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Introduction
Asus has never really been a run-of-the-mill player on the smartphone scene. Sure, the Taiwanese company's lineup has been including more and more traditional offers in both the budget and flagship segments, as of late, but nothing really all that revolutionary, influential or memorable. One thing that has managed to stick as sort of a defining reputation of Asus smartphones over the years is a rather uncommon PC approach to mobile phones. Whether it be the long-standing insistence on a confusing, convoluted model numbering convention, more suited for the laptop market or the fairly lengthy experimentation with Intel Atom chips in phones.
Back in the present 2018 reality, however, Intel has long abandoned its mobile Atom efforts and whoever is in charge of product naming at Asus has mercifully taken all the criticism to heart. But just when we thought that the major PC player had lost its experimental spirit somewhere along the path of "PadFones" and dedicated AR setups, the ROG phone dropped.
The timing seems to be just right and clearly not coincidental. With manufacturers finally trying their hand at gaming-geared smartphones with various degrees of success in an ongoing effort to craft the still mostly non-existent niche within the mobile segment, the Republic Of Gamers landed hot and heavy with a masterclass on how things are done in the gaming world. In more ways than one the ROG phone is a benchmark, a practical example of what a gaming phone could be when you really have the expertise, experience, and the technical prowess to pull it off and dial everything to eleven.
Asus ROG Phone specs
- Body: Metal frame; Gorilla Glass 6 front; Gorilla Glass 5 curved back; 158.83 x 76.16 x 8.65 mm, 200g.
- Display: 6.0" AMOLED, 90Hz(1ms pixel response time), 1080x2160px resolution display (18:9 aspect ratio), 402ppi pixel density; 108.6% DCI-P3 color gamut; Wide Colour Gamut; HDR display through dedicated hardware display chip.
- Rear camera: Primary 12MP, f/1.8 aperture, 1.4um, 1/2.55" sensor; dual pixel phase detection autofocus; 4-axix OIS. Secondary 8MP, 12mm ultra-wide, fixed focus, LED flash. Up to 4K/60fps video recording on primary and 1080p@30 on secondary camera. EIS available on all resolutions.
- Front camera: 8MP, f/2.0 aperture, 24mm, 84 degree field of view, fixed focus, 1080p/30fps video recording.
- OS/Software: Android 8.1 Oreo; ROG Gaming X mode UI
- Chipset: Qualcomm SDM845 Snapdragon 845 (10 nm): octa-core CPU (4x2.96 GHz Kryo 385 Gold & 4x1.7 GHz Kryo 385 Silver), Adreno 630 GPU.
- Memory: 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, 128/512 GB of storage.
- Battery: 4,000 mAh Li-Po (sealed); HyperCharge 20W charging; compatible with QC4.0 charging.
- Connectivity: Dual SIM (Nano), 4G on both slots; LTE Cat. 18 (1Gpbs download), Cat. 13 (150Mbps upload); 2x Type-C USB 3.0 port; Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, WiGig Wi-Fi ad 60GHz; GPS, GLONASS, BDS; NFC; Bluetooth 5.0; FM radio.
- Audio: Dual front-facing 5-magnet speakers, dual NXP 9874 smart amplifiers; Hi-Res audio 192kHz/24-bit DAC; DTS (Digital Theater System) Headphone:X™ 7.1 virtual surround sound for headphone support; AudioWizard with listening profile; Triple internal microphones with ASUS Noise Reduction Technology.
- Misc: Rear-mounted fingerprint reader; 3.5mm jack; Proprietary Side-mount connector for accessories (a second Type-C port is part of it); Ultrasonic sensors for AirTriggers and grip press.
Even at first sight, purely on paper, the ROG phone leaves little doubt of its alpha status among the select assortment of "gaming" phones available in 2018. Asus clearly set out to do just that - set a benchmark to collectively strive towards. This makes the ROG phone and its vast ecosystem of futuristic accessories immensely fun to explore.
Before we delve any further though and discuss the numerous unique aspects of the ROG Phone design and the particular unique approach to mobile gaming hardware, it is also important to make the tech showcase nature of this product abundantly clear. For most regular users out there, even the more gaming-enthused, the ROG phone is going to be way too exuberantly over-engineered to recommend. Not to mention exuberantly priced.
Still, that doesn't mean we can't enjoy what Asus has so masterfully crafted purely from a technological standpoint and as a potential showcase for what might be in store for the future of mobile gaming.
Unboxing
We kind of feel like the unboxing experience alone deserved a whole page in the review. However, that is mostly true for every aspect of the ROG Phone. Everything about it is crafted with the clear intention to impress.
Our review kit, including all the attachments and accessories, arrived in an exclusive ROG-branded suitcase. And when we say 'suitcase', think of one that barely qualifies as hand luggage on some airlines. Of course, that is going to be a reviewer exclusive presentation, but that doesn't diminish its grandeur. It's perhaps the flashiest review guide box we've seen.
Inside the hardshell briefcase we find precisely cut-out foam inserts and a plethora of gadgets - the TwinView Dock, GAMEVICE, Mobile Desktop Dock, WiGig Display Dock, ASUS Professional Dock and a phone case, which we will all get into in greater detail later on in the review.
The actual ROG Phone box is pretty eye-catching in itself as well. It has an asymmetrical hexagon shape with a distinctly alien look to it. Pretty much the aesthetic you would expect from a Republic of Gamers product. Inside the odd container, you get the phone itself, which also features similar design language, but more on that in a bit.
