So I’m sunsetting my HP Envy x360 as a daily driver. Except for a hinge replacement after a bump, it had served as a steady workhorse and comfortable home from home. Unfortunately, the battery life was always the kicker, and it’s been getting flaky with the Wi-Fi — while sourcing replacements should be possible, I’ve generally been wanting more more rather than more of the same. So, finding stuff within this form factor that I’ve grown fond of has been tricky, let alone the 13” market, the 360 hinge has proven niche, especially with the aforementioned reliability (while generally solid, the pins are still more fragile due to space constraints). I’ve also been looking to explore some light GPU acceleration for my AI research, and being able to run locally at times is still handy compared to having to connect to a VM elsewhere, especially for quick and dirty work while scoping out.
So, I felt quite fortunate to see the 2023 model Flow X13 (the GV302XV-MU009W) with a new Zen 4 chip (the 7490HS) and a whopping large battery for the size (75 WHrs!!!), and with a 40 series chip (details later) for all my CUDA needs! A sizeable upgrade in storage, too! While the RAM is a touch disappointing, apparently ASUS thinks the UK has no need for more than 16 GB, I’ll be interested in cracking it open to see if it’s soldered or not, because 32 GB is really the lower limit of what I need for AI work (much to my horror, people are so focused on raising these data hungry beasts that they blind themselves to the succulents of the ML world, as it were). That 60 W GPU may be a downside for battery life, but “Advanced Optimus” promises that, thanks to the mux on board, we should run off the RDNA integrated GPU when not under 3D/GPGPU load, which should comparably sip power, so if that pans out then this might be a truly stellar machine.
(Do you enjoy the pun? ROG have been on an astronomy bender lately, naming things like their new display standard “Nebula” and so on. The box is pretty neat with things like that.)
For a quick breakdown, here’s the Envy and the Flow’s notable “hard” factors.
| Flow X13 | Envy x360 | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU (Architecture) | Ryzen 7940HS (Zen 4) | Ryzen 4700U (Zen 2) |
| Base Clock | 4.0 GHz | 2.0 GHz |
| Boost Clock | 5.2 GHz | 4.2 GHz |
| Min Clock | 0.4 GHz | 0.4 GHz |
| Cores (SMT) | 8 (16) | 8 (8) |
| L1 Cache | 8x32 + 8x32 KB | 8x32 + 8x32 KB |
| L2 Cache | 8x1 MB | 8x512 KB |
| L3 Cache | 16 MB | 2x4 MB |
| Max TDP | 31 W | 15 W |
| Memory Size | 2x8 GB | 2x8 GB |
| Memory Type | LPDDR5 | DDR4 |
| Memory Speed | 6400 MT/s | 3200 MT/s |
| Timings | 19-15-17-34 (1T) | 22-22-22-52 (1T) |
| GPU (integrated) | Nvidia 4060 (Radeon 780M) | Radeon Vega (integrated) |
| Base Clock | 1.5 GHz (0.8 GHz) | 0.4 GHz |
| Boost Clock | 1.9 GHz (2.9 GHz) | 1.1 GHz |
| Shaders | 3072 (768) | 448 |
| Max TDP | 60 W (15W) | 15 W |
| VRAM | 8 GB, GDDR6 (512 MB, LPDDR5) | 512 MB, DDR4 |
| Memory Speed (Effective) | 1375 MHz (11 GHz) | 477 MHz (3.8 GHz) |
| Storage Drive | 1 TB Crucial/Micron 2400 | 512 GB Intel 600p |
| Drive Health (at current) | 100% | 91% |
| Power On Time | 46 hours | 11137 hours |
| Battery Capacity (designed) | 74.95 Wh (75 Wh) | 41.31 Wh (51 Wh) |
| Wear Level (at current) | 0.1% | 19.0% |
| Wi-Fi Card | MediaTek MT7922 802.11ax | Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac |
| Display | 13.3” ROG Nebula, IPS | 13.3” IPS |
| Resolution | 2560x1600 @ 165 Hz | 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz |
| Brightness | 500 nits | 300 nits |
| Camera | 1080p, Windows Hello | 720p, Camera Shutter |
| Fingerprint Sensor | No | Yes |
| Charging | 130 W USB-C | 65 W Barrel/USB-C |
| Weight | 1.30 kg | 1.32 kg |
| Dimensions | 29.9 x 21.2 x 1.87 cm | 30.65 x 19.46 x 1.64 cm |
So, the Flow X13 is absolutely great on paper. How is it for real, though? Well, first I have to get it out of the box.
