Asus ProArt PX13 Australian Laptop Review

Everyone’s new-fangled laptops (or should that be Ai PCs?) were doing the rounds at CES 2025 in Las Vegas recently, but it will be some time before they manifest in the market. With our benchmarks now massively tweaked for 2025, it’s a perfect opportunity to review on the most feature-packed (convertible) laptops that we’ve seen for a year – the Asus ProArt PX13 – in order to set some benchmarks with our updated scoring system.

This almost-ruggedised, Creator-designated, ultraportable pocket rocket is one of the smallest laptops we’ve tested in ages and yet it’s crammed with performance, unique features and Ai-based tech. Previous Creator laptops proved to be incredibly attractive, despite their high prices, but just how well will the PX13 perform as an Ai PC package that’s been designed for creative professionals in the field?

Asus ProArt PX13 Specs

Features, Ergonomics & Design

The ProArt PX13’s ‘Nano Black’ CNC-milled aluminium chassis is very smart and robust. Despite the appearance in some of the photos in this review (which were tainted by sunscreen-hands and a lack of nearby cleaning products), it’s also relatively good at fending-off fingerprints. The new logo and moniker are smart, but understated and only visible in certain lighting. While it doesn’t have show-stopping looks, I imagine that few users in the target market would want to draw attention to such a small and expensive tool.

The ProArt PX13’s keyboard is low-travel and nicely weighted (on the firmer side) and comfy and accurate to type upon for extended periods (unlike many, too-stiff keyboards on convertible tablets). It’s got squished arrow keys, but they’re well isolated and intuitive to use.

The trackpad is smooth, accurate and has well-pressured button actuations that are virtually silent. It also features Asus’ DialPad controller which operates multimedia shortcuts like video scrubbing and volume controls. Plus, it facilitates productivity boosts like feature switching and adjustments in Adobe Creative Cloud apps.

The ‘Asus Lumina’ screen is a highlight but will also polarise potential buyers. On the one hand, it’s exceptionally brilliant. It’s very bright (400-nits with a 500-nit peak rating) and the OLED colours are incredibly vibrant. The HDR contrast is also some of the very best I’ve ever seen on a laptop screen with bright highlights, dark shadows and true blacks all visible simultaneously. Just note that ramping up the brightness to maximum can blow out details in bright areas. Also, I did notice that colour vibrancy could slightly diminish when HDR was activated, but this is nitpicking. There are minor steps visible in colourful and monochromatic transitions but activating HDR completely smooths these out. Ultimately, the imagery that it displays is sumptuous.

It’s got credentials too. These include a VESA True Black 500 certification, TÜV Rheinland and SGS Eye Care low blue light certification plus, everything has been Pantone validated. It also displays 100 per cent of the difficult DCI-P3 colour space and has a lower-than-usual Delta E of less-than one.

On top of that, it’s a touchscreen model and comes with an Asus Pen stylus which supports 4,096 pressure levels and the MPP 2.0 standard. Plus, it’s made from Gorilla Glass for added toughness. Being a convertible, it can also fold back on itself to become a tablet and the tough-looking hinges feel very robust.

But, it won’t be for everyone. Despite the powerful internals, the screen has a sluggish 60Hz refresh rate which means it’s not good for fast-and-frantic gaming – things get blurry fast. You’ll need to connect to an external monitor if you want to play any such games.

Inside are twin, Harmon Kardon speakers and these get loud and punchy with good, all-round fidelity.

Above the screen is an excellent Full HD webcam (which supports Windows Hello facial recognition log-in) that does well at fending-off grain in low light. When partnering with the triple-mic array, it’s superb for web-conferencing and streaming.

Software

It’s not often that I focus on included software (especially trials) but this is one of the times that’s worthy of an exception.

As with many Asus laptop purchases, the ProArt comes with three month’s Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, which otherwise costs $88 per month. However, the PX13 also comes with a six-month CapCut Pro subscription worth $45 per month and a year’s subscription to Microsoft 365 Personal worth $159. Those will all be useful to the target market and the potential total cost saving of almost $700 will improve the value proposition for many.

The ProArt PX13 also comes with some very interesting Asus software:

StoryCube is Asus’ photo management app which also has basic video editing capabilities.

MuseTree is Asus’ local, Ai image-generation software which can make images from basic line drawings.