Alongside it - a Type-C to Type-C braided USB cable and a pretty compact wall adapter, rated for a maximum output of a hefty 30W. The adapter is actually rated for QC4.0, PD3.0, as well as a proprietary Asus direct charging standard, making it amazingly versatile to carry around. That being said, however, the ROG Phone can't really charge at a 30W rate, Instead in caps out at around 20W via a proprietary HyperCharge technology. It utilizes a smart IC on the side of the charger and pumps juice into the battery directly. Much like other implementations like VOOC or Huawei's SuperCharge, the idea is that all the conversion happens in the brick outside of the phone, which limits the amount of heat generated inside the handset. That allows the charging to commence with higher current levels, without upping the voltage, like Quick Charge does.
Speaking of which, Asus also rated the ROG Phone's existing internal charging IC for Quick Charge 4.0. So even if you don't have your ROG charger at hand, you can still get fast top-ups. Last, but definitely not least, Asus includes its fan clip-on accessory in every ROG Phone box. We will talk more about its aesthetics later on and its practical performance benefits in the benchmark section. It is clearly a unique solution in the mobile realm and one that surprisingly does not disappoint in practical terms.
In certain markets, the retail box will also include Asus' own unique case for the ROG Phone. It features a rather out-there three-piece design, complete with two-sided adhesive pads to hold the top and bottom segments to the phone. This is necessary since the middle bit can be popped out at any time to attach accessories to the device. It is held on by plastic clips. Definitely not the most elegant solution out there, but probably the best one can hope for given all the expandability of the ROG Phone.
Design
There really is no way around it - the gamer aesthetic is an acquired taste. And the ROG Phone has plenty of it. To be fair, its lines and various orange accents are what we would describe as a rather tame gamer look. Still, if nothing else about the ROG Phone, its nature and pricing manage to put off certain tech enthusiasts, the look might just manage to push people past the edge. We can't say we don't understand. Compromising on looks in a personal laptop for the sake of better performance and at the cost of a few weird glances in public is one thing, but having to endure the same every time you whip out your phone just takes things to the next level.
But, we digress. Like we already mentioned, the ROG phone is nothing but a niche product, a tech showcase even. So, it is kind of part of its job description to be as bold and "out-there" as possible, proudly waving the "gamer" banner. Proudly wearing the "war paint" of its pedigree.
Exploring certain finer details of the ROG Phone design, it really seems to strike a nice balance between the aggressive "strong" and sharp "gamer" lines, like the elevated bump on the back, cleverly concealing the beefy internal cooling solution and the conventional phone design with rounded corners. Frankly, after a while, the look grows on you and since the in-hand feel, aided by the rounded edges and glass back is perfectly mundane, the ROG Phone is not that hard to get used to.
Even the ROG Aura RGB logo looks mostly dignified when off. Our point here being that Asus was apparently aware of the stigma surrounding the gaming aesthetic and at least tried to moderate things a little bit.
Since we already mentioned the ROG Logo, it leaves little to be desired as far as RGB implementations go. It can shine really bright if that is your thing and offers a full -color spectrum to choose from. Light modes include Static, Breathing, Strobing and Color Cycle.
There are two separate profiles available depending on whether you have the ROG "X Mode" performance toggle turned on or off. The latter affects other visual elements of the phone as well, but more on that in the performance section.
The ROG Logo can also pull double duty as a notification LED, although there is a conventional RGB notification LED on the left side of the earpiece on the front of the device as well.
Asus has even included some Aura sync capabilities for the LED, but they do appear to be limited to only syncing the lighting effects of two or more ROG Phones and not any other compatible peripherals. We might be mistaken on that one, since we don't actually own any other Aura compatible gear to test with, but the menu texts seem to suggest as much. Still, this is one better than Razer's implementation on the Razer Phone 2. That being said, Razer does offer a hex code input for the light color which is missing in the current Asus implementation for whatever that's worth.
Aura lighting settings
Other than that, the Aura logo is obviously a battery hog and we don't really feel the need to discuss it any further. While we are touring the back of the phone we would, however, like to point out what clearly looks like an exposed piece of a perforated copper heat spreader, poking through one side of the phone. Looking at the Asus blow-out renders, we can't really say whether this particular area is an actual cooling surface. It doesn't really get that hot and the snap-in fan accessory doesn't really cover it or vent it in any particular way. Even if it is just for show, we still appreciate the attention it brings to what is clearly a very advanced internal cooling design. More on that in the performance section.
Before we move on to controls, Asus should be commended on the excellent build quality and premium bill of materials on the ROG Phone. The entire body feels rock solid and very premium. On the front, the display is covered with Corning's latest Gorilla Glass 6, while the back uses Gorilla Glass 5 for its curved surface. The back is complete with nickel-copper detailing in a shape Asus refers to as "Tactical Knife" design. The frame is solid metal.
Overall, the 158.83 x 76.16 x 8.65mm body of the phone feels really solid and we can't stress that enough. Granted, a not insignificant part of that feeling could stem from the 200g weight of the unit. Still, with those materials, quality, internals, including a beefy 4,000 mAh battery, this is kind of expected. And since the ROG Phone is meant to be heavily accessorized, you can pretty much count on a regular workout.
