Best Asus laptop 2023: Our top Asus clamshell, 2-in-1 and gaming picks

The Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED is our favourite overall Asus laptop, pacing powerful specs as well as a gorgeous OLED screen.

Packing an AMD Ryzen 7 6800U, it’s capable of fast productivity performance, beating even the Apple M1 chip in our benchmark tests. Both Apple and Intel do now offer even faster laptop chips, but the AMD processor here is still more than capable of taking on general productivity workloads, as well as dabbling with gaming and content creation.

Battery life was excellent here, lasting as impressive 13 hours on a single charge, which is noticeably better than the vast majority of Intel-powered portables. We loved the OLED panel too, with vibrant colours making it an ideal option for watching Netflix and the like on the go – especially with the portable sub-1kg design.

The biggest issue with the Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED? It’s difficult to find right now, with Asus seemingly running low on stock. But if you’re able to get your hands on it, you’ll have one of the very best laptops that Asus has to offer.

Reviewer: Ryan Jones
Full review: Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED (2022) review

Asus’ range of laptops is stunningly broad and it’s got plenty of bangers. One of the best is the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 (2023). Here at Trusted Reviews, we’re big fans of the ROG Zephyrus series, for its style and portability, but there’s something special about the ROG Strix Scar models.

Above all else, the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 (2023) is a gaming laptop, with little sacrificed for any goals that don’t align with pure videogame goodness. The latest model is a titan of performance, featuring Intel’s most performant 13th Gen HX series chips alongside Nvidia’s immense RTX 40-series GPUs. Our reviewer’s test model didn’t even feature the highest spec, sporting the RTX 4080 rather than the RTX 4090, but we were floored nonetheless. You’ll get comfortable beyond 60fps in graphically lush titles at Quad HD and Ultra settings, reaching beyond 100fps in Horizon Zero Dawn.

For fans of first-person shooters, this impressive machine has your back too. There’s a gorgeous 244Hz Mini LED panel on board and you’ll be able to hit that maximum frame rate in lightweight eSports games, right where you want it.

Mini LED is coming to many laptops in 2023 and its presence on the ROG Strix Scar 16 just helps to elevate it above the competition. We’re so happy it’s here, upping games to another level with deep blacks and vibrant colour.

Another detail that Asus ROG nails, as it so often does, is the keyboard. Some devices, like the Razer Blade 16 (2023), sacrifice the gaming performance of its keys for the sake of its relatively compact form factor. It feels like ROG Strix Scar models wouldn’t even dare consider this, making sure we get bags of travel and an authoritative dose of feedback.

Reviewer: Stuart Andrews
Full Review: Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 (2023) review

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022) has been a marvel since its launch a few years ago, showing that powerful gaming performance can come in smaller packages. Nothing gets the balance right quite like this laptop. Some laptops go for slim productivity looks and squeeze in a bit of gaming prowess but that doesn’t come close to what Asus packs in here.

The design of the ROG Zephyrus G14 isn’t just functional either, it looks purposeful and stylish. You might assume a device shooting for portability like this might want to be understated or, go completely the other way and have the word ‘gamer’ displayed in RGB lighting. This laptop manages to sit gloriously in the middle. Its design feels carefully thought out, with neatly placed angular geometry and an interesting pinhole pattern across the lid. It can catch eyes but it never screams at you.

Where the G14 does raise its voice a tad is with the Matrix LED lid. Those pinhole dots, on certain models, are hiding LEDs which can be programmed to display a pattern or message. It’s far from the best part of this device but speaks to the way it can appeal to different corners of the portable gaming market.

In 2022, Asus decided to equip a model with full AMD flavour, with the brand providing the CPU and GPU. The combination offers up performance to wow and astound, given the small form factor. You’ll nearly reach 60fps at Ultra settings at Quad HD in titles with a focus on image quality, so for competitive games you can expect upwards of 100fps. So, it’s a compact device with a lot of power, it must have awful battery life, right? Nope, outside of gaming, you can get a full day of working out of this machine, above six hours. For gaming, expect around one hour.

