Asus has consistently been at the forefront of bringing innovative technologies to a broader audience, especially with OLED displays in laptops under $1,000. Now, with AMD’s latest and most significant laptop chipset, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, Asus introduces the ProArt PX13, one of the first devices to feature it. The Ryzen AI 300 lineup goes beyond a faster CPU and integrated GPU, boasting one of the fastest neural processing units (NPUs) available on a laptop today. This emphasis on AI is evident in the chipset’s branding and the ProArt PX13 leverages it for exceptional performance and impressive battery life, all within a highly portable 13-inch package.
Asus offers only two configurations of the ProArt PX13. The review unit, priced at $1,700, features the Ryzen AI 9 chipset, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, an RTX 4050 GPU, and a 13.3-inch 3K OLED display. Upgrading to the $2,000 model gets you the same configuration but with an RTX 4060 GPU. Unfortunately, an RTX 4070 configuration, available in the ROG Flow X13, is absent here. While the current options are premium, it’s hoped that more customizable configurations, perhaps including a cheaper 16GB model or a 120Hz refresh rate option, will become available in the future. This pricing puts the ProArt PX13 among the upper tier of premium 13-inch laptops, alongside the Dell XPS 13 and the MacBook Air M3, both priced around $1,900.
The ProArt PX13 distinguishes itself from the crowded field of 13-inch laptops. While many are incredibly thin, they rarely support discrete graphics. In many respects, the ProArt PX13 is a non-gaming version of the ROG Flow X13, a convertible 2-in-1, featuring a 360-degree swivel display that enables four modes: clamshell, tent, media, and tablet. This hinge design, along with the glossy screen, was unusual for a small gaming laptop and makes more sense on a mainstream device. While Asus doesn’t mention an active pen and it isn’t included in the box, the ProArt PX13 isn’t intended as a digital sketching tool. However, the 2-in-1 modes prove excellent for content sharing and media consumption, especially with the OLED display rendering HDR content beautifully.
Compared to other 13-inch laptops, the ProArt PX13 is a fairly mainstream device. At up to 0.70 inches thick, it’s not particularly thin, especially compared to the MacBook Air M3 (0.44 inches) and the XPS 13 (0.60 inches). It also weighs in at 3.04 pounds, heavier than the XPS 13 (2.6 pounds) and the MacBook Air M3 (2.7 pounds), even surpassing the 16-inch MacBook Pro in thickness. However, as we’ll see, the trade-off of a slightly thicker and heavier chassis is justified by the immense power packed inside. For creators on the go, the ProArt PX13 remains remarkably compact. Its all-aluminum chassis is well-built, although slightly less rigid in the lid than the XPS 13 but comparable to the MacBook Air M3. Similar to those machines, the ProArt PX13 boasts a robust bottom chassis and keyboard deck. The hinge opens smoothly with one hand and remains secure during use.
The design of the ProArt PX13 is appealing. It lacks the sleek simplicity of the Dell or the Apple, showcasing more aggressive venting and a bolder aesthetic with an all-black color scheme. Asus aimed to evoke power rather than elegance, and it’s a fitting approach.
The keyboard features large keycaps and a spacious layout. The blocky lettering is highly visible in any lighting, and the backlighting is quite bright (perhaps overly so at its highest setting) for darker environments. The switches offer a deep and springy feel with a comfortable bottoming action. While it might be slightly less snappy than some preferences and feels slightly less precise than the MacBook Air M3’s Magic Keyboard, the Asus key feel is preferred over the XPS 13’s. The Dell’s zero-lattice layout can be challenging to get used to. The touchpad is a mechanical version, which is adequate. While haptic mechanisms would be preferred at this price point, the touchpad is large and spacious, reminiscent of the Zenbook S 16 or ROG Zephyrus G16. However, the MacBook Air M3’s Force Touch haptic touchpad and the XPS 13’s (despite its hidden nature) are superior. Fortunately, the display is touch-enabled, which is sensible for a 2-in-1. Interestingly, Asus incorporates its virtual Asus DialPad feature on the touchpad. It’s a circular indentation with a central button, supported by the ProArt Creator Hub software, which provides a range of creative functionality. The Dial enhances functionality in various creative apps and allows access to system settings. The Creator Hub offers enhanced color management, performance optimizations, and more. It’s a bit complex to navigate, but creators will appreciate its flexibility and customization options.
