Gorgeous Asus ROG Flow X13 would be $ 1,000 cheaper without its EGPU

The Asus ROG Flow X13 CES 2021 was a highly-hyped announcement, for good reason – how often do you see a 13-inch convertible gaming laptop, especially one that looks cool? – But there was a catch. At the Asus store, the ROG Flow X13 was listed in a $ 3,000 bundle with just one XG Mobile EGPU. (This was the only preorder link given to the media at the time of the Flow X13 announcement.) That’s part of the change, and it led most Flow X13 reviewers (myself included) to express reservations about the price.

But the new clarification from Asus could change the game. On the last episode of ROG pulse Podcast, Asus marketing manager Sashcha Crohan hinted that the company plans to sell ROG Flow X13 itself in the future.

Crohn said, ‘We just had some misconceptions about selling it as a bundle, so XG Mobile teamed up with X13.’ “So we sell it as a bundle, but we sell it separately, and that’s important.”

Asus marketing expert Ryan Nesbitt gave an approximate starting price of “$ 1,200-ish”. There seems to be some confusion here – when I contacted Asus about this the company said it would stick to Nesbit’s claim and sell for $ 1,499. There is also an ROG Flow X13 listed at the Asus store for $ 1,699. Fantastic! I will update this article when all this is resolved.

That 200 to 1,200 price point, if Asus runs on it, would be a game-changer for the ROG Flow X13. Many reviews have pointed out that the X13’s value proposition as a 13,000 gaming laptop is iffy out of a very specific audience. Its internal GPU is entry-level compared to the chips you’ll find in other internal gaming ultraportables, and external GPUs tend to bring performance fines. (After all, they’re out of the laptop.)

But as a 200,200 general purpose laptop, I’d be comfortable calling the Flow X13 a complete steal. It’s not the best in almost every way – there’s an excellent 16:10 touchscreen with a unique and sturdy design, a great keyboard, and stylish support – but it does include an eight-core processor (starting with AMD’s Raizen 5900 HS). It is undoubtedly the most powerful chip you can currently find in a 13-inch chassis. At 200,200, this laptop will build the brain for anyone needing a 13.4-inch laptop for CPU-intensive work.

The flip side of this: it means that the GeForce RTX 3080 XG mobile (which is listed on the Asus site in the bundle and also sent to the reviewers) is very expensive. Crohn and Nesbitt have also hinted that the RTX 3070 version of XG Mobile will be available in the future, with an estimated price of “about eight to nine hundred”. Basic math suggests that this will make the RTX 3070 XG mobile $ 1,000 cheaper than the RTX 3080 configuration currently listed in the bundle. It’s a fairly large delta, but I guess we’ll see.

It is not clear from the podcast whether Asus plans to sell the RTX 3070 XG mobile on its own or whether this EGPU will be sold in a cheap Flow X13 bundle. We have also asked Asus for an explanation here.

You can watch the full episode below. The discussion of prices starts within just 15 minutes.

Photography by Monica Chin / The Verge

January 29, 2:50 pm ET Update: Updated with Asus confirmation that the Flow X13 itself will be sold, and with its stated MSRP.