One last thing we do feel like we should mention is that the official ROG Phone website does toss around the words "water-resistant" on occasion. Yet, the official specs sheet doesn't mention any formal ingress rating. Frankly, with so many exposed ports, nooks, and crannies, we can't really imagine how the ROG Phone would fair if exposed to any amount of liquid.
Controls
One quick look at the I/O on the ROG Phone is pretty much a dead giveaway that we are not dealing with a conventional device here. Of course, we are referring to the side connector, or Side-mount connector, as Asus calls it. We might as well start the controls tour there.
Like the name suggests, it is a proprietary interface used for connecting certain accessories, like the included fan attachment and, as well as the available TwinView Dock and Mobile Desktop Dock. Looking at it closely, however, quickly reveals that it is not entirely proprietary after all. In fact, the top part of it is simply another USB Type-C connector. It can actually be used interchangeably with the bottom one which in itself opens up the room for quite a few ergonomic and quality of life improvements especially while holding the phone horizontally.
Digging a bit deeper, it turns out the second Type-C connector does behave a bit differently than the main one, especially power-wise, but not in a way the end user is likely to notice. Well, certain third-party Type-C dongles we tried did seem to favor the side port more. The differences in the secondary port do, however, enable certain fun experiments, like plugging a Type-C cable from one port to the other, which effectively makes the ROG Phone charge itself. And before you ask, no, it's not a source of infinite power but simply a really slow and potentially battery-degrading way of wasting a perfectly good charge simply for the sake of memes.
The second part of the connector is indeed proprietary, although it does appear to be nothing more than a Type-C connector made a little bit narrower on both sides. This acts as a great and simple measure against plugging a Type-C cable in there. A good thing too, since we can only imagine the wiring behind that almost standard port is definitely not within the USB specs.
This adjacent, standard plus non-standard expansion port design (not the specific Type-C one seen here, of course) is quite common in the PC realm and its a really versatile and elegant way of providing more I/O without the need for a lot of extra space. A vital consideration of a handset. When not in use, the port can be plugged up with a rubber plug which is included in the box.
Moving on to the fingerprint reader, which we do have a few things to say about. Unfortunately, not really pleasant. First off, the placement is all wrong - way too high and offset pretty awkwardly. Then there is the shape, which we can take or leave on its own, but the fact that the recess around the reader is so deep and the opening is quite narrow does make placing a bigger finger in there quite awkward.
Last, but not least, even when you do manage do mush your index finger far enough in the reader, it is neither the most accurate nor the fastest fingerprint scanner out there. Plus, during the phone's initial setup process, the fingerprint manager did manage to get stuck in an infinite loop of constantly asking for a new print, so Asus clearly has some issues in this department. Thankfully, face unlock is available and really seamless, accurate and fast.
Just to finish off the port count, there is a trusty old 3.5mm audio jack on the side of the phone. It actually has a bit more to offer beyond its unassuming appearance, mostly in the way of audio quality. The included DAC inside the ROG Phone is capable of pushing out Hi-Res audio 192kHz/24-bit as well as DTS (Digital Theater System) Headphone:X 7.1 virtual surround sound for headphone support.
While on the subject of audio, the ROG Phone has a front-facing stereo speaker setup with two separate NXP 9874 amplifiers. These are pretty beefy and sound really good, but more on that later. There are a total of three microphones on the ROG Phone, but only one of them is used for actual recording. The pair on the top and right side frames are simply there for noise-canceling.
Moving on to buttons, the ROG Phone has a pretty standard layout with the power and volume rocker both on the right-hand side. The hight and spacing are both correct, but both buttons are frankly ruined by their thin profile as well as extreme mushiness. There is practically no tactile feedback to them, which is very unfortunate.
In fact, the sub-par feel of the actual buttons becomes even more apparent once you get to try the ROG Phone's Air Triggers. Asus actually implemented a duo of touch-sensitive modules on the right frame of the phone and one on the left. On the one hand, these are leveraged for "squeeze" gestures, if that is your cup of tea. Much more interesting, though, is the ability to map the left and right triggers to any on-screen controls. Any action that normally requires a screen tap can be offloaded to one of the AirTriggers instead.
This functionality is actually just one bit of a potent input mapping system, as implemented on a system level within the ROG Game Genie platform. We will get into more detail when we discuss the GAMEVICE controller, as well as docking the phone and using it with a mouse and keyboard, where the system really comes into its own and shows its potential.
The whole setup works shockingly well. In fact, so much so that we frankly consider it cheating for the most part, as far as competitive mobile gaming is concerned. Even if you don't spring for any of the other available ROG Phone accessories that enable broader remapping functionality, the pair of AirTriggers alone offers an enormous edge in games which everyone plays on a touchscreen.
AirTriggers settings
The technology itself is ultrasonic and really responsive. Asus claims response times as low as 10ms and actuation forces of just 20g. The latter can actually be adjusted via the settings menu, just in case you prefer to tap the frame of the phone a bit harder. The whole system is really well thought-out and implemented, especially considering this is the company's first go at it. The ultrasonic sensitive areas even feature small textured segments, stenciled right on the metal frame. Colour us really impressed.
But the thing that really ties the AirTriggers experience together is the taptic feedback. In fact, the ROG Phone has a superb taptic engine. It can produce subtle yet deep and very reassuring vibrations. In fact, we would even go as far as likening the Asus taptic implementation to Apple's as an industry benchmark - that's how good it is.
