I don’t like the new M3 MacBook Pro, buy this instead

Hello, welcome back to a new video. So

today I want to show you this amazing

compact 13.4-inch convertible laptop

from ASUS, or ASUS. It's called the ASUS

ROG Flow X13, and as someone who owns a

MacBook Pro M3 14-inch, I have to say,

after using the 2 devices, I find myself

just preferring the ASUS Flow X13 more

than the MacBook Pro. Any day of the time.

So what we're looking at here is probably

one of the only convertible gaming

ultrabooks. So usually you think of an

ultrabook as something that's kind of

lightweight, not very powerful, but

powerful enough to do some Microsoft

editing, some Word, some Office stuff,

some spreadsheets, and a bit of drawing on

the touchscreen. But you wouldn't think of

it as a gaming device. Well, this is where

things kind of change. So because I'm

going to Japan pretty soon, I've been

trying to find a powerful compact laptop,

and I was using this MacBook Pro M M3

14-inch for a while, and I thought this

was pretty good. But then there were some

limitations because, you know, it's Mac,

not Windows. I can't play my favorite

video games on it. And also the 8GB of RAM

was starting to get kind of limiting. And

I was thinking of seriously upgrading to

the M3 Pro MacBook Pro with 18GB of RAM

and the M3 Pro chip because, you know,

I'd get more RAM, get more powerful

processor. But that was like $500 more

expensive, and I really do like the

MacBook It's got a great design, it's got

a great feel of premium quality, and the

screen looks amazing. But I just can't get

over the fact that I can't play Windows

games on it. I can't play Starfield,

can't play Diablo 4, I can't play Red Dead

Redemption 2 on it. And I do like to game

sometimes, and the 8GB of RAM was just not

enough. So I went to the Acer store and I

picked myself up this unknown hidden

gem. So this is the ASUS Flow ROG

X13, and inside of this we have an RTX

4050, 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD,

and a Ryzen R9 7940HS, which is basically

the equivalent of an Intel i9 13th

generation. And this actually costs less

than the MacBook Pro 14-inch M3. This came

in at about $1,650

or $1,600 compared to $1,700.

My pricing is kind of different to what

you might be expecting because I bought

these in Thailand, which is where I live

currently. And for the cheaper price,

you get much better specs. You get double

the amount of RAM. This is much lighter,

and it's got a touchscreen, and it can

flip into tablet mode like that, which is

really cool. And I can play all my

favorite games. I can play Red Dead

Redemption 2, Diablo 4,

Rainbow Six Siege. I can do all that stuff

and it's like really lightweight. So I

just don't really see how I can suggest to

anyone to buy the MacBook Pro over this.

If you don't care about gaming at all,

then okay, maybe the MacBook Pro would be

better. I did find myself finding that I

wanted to use the MacBook Pro mainly

because the screen is brighter and bigger

and looks nicer and it's just more

premium. It feels more premium to hold

than this. This is made out of plastic,

and yeah, it really does feel like plastic

compared to this. Now this just feels

heavier. Now you might think, but heavier

is badder, isn't it? Isn't it better to

have a lighter device? And yeah, you could

say that if you're traveling a lot, but

it's only a slight 400 grams heavier. But

still, this feels a lot nicer to hold and

to use, and it just looks nicer, and you

feel like you're having a better time when

you're typing away on it,

and the silent operation is really great,

and the battery life is amazing. The

battery life on the X13, on the other

hand, put it into silent mode, you put

into eco mode, and you can probably get

about 4 hours, maybe 3 hours on battery,

maybe 5 hours depending what you do. And

if you put on silent mode, it is nearly

silent. You get like 20 decibels of sound.

Sometimes there's no sound at all if it's

on eco mode as well as silent mode. So you

can get silent operation if you tweak the

settings a little bit. It was so difficult

trying to decide yesterday if I prefer

this or the MacBook Pro, and I spent all

day yesterday stressing out, switching

between the 2 laptops, trying to decide

which one I preferred. Sometimes I

preferred the MacBook Pro because the

nicer build quality, the premium feel,

that feeling of using a luxury device,

and that big tall bright screen with the

mini LEDs just looks so amazing compared

to this screen. This screen is fine, It's

got a good refresh rate of 165Hz, but it

clearly doesn't look as good as the

MacBook Pro screen. I do prefer the

keyboard on the X13 because, well,

the keys are just— they feel softer and

spongier, which I prefer, whereas the

keyboard keys on the MacBook Pro just feel

kind of hard and very flat

and very low, whereas this feels— it's got

like a higher, taller travel, which I

actually like more. So I prefer the

keyboard on this X13 I prefer the speakers

on this X13. I don't like the boomy bass

kind of speakers on the MacBook Pro, but

the screen does look better on the MacBook

Pro, although this is an okay screen as

well, and it's touchscreen, which is

interesting. So when it comes to build, I

much prefer the MacBook Pro. It just looks

better and feels better to use, but this

is okay. And what you get in return for

sacrificing build quality is you get a

cheaper device for the specs. I mean, the

specs in this blow the MacBook out the

water. You've got double the RAM, you've

got double the storage. I've got 1TB

storage on this. MacBook Pro has 512GB. I

got 16GB of RAM, 8GB of RAM on the

MacBook. I got a more powerful processor

and graphics card. I got discrete separate

graphics card, the RTX 4050, which is

amazing for gaming. And I can actually

game on this. I can play all the latest

games. On this because it's Windows. I

can't do that on the MacBook. So I had to

think, do I want gaming and

better specs, or do I want barely any

gaming, worse specs, but better build

quality and better design at a

slightly more premium cost? And in the

end, I had to go for the ASUS because I

can't refund this. The ASUS store won't

let me refund it. They said no refunds.

And the Apple Store will let me refund it.

So the obvious choice is to refund the

MacBook, which lets me do less. I can do

more on this because I can do gaming

content and play games, and it's lighter

and smaller and more versatile. So if I

wanted to get rid of this, it would be

harder. I'd have to sell it on Facebook

Marketplace and try and find someone to

buy off me at a good price, and I'd

probably lose money because they won't buy

it for the same price I bought for.

They'll want some kind of discount, and

then I'll lose a couple hundred dollars

probably if I sold this. So I can sell

that, refund it for the full price I

bought it for, and then just use this

instead and get gaming and get

productivity. It's kind of ironic that

MacBooks are supposed to be for

productivity, but actually I have less

productivity on the MacBook because gaming

is part of my workflow. You know, I cover

video games on my YouTube channel not

being able to cover the video games is

like losing a revenue stream. So I'm more

productive on this, which is a gaming

device. So in conclusion, I guess if I had

to recommend a 14-inch compact laptop, I

would not recommend the MacBook Pro

anymore. I'd recommend one of these. This

is not 14 inches, it's 13.4 inches,

but it's pretty small. There's other

14-inch ASUS devices like the G14, and I

was considering that, but I just didn't

quite like the specs, and it was slightly

bigger and bulkier. This is much more

compact and lightweight at 13.4

inches, so this is more portable, and it

was also more powerful than the G14 they

had in the shop. They had like a G14 with

less powerful specs, like a lower-specced

Ryzen AMD 6000 series. I think this

is a Ryzen AMD R9 7940, so it's

a 7000 series, more powerful. So yeah, I

definitely recommend this over the MacBook

Pro if you're looking for a compact

computer. If you like gaming, definitely

get this, not the MacBook.