X13 Flow as a productivity laptop

[Nolanl83]

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-flow-x13-13-4-touchscreen-gaming-laptop-1920-x-1200-fhd-amd-ryzen-9-with-16gb-memory-512gb-ssd-off-black/6535502.p?

looking at this open box excellent is $650. Been wanting a productivity, video editing laptop. Big cons are soldered ram. But for $650 if Im wanting to be a cheapskate do I just snag this?

7940hs no dgpu

 

[filpo]

4 minutes ago, Nolanl83 said:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-flow-x13-13-4-touchscreen-gaming-laptop-1920-x-1200-fhd-amd-ryzen-9-with-16gb-memory-512gb-ssd-off-black/6535502.p?

looking at this open box excellent is $650. Been wanting a productivity, video editing laptop. Big cons are soldered ram. But for $650 if Im wanting to be a cheapskate do I just snag this?

7940hs no dgpu

 

if you don't need the dgpu then sure

[SpookyCitrus]

It has no dGPU which is most likely going to be a hindrance for some things, any sort of gaming, video editing, I wouldn't expect greatness. Depending on the resolution and workload of videos, it could be a major hindrance. What is your maximum budget? I was able to snag a Gigabyte G5 with an i5 13th gen, 16GB of Ram, and an RTX 4060 for $750 a few weeks ago. I'm sure there are better options within your budget. 

 

If you realize what it means having no dGPU, it's really up to you.

[Nolanl83]

3 minutes ago, SpookyCitrus said:

It has no dGPU which is most likely going to be a hindrance for some things, any sort of gaming, video editing, I wouldn't expect greatness. Depending on the resolution and workload of videos, it could be a major hindrance. What is your maximum budget? I was able to snag a Gigabyte G5 with an i5 13th gen, 16GB of Ram, and an RTX 4060 for $750 a few weeks ago. I'm sure there are better options within your budget. 

 

If you realize what it means having no dGPU, it's really up to you.

Dont need a DGPU, Hobbyist short form video editing, making money off of it, close to a few thousand a year but.

[Agall]

16 minutes ago, Nolanl83 said:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-flow-x13-13-4-touchscreen-gaming-laptop-1920-x-1200-fhd-amd-ryzen-9-with-16gb-memory-512gb-ssd-off-black/6535502.p?

looking at this open box excellent is $650. Been wanting a productivity, video editing laptop. Big cons are soldered ram. But for $650 if Im wanting to be a cheapskate do I just snag this?

7940hs no dgpu

 

Its a no-brainer at that price.

 

Personally, last generation gaming laptops are the best option for productivity. I personally use a Ryzen 5000 Asus G14 that allowed me to replace both a desktop and laptop with this single device. This sale is insane for $700 for something that's barely 'last gen'. 

 

RAM is less of an issue with a dGPU I've found. I still rock 16GB on this device that I've had for a couple years now and I haven't seen any limitations.

 

If you don't need the dGPU, this is perfect for productivity. I'd buy this thing now to replace my current laptop if I could.

[Nolanl83]

11 minutes ago, Agall said:

Its a no-brainer at that price.

 

Personally, last generation gaming laptops are the best option for productivity. I personally use a Ryzen 5000 Asus G14 that allowed me to replace both a desktop and laptop with this single device. This sale is insane for $700 for something that's barely 'last gen'. 

 

RAM is less of an issue with a dGPU I've found. I still rock 16GB on this device that I've had for a couple years now and I haven't seen any limitations.

 

If you don't need the dGPU, this is perfect for productivity. I'd buy this thing now to replace my current laptop if I could.

Definitely don't need a DGPU, most of the time what I'm doing could probably be rendered by a 780M fairly quickly. My only concern is that 16 GB of RAM. I've been trying to find a 7840HS or 7840U with 32, but most the time they're pretty unreasonable in terms of price.

[Agall]

5 minutes ago, Nolanl83 said:

Definitely don't need a DGPU, most of the time what I'm doing could probably be rendered by a 780M fairly quickly. My only concern is that 16 GB of RAM. I've been trying to find a 7840HS or 7840U with 32, but most the time they're pretty unreasonable in terms of price.