Well, that’s certainly a nice box. I really like the pearlescent/iridescent printing on the box, I wish more did this, it just looks nicer for accenting on a black background. They’re embracing a space theme, but in a way that’s not so on-the-nose, and instead evoking some of the more classic sci-fi visuals and older computer graphics that I think brings out just how remarkable this modern hardware really is. It also feels quite nice to the touch, so I really want a smaller fidget toy with this material and finishing, and hopefully with the same kind of accenting, but solid enough that I won’t worry about roughing it up.
I think I like the patterning on the body in all, as it’s not just a boring panel, but remains subtle; the glossy piece in the bottom corner is out of the way, unlike so many that are right in the centre, and there’s a subtle REPUBLIC OF GAMERS tag that only really stands out when viewed off axis. So, despite the name, ROG has managed to hit that “stealth” look without losing flair, which I think is quite the achievement. That pattern isn’t simply skin deep, it contributes to a nice texture that varies along peaks and troughs, which also has some smart material choices/finishing to feel soft and interesting.
The patterning extends to the back, which reveals a large area for airflow, however they continued the machining between the fan openings despite the lack of opening, so it doesn’t feel as nice to the touch there. On the upside, the rubber feet here seem much more solid than the Envy’s, which fell off as the heat of regular use was enough to weaken the glue strip used — hopefully these prove better affixed.
On one side we have more airflow, power button (no fingerprint sensor), full sized USB-A, and the sole charging port on the device: a 130 W capable USB-C port (that can also drive external DisplayPort monitors). These are very nice, especially the USB-A, though they’re pushed forward by the need for cooling some 90 W of total CPU+GPU usage, meaning the power cable is going to be slightly more awkwardly positioned. ASUS however seems to envisage that everyone buying this will be using an external hub, and you’d need to get a decent one that can handle this power delivery if you wanted to run more displays or ports off it. If you use a mouse while charging (say, as you game) then it’s also the complete wrong side to have the port on, but that’s not a problem for me. However, speaking of that, you might not find yourself reaching for a hub as often, if you’re like me, because on the other side…
It can’t be true! Quick, get closer to confirm…
Full sized HDMI and SD slots! A headphone jack! There’s also the weird XGm connector besides them for external GPU enclosures, which is neat, granted, but not something I’m personally interested in. While, in theory, it has benefits over connecting to the GPU via Thunderbolt/USB passthrough, I don’t think it was worth sacrificing another pair of USB-C and USB-A ports over.
The back reveals that there is probably more room for airflow, but it’s generally filling the space up nicely, so I expect this will hopefully avoid some of the surface temperature hotspots of the Envy, but we’ll see.
Opening it up at last! Also, the Envy is peeking in from stage right, and yes, Adam Savage makes a great watch while writing this.
Now, I’ll touch more on this keyboard later, but at a glance the font isn’t terrible, the deck feels nice and stable (the extra screw in the back might be a clever trick to improve that), and we have a smaller version of the patterning on the back that feels good but shows up where you’ve been touching it much more easily. It’s hard to see here, but there’s another subtle icon that’s visible from off angles:
The logo’s rendering is nice, and the cosmic reference here comes via Unknown Pleasures’ iconic pulsar plot. ROG’s designers have taste.
Now that it’s open, we can more easily see that subtle text on the back now. I think it isn’t egregious, the text is small, spaced out, and the reflectivity isn’t crazy glossy like the corner accent. If it weren’t for the name, I’d think it quite tasteful, really.
We can also see the double hinge a little more. The position it holds and the motion of it are comfortable, it doesn’t wobble while typing, has a good amount of stiffness from a user feel side of things, and looks to be well-built. Time will tell, but the overall construction and thickness of the hinge makes me at least feel more confident that normal bumps won’t necessitate a warranty claim.
