Asus ROG Flow Z13 Kojima Edition Review

Asus ROG Flow Z13 Kojima Edition – Design and Features

The KJP variation makes for a mentation of the Flow that you don’t request to beryllium a instrumentality of the crippled to appreciate. The gunmetal greys and achromatic of the modular mentation person been replaced with muted golden and c fiber, the second of which instantly draws the oculus with its uniqueness. There are decals crossed its surface, labeling the ports and components hidden beneath, styled similar schematics. If you had it broadside by broadside with the original, you mightiness besides announcement that this mentation besides has serrations on the sides, bringing to caput the hull of a spaceship.

Around the backmost are much originative touches. One vigor vent is present portion of a c fibre panel. The different has been laser etched into a signifier of dotted beams. It’s a plan constituent that is casual to look astatine and instrumentality for granted but besides makes the wide plan basal retired adjacent more.

The included keyboard folio lawsuit has besides received a facelift. The keycaps are present topped achromatic and golden (WASD), arsenic good arsenic mean achromatic for the outer ringing of keys. The typeface is besides different, present much stencil-like to make a militarized feel. It’s each intentional and cohesive.

The laptop besides comes with its ain hardshell carrying case, likewise drawn from the crippled world. Together, the 2 are precise good done and marque a large set. If you’ve got currency to burn, Asus is besides releasing a trio of peripherals and accessories arsenic a portion of the collaboration: the ROG Delta II-KJP gaming headset ($270), the ROG Keris II Origin-KJP gaming rodent ($170), and the ROG Scabbard II-KJP deskmat ($70). It’s capable to implicit a afloat Death Stranding-themed gaming setup.

But arsenic you tin astir apt archer from the terms of the peripherals, each acceptable to $35-$40 higher than their non-Kojima counterparts, these constricted editions don’t travel cheap. That applies to the Flow Z13-KJP particularly with a terms tag of $3,700, a afloat $900 much than the regular Z13 with matching specs. That puts it firmly successful collector territory, truthful it’s a bully happening that it pulls disconnected the details truthful well.

Outside of the caller skin, what we person present is fundamentally the aforesaid nonstop Flow Z13 we got past twelvemonth successful its highest configuration. That means the flagship Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 with its almighty Radeon 8060S integrated GPU and a whopping 128GB of precocious velocity representation (LPDDR5X, 8,000 MT/s). It comes with an easy replaceable M.2 retention thrust and a 13.4 inch, 1600p, ROG Nebula IPS show that truly feels similar it should beryllium OLED astatine this price. Still, it’s a vibrant and accelerated (180Hz) display, and won’t permission you worrying astir burn-in.

Because it’s a 2-in-1, it tin besides relation arsenic a Windows tablet by detaching the keyboard case. It’s casual to bash acknowledgment to its magnetic latch and POGO pins, but it besides stays securely successful spot to enactment arsenic a folio cover. If you’d alternatively usage it arsenic a mean screen, the bottommost fractional of its rear sheet folds retired connected a unafraid hinge to enactment arsenic a full-length footwear stand. It’s solid. Beneath the hinge, determination are much schematic decals and the M.2 SSD bay for casual retention enlargement successful the future.

The surface is beauteous and doesn’t look to lag down accepted gaming laptops successful immoderate way. It gets plentifulness agleam astatine up to 500 nits, tin tally astatine 180Hz to trim question blur and input lag, and supports stylus, multi-point touch, and motion power to acceptable some nonrecreational and originative work. It’s remarkably coagulated for gaming acknowledgment to its precocious velocity and resolution, and its smaller size makes dropping to 1200p for much demanding games little of a downgrade.

There are besides plentifulness of ports, which is simply a large upgrade from galore different 2-in-1s that adhd a brace of USB Type-Cs and telephone it a day. Here, Asus has landed the Flow Z13 person to a accepted gaming laptop with 2 USB4 ports, a full-size USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, a full-size HDMI 2.1, a headphone jack, a microSD paper reader, and a powerfulness for a powerfulness adapter. You tin link peripherals directly, beryllium it a controller oregon USB flash drive, and if you bash request to link a hub, it’s acceptable to present afloat speeds. And don’t hide eGPU support, if you’re inclined to amended gaming performance, is supported connected either of its USB4 ports astatine afloat speed.

Of course, each of this is precisely the aforesaid arsenic the original. It inactive supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, it inactive has a 13MP rear camera and 5MP IR camera successful the beforehand for Windows Hello login. It inactive has the aforesaid 70Whr artillery that volition get you astir 9 hours of enactment and an hr oregon 2 of gaming, depending connected your settings. And Armoury Crate is inactive wherever you crook to set show and customization settings.

The lone quality extracurricular of looks, then, comes down to the included carrying lawsuit and its weight. Thanks to the antithetic plan and materials, the Kojima mentation is somewhat heavier astatine 3.79 pounds erstwhile utilizing the keyboard lawsuit (2.76 pounds without). The regular mentation is 3.51 pounds (2.65 without the keyboard), which makes the Z13-KJP astir a 4th lb (127g). But past the adapter is 35 grams lighter, truthful the 2 are precise adjacent successful value too.

The takeaway? This is simply a top-spec mean Flow Z13, Kojima-fied, and the determination to prime it up is going to travel down to however overmuch that resonates with you.

Asus ROG Flow Z13 Kojima Edition – Performance

The show numbers present shouldn’t beryllium immoderate antithetic than the archetypal and they’re not. I ran the aforesaid benchmarks broadside by broadside with the original. That illustration was 64GB, but didn’t marque a large interaction connected our roster of tests.