Creator Hub overlaps with the core My Asus app a fair bit, but it focuses more on colour profiles and colour management.

Asus Dial & Control Panel configures the operations afforded by the DialPad in the trackpad.

Being a fully fledged Ai PC, it also works with Microsoft’s CoPilot+ features.

They’re all potentially very useful and work well.

Connectivity and Ports

Inside there’s Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 4 and it comes with a USB-C dongle for Ethernet. That’s an impressive connectivity complement.

Ultimately, the Asus ProArt PX13 is stacked with features and is a very impressive laptop to interact with.

Features, Ergonomics & Design Score: 5/5

Performance

Inside Asus’ ProArt PX13 is an AMD Ryzen Ai 9 HX 370 CPU which operates between 2 – 5.1GHz across 12 cores and 24 threads. It also has integrated, 16-core, 2.9GHz Radeon 890M graphics and an Ai NPU engine that pumps out 50 TOPS (giving 80 in total for the processor). This is partnered by 32GB of LPDDR5-7500 RAM and a 1TB NVMe hard drive. Discreet graphics in the form of an 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU are also present. That’s one heck of a package for a 13-inch ultraportable.

General Computing & CPU Tests

We ran our new tests to shake-down the system and see what it’s capable of. All scores have been reset for the start of the year meaning that our five-star rating has stopped factoring-in products that went End of Life before the beginning of last year. With older models removed from the scale (where one is the worst score and five is the best) the baseline for performance has risen.

In the general-computing PCMark 10 benchmark, which utilises every component of system, the ProArt PX13 scored 7,790 which is very impressive for such a small laptop. (Score: 4 / 5)

In the UL Procyon Microsoft Office benchmark it scored 6,551 which is an above average Score of 3 / 5. In the newer, multiplatform version of this test it scored 246,000 which is 4.4 / 5. Just note that we’ve not been able to run this on too many laptops yet. Either way, as with all modern laptops, it’s more-than capable of running all office tasks.

In the Procyon Photo Editing Benchmark, which uses Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic, the PX13 scored 7,658 which is a Score of 3.7 / 5. This means it performed the entire photo editing workload in just under 16 minutes. For reference, the Asus ROG Strix SCAR 18 gaming laptop scored 8,967 (4.8 / 5) which was a minute quicker while the budget HP Pavilion 16 scored 4,230 (1 / 5) which equates to 32m 28s. So, the PX13 is twice as quick as the latter.

In the Cinebench rendering tests, the ProArt scored 3,489 and 23,020 in the rapid R15 and longer R23 tests, respectively. This means it’s an impressive CPU-renderer for such a small laptop. (Score: 3.5 / 5)

In the Procyon Ai Computer Vision Benchmark, the PX13 scored 120 in the CPU version of the test which represents a Score of 3.5 / 5.

In short, it’s a very quick laptop for most computing tasks. But how does it’s discreet GPU fare for Ai, rendering and gaming?

General Computing & CPU Performance Score: 4.3 / 5

Graphics & Gaming Performance

In the GPU version of the Procyon Computer Vision Ai test, which uses the PX13’s Nvidia graphics, it scored 672 which is a Score of 3.6 / 5. It’s tricky to put this into context at present – it’s mostly developers that will care about degrees of performance improvement in this area. Nonetheless, you can read more on this benchmark, here.

When it came to Procyon Adobe Premiere video editing test, the ProArt scored 27,673 (Score: 3.2 / 5). To put that in perspective, I’m currently testing an Acer TravelMate Spin business laptop with a modest, Intel Core Ultra 7 155U, 12-core Hyperthreaded processor and integrated Intel Xe graphics which scored 6,905 (Score 1.4 / 5) and completed the H.265, 4K video edit-and-export (technical details here) benchmark in 306 seconds. The PX13 did it in 90 seconds.

Gaming Benchmarks

To determine a laptop’s gaming prowess, we focus on UL’s 3DMark benchmarks. We’ve dramatically expanded our testing for 2025.

In the difficult, 1,440p ray-tracing tests, Speed Way and Port Royal (which only work on powerful gaming PCs), the ProArt PX13 scored 2,657 (average 27fps) and 6,472 (average 30fps) respectively. As such, you can it expect it to play most of the latest, most-demanding games, but you’ll need to drop the resolution and/or detail settings, to keep them running smoothly.

