Asus ROG Flow X16 review – (Almost) unhinged gaming

You’ve got to hand it to Asus, because when it comes to highly specific hardware, the company is more than willing to throw serious effort behind a project. If there’s a single aspect of gaming or content creation that can be improved upon, Asus is more than willing to come up with a solution, although said solution isn’t going to be cheap.

The Republic of Gamers Flow X16 is another prime example of the Asus mindset because there’s more than meets the eyes with this stylish gaming laptop. The X16’s party trick is that its screen comes with a hinge more flexible than your yoga instructor, allowing for it to twist itself into a shape where it essentially becomes a dedicated gaming monitor. This isn’t the first time that Asus has packed contortion technology into the frame of one of its laptops, but the X16’s application of this feature does feel incredibly natural and well-engineered.

So what’s the practical application here? Picture the scene: You’re on your way…somewhere…you stop at an airport, and you’re suddenly struck with the fancy to grab a few runs of Hades or do some exploring in Stray. The benefit of the X16’s design is that it forms a natural shape that’s conducive to playing games on it, especially when you’ve got a Bluetooth controller paired up or attached via USB.

The fact that this laptop looks sleeker than a fighter jet only adds more to its appeal, as this slick piece of tech is an instant attention-getter. It’s a lightweight platform for gaming and content creation, thin enough that you can easily lose it in the space between dimensional barriers, and loaded with a ribbed design that makes the outer shell delightful to touch. Internally, it’s no slouch either.

Our model came with a chunky 1TB solid-state drive, an AMD Ryzen  9 6900HS processor clocked at 3.30Ghz, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and an Nvidia mobile RTX 3070 Ti GPU. Not too shabby! With those specs, the laptop could easily boot up just about any game thrown at it, and for the more resource-intensive titles (Hello there, Hitman 3’s ray-tracing), the sweet-spot resolution on its sharp screen kept everything running smoothly. My usual suspects of games–Far Cry 5, Batman: Arkham Knight, Forza Horizon 5, and newcomer Stray–all looked great, and I can easily see myself whipping this laptop out for an impromptu gaming session if the scenario is right. Eat it, Nintendo Switch rooftop parties.

Out of the box, the X16 screen is a 16-inch 165Hz monster with a 1440p resolution, which is perfect for gaming on monitor real estate of that size. It hits the Goldilocks zone for functionality, as the resolution is sharp enough to look impressive and at a point where you don’t need to worry about 4K gaming on the mini-LED display. It also doubles as a touchscreen in case you want to get your grubby mitts on it and it’s capable of producing some stunning colors through the display. In layman’s terms, games look real gud on it.

I will note that I used a mix of medium to high settings for games, not because the laptop couldn’t handle certain titles with ultra settings applied, but more because I didn’t want to grill my thighs when it began to run hot under these strenuous conditions. You can pump more power through the X16 thanks to a dedicated GPU brick that Asus sells, but that’s not exactly conducive to portability.

The color accuracy also lends it some serious workhorse functionality, which I put to the test with some edits of one of my Batman: Arkham Knight videos and a run through Filmora Wondershare. If I was going overseas and I needed a production laptop, the X16 would be top of my list thanks to its raw visual power. There’s plenty of customization to be had as well thanks to the Asus Armory software, there’s a decent array of ports, and the battery life is surprisingly strong for a device that transmits this much power.

It’s a gaming and content creation studio, all rolled into one elegant device that looks like a premium workhorse…and comes with a hefty price tag. The X16 starts at R40,000 for the base model with an Nvidia RTX 3050 and goes up to R52,000 for the high-end version, a price that comes with a long whistle attached to it. It’s not unsurprising given just how much other Asus laptops go for in the specialist market, but if you want that niche hardware requirement fulfilled, get ready to pay for it.

But if you’re willing to make that investment (and adopt me) then there’s no buyer’s remorse to be had here. Its power is the real deal, its versatility makes it a serious contender in any space, and whether you’re looking to pump out some new YouTube videos or play a few rounds of your favorite games, it’ll be more than up to the task.