The unique ROG Movement Z13 was at all times a little bit of an odd machine. It felt just like the unusual lovechild between a Floor Professional and a conventional gaming laptop computer. However at CES 2025, ASUS is giving the pill a a lot wanted refresh that features a huge efficiency increase due to the corporate’s up to date XG Cell graphics dock.
One of many largest departures from the earlier mannequin is that this time as a substitute of counting on a CPU/GPU answer from Intel and NVIDIA, ASUS goes with an all-AMD configuration. The ROG Movement Z13 options as much as a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU with unified reminiscence that tops out at a whopping 128GB (although ASUS’ spec sheet suggests it truly maxes out with 32GB of RAM). Additionally, by utilizing a chip with an elevated emphasis on energy effectivity and mixing that with a bigger 70Whr battery (up from 56Whr), ASUS says the Z13 ought to ship improved longevity of as much as 10 hours on a cost. In the meantime, the system stays somewhat svelte, weighing simply 2.6 kilos and measuring simply half an inch thick. This implies it must be a superb alternative for moveable gaming and productiveness.
The Z13’s display screen can also be fairly spectacular, as a result of despite the fact that it’s not an OLED, its Nebula Show is powered by a vivid IPS panel with a 180Hz refresh fee, as much as 500 nits of brightness and 100% protection of the DCI-P3 spectrum. I additionally admire that even on a system this smooth, ASUS nonetheless discovered room for a full-size HDMI 2.1 jack along with two USB 4 ports, one USB-A, 3.5mm audio and even a microSD card reader.
Another delicate updates embrace a redesigned keyboard with bigger keycaps, a extra sturdy PU leather-based cowl and a a lot greater touchpad. Inside, there’s additionally a brand new metal vapor chamber that ASUS says outperforms conventional copper variants, whereas the addition of a customizable Motion Key on the facet of the system makes it straightforward to regulate show settings or summon no matter app you need.
In fact, one of many coolest issues concerning the Movement Z13’s adaptability is that if you need even higher efficiency, you may join it to ASUS’ ROG XG Cell Dock, which has additionally gotten a serious refresh for 2025. That’s as a result of whereas it retains an identical design, it now helps as much as an NVIDIA RTX 5090 for a large increase in graphics energy. The opposite large change is that as a substitute of counting on ASUS’ proprietary XG Cell port to attach the 2 units collectively, this time the dock makes use of Thunderbolt 5. The dock additionally has a wealth of connectivity choices together with each HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 jacks, so you need to use it as a hub when stationed at a desk. Lastly, it’s additionally backwards suitable with the unique Z13, so house owners of the earlier mannequin have one other solution to lengthen the lifetime of their machine.
Sadly, ASUS has but to offer data concerning the ROG Movement Z13’s launch date. Nonetheless, we’re anticipating the machine to begin at round $2,000 for a model with a Ryzen AI Max 390 chip or $2,200 when configured with a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU. Pricing for the XG Cell dock remains to be to be decided, although with it sporting an RTX 5090, it should nearly actually price a reasonably penny.
This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/the-asus-rog-flow-z13-is-starting-to-make-more-sense-as-a-gaming-tablet-043027074.html?src=rss