Personally, 16GB is less of a problem than I suspected after testing several machines with only 16GB. Whether that's with the handhelds (I have a SD OLED, although that's Lunix), a 12100f/6600 system I built with only 16GB, my 4790k with 16GB that I recently threw my 4090 into for testing, this laptop which is upgradeable to 24GB but I haven't found the need to do so, etc.

 

Unless you know your workflow exceeds 16GB, then its likely not a problem. Comparably, you'd have to spend a lot more to get better. This model with no dGPU is really designed as an XG Mobile eGPU host, so at worse, you might be able to pick up one of the older XG 6850XT (basically a desktop 6700 XT) to get more RAM flexibility. A dGPU does offload some system RAM usage since you're no longer allocating 512MB or so of system RAM for vRAM.

[Nolanl83]

2 minutes ago, Agall said:

Personally, 16GB is less of a problem than I suspected after testing several machines with only 16GB. Whether that's with the handhelds (I have a SD OLED, although that's Lunix), a 12100f/6600 system I built with only 16GB, my 4790k with 16GB that I recently threw my 4090 into for testing, this laptop which is upgradeable to 24GB but I haven't found the need to do so, etc.

 

Unless you know your workflow exceeds 16GB, then its likely not a problem. Comparably, you'd have to spend a lot more to get better. This model with no dGPU is really designed as an XG Mobile eGPU host, so at worse, you might be able to pick up one of the older XG 6850XT (basically a desktop 6700 XT) to get more RAM flexibility. A dGPU does offload some system RAM usage since you're no longer allocating 512MB or so of system RAM for vRAM.

Yea; This is moreso for portability. With 1.5 years left of college its likely more than enough, ill be traveling internationally soon so having a laptop that can last a WHILE with battery in mind is a good idea. $650 is cheap for this. I also get 2 years of warranty for it through bestbuy total tech. im coming from a 6100u with a 1366x768 screen, an HP440 G3 with 16gb of ddr3, I also have like 110 chrome tabs open so realistically for a short period of time just getting this for $650 will cover me for atleast 3-4 years at which point ill have a full time job with a lot more money in this industry lmfao. I dont wanna go all out immediately. If i have to close some chrome tabs I dont think ill be too mad and ill have a 30-60 day return Id need to verify

 

[Agall]

5 minutes ago, Nolanl83 said:

Yea; This is moreso for portability. With 1.5 years left of college its likely more than enough, ill be traveling internationally soon so having a laptop that can last a WHILE with battery in mind is a good idea. $650 is cheap for this. I also get 2 years of warranty for it through bestbuy total tech. im coming from a 6100u with a 1366x768 screen, an HP440 G3 with 16gb of ddr3, I also have like 110 chrome tabs open so realistically for a short period of time just getting this for $650 will cover me for atleast 3-4 years at which point ill have a full time job with a lot more money in this industry lmfao. I dont wanna go all out immediately. If i have to close some chrome tabs I dont think ill be too mad and ill have a 30-60 day return Id need to verify

 

Yeah, if you already have TTS or Total Tech now, I'd give it a shot. Usually Open Box Excellent are practically new, someone who returns it ASAP with all packing material and such. Worst case though, the new in box option might be worth it if you plan to keep it long term so there's no Asus warranty conflicts (they're not the best in the industry on upholding factory warranties).

 

I wish more companies pumped out laptops like this that used the medium sized die CPUs. I personally outrun even the best ultrabooks which is why I elected to stick to gaming laptops as my work laptop. I can almost outrun this 5800HS in my normal use case.

 

My desktop at home though, it makes me glad I went for the 7950x3D versus waiting for the 7800x3D, since when I down configure to a pseudo 7800x3D, I can outrun it quite easily. I however have ridiculously high standards, like being able to play two games simultaneously with a ton of background applications, even though this is all on a single display with precise alt/(shft+alt)+tab 'gameplay' .

