen combination before, but now i don't think i can live without them. The taller display also helps with adjustment period, coming from much bigger laptop into this.

7. Keyboard is impressively deep at 1,7 MM, i legitimately don't understand how they pulled it off. Even my thicker and bigger Zephyrus is only at 1,3 MM. The travel distance is super satisfying and layout is nice.

8. Cached in Fingerprint scanner is THE BEST methode of signing in on Windows. Hello Webcam is prone to obstruction with mask and normal Fingerprint scanner is a chore, almost feels primitive compared to this.

 

Cons: 

1. Trackpad is really smooth and adequately sized, but seems prone to static issues that makes it jumps around. It comes around once in a while and is really annoying. I tried everything from driver update to cleaning both the trackpad and my fingers but nothing works.

2. My unit comes with 3 total super tiny cosmetic damage. 2 unevenly coated paint on the lid and 1 super tiny marks on the keyboard deck. 

3. No method of privacy protection with either webcam shutter or killswitch. 

4. My biggest problem is Asus plans to refresh the internal GTX 1650 with RTX 3050, which super sucks for lucky early adopters like me. I hope they won't do it until second generation comes (which is at least next year). Like i get that i won't be playing loads of games (probably the very rare Sime 4 and Witcher 3), but the performance gain between the two is significant to say the least and i think its shady if they decided to clap our ass by doing such a thing. If anyone from Asus decided to go ahead with the plan, i hope they offer us some kind of trade-in programs to alleviate the pain.

 

So that's how my life's been with this crazy little beast. I think I'll be keeping it for the next 2-5 years down the line. Any question is more than welcome!

 

Ps: Sorry for the funny english, I'm not a native speaker, but am trying my best lol

[Skiiwee29]

<-- Moved to Member Reviews -->

[Ridguard]

How silent or loud does this run when doing simple stuff like browsing/streaming (or playing low impact games like mtg arena, if you've done any of that)?

Also same question, but for how hot the bottom gets sitting in your lap.

 

Any issues cropped up since you last posted, or has it been running smooth?

[Sacriledgy]

On 4/20/2021 at 8:39 AM, Ridguard said:

How silent or loud does this run when doing simple stuff like browsing/streaming (or playing low impact games like mtg arena, if you've done any of that)?

Also same question, but for how hot the bottom gets sitting in your lap.

 

Any issues cropped up since you last posted, or has it been running smooth?

Well i sold mine since i made the review. Mainly because Asus will release the version with RTX 3050Ti for the same price soon, and the performance difference from GTX 1650 Max-q is just too big to ignore. So I would suggest holding out for that RTX 3050Ti version. 

 

Performance is nothing but satisfactory (because of that insane 5800HS), it doesn't get hot on the bottom but understandably, the keyboard near hinges area is really hot. Overall it runs surprisingly quiet, it also has passive fans mode so that helps a lot. I haven't been playing a lot of games, but Witcher 3 on 1200p @ Ultra settings runs around 30-40 FPS. Whilst Sims 4 runs at 40-60 FPS.

 

Point of note though, my old one has crazy defect in the trackpad where the thing just kept jumping around (behaving erratically) after few hours or so. Idk if its exclusively mine since i haven't been able to locate people with similar issues though. And mine actually has 3 super tiny production defect (2 unevenly coated paint on the LCD Cover and 1 on the wristrest). But i spot then since I'm looking super closely though. 

 

Upgrades are mostly off the table since the LPDDR4X RAM is soldered on and the NVME SSD is the tiny 2230 version which is currently really hard to find. 

[Ridguard]

How was the screen by the way? Was it a good brightness?

I'm looking at maybe getting this or a yoga 6, which is alot cheaper but the screen was both rather dim and highly reflective, which I didn't like at all... unfortunatly there is no where around here that has a rog flow that I can see in person.

 

Oh, one other thing, I know the main charging port is the usb-c on the right side, but do you know if youre also able to charge directly from the usb-c on the left side thats in the xg port with the normal charging cable?

I've seen conflicting reports, I know it powers from there if youre actually using the xg mobile egpu, but I don't know if it works if you just plug in the power supply by itself.

Its going to make things a little awkward if I can't power it from the left

[Sacriledgy]

On 4/22/2021 at 10:08 AM, Ridguard said:

How was the screen by the way? Was it a good brightness?

I'm looking at maybe getting this or a yoga 6, which is alot cheaper but the screen was both rather dim and highly reflective, which I didn't like at all... unfortunatly there is no where around here that has a rog flow that I can see in person.

 

Oh, one other thing, I know the main charging port is the usb-c on the right side, but do you know if youre also able to charge directly from the usb-c on the left side thats in the xg port with the normal charging cable?

I've seen conflicting reports, I know it powers from there if youre actually using the xg mobile egpu, but I don't know if it works if you just plug in the power supply by itself.

Its going to make things a little awkward if I can't power it from the left

Brightness is okay, it's around 300 nits just like most gaming laptops. For me, full brightness is blinding though, so i always use mine at 30% brightness. Screen glare is there, but not extremely annoying, it is a touch display afterall. Upside is that the screen is topped with Gorilla Glass 5, so there's no way of making that a matte screen is there? Lol 

 

Well technically, the main charging port is the one on the left. The right one is an additional type c port that supports 100W charging, so yeah you can charge in full speed from both sides (the charging brick is impressively tiny and light).

 

I actually don't know how i feel about this laptop though. I mean it's an impressive piece of machinery, but the trackpad issues on mine left a bad aftertaste (point of note: I haven't seen similar reports on this problem though, so it's probably just bad luck on my part).

[juxtathepozer]

love this laptop, it was really great.. 

 

was, until I set a BIOS boot up password, went to use it a couple days later to discover I'd forgotten my own damn password. what a dolt!
 

I've opened it up to look for a BIOS jumper or pin or dip switch, no luck. Can't find any motherboard diagrams and I'm not even sure which chip is the actual BIOS. There doesn't appear to be a CMOS battery either.

 

I signed up to LTT forum especially to ask for help, on the off chance anyone can? Either that or I'll be sending it back to Asus I guess :(

 

Cheers, juxta

[Sacriledgy]

On 5/4/2021 at 8:10 PM, juxtathepozer said:

love this laptop, it was really great.. 

 

was, until I set a BIOS boot up password, went to use it a couple days later to discover I'd forgotten my own damn password. what a dolt!
 

I've opened it up to look for a BIOS jumper or pin or dip switch, no luck. Can't find any motherboard diagrams and I'm not even sure which chip is the actual BIOS. There doesn't appear to be a CMOS battery either.

 

I signed up to LTT forum especially to ask for help, on the off chance anyone can? Either that or I'll be sending it back to Asus I guess :(

 

Cheers, juxta

Honestly, just send it back to asus

[C.E.O.]

Did you buy the Rtx 3050 version ?