The ProArt PX13 boasts significantly more connectivity than most 13-inch machines. It features two USB4 USB-C connections, offering most of the functionality of Thunderbolt 4, along with a legacy USB-A port, an HDMI 2.1 connection, and a microSD card reader. The XPS 13 and MacBook Air M3 both have just two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 (though the Apple also includes a MagSafe 3 connection for power), and neither supports SD cards. The XPS 13 lacks a 3.5mm audio jack. Wireless connectivity is completely up to date, featuring Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. The webcam has a 1080p resolution and an infrared camera for Windows 11 Hello facial recognition. This resolution is the new standard, and the ProArt PX13 handles basic web conferencing adequately.
The most notable feature is the new AMD Ryzen AI 300 line of chipsets, promising a significant performance boost. There are three versions: the Ryzen AI 9 365 with 10 CPU cores, 20 threads, and 12 GPU cores in the Radeon 880M integrated graphics; and the Ryzen AI 9 370 and 375, both with 12 CPU cores, 24 threads, and 16 GPU cores. All operate at 28 watts of power by default and can be configured to run between 15 and 54 watts. The new chipsets utilize a mix of Zen 5 and Zen 5c cores, with the latter being more compact but equally fast as the others. The primary competition includes Intel Meteor Lake, the Qualcomm Snapdragon X, and the Apple Silicon M3. Meteor Lake has multiple versions, but the most common is the Core Ultra 7 155H with 16 cores (six Performance, eight Efficient, and two Low Power Efficient) and 22 threads, running at 28 watts with a minimum of 20 watts and up to 115 watts of Turbo power. The Snapdragon X Elite features 12 cores (eight performance and four efficient) running at up to 3.8GHz. Both have moderately fast integrated graphics. Finally, the M3 chipset ranges in power from the base model with eight CPU cores and either eight or 10 GPU cores to the M3 Max with 16 CPU cores and 40 GPU cores.
The ProArt PX13 utilizes the Ryzen AI 9 370 HX 370 chipset. The review unit featured the RTX 4050, an entry-level GPU, with the RTX 4060 as an alternative. As demonstrated in our benchmark suite, this is a remarkably fast chipset for a 13-inch laptop, and coupled with the discrete graphics, results in a significantly faster machine. It does run slightly hot and loud under load, but not unusually so for a fast laptop, as we’ll see.
Comparing the ProArt PX13 to the Dell XPS 13 9345 with the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 running Windows on Arm, the ProArt PX13 is roughly as fast in CPU-intensive benchmarks like Cinebench 2024 and Geekbench 6. Limited benchmarks run natively on the Dell, hindering further comparisons. Examining GPU performance, the ProArt PX13 is significantly faster, with even greater speed anticipated with the RTX 4060. The Asus also surpasses the MacBook Air M3 in these benchmarks. Overall, the ProArt PX13 is incredibly fast for productivity users and excels in demanding workflows. It also serves as a capable entry-level 1080p gaming laptop. It’s important to note that the Asus Zenbook S 16 uses the same AMD chipset but with the integrated Radeon 890M graphics. This GPU scored 3,207 in the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark compared to the ProArt PX13’s much faster 8,503.
However, we need to consider the ProArt PX13’s performance as a creator device, which is its primary target. Asus has successfully created a powerful machine in this regard. Analyzing two creative benchmarks – Pugetbench Premiere Pro, which runs in a live version of Adobe Premiere Pro, and Pugetbench Photoshop, also running in the live Adobe app – the ProArt PX13 performs exceptionally well. In Premiere Pro, which can utilize a Windows laptop’s GPU to accelerate certain creative processes, the ProArt PX13 outperforms several laptops with much faster GPUs, including the Acer Swift X 14 with the RTX 4070 and the Asus ROG Flow Z13 with the RTX 4060. It’s significantly faster than the Dell XPS 14 with the same RTX 4050, and the Zenbook S 16 with AMD’s Radeon 490M integrated graphics cannot keep up. Apple’s M3 chipset incorporates CPU optimizations that speed up video encoding and decoding, making the MacBook Air M3 reasonably fast here. The MacBook Pro 16 with the M3 Max chipset, as a proxy for the MacBook Pro 14, is equally fast. However, the M3 Max is significantly faster for video editing. In Photoshop, the ProArt PX13 again demonstrates exceptional speed, leading all but the MacBook Pro 16. This can be attributed to the Ryzen AI 9’s performance and is less influenced by the GPU. Overall, Asus has crafted a remarkably fast and highly portable laptop for creators. As we’ll see, its performance complements its excellent OLED display.