You might have spied on the box that it lists this as an “ROG Tablet”. Honestly, when folded back like this, it really does feel like it could be, and perhaps comes closer to that ideal than almost any other Windows device does, not simply that it’s able to run as a touchscreen with compute, but that it has an unprecedented amount of power for said touchscreen, in a 13” form factor that feels extremely comfortable with an excellent 16:10 aspect ratio. Windows has probably never felt more portable.
Speaking of Windows, wow, is there a lot of guff preloaded onto this… including Windows 11. ASUS is also to blame here, there’s some real pointless installs that we should not be seeing cluttering a device, but Microsoft just seems to hate people that want to actually use their computers as more than simply devices for meetings and emails. Microsoft also wanted to make their widgets a thing again, which would be nice, but they absolutely must shove their horrible news platform down your gullet, and since I have no desire for that, it all that has to go (since you can’t remove the news widgets from it).
Also, many things they have installed are things I already use better replacements for, so that can all go as well (at least some of it can be uninstalled). Music (AIMP), video (MPC-HC+K-Lite), photos (Image Glass), notepad (Notepad++ & VSCode), browser (Vivaldi), alarms/clocks (Hourglass), PDFs (Sumatra & Xodo), video editing (FFmpeg, Lossless Cut, Shot Cut in a pinch), to-do (Obsidian, which I also do all my writing in), and the rest I just don’t need at the ready (calendar, maps). Some tools I like are quickly installed without much config (clink, fish for WSL Debian, starship.rs for both), and there are a few registry edits and changes to the settings I need to make for it to feel more like home, but fortunately a lot of this is stuff I use because it didn’t need much configuration (if any) to be comfortable for me, and the few that do need a little more help are things I have “rollouts” prepared for where I can just wholesale alter the configurations to my preferences automatically, or they sync up via Syncthing. StartAllBack is a new addition though, and it’s doing some heavy lifting to make Windows 11 actually usable, though it’s not compatible with the ROG overlays for things like performance mode switching, as a heads-up for others interested in fixing Windows 11.
So, eight hours of setup and updates later, I’m finally able to continue writing this, and can give my first impressions of actual usage!
Say hello to Asteria!
Since I’ve had a little while to get a feel for this, I’m happy to report that the keyboard is very reasonable, though the short shift on the left is very much a stumbling block (for now), but more importantly, I have a real \ key again on a laptop! So, I’ll accept that short shift weirdness quite gladly.
The home row was sadly reduced to function modifiers for the arrow keys, so I’m a little annoyed at that, but apparently the home row is a dying art of sorts, and more laptops in this form factor are sadly sacrificing it. So, that’s probably the biggest stumbling block for me.
I’d like to note that the lighting seems to be within the stalk, so modifiers don’t get as flat a backlight, and it’s quite prominently a visible circle behind many keys, but none more-so than behind the Windows key, where I mistook it for a camera-disable hotkey at first glance! Unfortunately, the legend is much harder to see without the backlight, because using a lighter material to ensure readability without backlighting is too good for ASUS, or something.
I’ll also give credit to the trackpad: it is excellent and makes full use of the 16:10 aspect ratio to take up basically every available millimetre. I get little blips of high acceleration on the cursor at times, shooting it off to the edge of the screen and not where I wanted it, but hopefully that’s ironed out with time.
One weird thing, the function row is inverted from the Envy, and inconsistent with all other uses of the FN key as a modifier. The function row without the FN key is F1 through F12, so use the corner glyph, which is the opposite of everywhere else. This will take some learning.
Now everything’s installed, let’s bring up the HWiNFO summary (screenshot per GPU).
Something that may stand out to you is that the TDP of this is significantly higher than the Envy. Indeed, this laptop is very happy to sip back plenty of Wattage when it has the excuse to, and so something I’m already experimenting with is how to make sure that most of the time away from the wall can be spent more efficiently tapping into its battery. I will include a little bit of performance analysis, but not as much as last time, because for the most part it’s not really a factor that bears expanding upon here. The Zen 4 architecture is simply much better than its Zen 2 predecessor, and the new process node absolutely helps. Given that this will eagerly use the full 31 W TDP available for long duration boosting, whereas the Envy could not use its full TDP for long durations, the overall conclusion is that this is indeed much faster and isn’t impeded by the disabled SMT of the 4700U to get a full 16 logical cores.