Everything I saw portion investigating the ROG Flow Z13-KJP could autumn wrong borderline oregon mistake oregon to a mates of communal culprits, similar chartless inheritance processes that determine to occurrence up and tally invisibly. Ultimately, though, this is simply a lawsuit of aforesaid hardware, aforesaid performance.

With the objection of the Kojima model’s 128GB of memory. For astir people, this is simply overkill. Even 64GB of representation is overkill for astir each crippled retired there. The GPU being integrated into the CPU gives it the unsocial quality to connection configurable VRAM. Theoretically, you could configure it to person much VRAM than the highest-tier desktop GPU, but successful practice, that doesn’t connection large returns. For the foreseeable future, determination won’t beryllium immoderate games that afloat instrumentality vantage of the maximum VRAM the Z13-KJP tin supply — but it is one of the ways the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 tin connection amended show than integrated GPUs person been capable to successful the past. More video representation raises the ceiling connected show truthful VRAM doesn’t go a bottleneck.

Instead this monolithic RAM store seems aimed astatine everything but gaming. If you’re funny successful moving section LLMs, other representation tin beryllium a large asset. Likewise, if you’re a originative professional, a strategy similar this tin instrumentality connected demanding tasks similar 3D modeling and rendering. That overmuch representation besides means that multitasking isn’t going to beryllium kneecapped. With that overmuch memory, you’re much apt to max retired your processor earlier moving retired of RAM.

Since the show of the systems for gaming and time to time tasks is conscionable astir identical, this reappraisal presents a unsocial accidental for a semipermanent revisit of a instrumentality I’ve utilized astir days of the week for the past 9 months. What’s it similar to unrecorded with the Flow for much than conscionable a fewer week reappraisal window?

Overall, beauteous darn great. Even with the keyboard case, it’s airy capable to easy transportation without feeling weighed down (though I bash usage a backpack and not the dedicated lawsuit that came with the Z13-KJP). That said, portion compact, it’s person to a laptop successful thickness than a rival similar the Microsoft Surface. Asus has to marque country for other ports and amended cooling and the trade-off is girth. I’ll instrumentality the ports immoderate time of the week, but there’s nary denying that the Flow feels chunky aft a while.

The versatility of the instrumentality is its shining feature, though, and what truly won maine over. As a regular carry, it was conscionable astir cleanable for idiosyncratic similar me. When I needed to work, the keyboard lawsuit worked flawlessly and offered an enjoyably tactile typing experience. The USB-A larboard is clutch for my 1 “must have” dongle and if I request more, the USB4 ports supply capable powerfulness for my Dockcase 10-in-1 Smart USB hub to powerfulness everything else. Either tin beryllium utilized for charging, too, truthful I often near my adapter astatine home.

If I request to contiguous to a room, I americium capable to link wirelessly to our main display, reflector screens, and past constitute successful OneNote oregon descent done a presumption utilizing a stylus. Not included, by the way, and similar the OLED screen, I truly consciousness similar it should beryllium present astatine this price.

When it comes to gaming, 1 of the astir repeated Z13 facts is that its Radeon 8060S offers Nvidia RTX 4060 mobile levels of performance. That’s true, but adopting this instrumentality besides means adopting a mindset of maximizing performance, conscionable similar you would with a handheld gaming system. Both usage integrated graphics, truthful it makes sense. It’s a changeless crippled of balancing settings, resolution, performance, and artillery life.

In apples to apples tests, the Z13 and RTX 4060 mobile commercialized blows, but that’s lone fractional the story. The Flow tin instrumentality vantage of each of the large show enhancers, similar FidelityFX Super Resolution and Fluid Motion Frames (frame generation). The aforesaid is existent of the RTX 4060 with DLSS and Nvidia’s ain framework procreation solution. But, the constituent is, it’s imaginable to play modern games astatine decent settings and resolutions portion besides reaping the size and value benefits of an integrated GPU.

It’s besides the perfect strategy for streaming games from the cloud. I subscribe to Nvidia GeForce Now and the work works impeccably with the Z13-KJP. If I crook the solution down to 1080p and tally precocious settings, Battlefield 6 hovers close astir 60 FPS locally. If I watercourse it implicit GeForce Now, I tin easy deed triple digits astatine afloat 1600p resolution. The surface sometimes became pixelated owed to the accent connected latency implicit fidelity for a first-person shooter. A slower paced crippled similar Baldur’s Gate 3, though, didn’t person the aforesaid contented 99% of the time.

I person spent hundreds of hours with the Flow Z13 and dozens with the Kojima version. I emotion it, but tin besides accidental that it isn’t going to marque consciousness for galore people. Even the modular mentation demanded a premium for its 2-in-1 yet gaming-centered design, but with this version, you’re getting that premium plus a large hike acknowledgment to the Kojima collaboration.

Make nary mistake, this is simply a precise chill instrumentality with a unsocial and appealing design. But are you consenting to walk $900 versus the archetypal ($1,500 compared to the 64GB version) for a lawsuit and exterior modeled aft Death Stranding? I fishy lone the biggest fans would accidental yes, but to them I tin besides accidental that this is simply a really well-done version.

Verdict

The Asus ROG Flow Z13-KJP is an homage to fandom, a compelling collaboration betwixt originative minds, and precise overmuch a collector’s point for superfans of Kojima and the Death Stranding franchise. For everyone other that likes the 2-in-1 plan portion inactive catering to gaming, the regular ROG Flow Z13 is inactive disposable and a amended value. In sheer style, though? The KJP is rather the collector’s point indeed.