Connectivity
The dedicated connectivity section has mostly taken a back seat in our reviews lately mainly since most important connectivity aspects are already plainly visible in specs. Those that aren't, like subtle differences in USB implementations or network and SIM handling are usually very difficult to catch or explain on a per-market basis.
That being said, the ROG Phone is so packed to the brim in this department that we just had to dedicate a couple of paragraphs to it. First up, starting with network connectivity, Nano SIM slots on the ROG Phone are full-featured for simultaneous 4G and up to Cat.18 (1Gbps) and Cat.13 (150Mbps) upload and download speeds, respectively. 5CA 4x4 MIMO up to 1.2Gbps. The works.
Then there is conventional Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Dual-Band 2.4 and 5GHz, of course. Plus, on top of that, the ROG Phone has support for the new 802.11ad 60GHz standard. It is great for short-distance ultra fast and low-latency connections, which its wireless display accessory actually leverages masterfully. NFC and an FM Radio receiver are simply icing on the cake at this point. Especially when you take into account the high-end audio output via the 3.5mm jack, we already mentioned and all that Type-C and custom port expandability going on.
The only really notable omission here seems to be a microSD slot. Still, you do get 128GB of storage in the entry model ROG Phone and a whopping 512GB in its more expensive sibling. And you also get a nice bonus 100GB of free Google Drive storage for a year.
High refresh rate OLED display
One of the defining features of any respectable gaming setup, be it portable or not is the quality of the display and consequently, visual fidelity. Rendering gorgeous frames with realistic detail colors and lighting means very little if the panel tasked with displaying It simply omits, distorts or misinterprets most of that graphics data.
Razer understands that pretty well with its IGZO, 120HZ variable refresh rate mobile panels. High refresh rate simply is a game-changer, which is why Razer is still sticking with the tech, despite its high cost and extreme power hunger. Even with said shortcoming, Razer's purely visual gaming experience set the bar pretty high, So much so that frankly with said precedent in existence we kind of feel like any phone that dares to title itself "for gaming" has to at least try to offer something better than the sea of 60Hz IPS/OLED panels out there.
Asus does not disappoint in this department either arguably opting for a more versatile, if slightly less impressive in some regards solution than Razer's. The ROG Phone packs a 6-inch, 1080 x 2160 AMOLED panel. Nothing out of the ordinary thus far. The unique "unicorn" bit here is that it has a maximum refresh rate of 90Hz. 30Hz more than 99% of the handset currently out on the market. And believe us when we say that the visual difference in smoothness is perceivable.
Unfortunately, the high refresh rate isn't something that can be experienced in any way other than in person. We can't capture it on camera and even if we could, you would need a high refresh rate display on your end to see it in action. Everything just looks smoother at 90Hz and the ROG Phone has plenty of horsepower to saturate that refresh rate in most games. Naturally, the UI is optimized as well and works at an almost rock steady 90fps. Even in day-to-day experience the 90Hz mode feels so much smoother than other devices that it kind of makes switching to anything other than a Razer Phone difficult.
Speaking of which, Razer does undoubtedly have higher refresh rates on their side and even more importantly - their refresh rates are variable, which makes every scenario stutter-free and even smoother. On the flip side, there is that whole battery-draining bit that we found to mostly be related to the variable refresh rate technology. The ROG Phone skips all that, opting for a toggle between either 90Hz or a conventional 60Hz, if you feel like saving on some battery.
But that's the other thing - since the panel here is OLED and there is no variable refresh rate tech sucking up juice, the impact of 90Hz over 60Hz in battery life is much less.
We also can't fail to mention the AMOLED bit of the equation. It has the distinct benefit of infinite contrast and true blacks, which no LCD can really attain. This makes it very well suited for multimedia. And, just to be clear, the higher refresh rate does not have any benefit for multimedia consumption, anyway. Still, gaming is where the two bits of the puzzle really come into their own. And mind you, high refresh rate OLED panels are really hard to come by on any consumer tech. Aside from a few exuberantly priced TV's, you just can find such an experience as provided on the ROG phone.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | ||
| 0 | 658 | ∞ | |
| 0.003 | 657 | 219000 | |
| 0 | 652 | ∞ | |
| 0.008 | 638 | 79750 | |
| 0 | 631 | ∞ | |
| 0.002 | 624 | 312000 | |
| 0 | 620 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 542 | ∞ | |
| 0.002 | 508 | 254000 | |
| 0.414 | 470 | 1135 | |
| 0 | 464 | ∞ | |
| 0.314 | 461 | 1468 | |
| 0 | 458 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 458 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 458 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 455 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 453 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 442 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 426 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 426 | ∞ | |
| 0.403 | 426 | 1057 | |
| 0.214 | 389 | 1818 | |
| 0.401 | 380 | 948 | |
| 0 | 376 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 367 | ∞ | |
| 0.2 | 366 | 1830 | |
| 0.002 | 323 | 161500 | |
Sunlight legibility is a particular strong suit of the ROG Phone panel. In fact, it is almost a chart-topper in our test database.
