While a tablet is a great tool for a creative professional, it doesn’t offer the versatility of a full-fledged laptop. You can opt for a 2-in-1 laptop, but there aren’t many options out there that won’t burn a hole in your pocket. So far, it is. The new Asus ProArt PZ13 is a competitively priced 2-in-1 with the new Snapdragon X Plus chipset and promises to deliver great performance with better battery life. It’s a good alternative to the Microsoft Surface Pro, especially if you want something cheaper.

ProArt PZ13 offers a lot even at a starting price of Rs. 1,04,990. You get a great display, good form factor, lightweight design, and useful accessories. Should this be your new 2-in-1 laptop? Find out below.

Asus ProArt PZ13 Design: Industrial

• Dimensions – 297.5 x 202.9 x 9 mm
• Weight – 0.85 kg (without keyboard), 1.2 kg (with keyboard)
• Color – Nano Black

Asus has gone with an industrial look for the ProArt PZ13, which feels tough and premium. It gets an aluminum unibody with chamfered edges and a thickness of 9mm. The bevel around the screen is a pattern that echoes the ‘Pro Camera Design’, and a few other elements highlight the otherwise bland design. It would have been nice if Asus had included a built-in kickstand on the back panel. Instead, you get a separate case, which adds to the thickness of the tablet.

The tablet doesn’t attract a lot of fingerprints.

The ProArt PZ13 also offers an IP52 rating and claims to pass several MIL-STD-810H tests. The back panel also has a small slit that serves as an air intake and a flush-mounted camera. Surprisingly, it doesn’t attract too many fingerprints or smudges.

In terms of ports, the Windows tablet includes a power button on the top edge and an exhaust vent for a single fan. The right edge houses the volume buttons, while the left has an exposed USB Type-C port, a rubber flap that hides another USB Type-C port, and a full-sized SD card slot.

A flap covers one of the USB Type-C ports.

A magnetic pogo connector is on the bottom for connecting the included keyboard. The tablet offers dual speakers placed on either side.

Asus ProArt PZ13 Display: Sharp, bright and vivid

• Size and Type – 13.3-inch OLED touch, 16:10, 500 nits
• Resolution – 2,880 x 1,800 pixels
• Refresh rate – 60Hz

The touch display on the ProArt PZ13 is bright and colorful. It’s also quite fast as the 13-inch OLED panel offers a resolution of 2,880 x 1,800 pixels, a 0.2ms response time, and a 16:10 aspect ratio, perfect for productive users and content creators. However, it only offers a maximum refresh rate of 60Hz. The display offers good brightness indoors, but the glossy coating makes it difficult to use outdoors in direct sunlight. To keep the panel scratch-free, Asus has offered Gorilla Glass NBT for protection.

OLED touch displays offer good colors and have excellent viewing angles.

When it comes to colors and other enhancements, the display offers Dolby Vision, HDR, and Pantone certification and covers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut. Viewing content on the screen was a good experience, but images can be a bit oversaturated in the standard color profile. If you want more accurate colors or sRGB profile for photo/video editing, it is better to use DCI-P3 color profile. Note that to access the available color profiles, you will first need to use them on the ProArt Creator Hub app.

Viewing angles and touch response on the OLED panel were also quite good. Speaking of touch response, the display also supports pen input and you can use the Asus Pen 2.0 to sketch, write and more.

Asus ProArt PZ13 Keyboard, Touchpad, Speakers, and Cameras

• Keyboard – Detachable backlit keyboard
• Speakers – Dual side-firing with Dolby Atmos
• Web Camera – 5 Megapixel with IR sensor
• Rear camera – 13 megapixels

You get a separate keyboard in the box. It attaches to the chassis using pogo pin connectors and strong magnets. I found the quality of the keyboard case to be good. The keys are backlit with adequate illumination in the dark and offer approximately 1.35mm of travel. The typing experience is good, and the whole thing feels very stable despite being slim. There’s also a copilot key and a full row of function keys.

The detachable keyboard offers 1.35mm of key travel and a clicky touchpad.

Centered below the keyboard is a spacious touchpad. It has a smooth surface, supports multi-touch gestures, and the click mechanism works efficiently. I had no problem using the touchpad for work and navigation.

The ProArt PZ13 has two side-facing stereo speakers that support Dolby Atmos. Although they provide good audio quality for a tablet, they may not be ideal for a laptop. The speakers deliver full and undistorted sound even at maximum volume. However, their loudness is somewhat limited, and you may inadvertently cover them while holding the tablet.

