I've spent the last few weeks testing the ROG Flow Z13-KJP, the laptop 2-in-1 designed by the iconic Hideo Kojima, and it's the most beautiful and insane laptop I've ever tested.
Unboxing and Design
From the moment you open the box, you know this isn't just any old laptop. The laptop itself comes with a Ludens-inspired briefcase, designed specifically for carrying it around, but honestly, this laptop is too special to be taken on public transport. Still, it's a cool thing to include, and the coolness doesn't stop there.
The ROG Flow Z13-KJP was designed in partnership with legendary creator Kojima and art director Yoji Shinkawa, so you'd expect it to have some nice features. But nothing prepares you for the device's unique design elements, including carbon-fibre accents, gold trim along the sides, and stunning Kojima-style artwork all over this laptop. The chassis itself is custom CNC-milled aluminium, meaning it's fairly hefty at 1.25kg, but that just adds to the premium, high-quality feel.
Being a 2-in-1, it's essentially a big tablet with an included detachable keyboard, and it's no surprise that the keyboard is also unique, with gold and white accents. When you boot up the device, it even has a custom boot screen and sound, just in case you forgot this isn't any old laptop.
Specs and Performance
The insane, overkill theme of this laptop continues with its super high-end specs. It's powered by the cutting-edge AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 Processor, which features 80 MB of cache, 16 cores, 32 threads, and an AMD XDNA NPU capable of 50 TOPS for advanced local AI processing. Graphics-wise, it's got an AMD Radeon 8060S, with 40 compute units.
The screen is a 13.4-inch, 2560x1600 ROG Nebula IPS touchscreen display, with a blazing-fast 180Hz refresh rate. It hits 500 nits of peak brightness and covers 100% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut for rich, accurate colours. It's not HDR, because it's focused on gaming, but it still looks awesome. There's a case to be made that, for the price, this device should really come with an OLED, and I have to agree, but it's still vibrant and fast enough.
It boasts 128GB of unified LPDDR5X memory, which is absolutely wild in this economy, plus a 5MP front camera and 13MP rear camera, and has a vapour chamber cooling system paired with Liquid Metal thermal compound to keep its slim chassis design cool. It comes with a 1TB NVMe SSD too, and has loads of IO, including an HDMI 2.1 port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A, 2 x USB 4 Type C (with DisplayPort), a microSD card reader, and an audio combo jack.
Gaming Experience
Playing games on this thing is superb. Even at 1600p resolution, I was able to play Cyberpunk 2077 on Ultra settings with Ray Tracing and upscaling set to quality, with no problems at all, achieving a very decent frame rate of around 30 fps. And, if it can do that, it can handle almost any game you throw at it.
The high memory doesn't really have a massive impact on gaming, even if you allocate more of it to VRAM, so don't expect much higher performance; it is basically a tablet after all. Instead, this VRAM is probably better utilised for AI workloads and general power user tasks.
Detachable keyboards are never amazing, and it's the same story with that one that comes with the ROG Flow Z13-KJP. It's not terrible by any means, and it's more than good enough for working on the go, but it's nowhere near as good as a mechanical keyboard. You can, of course, not use the keyboard at all and just use it as a tablet, with the touchscreen being as good as it is, but it's a bit too heavy to use on the go, especially compared to an iPad, for example, but this does, of course, have a lot more power than most, if not all, Apple tablets.
Verdict
I absolutely love the ROG Flow Z13-KJP. It's a gorgeous, unique, collector's item that performs as well as it looks. Being priced at £3599.99 ($3,699.99) means it will be an unattainable collector's item for many, so if you're just looking for a generic gaming laptop, this probably isn't going to be for most people. And if you like this laptop but don't want the Kojima aesthetic, the standard ROG Flow Z13 is almost £1000/$1000 less.
But, if you don't have a budget, you love Hideo Kojima and want a 2-in-1 laptop with an insane design, great performance, and unique accessories, this is the only laptop that could satisfy your desires. It's insane and overkill in the best way possible.