Sunlight contrast ratio
- Apple iPhone XS
5.171 - Apple iPhone X
5.013 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
4.965 - OnePlus 5T
4.789 - Samsung Galaxy S8
4.768 - Asus ROG Phone
4.765 - Samsung Galaxy S8+
4.658 - Samsung Galaxy S9
4.63 - Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
4.615 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
4.537 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
4.531 - Apple iPhone XS Max
4.516 - Sony Xperia XZ3
4.502 - Motorola Moto Z2 Play
4.459 - Oppo R11
4.454 - Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
4.439 - Oppo RX17 Pro
4.434 - OnePlus 3
4.424 - Samsung Galaxy S7
4.376 - Google Pixel 3
4.35 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018)
4.324 - OnePlus 6
4.321 - HTC One A9
4.274 - LG V40 ThinQ
4.256 - Oppo R15 Pro
4.251 - Samsung Galaxy Note7
4.247 - Samsung Galaxy A3
4.241 - Nokia 8
4.239 - Google Pixel 2 XL (pre-update)
4.234 - OnePlus 3T
4.232 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
4.22 - Google Pixel XL
4.164 - ZTE Axon 7
4.154 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
4.148 - Meizu Pro 7 Plus
4.147 - OnePlus 6T
4.138 - Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
4.124 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
4.124 - vivo V11
4.113 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro (normal)
4.096 - Samsung Galaxy Note5
4.09 - Huawei P20 Pro
4.087 - Xiaomi Mi 8
4.086 - Meizu 15
4.082 - Nokia 6 (2018)
4.052 - Google Pixel 2 (pre-update)
4.023 - LG V30
4.022 - Huawei Nexus 6P
4.019 - vivo NEX S
4.012 - Honor Magic 2
4.01 - Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro
3.998 - OnePlus X
3.983 - Vivo Xplay5 Elite
3.983 - LG G7 ThinQ (outdoor)
3.978 - Oppo R7s
3.964 - Apple iPhone 7
3.964 - Apple iPhone 8 (True Tone)
3.957 - Huawei P9 Plus
3.956 - Oppo Find X
3.954 - Meizu Pro 6 Plus
3.935 - Lenovo Moto Z
3.931 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)
3.918 - OnePlus 5
3.914 - Samsung Galaxy C5
3.911 - Xiaomi Mi 8 SE
3.901 - Samsung Galaxy C7
3.896 - Samsung Galaxy A5
3.895 - Samsung Galaxy J7 outdoor
3.879 - Samsung Galaxy J2 outdoor
3.873 - Oppo Realme 2 Pro
3.235 - Sony Xperia X Performance
3.234 - Xiaomi Mi Note 2
3.228 - Motorola Moto X Play
3.222 - Oppo F3 Plus
3.218 - BlackBerry KEY2
3.212 - Huawei Mate 9 Pro
3.206 - Huawei P9
3.195 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
3.19 - ZTE Nubia Z17
3.159 - Oppo R11s
3.153 - Lenovo Vibe Shot
3.113 - Honor 8X
3.113 - HTC U11 Life
3.108 - Motorola Moto X Force
3.105 - LG Nexus 5X
3.092 - HTC U11
3.089 - Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite
3.087 - HTC U12+
3.085 - Xiaomi Redmi S2 (Y2)
3.077 - Huawei Mate S
3.073 - Oppo F9
3.069 - Microsoft Lumia 640 XL
3.065 - Xiaomi Mi Max 3
3.061 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
3.059 - Huawei Mate 20
3.052 - Huawei Mate 20 Lite
3.051 - Motorola One (P30 Play)
3.026 - Apple iPhone 6 Plus
3.023 - Asus Zenfone 4 ZE554KL
3.019 - Sony Xperia XA1
3.012 - Motorola Moto X4
3.012 - Oppo Realme 2
3.006 - Sony Xperia L1
2.994 - Sony Xperia X
2.989 - LG Q6
2.987 - Huawei P10 Lite
2.974 - Samsung Galaxy Note
2.97 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
2.966 - Huawei P20 Lite
2.952 - Xiaomi Redmi 5
2.951 - Huawei Mate 8
2.949 - Sony Xperia XA2
2.938 - Oppo Realme 1
2.932 - Razer Phone 2
2.932 - Xiaomi Redmi 4
2.92 - Xiaomi Redmi 3S
2.913 - Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
2.913 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
2.906 - LG G5
2.905 - Huawei Honor View 10
2.896 - Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime
2.893 - Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
2.884 - Sony Xperia XZ Premium (sRGB)
2.877 - Sony Xperia XZ Premium
2.877 - Sony Xperia Z5
2.876 - Nokia 3
2.871 - Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium
2.867 - Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite
2.862 - Microsoft Lumia 550
2.851 - Nokia 3.1
2.837 - Realme U1
2.815 - Lenovo Moto M
2.813 - Nokia 7.1
2.804 - Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro
2.803 - Sony Xperia Z5 compact
2.784 - Honor 10 (Vivid)
2.757 - Nokia 2
2.752 - Meizu MX6
2.751 - LG V10
2.744 - Huawei Mate 10 (normal)
2.742 - Motorola Moto G5S Plus
2.737 - Xiaomi Redmi 3
2.735 - Huawei Honor 7X
2.734 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
2.714 - Meizu M5
2.71 - Xiaomi Mi A2
2.696 - Sony Xperia M5
2.69 - Xiaomi Mi A1
2.689 - Huawei P9 Lite
2.679 - Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
2.679 - vivo V7+
2.671 - Vivo V3Max
2.659 - Xiaomi Mi Mix
2.658 - Huawei Mate 10 Lite
2.654 - Oppo F5
2.653 - Doogee Mix
2.642 - Xiaomi Mi 4i
2.641 - Xiaomi Redmi 4a
2.635 - Sony Xperia Z3
2.618 - Xiaomi Mi 5X (Standard)
2.616 - Sony Xperia XA
2.609 - Motorola Moto G4 Plus
2.582 - Motorola Moto G4 Plus (max auto)
2.582 - Meizu M5s
2.58 - Xiaomi Mi 4c
2.574 - LeEco Le Max 2
2.567 - Microsoft Lumia 640
2.563 - Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
2.563 - Huawei P Smart
2.563 - Xiaomi Mi Max 2
