Practical: the new ROG Flow Z13 gaming tablet from Asus with integrated AMD graphics card

Asus is bringing a new version of its Surface Pro-style gaming tablet to CES, and it’s bringing some big changes inside and out. The Asus ROG Flow Z13 for 2025 is once again a slightly bulky 13-inch tablet, almost half an inch thick, with a built-in kickstand, magnetic keyboard cover, plenty of ports, and a transparent window on the back with RGB lighting to show its insides.

That fun glass window is now larger, with a direct view of the motherboard, but the biggest change for the ROG Flow Z13 is its move to integrated graphics. This may seem like a step backwards for a gaming-focused tablet since gamers covet dedicated GPUs, but Asus equips it with AMD’s powerful new “Strix Halo” processor. The ROG Flow Z13 can be configured with the Ryzen AI Max 390 for $1,999.99 or the Ryzen AI Max Plus 395 for $2,199.99. The top model with the Max Plus 395 has 16 CPU cores and 40 graphics cores, while the base model Ryzen AI Max Plus 390 (damn those names) has 12 CPU cores and 32 graphics cores. The Z13 uses a redesigned stainless steel vapor chamber to cool these heavy graphics chips, capable of a 120W TDP.

All that Z13 power is responsible for driving a 13-inch, 2,560 x 1,600 touchscreen, with a fast 180Hz refresh rate (compared to 165Hz on the last generation model), which we don’t find often found in laptops and tablets of this size. For ports, it has two USB 4, one USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, HDMI 2.1, a microSD card slot capable of UHS-II speeds, and a 3.5mm headphone/mic combo jack. It also has a 5-megapixel front-facing webcam and a 13-megapixel rear camera, so you can flash your RGB when you’re awkwardly taking photos of your tablet in public. It also has Wi-Fi 7.

The Z13 supports USB-C Power Delivery for charging, but this won’t be powerful enough to enable its full performance under load. Instead, it comes with a 200W power adapter that uses Asus’s proprietary slim, reversible power jack, like on its recent laptops.

Other quality of life improvements to the Z13 include a new detachable keyboard with larger keys and a more generously sized touchpad. And on its right side, next to the power button and volume rocker, is a new “ScreenXpert” button that invokes a Command-Center-like widget that includes controls for managing multiple-display windows, a quick access to operating modes such as Turbo mode or Silent mode. , and other settings like muting your microphone. It’s mainly there to help control things in tablet mode since the keyboard contains shortcuts for most of these functions.

I got a quick look at the new ROG Flow Z13 at a preview event, and Asus sent me a pre-production model just before CES to get some hands-on time. That’s what I’m writing this article about right now, and I appreciate the updates to this keyboard cover. The 1.7mm key travel and larger touchpad go a long way in getting work done. Although the Ryzen 395 chip can be power hungry, the Z13’s battery life is promising. Asus only claims 10 hours of battery life, and I managed to get through a full eight-hour-plus workday with Chrome tabs, streaming music (although the speakers sound pretty bad at the first listen) and to write on several virtual desktops. the day before flying to CES – with virtually no problems.

I definitely prefer a proper laptop over a tablet with a kickstand and keyboard cover, but being able to remove the keyboard for a little more flexibility and comfort when it’s time to fire up a game is pretty simple. I tried a little Helldiverse 2 on the Flow Z13, and it performed pretty well, especially for a tablet. Set to the Z13’s native 2.5K resolution, in-game rendering scaling to Ultra Quality, and texture detail to medium, I saw 60fps or just slightly below, and it was really nice. If I upscaled it from Ultra Quality to Quality, it went to an even smoother 80 frames per second. This was, of course, while the tablet was plugged in and its fans were running on Turbo mode. Diving again while unplugged reduced performance on the Ultra Quality rendering scale to the 45-50fps range, as playing on battery limits you to Performance mode instead of Turbo.

This is pre-production hardware, but so far it’s pretty impressive for integrated graphics. AMD’s new chip may have something special here for thin and light devices, but since it doesn’t have Thunderbolt 5, that means the Flow Z13 can’t use the full GPU bandwidth of the new eGPU XG Mobile from Asus. (Previous models could use the old XG Mobile through its proprietary connector.) But of course, that would make this somewhat portable PC gaming solution a little less portable, and the new XG Mobile costs about as much as the Flow Z13 itself.

But does a gaming tablet make much sense in 2025, when portable PC gaming is so well served by the Steam Deck and a bunch of other dedicated handhelds? We’ll have to see how a production model of the ROG Flow Z13 performs when it launches in February.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge