ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) review: Gaming in a hybrid design

ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) is a 2-in-1 gaming laptop with an industrial design and a large 16-inch touchscreen. You don’t see many models like it in the gaming market, and ASUS’s approach is rather innovative. Moreover, its hardware configuration tends to be on the high-performance side of things, which always appeals to the gamer in me. But how does the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) perform in real life? And is it worth your hard-earned cash? Read my review and find out:

ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022): Who is it good for?

This laptop is an excellent choice for:

• Gamers who want a powerful laptop for their favorite games
• Anyone looking for a laptop with a large 16” screen and a generous QHD+ resolution
• People interested in 2–in-1 devices that can also be used as tablets

Pros and cons

There are a lot of good things to say about the ASUS ROG Flow X16:

• Excellent performance, both for gaming and productivity
• Convertible form factor with a large touchscreen display
• Fast Wi-Fi 6E connectivity
• You can upgrade the RAM and add an M.2 card

There are some downsides as well:

• It’s more expensive than competing models
• When running demanding tasks, it can become loud and hot

Verdict

The ASUS ROG Flow X16 is a powerful and versatile gaming laptop with a good-quality touch display, generous storage, a large and quiet keyboard, and fast Wi-Fi 6E connectivity. Its target audience is gamers, professionals, and content creators who seek performance and portability. If you have the budget for it and desire a 2-in-1 device that can also be used as a tablet, ASUS ROG Flow X16 should be on the shortlist for your next purchase.

Unboxing the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022)

The ASUS ROG Flow X16 comes in a large black cardboard box with only the Republic of Gamers logo printed on it. There are no product details on either side. ASUS ROG Flow X16 comes in a hefty cardboard box When you open the box, you find another smaller box containing the actual gaming 2-in-1 laptop you’ve bought and an ASUS ROG BP4701 gaming backpack. The availability of the backpack depends on where you buy the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) from and whether this bundle is on offer or not. You can find this laptop in stores without anything bundled alongside it. ASUS bundles a backpack too Getting back to the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022): inside the box, I found the laptop itself, the user manual, the warranty, some other leaflets, one 100W ROG USB-Type C charger, and a 240W power brick using ASUS’s proprietary charging jack, which also delivers fast charging. What you find alongside your ASUS ROG Flow X16 The ASUS ROG BP4701 gaming backpack fits the laptop nicely, and it is useful when you are on the go. ASUS ROG BP4701 fits this laptop nicely Unboxing the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) 2-in-1 gaming laptop is a pleasant experience. Its packaging is very functional, and the bundled backpack will be appreciated by many.

Design and hardware specifications

The ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) has an aluminum and magnesium alloy body that feels well-built and durable. However, its design is rather dull and feels industrial. One aspect you’ll instantly notice, including in my pictures, is that this laptop is a fingerprint magnet. Therefore, if you want it to look its best, you must wipe it regularly. Do you like this laptop's industrial design? When you open the lid, you see the generous 16-inch glossy display with a 2560x1600 resolution and touch and pen support. Some models use a mini LED panel that offers 100% DCI-P3 coverage, 1100-nits peak brightness, a 165 Hz refresh rate, and a 3 milliseconds response time, perfect for gaming. However, ASUS also sells versions of this laptop with an IPS panel with a 500-nits peak brightness. The 100% DCI-P3 coverage, resolution, refresh rate, and response time are the same on both. On the top side of the screen, you see the 720p webcam (which supports Windows Hello) and the camera indicator. ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) can have a mini LED panel or an IPS one The laptop has a generous 13 x 8.5 cm (5.11 x 3.34 inches) touchpad with multi-touch gestures and an RGB backlit keyboard with 1.7 mm travel. Next to the keyboard, you find the speakers, as well as some stickers that showcase the processor and graphics card inside this laptop. The touchpad is quite large All ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) laptops are equipped with an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS mobile processor (with 8 physical cores and 16 execution threads, 16MB cache, and up to 4.9 GHz max boost) and 32 GB of DDR5-4800 RAM. ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) has an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS mobile processor However, other components may vary:

• There are models with 1 TB or 2 TB of NVMe storage made by Micron. The model I’m reviewing has 1 TB of storage.
• The graphics card can be an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti, GeForce RTX 3060, or GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. The unit I received for review has a GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card.