2.561 - HTC U11+
2.556 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A (Y1)
2.556 - Lenovo Moto G4
2.544 - Lenovo K6 Note
2.544 - Oppo F1
2.528 - Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
2.525 - Huawei Honor 7 Lite / Honor 5c
2.506 - Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
2.503 - BlackBerry Motion
2.494 - Oppo F1s
2.481 - Motorola Moto G
2.477 - Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
2.473 - Huawei G8
2.471 - Huawei nova
2.467 - Sony Xperia Z
2.462 - Lenovo Vibe K5
2.459 - Meizu m3 max
2.447 - Xiaomi Mi 5X (Auto)
2.417 - HTC 10 evo
2.407 - Huawei Honor 7
2.406 - vivo V5
2.059 - Moto G 3rd gen max manual
2.026 - Xiaomi Mi 3
2.001 - Xiaomi Mi Max
1.996 - Sony Xperia E4g
1.972 - OnePlus One
1.961 - Meizu m3 note
1.923 - BlackBerry Leap
1.892 - Meizu m2 note
1.892 - HTC Butterfly
1.873 - ZTE Nubia Z9 mini
1.759 - Sony Xperia U
1.758 - Asus Zenfone Selfie
1.68 - Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
1.675 - ZTE Nubia Z9
1.659 - Jolla Jolla
1.605 - Samsung Galaxy Core
1.563 - Motorola Moto E
1.545 - Sony Xperia M
1.473 - Sony Xperia L
1.351 - Xiaomi Redmi 2
1.311 - HTC Desire C
1.3 - Nokia X
1.291 - Meizu MX
1.221
For all its versatility and visual appeal, however, the ROG Phone's panel isn't without its faults. For one, OLED is kind of known to handle motion blur a bit worse than its LCD cousin. In really fast-paced games and with rapid camera pans you can sometimes notice this while gaming. Just to be clear, though, you can notice it if you really know what you are looking for and want to be a display snob about things. Plus, the panel Asus chose for the ROG Phone has really low pixel response times, as low as 1ms. So, chances are, unless you are comparing blur on the ROG Phone to that on a really high-end, adaptive-sync, high-refresh rate, IPS desktop display, the ROG Phone is going to come out ahead.
So, blur is mostly not an issue. That just leaves one major beef we have with the display in the ROG Phone - the colors. Now, this, again, is less of an isolated issue and more of a compromise of the particular Asus approach. The default color pallet looks quite a bit off. Reds are very overblown, which is fairly standard, but so are green and magenta, which is just an odd combination that makes for a strange tint. Fiddling with the available display tuning settings can bring the deltaE values down to an average of 3.9 and a maximum of 7.2, but you really don't want to do that.
In every color mode other than the default "wide color gamut" one, everything looks really dull. So you are definitely better off dealing with the default deltaE of 7.4 average and 12.6 max. On the flip side, the ROG Phone does have HDR support, although the specs sheet lacks any info on particular HDR standards and certifications. Still, Asus claims it has some secret sauce working under the hood that converts SDR colors to HDR in games, making use of the full capabilities of the panel. Color-wise, these are pretty solid as well, with a 108.6% DCI-P3 coverage and 145% of the sRGB color space.
Battery life
The Asus ROG Phone packs a beefy 4,000 mAh battery - quite understandable, given its hardware, slight CPU overclock, various attachable accessories and overall gaming pedigree. The high refresh rate on the OLED panel is a particular concern when it comes to battery endurance. After all, this is the main culprit for the poor battery life on the original Razer Phone and the Razer Phone. Well, technically, we found that variable refresh rate is what likely sucked the battery dry at quite a pace on the Razer handsets. Plus, those have LCD panels. Whereas the ROG Phone is packing a more energy-efficient OLED unit and has a static maximum refresh rate of 90Hz.
For the sake of thoroughness, we ran our battery tests twice, once in the 90Hz display mode and then again with a standard refresh rate of 60Hz.
It seems like the high refresh rate takes a toll of around 2 hours with screen-on web browsing test and a bit less with video playback. Our theory here is that since our test video is encoded at a standard 30fps and it is the only thing being displayed on screen, the ROG Phone is clever enough to realize what is going on and lowers its display refresh rate down automatically. Presumably, this happens after a certain time-out, which would explain the still elevated battery usage.
Other than that, the two on-screen numbers themselves are pretty respectable, although far from great on an AMOLED display and a huge 4,000 mAh battery. As we anticipated, the high refresh rate does take its toll, but results still seem more reasonable than what we got on the Razer Phone 2 and its variable refresh rate, 120Hz IGZO panel.
Talk time is actually pretty high, but the standby numbers ended up on the lower end of the expected Snapdragon 845 spectrum. We made sure to re-test those as well, just to make sure, but the second run only confirmed our initial findings. This all added up to a solid, if not stellar battery endurance score.