Simply put, it’s faster than my desktop’s 8700k (that guzzles 90 W) in some quick Python microbenchmarks, and by a significant margin, as much as 1.4-1.8x faster at times. This isn’t indicative of actual performance, which will be lower than that (still an improvement over the 8700k), but certainly shows how certain workloads (or sections thereof) can be improved under the Zen 4 architecture compared to Skylake/Coffelake.
Now, for the sake of battery life, I’ve tweaked the “Silent” profile I expect to use the most (e.g. 50% maximum CPU), and set it to prioritise the integrated 780M over the 4060. This will “harm” performance, but let’s be honest, these things are so fast and can use quick bursts of single-core boosting to solve everything you’ll visually perceive regarding responsiveness while on battery, and longer runs should be done while plugged in. There’s a niggling issue with Optimus, because ASUS/NVIDIA thought that something was still using the 4060 and would only list the unkillable “System” process… so it was probably the compositor or a leaky handle, and just hasn’t been properly restarted so isn’t freeing up the 4060 to go back to sleep. However, doing this even from the “Standard” GPU profile already over doubled the expected battery life (almost 9 hours with video playback, claiming almost 12 hours without on a low screen brightness), and I’m sure a little tweaking can keep me at all-day levels needed for work without sacrificing the ability to go fast when needed (the “Eco” GPU mode via Armoury Crate seems ideal for me).
If I had a gripe about this machine, it’s the memory configuration. ROG don’t have 32 GB SKUs available in the UK (at least as of writing), and it appears to be soldered, so there’s no available upgrades. Simply put, Windows 11 is a hog and is using up 10 GB of memory when idle at times, going down towards a “mere” 8 GB of usage when freshly booted and Windows hasn’t started any background tasks (Defender for example using over 180 MB while doing absolutely nothing, OneDrive alone uses over 200 MB when idle), and Discord isn’t helping as it sits at around 300 MB to 500 MB when it’s in the background, which is obscene. Once a web browser is opened, that’s another 1 GB gobbled up to display an empty page, so if you load up some regular tabs it begins to quickly add up, like Outlook (180-200 MB), YouTube (180 MB), Wikipedia (140 MB for short text-only page). It is truly unfortunate that this is the state of modern software, and that ROG have these SKUs available but only in certain markets, like the US, without any option for after-market memory upgrades is just ridiculous.
A final note, the speakers aren’t quite up to par with the Envy’s, though they’ve certainly got bass, however the built-in thermal protections are quite aggressive, and usage over five or ten seconds will lead to a noticeable dip in volume (which people naturally counter by increasing the volume, which leads to this only getting worse). HP managed to strike a much better balance with the Envy, where I could leave it at a given volume for long periods of time (say with a video or livestream going) and it remained consistent and clear — this may have been thanks to Bang & Olufsen, or HP’s own engineers, I do not know, but either way it is good work. ASUS hasn’t managed this, and so I’ve noticed myself cranking the volume over time, particularly if something noisy happens in the environment, and it’s well beyond what I would expect from the Envy, especially as the sound just isn’t significantly better to compensate. Given that the Flow X13 is billed at twice the price, certainly as spec’d, I find this a bit of a let-down, and while they tout their microphone array as a selling point, it’s clear that nowhere near as much care was put into the speakers; though, without their “AI Noise Cancelling” mode in the ROG Armoury Crate, it’s quite easy for feedback to show up in video calls, which should be an embarrassment for ASUS.
All in all, after dealing with Windows 11 (mostly just to get it out of the way and be closer to Windows 10), I think this is quite a nice laptop in almost every regard, and I’ve certainly enjoyed the battery life upgrade over the Envy. So, the Flow X13 is easily something I’m happy with choosing, however I appreciate that most other people aren’t interested in the same form factor as I am, meaning that they are probably better served with some other laptop at this price — I would just recommend giving a look at these new 2023 ROG laptops, as this one has impressed me on many fronts. While the price tag is high, hopefully this is setting the standard for the future, and it’ll be quite hard to justify laptops that have smaller batteries. I’ve yet to put it through its paces on all fronts, but I’m confident it will handle most tasks with aplomb… at least until it starts using a smidgen more memory than what it apparently takes to look at a text file over the internet.
So, in closing, Asteria is a remarkable joy to use, and I am very impressed!