In the easier, 1,440p, multiplatform, ray-tracing Solar Bay benchmark, which is targeted at mobile computers, the PX13 scored 44,401 which is a healthy and playable average of 169fps and represents a Score of 2.8 / 5. For reference, the Lunar Lake-based Asus Zenbook S 14 laptop scored 15,228 (Score: 1.4 / 5) which is an average of 58fps and the MSI Vector 16 HX scored 92,286 (Score: 5 / 5) which is an average of 350fps.

When it came to the Steel Nomad, multiplatform gaming tests, which ape modern, 4K-resolution games without using ray-tracing, the ProArt scored 2,320 (average 23.2fps) in the challenging benchmark (Score: 3.1 / 5). In the lesser, 1,440p “Light” version of the test, it scored 10,873 (average 80.5fps) which is a Score of 3.7 / 5. Again, you’ll likely need to drop detail settings if you’re determined to play at a 4K resolution.

I also ran the CoD Black Ops 6 built-in benchmark. Using automated, native-resolution, default settings, the PX13 averaged 87fps with the lowest one per cent (1% Low score) dropping to 64fps, demonstrating mostly smooth playing. When optimising the settings for online performance (Full HD with Minimum Details) it managed a very healthy 223fps with a 1% Low score of 100fps.

We also ran our legacy 3DMark gaming benchmarks (none of which use ray tracing) and the results are listed below for reference:

In short, Asus’ ProArt PX13 has the power to play most of the latest games at almost the best quality. However, it’s worth remembering that the slow, 60Hz screen will significantly hamper the performance of anyone playing fast-and-frantic games – you’ll benefit from an external monitor for those.

3D Performance Score: 2.9 / 5

Cooling

Those familiar with small, powerful notebooks will be right to check on the PX13’s cooling prowess. Asus has certainly put in some effort in this regard with its dual-fan, four-exhaust system combining with a high-quality, metal, thermal compound (thermal paste) and multiple cooling profiles in the MyAsus app.

However, despite claims of totally silent (0dB) ambient cooling, you have to be doing virtually nothing to achieve that. The fan, while quiet, makes its presence known even when performing minor tasks. It also ramps up to a robust whoosh when under load. Still, while it can get rather warm under sustained load, it usually remains relatively cool.

Portability & Battery Life

The Asus ProArt PX13 feels very solid indeed. It exceeds the tough MIL-STD-810H military-grade tests, has dust filters by its air vents and Asus even offers case studies for its performance in multiple hot, high, humid and, er, hyperborean (think skiing) field environments (including desert, snowy mountains and jungles). Just note that it’s not waterproof or formally ruggedised. It’s one of the toughest laptops on the market, though, and like a high-end SUV, should easily survive life being carted from office to office, too(!)

Despite the hard shell and beefy internals, it still only weighs 1.39KG meaning that it’s well inside ultraportable territory. Do be aware that the not-insignificant power brick and cables add an extra 587g to the bulk, though.

Meanwhile, the 73Wh battery ran our PCMark 10 Modern Office test for 13 hours 18 minutes. It also ran our Procyon Microsoft Office Battery benchmark for 12 hours 47 minutes. That’s impressive for such a powerful laptop. But, it’s worth remembering that modern, Lunar Lake (and ARM-based) ultraportables can almost double these figures nowadays.

Portability & Battery Life Score: 3.3 / 5

Value

Our review sample (SKU: HN7306WI) of the 4070-based Asus ProArt PX13 has a sticker price of $3,999 which isn’t cheap, but represents good value. A 4060-based variant (SKU: HN7306WV) has an RRP of $3,599. I haven’t seen it on sale, but not every vendor has activated all of their Back To School sales, yet. A 16-inch variant – the ProArt PX16 – is also available for those who need a larger screen.

Value Score: 3.5 / 5

Conclusion: Should You Buy the Asus ProArt PX13?

Ultimately Asus’ ProArt PX13 is an outstanding little laptop. It’s tough, portable, very powerful and dripping with high-quality features. It won’t be for everyone, though – the slow screen limits gaming potential, the price is high and it will be too small for some users. However, for mobile designers who don’t need a big screen (especially those travelling the world), or for people who need a highly versatile Creator laptop that has a better-than-usual chance of surviving life at school, it’s an outstanding choice, if you can afford it.

Last Updated on 26 April 2025 by Nick Ross