Charging the hefty 4,000 mAh battery pack in the ROG Phone is actually pretty quick thanks to Asus' HyperCharge proprietary charging solution. So, using the bundled brick can get you from 0% to 100% in just about an hour and forty minutes.
Just as a reminder, that charger is actually very versatile - able to comply with both QC4.0 and PD3.0 protocols. If you don't have the stock charger at hand, the ROG Phone can take a QC 4.0 or 3.0 input as well. In which case a full top-off will take you around 15 minutes more.
Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSer App. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Asus ROG Phone for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty.You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
Loudspeaker
The ROG Phone packs some serious loudspeaker hardware. Two beefy speakers on either end of the device, powered by two dedicated NXP 9874 amplifiers. As you can probably imagine, this equates to very loud and incredibly crisp sound.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing |
Overall score | |
| 68.3 | 73.8 | 75.8 | Good | |
| 68.2 | 74.1 | 77.4 | Very Good | |
| 68.4 | 74.0 | 80.1 | Very Good | |
| 68.1 | 72.3 | 82.2 | Very Good | |
| 67.2 | 72.5 | 84.5 | Very Good | |
| 71.2 | 74.9 | 80.2 | Very Good | |
| 70.7 | 75.2 | 81.2 | Very Good | |
| 68.0 | 75.3 | 84.0 | Very Good | |
| 70.3 | 73.4 | 83.8 | Very Good | |
| 71.0 | 75.4 | 82.9 | Excellent | |
| 77.5 | 71.7 | 81.1 | Excellent | |
| 72.8 | 74.7 | 86.6 | Excellent | |
| 71.3 | 74.5 | 91.0 | Excellent | |
| 76.0 | 73.6 | 88.5 | Excellent | |
| 80.1 | 73.2 | 85.0 | Excellent | |
| 79.0 | 77.5 | 84.9 | Excellent | |
| 77.0 | 73.8 | 91.1 | Excellent | |
| 76.7 | 77.7 | 87.7 | Excellent | |
| 78.2 | 78.8 | 86.9 | Excellent |
The sound stage and 3D audio effect achieved by the setup are pretty impressive as well. That comes courtesy of DTS:X Ultra 1.0, which is not only in charge of optimizing loudspeaker output but also headphones, boasting features like DTS:X 7.1 channel surround. The 24-bit DAC and aptX Bluetooth support are simply icing on the cake at this point.
Audio quality
The Asus ROG Phone has the potential to deliver arguably the best audio output in the market. It has super loud output both with an active external amplifier and headphones and all but one of the readings are excellent in both cases. In fact, it’s very rare to see a handset so unaffected by plugging in headphones.
However, the big issue is that the ROG has an equalizer applied at all times even if you disable the Audio Wizard functionality. The so-called headphones profile can’t be switched off and no matter what kind of profile you choose the frequency response will be far from ideal.
Some people like equalizers and we are all for that, but forcing one on everyone just isn’t cool. Worse yet, you are actually selecting profiles - specific brands and models of headphones or just “general” speakers, but you don’t really know what each of those does to the frequency response. You either have to trust Asus that they have selected the settings optimal for you, or play a very long game of trial and error until you find a profile that you like. And if you just want to listen to the tracks the way they were meant to sound - then you are entirely out of luck.
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
| +3.31, -3.68 | -93.8 | 93.6 | 0.0015 | 0.013 | -62.5 | |
| +3.06, -3.96 | -93.8 | 93.7 | 0.0065 | 0.041 | -91.3 | |
| +0.02, -0.16 | -92.1 | 92.0 | 0.0017 | 0.013 | -85.6 | |
| +0.07, -0.07 | -92.1 | 92.4 | 0.0021 | 0.106 | -66.5 | |
| +0.03, -0.05 | -93.4 | 93.3 | 0.0010 | 0.0070 | -93.8 | |
| +0.17, -0.15 | -93.2 | 93.1 | 0.0056 | 0.245 | -61.1 | |
| +0.01, -0.02 | -91.2 | 93.2 | 0.0024 | 0.0080 | -88.7 | |
| +0.38, -0.21 | -93.1 | 92.5 | 0.0049 | 0.233 | -61.7 | |
| +0.01, -0.03 | -93.7 | 93.7 | 0.0017 | 0.0074 | -94.1 | |
| +0.03, -0.02 | -93.6 | 93.5 | 0.0033 | 0.046 | -93.2 | |
| +0.02, -0.15 | -94.3 | 94.3 | 0.0021 | 0.0069 | -94.3 | |
| +0.18, -0.13 | -93.7 | 93.6 | 0.0024 | 0.104 | -52.7 |
Asus ROG Phone frequency response
You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.
ROG UI on top of Android Oreo
Seeing the extents to which Asus has gone in customizing the hardware of the ROG Phone, it comes as a surprise that the software is pretty non-standard as well. Even after a quick glance at the UI, the gaming pedigree becomes instantly apparent, with everything covered in a distinctly Republic of Gamers coat of paint.
That's actually a pretty accurate description for most of what Asus has done here. Underneath the aggressive "FPS-monster" aesthetics lies a familiar ZenUI 5 core. A pretty sound and understandable approach and frankly the right one, seeing how that puts the ROG Phone on the same core software branch as at least a few other Asus devices. This, in itself, is somewhat of a guarantee of a certain level of support and future upgrades. Plus, it is much easier to maintain a skin, rather than an entirely new ROM.