Reviewer: Gemma Ryles
Full Review: Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022) review

The Asus ZenBook Pro 16X OLED (2022) is our top recommended Asus laptop for content creation. Thanks to its powerful specs, such as an Intel Core i9-12900H CPU and Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU, it offers speedy performance for creativity apps such as Photoshop and Premiere Pro. Our benchmark tests show it to be capable of a similar performance to Apple’s MacBook Pro.

As its name implies, the Asus laptop also features an OLED panel. Our tests show that this screen offers a wide enough range of colours to engage with colour-sensitive workloads such as editing photos and videos. It’s also a stunning display for watching Netflix and YouTube videos during your downtime.

The ZenBook Pro also features an Asus Dial, which can be used in select creativity apps for finer control when adjusting the various settings. It can even be used for more general tasks such as adjusting volume and scrolling through web pages.

But with such a high price, the Asus ZenBook Pro 16X OLED is only worth considering if you need a high-performance portable to take on intense workloads. But if you spend most of your time editing photos and video, then we think this is the best Asus laptop you can currently buy.

Reviewer: Ryan Jones
Full review: Asus ZenBook Pro 16X OLED (2022) review

The Asus Zenbook Pro 14 OLED (2023) is another immense laptop from Asus and just when you thought it couldn’t come up with much else. Asus ROG laptops have been excellent for some time and the Zenbook S range has shone brightly too. The Zenbook Pro 14 OLED sees Asus decide that it needs a machine to challenge the beloved MacBook Pro too, and it’s definitely in the conversation.

In 2023, with the introduction of Nvidia’s new 40-series laptop graphics chips, manufacturers saw the opening to put forward a supposed MacBook Pro rival, from Samsung to Lenovo and more. No company has gotten it right just yet, and the limitations of Intel and AMD versus Apple Silicon may make the test unachievable, but Asus has done all it can.

This laptop is powerful enough to take on serious gaming and creative tasks, all in an understated design with strong build quality. However, “understated” goes out the window when you open this machine and show off something the MacBook Pro doesn’t have, and that’s an OLED display. This panel can get immensely bright, meaning you can get on with your demanding workloads in most environments, and the 2880×1800 offers up tons of luxurious detail. Whether you’re gaming, editing or watching a movie, this display will have you looking on smugly after making a stellar purchase.

For those wanting to work on this all day, the Zenbook Pro 14 OLED has got your back too. Productivity users will get beyond eight-hours, which is a great starting point that will obviously reduce as you put this machine through its paces.

Reviewer: Andrew Williams
Full Review: Asus Zenbook Pro 14 OLED (2023) review

The Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 (2023) is a special device, largely due to its no-compromises approach to giving you all the luxuries you could want in a high-end machine that can take on intensive gaming and creative work. It’s this no-compromises approach that gives it an intimidatingly high price but, if you have the means, you won’t be disappointed.

The best of Asus is in this laptop, from its typically excellent gaming keyboard prowess to a chassis that manages to be sleek, eye-catching and relatively compact all at once. This machine uses a matte aluminium alloy that’s a stealthy black hue, alongside the signature angular style of Asus ROG Zephyrus devices, this all adds up to being the Rolex of the gaming laptop world.

Quality is rife across this machine but one thing is positively dripping with finesse, and that’s the Mini LED display. Our reviewer called it “one of the best laptop screens ever”, specced at 2560 x 1600 resolution and a 240Hz refresh rate. Mini LED also enables glorious brightness, at 618 nits in SDR mode (you read that right) and 1200 nits in HDR. The numbers add up to wondrous depth and contrast from corner to corner.

The all-important performance is here too and while it may not be the highest of this laptop’s priorities, as it is with the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 (2023), it still offers top-notch results. You can expect above 100fps at this device’s full resolution at Ultimate settings in titles like Horizon Zero Dawn, and you’ll comfortably top out this panel’s 240Hz display in eSports titles.

Reviewer: Mike Jennings
Full Review: Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 (2023) review

It feels like 2-in-1 laptops may soon go the way of the dodo but the Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED (2023) makes the argument for keeping them around. It offers up a sparkling OLED panel and speedy productivity performance.

It’s 13th Gen Intel chips that power this convertible machine from Asus, and you’ll have no trouble drowning this laptop in upwards of 20 browser tabs. A speedy SSD only helps in that department too, and will make for rapid file transfer if needed.

