 This can't happen, at least it shouldn't. How could this be faster than this? But the thing is guys, the numbers don't lie. This absolute beast of a gaming laptop running Intel's flagship eight core 5.3 gigahertz boost mobile processor is getting destroyed before our very eyes by a thin and light. I mean, look at this thing. I can like, wave it around with two fingers. By harnessing AMD's new Ryzen 5000 series mobile CPUs, the Asus Flow X13 has created a whole new class of laptop. We're gonna call it the Ultra Ultrabook. Superbook? Wonderbook! Okay, I'm not sure, but I am sure that this is a segue to our sponsor, Honey. Honey is the free to use browser extension that helps you find the best promo codes on over 30,000 websites. Get it today at joinhoney.com slash LTT. The Ultrabook The Ultrabook The Ultrabook From the specs alone, you'd assume that the Flow X13 is at least two weight classes higher. It's got an AMD Ryzen 9 5980 HS, an eight core 16 thread beast of a processor that pushes its seven nanometer transistors to 4.6 gigahertz. And it's got an Nvidia GTX 1650 graphics card to crank out reasonable frame rates, as long as you don't mind turning down some of the eye candy. I mean, dedicated graphics, baby. And while we've seen situations where great specs can be let down by disappointing cooling, I mean, we just showed it shredding the MSI GE66 Raider. In fairness, that really isn't MSI's fault. I mean, they have pumped every last watt of power that they can into that Intel processor. And the GPU in the MSI laptop will leave the Flow X13 dead in the water. So let's pivot then to a more relevant comparison. That's where this comes in. Just a couple of months ago, we lauded the XPS 15 for its combination of power and design designating it the best Windows laptop, period. But now that it looks like we might be able to get more performance from a much more portable machine, it's looking a lot more like the best Windows laptop, huge asterisk. Despite being the size of an XPS 13, the Flow X13 was trading blows with Dell's much larger pride and joy in CPU benchmarks. And that was only until I discovered something rather fun. In ASUS's ROG software, you can flip over to manual mode, which lets you turn the CPU from a 35 watt TDP up to 45. Now, unsurprisingly, that's a little too much for the poor cooler in this thing to handle. Like look at it. But it's also a two in one. And if you flip it around so the intake doesn't get choked against the table, look at this, peaking at 95 degrees Celsius, we've got the cooling for 45 watts now, which knocked a whole minute off of our blender BMW test and allowed the Flow X13 to handily shred the XPS 15 in pretty much everything else. Where the Flow X13 didn't do quite as well though is GPU benchmarks. The 1650 Ti and the XPS 15 outpaced our 1650 Max-Q on the X13 pretty easily. But the experience wasn't that different. We're talking 1080p medium to high details. The same can't be said of the XPS 13, which if you think about it is a way fairer fighter. So yeah, the Flow X13 punches well above its weight class for power, particularly in the CPU department. But the thing is, the power of the XPS 15 is only part of its draw. The people we know who bought XPS 15s did it for the overall experience. The materials, the track pad, the keyboard, and of course, flexing on everyone that can't afford a $3,000 laptop. So is the Flow X13 able to compete in this regard? To a degree. The magnesium chassis is fairly stiff, but does flex a bit if you press on it, especially up at the top. And as for aesthetics, personally, I think they struck a great balance between professionalism and gamer appeal, but it's not quite as sexy. As for IO, at first glance, it looks exceptional for this class of laptop. You get two USB type Cs, a type A, and full-sized HDMI. But I was a little disappointed when I realized it was HDMI 2.0, and when I remembered that AMD machines don't have Thunderbolt. At first I was like, ah, you know, at least I'll have a full-sized USB port, so maybe I can deal with this. But I was kind of shocked at how many things I use on a daily basis that require Thunderbolt. Our 10 gig network adapters, our best external capture card, the Bullfront Thunderbolt 3, and when it comes to docking or running an external graphics card, Thunderbolt is the only way to do it, or is it? The Flow X13 has yet another really cool trick up its sleeve, the XG Mobile Connect interface, which gives us a PCI Express Gen 3x8 link straight into this, the XG Mobile eGPU. Now, you get a couple of options for the GPU that you can have crammed in here, but of course, we're showing off the most powerful one, an RTX 3080 Mobile. With a 280 watt power supply built right in, the RTX 3080 in this compact package is able to boost up to 1810 megahertz, allowing you to connect to either a high refresh rate 1440p display, or a 4K 60 display, and have a pretty darn good time, especially with your extra connectivity. Got your ethernet, got your USB, SD card slot. This combination was even able to slightly beat out the Zephyrus G15, a Ryzen 