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LATEST EDIT, 2018-07-08
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A few additional questions:
- Is that true that 13" i5 8th gen CPU laptops could have better performance than i7 ones? (because of less heat / throttling)
- Has anyone heard about 13" laptop with Intel Kaby Lake G CPU?

Does anyone have any of the following 13" laptops and could share experieces?
- Asus ZenBook UX331UN 13"
- HP Envy 13"
- Lenovo Ideapad 320s 13"
- Lenovo Ideapad 720s 13"
- Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 13"

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EDIT, 2018-07-06
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SPECIFICATIONS I am looking for:

~13" IPS panel (or less)
Size is important as this laptop will travel with me a lot to help me do some work when I'm off-site. My first idea (and that would be best) was to find even smaller laptop (~11") but after weeks of searching I've found it's not possible to find such one which is a) reasonably priced (€700-€1200), b) would fill my needs so I increased size to ~13" and I rather will not increase it any further as this size (even it's still small) can still cause some troubles to fit in during my travels. I do not like reflections so it would be good to have matte screen.

CPU/GPU
Any Intel iGPUs will not the best ones to fill my "occasional gaming purposes" so I'm probably looking for:
- Intel CPU + AMD iGPU (like Intel Kaby Lake G)
- AMD CPU + AMD iGPU (like AMD Raven Ridge)
- any CPU + "small" external GPU (like MX150)

8GB RAM (at least) and SSD (no HDD)
8GB is the minimum for me, but I do not mind having an option to get (or upgrade later to) 12GB / 16GB. HDDs in laptops are too faulty for me, SSDs are more suitable for their smaller size.

"effective cooling system"
I've heard a lot about bad cooling designs so I'd like to have some "tested" one which will not be "so hot".

"occasional gaming purposes"
It will be my secondary PC so I do not expect that it will be used for any game I want to play. In general, it would be good if this laptop could run games from up to like 5 years ago (2012-2013)? Anything newer / current is not really needed. My favourite type of games are turn based and even if I play any other game then I need to add that I used to play Morrowind with 8-10 FPS for months and that wasn't a big problem for me.

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ORIGINAL POST
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I'm thinking about buying such "portable PC" for off-site work and occasional gaming purposes. I'd like it to have ~13" (or less) screen, SSD, at least 8GB RAM and some nice cooling system. Laptop will travel a lot (hence the size is important) but will mostly be used indoor (so battery life is rather not the most important thing).

I'm still waiting for AMD Ryzen Mobile gen laptops to be more widely available - are they indeed worth waiting for? I've heard that such laptops with Raven Ridge CPUs should have low power consumption, quite good iGPU performance and should be also Meltdown / Spectre free platforms - is that true?

The 17" version. ; )

Just kidding bump. Happy shopping.

Joking aside, that indeed would be the best choice for me, but that size... :/ :D
"Measuring my needs" I really need something not bigger than 13". :(

It may be hard to find a 13" or smaller laptop with anything but an onboard Intel video card, or if you do, you'll be paying a premium for the small size. At least here, you can buy a 15" machine with a better card for hundreds less than the cost of a 13". If you can possibly consider a 14-15", it may be worth it for better gaming capability.

Nowadays you can find 13.3"-14" laptops which are quite comfortable to work and game with. I'd recommend something with thin bezels and a 16:10 screen aspect ratio (the small increase in vertical space is really great in something that small and portable).

Don't quote me on this but I think most laptops have been updated this spring with new Intel Coffee Lake CPUs. Still, it might be worth the wait if in a few months you can get your hands on a Ryzen Mobile laptop with Vega graphics or any other Kaby Lake-G (Intel CPU + AMD Vega) laptops come out (these ones might require more power than the average 13"). If none of those options come to fruition, you can always look up 13-14" laptops with the Nvidia MX150 (Huawei MateBook X) or aim for any 15" Nvidia Max-Q designed laptop (a cheap one might be the upcoming Xiaomi's Mi Gaming but that's 15.6"). This is all speculation but some sources say Nvidia is sort of blackmailing/pushing manufacturers against the production of AMD based laptops.

I'd say maybe wait at least until June, Apple should be releasing new Macbooks by then and if they get Vega GPUs (which might not happen at all because Apple doesn't give a crap about videogames or professional graphics-oriented work) and show a noticeable increase in graphics performance, probably other manufacturers will follow.

This is a bit outdated but might help: https://www.ultrabookreview.com/2071-best-gaming-ultrabooks/

All I can say is: good luck! I've been trying to replace my aging 11" netbook for quite some time now with a 13" max one, but a combination of crappy builds, glossy screens and e-MMC instead of normal hard drives (it's a fashion apparently) have so far prevented me from finding a decent replacement... and my budget is not really a problem. There's really nothing I can recommend at the moment.