On the left side of the laptop, you find the Power jack, an HDMI 2.0b port, and one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C/DisplayPort/Power delivery combo port, which can be used to charge the laptop. You also have the ROG XG Mobile interface for connecting external graphics, the headphone jack, a drive activity indicator, and the battery charge indicator. The ports on the left side of the laptop On the right side, you find the Power button and the Power indicator, a microSD card slot, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, and some air vents. The ports on the right side of the laptop On the bottom of the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022), you find the air vents, two audio speakers, and under the compartment cover, the spaces reserved for the M.2 slot and the RAM modules. The bottom the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) The touch screen is adjustable, all the way to a 360° angle, allowing you to turn your device from a gaming laptop into a tablet. While not many gamers are into touchscreens, there are some niche scenarios where they are useful. The touch screen is adjustable The battery has a capacity of 90Wh, and it can be charged with either charger found inside the box. However, you can benefit from fast charging only when using the traditional 240 W power adapter. The 240 W power adapter If you’re into online gaming, you’ll be happy to know that ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) works with the latest Wi-Fi 6E standard and delivers 2x2 MU-MIMO transfers, as well as Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity. Finally, its size is 355 x 243 x 19.4 mm or 13.98 x 9.57 x 0.76 inches in width x depth x height. It also weighs 2.08 kg or 4.58 lbs, which is quite reasonable for a gaming laptop with a hardware this powerful. ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) is not that heavy For more information on technical specifications and the different variants of this laptop, I recommend you to visit this page: ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) GV601.

Using the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022)

The ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) variant I received for testing has a display that uses an IPS panel with 500-nits brightness. The screen is rather glossy, and it has a touch layer, digitizer, and protective Gorilla Glass. The contrast and the blacks are inferior to the versions equipped with a mini LED HDR panel, but they’re perfectly usable for productivity and gaming. Also, outdoor visibility is pretty good as long as you don’t work in direct sunlight. The IPS panel works well both for gaming and productivity I enjoyed my audio and video experience with the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022). This laptop has four speakers, which deliver a punchy sound, and decent bass. If you use the Dolby Access app to configure your audio experience, you’ll get some good results, including when gaming. You can enjoy all the latest titles on this laptop, as it has a hardware configuration that can handle just about anything. Older, less demanding titles like Horizon Zero Dawn will work great in the laptop’s native QHD+ resolution, with the quality settings pumped to the maximum. Newer, more demanding titles, like Cyberpunk 2077, will work perfectly well in 1080p resolution. Gaming on the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) The only downside is that the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) will get hot and noisy. I recommend using a cooling pad when gaming or performing resource-intensive tasks like running virtual machines or rendering videos. On the upside, the Silent cooling profile does a great job, and if you don’t run any demanding apps, the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) will be very comfortable to use temperature and noise-wise. One aspect that may not be evident to some when reading the official specs of this laptop is that you get two graphics “cards”: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX that’s mentioned very visibly, but also an AMD Radeon 680M graphics chip integrated with the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS​ processor. This is great news because this chip is used for everything that doesn’t require the power of the GeForce RTX card, which delivers great battery life, low temperatures, and little noise. You also get an AMD Radeon 680M graphics chip Another aspect that helps with the battery life is that ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) automatically switches the display’s refresh rate to 60 Hz when on battery. This means that you also notice a quick screen flicker when you disconnect the laptop from the power plug. Overall, autonomy is surprisingly good. As long as you don’t play games on it or don’t do video rendering, this laptop’s battery will last you between 6.5 and 8 hours, depending on what you do. Battery life is good The keyboard is relatively large, with a good layout and properly sized and spaced keys. ASUS has included multimedia keys on the top left, similar to other ROG laptops. When typing, you get good feedback, and the keycaps have a soft feel to them. The keyboard doesn’t generate a lot of noise, and you’ll appreciate it if you’re looking for a quieter typing experience. You also get single-zone RGB lighting that can be customized with ease. This feature is for people who type in dark environments but also for those who want to show off their RGB-lighting skills. The only minor downside is that the lighting is not too bright, and in well-lit environments, you barely notice it. Considering that ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) is a 16-inch laptop, I would have preferred to have a numeric keyboard on the right, but that’s unfortunately missing. You get single-zone RGB lighting on your keyboard The touchpad is very large and easy to use. It’s a high–precision one, with support for gestures using multiple fingers, which makes it versatile to use, if you invest some time in tweaking the touchpad settings. However, I did feel the need to use the touchscreen from time to time, which complemented my experience quite nicely. One of the more important differentiators of the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) is the convertible form factor. Its screen rotates 360 degrees, allowing you to use it as a tablet. The pen support may be useful too, but only to people who work on this laptop, not for gaming. 🙂 Personally, I found the touchscreen useful when I wanted to scroll through large documents and Excel spreadsheets or while reading lengthy articles. ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) can be used as a tablet While using the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022), I did notice two small annoyances. One is the positioning of the Power button on the right edge of the laptop. When moving from my desk to another room, I frequently take my laptop with one hand, from the right edge. And almost always, I pressed the button accidentally, which meant that the laptop entered Sleep mode even when I didn’t want it to. Also, this button has an unnecessary always-on light, which may annoy you during the night because of its positioning. Personally, I think it would have been better for it to be placed somewhere closer to the screen or in a corner just behind the screen. The positioning of the Power button is not ideal The second minor annoyance is that when you charge the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022), the keyboard lights up intermittently when Windows is set to Sleep mode. The lights will bother you if you have your laptop nearby and you’re trying to sleep or watch a movie on your SmartTV during the evening. It’s really distracting. If you want this to stop, the solution is to Shut down the laptop or close the lid. The keyboard lights up intermittently The webcam on this laptop features an infrared sensor for fast authentication through Windows Hello. However, there’s no fingerprint scanner to complete the experience. While this may be a downside to some people, it wasn’t for me, because Windows Hello always worked well. The webcam delivers decent-quality 720p videos and is perfectly adequate for Zoom calls, Google Meet, Teams, and others. The webcam works with Windows Hello On the networking side, ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) features a MediaTek Wi-Fi 6E card, which means you can use this laptop in tandem with all the latest Wi-Fi 6E routers, like the powerful ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000, which I reviewed recently. Wi-Fi 6E connectivity is available Finally, one last thing I enjoy about the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) is that you can upgrade it. ASUS offers an Upgrade Guide on its support page in multiple languages, which shows you how to remove the compartment cover, disconnect the battery, upgrade the RAM, and install an M.2 card. I think this is a great approach that will please more knowledgeable users. The Upgrade Guide for ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) Overall, ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) is a powerful laptop, which delivers a good balance between performance, a flexible form factor, autonomy, and noise levels. If you want to see some hard numbers about its performance, go to the next page of this review. There, I share details about the software bundled with the ASUS ROG Flow X16, as well as the results it got in different benchmarks and games.