9 RTX 3080 beast. But there is a problem. A mobile RTX 3080 is pretty close to a desktop RTX 3070 in terms of performance, and you will be paying nearly RTX 3090 money for this package. I mean, I get it. It's currently the best eGPU notebook combination on the market, bar none, and good engineering costs, good money, but Asus has kind of shot themselves in the foot here by making the new Zephyrus G14 and G15 so darn good for everyday use that it's hard to not just recommend buying one of those instead. We'll have a review of those coming by the way, so make sure you're subscribed. And of course, what I say and what I do are two entirely different things, and given the option, personally, I would choose the much lighter Flow X13, largely thanks to its screen. There are two options for the display. We have the 4K touch option, which you should absolutely not buy, because unless you are a literal hawk, you don't need over 9 million pixels in a 13.4 inch form factor. But that's okay, because there's also a full HD plus model that runs at 120 Hertz. We got to check it out on a pre-production unit, and it is exceptional. It brings a level of fluidity that has previously simply not been available on ultrabooks, and especially not on ones that also have a touchscreen. Now it's possible that the 120 Hertzness of it does harm battery life, but then again, so does running at unnecessarily high resolutions. So I would expect it to be pretty similar to the seven and a half hours we were able to get from our machine. One area Asus could definitely improve though is, well, this area above the keyboard. Using this space for media keys is fine on a big, chungus 15 inch gaming laptop, but here, every last bit of space needs to be used efficiently, and I would rather have had a larger trackpad. Like it's fine, but it definitely feels very three years ago and cramped compared to offerings from Dell, HP, and Razer. The keyboard is also a bit of a sore spot. For a gaming laptop, it's, well, it's excellent, and I can get up to full speed on it effortlessly, but at this size, it's competing against the likes of the XPS 13, HP Spectre, and Lenovo ThinkPad, all of which have pretty much perfected getting incredible typing feel out of a small laptop. To be clear, the Flow X13, it's still good, but the slight mushiness makes it more of an A minus, at least compared to that group. Unlike some of their other ROG machines, Asus wisely included a webcam on the Flow X13. Definitely grateful for that. The quality's even not bad, and I would normally complain that they didn't include Windows Hello facial recognition on the thing, but get this, the fingerprint reader on the side has Asus' special sauce fingerprint caching, so you don't actually have to touch it again after the boot sequence. It just logs right in. The speakers are also good, but not incredible. The dual B-Atmos integration offers excellent stereo separation and good detail, but the bass is pretty lacking compared to something like the MacBook Air, or the quality of this T-shirt from lttstore.com, totally unbiased, by the way, meaning that the Flow X13 isn't the perfect ultrabook. And if you plan on doing all day typing, browsing the web, and even light photo editing, you'll probably be better served by an XPS 13 or a Spectre 14. But if you need performance, the Flow X13 is completely in a class of its own. With more grunt than an i9-10900HK and a reasonably powerful GPU, this thing shreds when it comes to light gaming, video editing, or even light CAD work. Also, given how the prices of ultrabooks have ballooned, the 1499 asking price isn't even out of this world. So the real tough decision is if you value the touchscreen and the lightness enough to choose this over the similarly priced Zephyrus G14 with an RTX 3060. That is assuming, of course, that you can find either of them in stock anyway. I mean, you can't buy Ryzen 5000, you can't buy RTX 3000, and this has literally both. So is it like an Obtainium squared? Yeah, unless that I've seen like maybe a March. And we're gonna march on to our message from our sponsor. Thanks to Ting Mobile for sponsoring today's video. They've got new rates that make it easier to see how much you can save by switching to Ting. They've got unlimited talk and text for just $10, data plans starting at $15, and unlimited data for 45 bucks. And if you liked their previous pay for what you use plans, guess what? They've still got them. They're called Ting Flex plans, and they charge just $5 per gig. Data can even be shared if you have a family plan, so you can connect more phones to save more. You still get nationwide coverage in the US and award-winning customer support, and pretty much any phone will work with Ting. Check them out at linus.ting.com and get $25 in credit. If you're looking for something else to watch, then maybe check out our roundup of this and all the other laptops that Asus showed off at CES, along with our short circuit video, trying out this high refresh rate mobile display, and then a bunch of other ones as well. They're really pretty cool.