The ASUS ExpertBook B6 Flip is a workhorse with cool factor

ASUS' ExpertBook range has never had the kind of profile or any of the prestige attached to the more well-known Zenbook or Republic of Gamers sub-brands. Don't let that lack of limelight fool you though. The productivity-slanted range has quietly come into its own in recent years. All the same, there's a distinction to be drawn here between being built better and being built for anyone but an enterprise audience.

For more everyday consumers, the price paid in terms of practicality is going to make this one a hard sell. Should you fall into the business class buyers that ASUS' latest mobile workstation is surely targeting instead, then the ExpertBook B6 Flip more than makes up for it in pixels, performance and thrill-free functionality.

In Australia, the version of the ASUS ExpertBook B6 Flip that we reviewed has a recommended retail price of $4,699.

That's pretty pricey, even compared to other premium laptops. If you're looking to shore up your setup on a budget, this one might be a little bit of a stretch. It's not as wallet-smashing as the ASUS Zenbook 17 FOLD OLED, but it's more or less in line with the handful of other laptops out there rocking the Intel Core i7-12850HX processor. The ExpertBook B6 Flip is slightly cheaper than the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 but a little more expensive (and easier to get your hands on) than the HP Zbook Fury 16.

Still, if you're heart is set on this machine, you might want to save a few bucks by going with the right retailer. Check out the table below for a round-up of Australian pricing for the ASUS ExpertBook B6 Flip.

Before you make a decision, be sure to read our recommendation for the specs.

When it comes to its chops as a portable PC, the ExpertBook B6 Flip has more in common with heavy-duty gaming hardware than it does with lightweight laptops like the Dell XPS 13.

Wrapped in a mottled mix of plastic and metal, ASUS' latest mobile workstation isn't really trying to impress or innovate when it comes to design. It looks like it's here to get the job done, rather than look good. To put it bluntly, the ExpertBook B6 Mobile looks more like the kind of laptop you'd see in a boardroom or office cubicle rather than a trendy cafe.

Despite the dour palette that's largely responsible for this pigeon-holing, the matte finish on the ExpertBook B6 Flip keeps things easy on the eyes. Meanwhile, the interior surface makes for a reasonably cozy wrist rest during use. 

One detail worth noting here is that the larger trackpad offered by the machine is oriented towards the leftmost edge of the machine. This quirk may give right-handed users a little more room to work with but it'll have the opposite effect for any potential lefties lured in by the promises that the ExpertBook B6 Flip makes when it comes to portable performance.

The 16-inch screen on the ExpertBook B6 Flip is one of its biggest selling points, and this display comes complemented by the usual bevy of bells and whistles. Unfortunately, the appeal of these inclusions (including a 16:10 aspect ratio and 120Hz refresh rate) ends up feeling a little undercut by the sheer chunkiness of the bezels involved.

As the name might suggest, the ExpertBook B6 Flip can also transform in a pinch. The hinge that runs along the spine of the laptop allows for it to be used in a number of different configurations. The caveat here is that the bigger form-factor here is bulky enough that using the ExpertBook B6 Flip as you would a tablet feels impractical outside of short bursts and very specific situations.

Still, if your problem with other incarnations of Tent Mode was that the device involved didn't come with enough ports or 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut then this will meet those needs.

The sides of the ExpertBook B6 Flip are adorned with significantly more inputs and outputs than most mainstream laptops nowadays. You get a pair of USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports plus a HDMI (2.0b) port, a combo audio slot and an RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet jack. There's even a Smart Card reader, which isn't something you see all that often outside of notebooks that means the kind of business that this one does.

The ExpertBook B6 Flip stops just short of being a desktop replacement but, given the asking price and larger size, the line between the two is as blurry as these things come.

The keys on the laptop have a chunky amount of press that's comparable to that of a proper desktop setup, the amount of pixels you have to work with feels well suited towards multi-tasking and the sheer size of the piece eats away at any potential portability.

On the other hand, if what you're looking for in a laptop is something that's got business-grade looks and specs then this is going to be a pretty good fit. It's not cheap, but it will be able to get the job done.

What's more, it might be able to do it at a lower volume than other laptops with the kind of GPU and CPU grunt found here. While the generously-proportioned screen is the first thing that you're likely to notice about the ExpertBook B6 Flip, the cooling system might be its biggest asset. On paper, at least.

Other notable features here include a 1080p webcam with a physical privacy shutter, Dolby Atmos speakers, stylus support and built-in noise-cancelling microphones.

You can chuck the ExpertBook B6 Flip in a suitcase and carry it with you, but you're rarely going to forget or overlook the 2.7kgs that it adds to your carry-on.