Performance in benchmarks

Looking at the hardware inside the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022), it is clear that we are dealing with a high-performance device. But how does this translate into numbers that you can compare with other laptops of its kind? For that, you must run a couple of benchmarks. I started by measuring the time needed to boot and load the Windows 11 desktop with the help of BootRacer. I was happy to see that this laptop started in just 24 seconds, which is a great result that will satisfy many users. Not sure if people realize it, but Android loads a lot slower than Windows does nowadays, even on premium devices. How fast Windows boots on the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) Next, I used CrystalDiskMark to test the laptop’s 1 TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 solid-state drive. Everybody writes and reads data from their computers, and SSD performance is an important metric. As you can see below, both the reading and writing speeds were top-notch. SSD benchmark results Then, I ran PCMark 10 on the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022). This app is designed to measure performance in regular productivity tasks such as working with Office apps, videoconferencing, browsing the internet, and creating digital content. As you can see below, the laptop managed a score of 7114 points. That puts it in the top 11% best computers and laptops tested with PCMark 10! Benchmark results in PCMark 10 Next are the gaming benchmarks. I started with 3DMark's Time Spy, where the laptop got a high score of 8781 points, confirming that we are dealing with a powerful system that’s perfectly suited for gaming. Benchmark results in 3DMark Time Spy I also ran a few benchmarks in a couple of demanding games: Horizon Zero Dawn, Metro Exodus, and Cyberpunk 2077. I started with Horizon Zero Dawn, an older game with good graphics. I used the native QHD+ resolution (2560x1600) and the Favor Quality preset. As you can see, ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) delivered an average frame rate of 94, which is great. You shouldn’t have any problems running older titles at high-quality settings, using the maximum resolution. Horizon Zero Dawn runs great on this laptop Metro Exodus remains a beautiful and highly demanding game. I ran it at 1080p, using the Ultra quality settings, and ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) managed to achieve an average frame rate of 54.86 fps and a maximum of 79.92 fps. Benchmark results in Metro Exodus Cyberpunk 2077 is a popular modern title with excellent graphics which demands a lot from your computer. Therefore, I used the Full HD resolution and the High quality preset. As a result, ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) delivered an average of 51.48 frames per second and a maximum of 72.66 fps, which is an excellent result. Benchmark results in Cyberpunk 2077 If Cyberpunk 2077 runs well on this laptop, all modern games should, at least in 1080p resolutions. To see how well the laptop’s cooling system fares in demanding situations, I ran AIDA64’s system stability tests for the processor (CPU, FPU, and cache stress tests). The processor reached a maximum of 95 degrees Celsius when pushed to the max. During the five minutes of stress testing, the average temperature for the CPU was 93.2 Celsius. That’s a bit higher than what I expected. Processor temperatures in very demanding situations In the end, I ran PCMark 10 once more, but I used its Modern Office battery tests this time. That’s to see how much the laptop can run on batteries alone while doing office-like activities. The ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) kept on going for 8 hours and 7 minutes, which is a great result. The battery life is quite good The benchmarks confirm that the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) is a top performer in gaming and productivity tasks. This 2-in-1 gaming laptop is great for running demanding games in 1080p resolutions and older games in its native QHD+ resolution, using High-quality settings.

Apps bundled with the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022)

Officially, this laptop comes with Windows 11 Pro preinstalled. However, my review unit had Windows 11 Home on it, and I noticed that in some countries, it is sold with this edition of Windows. Also, ASUS bundles a few additional apps alongside the traditional bloatware included by Microsoft: Armoury Crate is great for configuring the cooling and performance

• Armoury Crate - very useful in configuring your laptop’s settings, performance, and cooling modes. You can also personalize the Aura Sync service and synchronize your lighting effects across ASUS devices and computers.
• Aura Creator - can be used to create personalized RGB lighting effects for your laptop.
• Dolby Access - use it to configure the Dolby Atmos sound settings and the Dolby Vision settings of your laptop’s display.
• McAfee LiveSafe - a 30-day free trial for a security product that includes antivirus and firewall protection. I don’t particularly appreciate using it and recommend uninstalling it.
• MyASUS - useful in accessing the latest driver and BIOS updates for the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022). You can use this app to register your laptop, manage your warranty, and access customer support services. Keep this app installed on your laptop and use it from time to time.

MyASUS is useful for updating drivers and the BIOS I appreciate that the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) is a lightweight device in terms of bundled software. With one exception, the apps you get are genuinely useful for managing your laptop, its drivers, and settings.

What’s your opinion about the ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022)?

Now you know what you get from ASUS ROG Flow X16 (2022) in terms of design, build quality, performance, user experience, and battery life. However, before closing this review, let me know in the comments section whether you like it and whether you’d consider it as your next gaming laptop.