I've used 11.6" ASUS laptops for years as work-and-gaming things, and I recommend that size for secondary little travel computers. The portability is nice, and you generally don't need a dedicated graphics card because on the cheaper ones the resolution is still usually 1366x768, which is few enough pixels that you don't need dedicated chips. Just don't get the energy-efficient CPU variation or else you'll have a very weak system, indeed. But I played Skyrim back in 2012-2013 on a mid-range 11.6" with integrated graphics and it worked fine, so generally you can play modern games on integrated graphics if you're going to have a lower resolution.

If you want an internal optical drive, you likely need to go up to 14 inch or larger, and for gaming purposes though you can get 13 inch gaming laptops you generally are looking at 15" unless you want to pay extra for the specialty builds and brand names.

You didn't specify a price range, so going by money being no object, I'd suggest the 13.5" Surface Book 2 with i7, 8GB RAM, 256 GB SSD and GTX 1050 2GB.

I recommend a larger laptop, because the monopoly board you place on top of it will be more stable!

Seriously, do you expect us to read your mind? Since when is "gaming" a homogeneous activity?

Well, yes, indeed, it IS hard - that's why I'm looking for more opinions. ;) Today is not my first day of searching - my first idea (and that would be best) was to find even smaller laptop (~11") but after weeks I've found it's not possible to find such one which is reasonably priced and would fill my needs (mostly gaming purpose was a problem here).

But for now, I'd like to stop at top of 13" as this size is even bigger than I originally wanted and (even it's still small) can still cause some troubles to fit it in during my travels.

Also, I can agree that iGPUs from Intel aren't the best ones but probably (at this moment) they are the only option for ~13" and that's why I'm looking forward to AMD's Raven Ridge CPU with Vega GPU - some of pretests show that they have significantly better performance paired with lower power consumption.

Integrated Vega is one of the reasons of my waiting. In early tests this GPU shows visible advantage over integrated Intels. Does this Huawei exists as 13" with MX150? I found only 14". That's so sad... :/ It's a very interesting page... Now I'm starting to think that something like Xiaomi Mi Air 13" with 150MX could be the best option for me... but the problem is that I can't find any distributor of this brand in Poland...

And what's your current 11" netbook? Is it a good one? Yes, I'm looking exactly for secondary computer. What was your laptop model? No, I'll have have external accessories (like drives) connected by USB IF needed, so I do not need internal ones.

As I said in other post my search has started with 11" size laptops, but I've ended with 13" and that's probably the biggest size I'm able to accept.

Yes, I did not. :) And yes, Surfaces could be an option but my personal opinion is that they are horrendously overpriced. 1050 on board is in fact better than any other 13", but I think it's not worth to pay double price of standard 13" just to have it. It will be my secondary PC so I do not expect that it will be used for any game I want to play. In general, it would be good if this laptop could run games from up to like 5 years ago (2012-2013)? Anything newer / current is not really needed.

Regarding the Surface Book 2 13" -> Yes, it could be cheaper... Like every electronic device ;-)

Anyhow I guess no one managed to pack a GTX 1050 (that is overclockable), a Tablet, a Concertible, a decent CPU in an all aluminium body that weighs just 1.600g and has a really god battery life and one of the best keyboards around.

I use one since the day of release an am compeltely satisfied. If it`s just for tracelling and gaming, there might be other options, but if you plan to be productive as well, then reconsider your choice (and buy the surface pen as well).

Best regards

phill

As for Surface Book 2 gaming, I uploaded some vids -> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClffsvw87rkX1IQfA4NL1NA

I agree. Hopefully, we'll see more laptops with Vega graphics in the near future. It would make a lot of sense but depends entirely on the manufacturers so keep your fingers crossed.

Not sure, I think the Pro model is 14 and the non-pro 13, nonetheless the difference in size between 13" and 14" is really small. Bear in mind that this is a 14" laptop that has small bezels, a couple of years ago they might have stated that it was a 13" just because the bezels were bigger. Comparatively speaking, a 13" from a couple of years ago and a contemporary 2018 14" laptop, might have the same footprint.

Check out some reviews of that laptop online, also take a look at when it was released to see if they have updated the model recently or not. Then, you can always import it from China, there're tons of websites that do that.
Also, note that the MX150 GPUs have been a cause of controversy lately because Nvidia has been secretly downclocking them: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-geforce-mx150-two-variants,36724.html
Another reason to wait for more Vega options in my opinion.