While it would be ideal to compare the AMD AI 9 chipset’s fast NPU to the competition, we lack suitable AI benchmarks that run across platforms and directly test NPU and NE performance. The AMD AI 9 chipset is rated at 50 tera operations per second (TOPS), surpassing the Qualcomm Snapdragon X chipsets at 45 TOPS and the Intel Meteor Lake at 10 TOPS. The Apple M3’s Neural Engine (NE) has 18 TOPS. MacBook users will need to wait for the M4’s 38 TOPS to join those ranks. Microsoft has set its Copilot+ PC NPU requirement at 40 TOPS or more, and Apple supports its upcoming Apple Intelligence features across all MacBooks dating back to the M1 chipset, relying on CPU, GPU, and RAM to compensate for earlier NE deficiencies. Currently, this performance difference doesn’t matter significantly. Windows lacks extensive support for fast NPUs. Microsoft supports Qualcomm only with its Copilot+ AI features, and even then, it’s limited. Some apps can utilize an NPU, potentially leading to speed enhancements. Running these apps on the NPU may result in slower performance compared to discrete GPUs, which are significantly faster, but they will be more efficient. Without cross-platform benchmarks, testing remains challenging.
Asus includes several apps that tout AI support, including StoryCube for managing photos and videos and MuseTree for creating and managing creative workflows. These apps likely benefit from the combined NPU and GPU AI performance, providing users with at least a few easy ways to experiment with these new capabilities.
The next challenge for the ProArt PX13 and its AMD chipset is battery life. While Intel has yet to catch up in efficiency, both Qualcomm and Apple utilize Arm chipsets that tend to lead the way. It’s one thing to offer impressive performance; a laptop also needs exceptional battery life to be competitive. Asus incorporates a 73 watt-hour battery, a significant capacity for a 13-inch laptop. The XPS 13, for example, has only 55 watt-hours, while the Zenbook S 16 boasts even more at 78 watt-hours. Notably, the MacBook Air M3 has just 52.6 watt-hours. Based on these results, the ProArt PX13 falls short of matching the most efficient laptops currently available. The two Intel Meteor Lake laptops in this comparison are deceiving; most laptops running the same Core Ultra 7 155H chipset are closer to the ProArt PX13. While the Qualcomm laptops exhibit very strong video looping battery life (the least-demanding test), the MacBook Air M3 endures the longest when performing real work. The ProArt PX13 offers decent battery life for such a portable laptop capable of handling moderately demanding creative work. However, carrying the power adapter along will be necessary.
The 13.3-inch 16:10 3K (2880 by 1800) OLED display is exceptional. It looks stunning out of the box, boasting bright, dynamic colors and inky blacks. This is a hallmark of OLED displays, and Asus excels in this area. My colorimeter confirms the panel’s suitability for creators. Its color gamut is expansive, covering 100% of sRGB, 97% of AdobeRGB, and 99% of DCI-P3. Accuracy is also impressive, with a Delta-E of 0.64 (less than 1.0 is considered excellent). Brightness is very good at 380 nits, though not the brightest OLED display I’ve encountered, and contrast is 26,510:1, with the usual perfect blacks. This display completes the package for creative work. Media consumers will also appreciate its brilliance. Audio quality is merely adequate, with dual speakers that are sufficient for system sounds and YouTube videos. However, music, TV shows, and movies demand a good pair of headphones.
If you’re seeking a laptop for video editing or high-end photography work, you’ll want fast performance and a display with excellent colors. The ProArt PX13 delivers both. It’s not the fastest laptop we’ve reviewed for this purpose, not even close, but few are as portable. Battery life isn’t exceptional, but that’s not unexpected. The ProArt PX13 enables you to accomplish your work without lugging around a massive laptop. This portability is well worth the expensive price.