Both cameras of the ProArt PZ13 perform well in daylight.

Asus has provided two cameras on the ProArt PZ13, which are quite good. The 5-megapixel front-facing camera performs well in daylight conditions and produces some noisy video in low-light conditions. It supports Windows Hello facial recognition and also comes with an IR sensor. You also get a 3-microphone array for clear voice recording. There’s also a 13-megapixel rear camera, but I’m not sure what it’s for. It records 1080p video and takes good photos in daylight.

• OS – Windows 11 Home
• Additional Apps – MyAsus, StoryCube, ProArt Creator Hub

It’s software time, and in addition to your standard Windows 11 tools, the ProArt PZ13 has a few extras, including some AI features like Copilot, Cocreator in Paint, Live Captions, Windows Studio Effects, and Automatic Super Resolution. Eventually, you’ll also get access to the controversial Windows Recall feature, but it’s not here yet.

You can use AI to help you draw in the Paint app.

Additional tools on the 2-in-1 include the trusted MyAsus app, a tool for automatically organizing all your exported digital photo files called StoryCube, and the ProArt Creator Hub that lets you customize the tablet. Can improve accordingly. You can choose a display profile, control fan speed, and change operating profiles. The Asus ScreenXpert app is also available on the tablet, which lets you manage various aspects of the touch display.

Asus ProArt PZ13 Performance: Not elite.

• Processor – Snapdragon X Plus X1P42100
• RAM – 16GB LPDDR5x (non-upgradable)
• Storage – 1TB M.2 NVMe (non-upgradable)
• GPU – Adreno X1-45

Okay, let’s talk about performance. The ProArt PZ13 comes with a low-end Snapdragon X Plus chipset, which is somewhat noticeable when running heavy apps or performing resource-intensive tasks. Even when opening multiple tabs on Chrome or playing videos on Netflix, YouTube and Prime Video, the tablet starts to heat up. If you stress the chipset, you will notice some lag in performance. Compared to the X Elite chipset, the power output drops when it comes to multi-core usage. This is expected as the X Plus has an octa-core CPU, while the X Elite has 12 cores. However, when it comes to AI computing, there is not much difference.

The Snapdragon X Plus is an octa-core CPU.

I ran some simulated benchmarks on the PZ13 to see how it performed against laptops with Snapdragon X Elite CPUs. As expected, multi-core scores on Geekbench, Cinebench and 3DMark are lower, but AI performance is quite similar. All benchmarks were run in Performance Profile.

You can use the ProArt PZ13 for most everyday tasks, such as browsing the web, creating artwork using the stylus, viewing content, and more without experiencing any major hiccups. I found most apps compatible with ARM. If nothing works, you can always run it in emulated mode. However, during my testing, I didn’t encounter such compatibility issues, at least with the apps I used.

Gaming on a tablet isn’t unless you’re playing some old-school titles. I tried playing a couple of Xbox Game Pass titles, and the games wouldn’t even install. The tablet did not perform well in the 3DMark Night Raid and Steel Nomad Light GPU benchmarks.

In terms of connectivity, the tablet offers tri-band Wi-Fi 7 (where supported) and Bluetooth 5.4. During the review period, both performed well.

Asus ProArt PZ13 Battery: Long lasting

• Capacity – 70Wh
• Charging – 65W

Although the Snapdragon X Plus chipset may not offer high-end performance, it does offer excellent performance. Battery life on the ProArt PZ13 is great, and when you’re using it for a few hours a day you can go days without charging it. I can easily do a full day’s work glued to the keyboard. The large 70Wh battery also helps here.

The tablet can last for several days without a charge if only used for a few hours per day.

Fast charging is also available thanks to the included 65W charger. The tablet took about 1 hour 40 minutes to fully charge from 10 percent.

Asus ProArt PZ13 Verdict

The Asus ProArt PZ13 is a competitively priced 2-in-1 that offers a good display, great battery life, good performance, and portability. The detachable keyboard and extra kickstand cover make it as thick as a traditional laptop, but you can use it as a tablet with a stylus. It’s also cheaper than other Snapdragon-powered 2-in-1s on the market.

If you’re not looking to spend big and are looking for a good-value 2-in-1 with a great display and long-lasting battery life for your travels, you should probably consider the Asus ProArt PZ13. .