[Nolanl83]

15 minutes ago, Agall said:

Personally, 16GB is less of a problem than I suspected after testing several machines with only 16GB. Whether that's with the handhelds (I have a SD OLED, although that's Lunix), a 12100f/6600 system I built with only 16GB, my 4790k with 16GB that I recently threw my 4090 into for testing, this laptop which is upgradeable to 24GB but I haven't found the need to do so, etc.

 

Unless you know your workflow exceeds 16GB, then its likely not a problem. Comparably, you'd have to spend a lot more to get better. This model with no dGPU is really designed as an XG Mobile eGPU host, so at worse, you might be able to pick up one of the older XG 6850XT (basically a desktop 6700 XT) to get more RAM flexibility. A dGPU does offload some system RAM usage since you're no longer allocating 512MB or so of system RAM for vRAM.

could also go with this A370M model w/ 32gb of ram, 1tb ssd, https://www.ebay.com/itm/156012835888? both are technically used/refurbed and have 2 years of warranties. 

[Nolanl83]

5 minutes ago, Agall said:

Yeah, if you already have TTS or Total Tech now, I'd give it a shot. Usually Open Box Excellent are practically new, someone who returns it ASAP with all packing material and such. Worst case though, the new in box option might be worth it if you plan to keep it long term so there's no Asus warranty conflicts (they're not the best in the industry on upholding factory warranties).

 

I wish more companies pumped out laptops like this that used the medium sized die CPUs. I personally outrun even the best ultrabooks which is why I elected to stick to gaming laptops as my work laptop. I can almost outrun this 5800HS in my normal use case.

 

My desktop at home though, it makes me glad I went for the 7950x3D versus waiting for the 7800x3D, since when I down configure to a pseudo 7800x3D, I can outrun it quite easily. I however have ridiculously high standards, like being able to play two games simultaneously with a ton of background applications, even though this is all on a single display with precise alt/(shft+alt)+tab 'gameplay' .

Brother has total Tech; So im just gonna abuse it. Could also look on ebay and get a different certified refurbished model. I dont think i'll outwork it. to be fair, My editing can be done on a phone realistically, but I also have portions of my job as its multifaceted in the social media industry being on my laptop, especially when editing off my camera.  REALLY only brought in $3K from the side that requires editing since april~ish. Definitely has gotten bigger though. 

[Agall]

12 minutes ago, Nolanl83 said:

Brother has total Tech; So im just gonna abuse it. Could also look on ebay and get a different certified refurbished model. I dont think i'll outwork it. to be fair, My editing can be done on a phone realistically, but I also have portions of my job as its multifaceted in the social media industry being on my laptop, especially when editing off my camera.  REALLY only brought in $3K from the side that requires editing since april~ish. Definitely has gotten bigger though. 

Something to consider, I've noticed the last year or so the gaming laptop market is extremely saturated with good options. The sub $1000 market hasn't gotten worse like one would expect with inflation and general cost of electronics but has actually gotten better. $700 for this device isn't an 'insane' deal, but its definitely one of the best I've seen. There's a lot of options in that price category that may be comparable, but this one in particular is more of a beefed up ultrabook than a gaming laptop without the dGPU.

 

Since you've already stated you don't need a dGPU, the only variable would be spending a decent amount more to get some better features which usually includes a dGPU. Asus' ProArt series has developed nicely and regularly has killer sales, which are better geared towards video editing and usually come with amazing screens, even OLEDs. Also, if you copy+paste the model into Google and go to Asus' website, they almost always list if the RAM is upgradeable and to what, usually also stating how its configured from the factory (if its single or dual channel). A lot of the 16GB models in this category are single channel, so you'd want to upgrade that anyways.

 

16 minutes ago, Nolanl83 said:

could also go with this A370M model w/ 32gb of ram, 1tb ssd, https://www.ebay.com/itm/156012835888? both are technically used/refurbed and have 2 years of warranties. 

I personally steer clear of used hardware, but that's just me. I won't comment on that listing specifically for that reason.

