Asus ROG’s 2021 Series Includes Its First Convertible Laptop (ish)

Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) has unveiled its diverse, eclectic and very cool looking new laptops for 2021. The highlight and product I am both very excited about and very confused about is the ROG Flow X13. This is the company’s first 2-in-1 convertible laptop.

That’s right – a 2-in-1 laptop. You do not see it every day. What’s more, as you may have deduced from the name, the X13 is a 13 inches convertible game computer.

As you can probably see from the photo above, the X13 does not look like your typical gaming rig. This is the type of thing that I would not be surprised to see someone whipping in a class or meeting. Portability is a theme here: Asus says you can play up to 10 hours of video at a charge and that the 100-watt USB-C charger delivers 50 percent within 30 minutes. You can choose between a 120Hz FHD touch screen or a 3840 x 2400 touch screen. Either way, you have a 16:10 aspect ratio with extra vertical space for multitasking.

It all sounds nice enough, but the inside is where things get confusing. The Flow X13 contains up to AMD’s Ryzen 9 5980HS, one of the flagships in its new Ryzen 5000 mobile range. It makes sense for a laptop. You’d think it should be paired with a fairly powerful GPU – but Asus went instead with the entry-level GeForce GTX 1650, which just feels like a waste of power from the 5980HS. Similar combinations have been tried before: look at Edge author Cameron Faulkner’s review of Lenovo’s IdeaPad Gaming 3, which also attempted to pair the GTX 1650 with an H-Series processor to disappointing results.

Now, for an ordinary work laptop that can sometimes be used to edit photos, the combination makes a lot of sense. But if you buy the X13 and expect incredible frame rates, you may be disappointed. (Of course, I have to run games on the case myself before making a recommendation.)

The way Asus is trying to do this is to combine the Flow X13 with an external GPU called the ROG XG Mobile. It could include up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 graphics, and Asus says it will deliver the computer game performance on the X13. It also serves as a power adapter. Fair enough. But with the bundle of the X13 and the XG Mobile, you’re looking at a price of $ 2,999.99. Yeesh.

You can now pre-order the Flow X13 and XG Mobile in the Asus store.

Image: Asus

Another headliner (which might be a bit more practical) is the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE. It’s a refresh of the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15, which has two screens – the standard (a 15.6-inch, 4K, 120Hz panel or a 300Hz FHD panel) and the ScreenPad Plus (a 14, 1-inch touch screen built into the top half of the keyboard – choose 3840 x 1100 or 1920 x 550 resolution).

The form factor means that in theory you can run a game on the top screen with a Spotify playlist or a Discord chat on the bottom screen, although my experience with the previous Zephyrus Duo 15 is that you can miles over it by game difference. Perhaps more promising is that Asus says it’s working with game developers and companies like Adobe to customize content for the dual – screen setup.

Image: Asus

The main update is that the new Duo 15 will come with an eight-core AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU. There is a new “Arc Flow” fan design, which according to Asus can help “distribute up to 165W combined processing power.” You also get up to 2 TB of storage and up to 32 GB of combined memory on board and SO-DIMM.

You can now pre-order the Zephyrus Duo 15 SE in the Asus store for $ 2,899.99. (Yes, it’s cheaper than the Flow X13 bundle.)

Finally, there are two major additions to the esports side: the Strix Scar 15 and Strix Scar 17. Both models have an optics-mechanical keyboard, the first ever to appear on a Scar model. They also got a higher screen-to-body ratio (up to 85 percent), a larger battery, an updated cooling system, support for Type-C charging and four-speaker speakers with Dolby Atmos technology. The Scar 17 now offers a 360Hz panel option, the fastest screen you can get on a laptop. And both models feature the new Ryzen and Nvidia chips, up to a Ryzen 9 5900HX and a GeForce RTX 3080.

Image: Asus

The Strix Scar 15 and Strix Scar 17 arrive in North America in Q1 2021.

Asus has also announced the Strix G15 and Strix 17, the smallest Strix models for gamers who are not serious sports gamers. It can also be lived with a Ryzen 9 5900HX processor, but maximum on a GeForce RTX 3070 and a 300Hz screen. The G15 arrives in North America in Q1 2021; the G17 can now be pre-ordered for $ 1,799.99.

These models are in line with a major wave of gaming laptops announced today, following the launch of AMD’s Ryzen 5000 processors and Nvidia’s release of its RTX 3000 GPUs. Razer, Gigabyte, Acer and more have introduced new models.