Despite being a wonderfully thin machine, at 1.6cm thick overall, you get a ton of battery life for getting you beyond a full day of work. Productivity users should see upwards of eight-hours, meaning you should be able to go all day and have some in the tank for the next day at the office or your local coffee shop.

You can’t ignore the display on the Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED (2023). The 14-inch 2880 x 1800 panel brings stellar colour accuracy to the party and there’s a 90Hz refresh rate for smooth scrolling. The OLED tech means brightness is abundant, at 550nits in HDR mode. Being a 2-in-1, this device is perfect for watching your favourite movies or latest Netflix binge.

Reviewer: Stuart Andrews
Full Review: Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED (2023) review

A dual-screen laptop is certainly an interesting idea, and the Asus ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED is a particular favourite of ours. We found the second screen of the ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED to be useful for day-to-day work in conjunction with apps such as Slack or Spotify, while also supporting a range of content creation apps to improve workflow.

Its display shows off the true power of an OLED panel with us experiencing perfect blacks during testing, alongside otherworldly colour accuracy. With our trusty colorimeter in hand, we measured 100% sRGB coverage, as well as 96% Adobe RRG and 97% DCI-P3. This is incredible, especially for a Windows laptop, surpassing even the likes of the Dell XPS 13 OLED or the HP Spectre x360 13. A brightness of 355 nits is pretty good too, and resulted in some vibrant colours. 

The processor on offer is an Intel Core i7-12700H, and yes, that “H” means it’s up to the standard of high-performance tasks. In testing, this resulted in some absolutely smashing performance that led the ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED to challenge the MacBook Pro 14 with its M1 Max chip when looking at the scores for Geekbench 5. Its integrated graphics are perfectly serviceable for entry-level performance that will suffice for basic editing work, although you can configure this laptop to have an Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti, which will definitely give you a boost for more intense work. 

Where the ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED does, unfortunately, fall down is in its battery life. For reference, most laptops should be hitting or exceeding a 10-hour battery life. The ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED only managed four and a half hours, albeit with both screens running. Turning the smaller ScreenPad Plus off increased this figure by a couple of hours, but this isn’t the best laptop for taking on the go and using at full pelt.

Reviewer: Ryan Jones
Full review: Asus ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED review

The Asus ROG Flow Z13 is an interesting laptop. It takes the beefy performance of a gaming laptop and puts it into a portable folio-type design of the Microsoft Surface Pro, resulting in a powerful device that you can take with you on the go. 

In its top-range configuration, it’s powered by an Intel Core-i9-12900H processor, which is one of the best CPUs we’ve tested in a laptop, offering sublime performance in a range of tasks from general web browsing to a healthy dose of gaming. Our benchmarks show that the RTX 3050 Ti GPU inside doesn’t quite match the CPU’s prowess, but if you want a decent 1080p performance in more casual titles, then the Z13 will serve you well. You also have the option of purchasing and plugging in an Asus XG Mobile eGPU to give you the power of a high-end RTX 3080 GPU, which we found to greatly improve gaming performance. However, this external GPU is a very expensive accessory.

The design of the ROG Flow Z13 is sharp and professional, with a black chassis and type cover. It weighs just 1.18kg, which must make it one of the most powerful yet lightest laptop combos around. And with the magnetic type cover, you may even want to use this as a tablet, even if Windows 11 isn’t the best OS for it. In our eyes, that versatility is particularly what sets the ROG Flow Z13 apart from other gaming laptops at this price.

The display on offer is a 13.4-inch 1920×1200 panel which we found to offer some vibrant colours, as backed up by its immense colour space coverage. The ROG Flow Z13’s battery Iife isn’t the best in the world, with it only lasting for around 5 hours for basic productivity tasks in our office benchmark. Truth be told, this is around average for a gaming laptop, so you’ll definitely want to keep it plugged in.

Asus also offers up the Asus ROG Flow X16 as an alternative, which is a 2-in-1 gaming laptop with a massive 16-inch screen, which can be flipped into tablet mode. It also comes with more powerful specs, albeit with a steeper price too. Whichever model you fancy, both Asus laptops are leading options for those who want a portable gaming hybrid.

Reviewer: Ryan Jones
Full review: Asus ROG Flow Z13 review