[Nolanl83]

1 minute ago, Agall said:

Something to consider, I've noticed the last year or so the gaming laptop market is extremely saturated with good options. The sub $1000 market hasn't gotten worse like one would expect with inflation and general cost of electronics but has actually gotten better. $700 for this device isn't an 'insane' deal, but its definitely one of the best I've seen. There's a lot of options in that price category that may be comparable, but this one in particular is more of a beefed up ultrabook than a gaming laptop without the dGPU.

 

Since you've already stated you don't need a dGPU, the only variable would be spending a decent amount more to get some better features which usually includes a dGPU. Asus' ProArt series has developed nicely and regularly has killer sales, which are better geared towards video editing and usually come with amazing screens, even OLEDs. Also, if you copy+paste the model into Google and go to Asus' website, they almost always list if the RAM is upgradeable and to what, usually also stating how its configured from the factory (if its single or dual channel). A lot of the 16GB models in this category are single channel, so you'd want to upgrade that anyways.

 

I personally steer clear of used hardware, but that's just me. I won't comment on that listing specifically for that reason.

Ahh; Well the reason I ask is it being certified refurbished in my eyes is the exact same as open box for me considering 2 years of warranties etc.

[Agall]

Just now, Nolanl83 said:

Ahh; Well the reason I ask is it being certified refurbished in my eyes is the exact same as open box for me considering 2 years of warranties etc.

I worked GS for ~1.5 years as a transitional job, though in the backroom and not the front where the open box certifications are normally done. Its common for them to mess it up or improperly mark it, entirely depending on which store it comes from. Any of those GS certified parts could come from any store, so no matter what its a gamble. At least you can return it if need be, but there's always the potential of a warranty conflict with the manufacturer since they might've started the device's warranty on the first purchase and not its re-purchase. So if that device sat on a shelf at a Best Buy 600 miles away, you could short yourself a warranty claim after those first two years that Best Buy includes with GSP.

 

Its been a few years for me, but that's just something to consider. Either way, I'd recommend asking them if you're concerned. I rarely buy the protection but there's somethings I buy it by default now after knowing mostly how the whole process works. Somethings I do buy open box, things like cables and such where the markup is absurd and the product is easy for a relatively low level trained Geek Squad employee to validate as good. Not to insult Geek Squad Agents, but they're paid about the same as a sales employee for a reason and not all created equal nor trained to be equal, so I wouldn't put any trust into their validation of quality for used parts. When I worked there, I was grossly overqualified, and paid higher accordingly, but various factors including the pandemic had me working there for longer than Best Buy even plans for. They expect about a 1 year turnaround for all employees, if that puts it into perspective.

[Nolanl83]

4 minutes ago, Agall said:

I worked GS for ~1.5 years as a transitional job, though in the backroom and not the front where the open box certifications are normally done. Its common for them to mess it up or improperly mark it, entirely depending on which store it comes from. Any of those GS certified parts could come from any store, so no matter what its a gamble. At least you can return it if need be, but there's always the potential of a warranty conflict with the manufacturer since they might've started the device's warranty on the first purchase and not its re-purchase. So if that device sat on a shelf at a Best Buy 600 miles away, you could short yourself a warranty claim after those first two years that Best Buy includes with GSP.

 

Its been a few years for me, but that's just something to consider. Either way, I'd recommend asking them if you're concerned. I rarely buy the protection but there's somethings I buy it by default now after knowing mostly how the whole process works. Somethings I do buy open box, things like cables and such where the markup is absurd and the product is easy for a relatively low level trained Geek Squad employee to validate as good. Not to insult Geek Squad Agents, but they're paid about the same as a sales employee for a reason and not all created equal nor trained to be equal, so I wouldn't put any trust into their validation of quality for used parts. When I worked there, I was grossly overqualified, and paid higher accordingly, but various factors including the pandemic had me working there for longer than Best Buy even plans for. They expect about a 1 year turnaround for all employees, if that puts it into perspective.

So I initially thought I only had a 30-day return., turns out it's 60 with total tech, so I could absolutely test it out for a while and then return it if need be. But I think this is what I'm going to go with. Realistically if I have to close a tab or two to render I won't care