Review: Asus ProArt PZ13

Microsoft's latest Surface Pro is the standard-bearer for detachable 2-in-1 Copilot+ PCs. But as I noted in my review at the time, it suffers from several issues—most notably a sky-high price of $1,950 as it was configured for our tests. No matter what you think about the detachable keyboard concept, this device comes with an awfully hard price to swallow.

Enter Asus with a suspiciously similar concept, albeit considerably cheaper. I wouldn’t quite call this the Wish version of the Surface Pro, but at $1,100, the ProArt PZ13 may at least take some of the sting out of the cash outlay should you venture down this road.

Photograph: Christopher Null

To trim the price, Asus has made its fair share of sacrifices. Certain elements remain the same, including a 13-inch touchscreen, 16 GB of RAM, and a magnetically attached keyboard, which comes included with your purchase. Otherwise, the ProArt comes across as a slightly different animal. It starts with the stripped-down CPU: The ProArt uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P42100 instead of the more capable Elite that dominated the first wave of Copilot+ PCs. The aspect ratio and resolution of the two screens are slightly different—2,880 x 1,920 pixels on the Surface versus 2,880 x 1,800 on the ProArt—and although the ProArt screen isn’t nearly as vibrant and bright, I had no complaints with it through several days of use.

Surprisingly, there are a couple of upgrades on tap from Asus over what comes on the Surface Pro. Instead of Microsoft’s 512-GB SSD, Asus packs in a 1-TB drive by default. It also enhances the two USB-C 4.0 ports—one required for charging on the ProArt, unlike the Surface Pro—with a full-size SD card slot. Oddly, the card slot and one of the USB-C ports are hidden under a rigid plastic flap that’s difficult to open and does little more than get in the way.

Photograph: Christopher Null

Perhaps the biggest (and worst) change is how Asus has engineered the detachability of the device. With the Surface Pro, you get two pieces of equipment: a screen (with a built-in kickstand) and a keyboard—straightforward. On the Asus, the kickstand is a separate unit, which means the whole affair comes apart into three separate pieces. The ProArt’s kickstand is a bulky magnetic plate that slaps onto the back of the screen, the bottom folding out at an angle on demand.

In theory, this design may allow you to travel very light if you don’t need the keyboard, but in reality, the ProArt and Surface Pro weigh the same—1.9 pounds—when stripped down to their most basic tabletlike form. But while the Surface Pro hits just 2.6 pounds with its keyboard, the ProArt weighs in at a very hefty 3.3 pounds once you add the keyboard and the kickstand component. It’s a significant difference that is quite noticeable when carried. This is exacerbated by an overall thickness of 19 mm, nearly double the girth of the computer in detached tablet mode. Note that while there’s a fabric loop for a stylus on the side of the kickstand unit, the Asus Pen is sold separately ($100).

Photograph: Christopher Null

Performance also takes a big hit after the dropdown to the Snapdragon X Plus, and the ProArt stands as the slowest Copilot+ PC I’ve tested to date. It’s not even close on most tests, and compared to the Surface Pro (which itself isn’t a dazzler), the Microsoft machine was 13 percent to more than 100 percent faster across the board. You may not notice the sluggish performance on web browsing and business apps, where the ProArt lags noticeably but not to the point of despondency. But the difference was especially stark on graphics tests. The ProArt couldn’t even complete my standard AI benchmarks, and it struggled with Copilot+ PC AI features such as Live Captions with language translation.

The good news is that the ProArt sips at its battery, and it turned in an outstanding benchmark score of 19 hours, 18 minutes on a full-screen YouTube streaming test—just minutes shy of the record-setting performance I clocked on the MacBook Pro M3 Max late last year. Battery life was unchanged with or without the keyboard attached. Speaking of, the keyboard is a touch bouncy but good enough for touch typing accurately, even if it feels a little cramped—always an issue on any 13-inch laptop. The next-gen features of Microsoft’s Flex Keyboard are absent here, and you can’t use the Asus’s keyboard unless it is physically attached, unlike Microsoft’s. Lastly, the audio quality was better than I expected—fine for up-close, personal use.

Photograph: Christopher Null

Despite some significant flaws, the price may be compelling enough to overcome them if you’re looking for a machine of this ilk. The absolute cheapest Microsoft Surface Pro—with the Snapdragon X Plus, 256-GB SSD, and basic keyboard—runs $1,350, still a solid $250 above the $1,100 asking price of the ProArt PZ13. I guess that’s my way of suggesting that, if you find yourself unable to live without a Copilot+ PC with a detachable keyboard, the ProArt is as good a way as any to scratch that itch.