ASUS says they've squeezed a total of 98 blade fans inside the ExpertBook B6 Flip, with these blades using a curved design that increases both airflow and power efficiency. This commitment to smarter thermals also extends to the heat pipes inside the machine, which incorporate a set of sensors that monitor and adjust the settings on those fans accordingly.

How does this translate into standard usage?  ASUS reckons that the ExpertBook B6 Flip puts out less than 40 dBA of noise during regular use, and that estimate definitely lined up with my time with the machine. I found that ExpertBook B6 Flip was quiet during lighter usage and genuinely quieter when it came to more intensive tasks.

Given the size and specs here, this practical commitment to making a quiet but still-quite-powerful laptop sets the ExpertBook B6 Flip apart from a lot of similar and other performance-oriented machines.

With a price that's even harder to overlook than the chunky form factor, you'd hope the performance offered by the ASUS ExpertBook B6 Flip would be among the best in its class. Thankfully, it is.

Under the hood, the ExpertBook B6 Flip comes kitted out with either an Intel Core i7-12850HX or Intel Core i9-12950HX processor, up to 128GB GB of RAM, up to 4TB storage and 90Whr battery. Our review sample had the Core-i7 processor, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and just 500GB of SSD storage.

Despite that relatively modest loadout, we came away impressed with how ASUS' latest mobile workstation fared in action. Thrown into our usual gauntlet of benchmarks, the ExpertBook B6 Flip delivered exactly the kind of high scores you'd expect. As far as Novabench and Cinebench are concerned, it came away with some of the highest scores we've seen in a laptop over the last twelve months.

As always though, there are some caveats to play with. For instance, I wouldn't say that it massively outperformed the Zenbook 16X Pro given the relatively close price points of our review sample and that machine. When you consider that the Zenbook 16X Pro has a more modest 16GB of RAM and an Intel Core i7-12700H inside it, not to mention a nicer design and an OLED screen, the margin that separates the two machines feels a little too close for comfort.

Still, it's hard to complain too much. Even if the ExpertBook B6 Flip is likely to lag behind when compared to Intel's latest 13th Gen i9 silicon, it still rates pretty high against the vast majority of laptops out there.

Rendering a 1080p test asset in Blender using the machine took 15 minutes and 5 seconds. For comparison, the same process took 1 hour and 29 minutes using the M1 MacBook Air. That's a lot of saved time.

We'd rank the performance here as Extreme, with a caveat that the NVIDIA RTX A2000 GPU here is geared towards professional graphics work rather than gaming.

As for the battery performance of the ExpertBook B6 Flip goes, we have some notes.

Power consumption varied based on the form factor we used the most, but it was rarely all that impressive. It was a real struggle to stretch things out across a day of regular usage.

The ExpertBook B6 Flip can easily chew through around 20% of a full charge within half an hour. As soon as we threw anything that required the cooling system to activate the battery tracker that sits in the corner of the Windows taskbar began to tick down faster and faster. Even getting to three hours of use without a power source might be a bit of an ask.

Drained from 100% to 0% using video streaming over WiFi, the ExpertBook B6 Flip lasted 5 hours and 5 minutes. Even if that's a little better than what we got actually using the ExpertBook B6 Flip, that's still a pretty poor result. It's better than the bulky gaming laptops of yesterday but a ill match for productivity-oriented contemporaries like the current MacBook Air.

If you're sold on the ExpertBook's excessive performance and thrill-free design, it might be worth taking a look at Lenovo's ThinkPad P1.

The fifth-generation version of this particular laptop comes with specs that sit just below what the ExpertBook B6 Flip brings to bear, but is a little easier to carry around. It weighs in at almost a kg lighter than ASUS' equivalent, but the ThinkPad P1 is still pretty powerful, thanks to an Intel Core i7-12700H processor and up to an NVIDIA RTX A4500 GPU. Higher specs are also available, though the price does increase pretty substantially if that's the way you want to go.

The ASUS ExpertBook B6 Flip is an impressively powerful piece of mobile computing hardware, combing slicks specs with impressive cooling tech. It's not much to look at, but the functionality-focused tilt has its charms.

Unfortunately, those wins end up weighed down by more than just the steep price. The limited battery life and bulk involved make this a tough laptop to take with you on a day-to-day basis.

If you've got the means and needs that necessitate investing in a workhorse like the ExpertBook B6 Flip you probably won't come away disappointed with what it can do, you just might end up a little bitter about the sacrifices needed to make those ends meet.

At the time of writing, there are a number of spec configurations available for the ASUS ExpertBook B6 Flip in Australia. The table below compares the base spec and the most expensive one.