The dream of having a Surface Pro built for gaming is finally a reality. ASUS has pulled the curtain back on the ROG Flow Z13, which, much like its Flow X13 from 2021, is changing the game.
Where the Flow X13 squeezed a gaming laptop inside a sleek Ultrabook, the X13 goes even further and squeezes a gaming laptop inside a Windows 11 tablet with a kickstand. And we’re not talking about light gaming on integrated graphics, propped up by some flashy RGB. Just take a look at the main specs on this thing.
There are ways it differs from the Surface Pro, of course, but if you’ve been dreaming of that form factor for your next gaming portable, this is it. Despite the constraints of building in a tablet, ASUS still went with a full-fat H Series Core i9 and a dedicated GPU in the form of the RTX 3050 Ti. And it’s hardly a chunker at 12mm thick and 1.1kg (2.4lbs) in weight, either.
There are touches on the ROG Flow Z13 that remind you it’s an ASUS product, notably the glass window over the motherboard shining brightly illuminated by RGB. Unlike the majority of tablet devices, this one not only uses standard PCIe 4.0 storage, but the SSD is upgradable as well.
The hardware package opens up a number of doors for on-the-go gamers, not least cloud gaming from something like Xbox Game Pass. Because it’s a tablet, it has a full touch display, which means touch-friendly games can be enjoyed when you’re not pushing the NVIDIA graphics to the limit.
The Flow Z13 is also compatible with the ROG XG Mobile, the external GPU launched with the Flow X13. This means access to an NVIDIA RTX 3080 or, now, with the latest addition, an AMD Radeon GPU as an alternative. The XG Mobile is the companion to turn the Flow Z13 into a full desktop machine, with additional connectivity and display outputs on hand.
We don’t have confirmed pricing or release schedules yet for the ROG Flow Z13, but there’s no doubt this is already one of our most anticipated launches of 2022.