That being said, however, ROG UI sits kind of in the middle of that scale. Sure, the core functionality comes from ZenUI 5, or rather 5.5 and in an even deeper sense, the Android 8.1 foundation. And yes, most of the instantly apparent changes are cosmetic and fairly easy to add on top. However, Asus did go the extra step, implementing some interesting features pretty deep into the OS. Things like "Game Center" and "Game Genie", which we will definitely discuss in detail since they are far more than cosmetic tweaks.
Lock screen • Home screen • Google feed • Google app package • Asus apps
Starting our UI tour at the usual place - the locks screen and home screen do look fairly familiar. The same goes for the Google feed, located in its own screen on the far left and rocking a rather contrasting all-white style. The ROG Phone also comes pre-loaded with a standard suite of Google apps and a few apps of its own, mostly to handle core functionality. Like we said, nothing out of the ordinary.
Notification shade and quick toggles
The particular "ROG" styling of choice seems to be the most apparent trait of the ROG UI. The notification shade and quick toggles interface are definitely among the more stand-out aspects of the launcher. On the one hand, there is the bold two-tone design. But looking past that, there is the even more striking number of options and toggles the ROG Phone offers by default. Some of these unfamiliar to an AOSP user and probably even seasoned fans of other popular custom Android skins. We'll get into that later.
For now, let's focus on the particular style of the entire UI. Asus was clearly going for a full-on Republic of Gamers look and while the mission seems to be mostly accomplished, we have to say that certain visual aspects are a bit too much for our taste.
For example, certain accents in the UI are designed to be dynamic and tie in with the "X mode" toggle - one of the main gaming-geared software optimization features in the ROG Phone. Turning X mode on activates little illumination animations in the default wallpapers and also illuminates a ring around most app icons.
Powerful Theme engine
This pretty much explains why most themes found in the included Asus theme app seem to have the similar icon styles that include said "halo" around the icons. It is definitely a particular look intended to tie in with the whole concept of "performance mode on", but we can't say we appreciated it too much. Thankfully, there are more conventional theme options on the store as well and Asus made it so you can actually apply only certain parts of a theme you like.
Icon packs
Plus, the launcher supports icon packs. Most even come straight from the Google Play Store. So, if you don't particularly fancy a glowing "halo" around very game-y looking icons, you can pretty much make those go away with some customization.
ROG UI preferences
Speaking of customization, the ROG UI does offer a fair bit of preferences, as well as a few advanced features. In terms of customization, there are the basics, like grid sizes and scrolling mode. There are also a couple of smart features. Suggested apps is a small row of icons featuring your recent apps. The smart group feature is kind of neat as it tries to automatically group similar app shortcuts in folders and keep your desktop clean.
The Hide apps and AppLock features are pretty self-explanatory. Still, this is a good time to mention the veritable chaos that Asus has created in placing and spreading out some of its options within various menus. The aforementioned two, for instance, are only accessible through this menu. They don't even show up when using the search bar within settings. All the while, things like suggested apps feature also get an entry within other menus. In this case, the rather odd "AI features".
AI features • OptiPlex • AI charging • Smart screen on • AI ringtone
Since we area already on the subject, this menu houses just a few of the more advanced features the ROG Phone has to offer. OptiPlex is a proprietary app launch optimizer that works in the usual way - caching certain resources, often times in RAM, so that they can remain easily accessible. AI charging is pretty cool. It is pretty similar to the Qnovo tech that Sony and LG have been using on their phones for quite some time now. What it does is automatically adjust battery charging speed so that when you overnight your device, it charges at just the optimal rate to keep the battery healthy and still have you wake up to a full charge. We definitely wish this was a more common consideration among manufacturers.
Smart screen on is pretty self-explanatory. AI ringtone is another nifty party trick the ROG Phone can pull off. It simply monitors the ambient noise levels in your surrounding and adjusts your ringer volume accordingly.
Display settings • Always-on Panel • Clock style • Lift to check phone • Navigation bar
Continuing on our settings and features tour, we find the display sub-section of the menu also littered with a mix of both. Pretty normal settings, like brightness and color controls or the always-on mode and corresponding clock styles it can display are jumbled in with some advanced features like Lift to check phone and the system-wide navigation bar options. Kind of a mess, but we still appreciate all the available control schemes in the navigation menu.
Refresh rate toggle • Splendid color settings
Also here is the all-important display refresh rate toggle. By default the ROG Phone comes set at 90Hz and given the extra fluidity of motion that provides, plus having tested the battery endurance in both modes, we are fairly confident in recommending this as the mode to use. There is really no reason not to enjoy it.
Splendid is the name of choice of the color settings menu. In all fairness, it is pretty in-depth and includes things like a scheduled blue light filter, three color modes, as well as manual adjustment sliders. Still, like we already mentioned in the display section, there isn't much in the way of user adjustment that can be done to improve the color accuracy of the panel. Plus, anything other than the default "Wide color gamut" mode simply looks washed-out and terrible.
Security and lock screen settings
The organizational mess continues in the Security and lock screen settings menu. The obvious things are here and accounted for, like the fingerprint reader manager, thankfully backed-up by a Face recognition feature, seeing how the former is really not convenient to use on the ROG Phone. Then there are less relevant setting here, like the Wallpaper slideshow feature and the optional weather animation on the lock screen. Don't get us wrong though, both are still pretty nifty, just not very well organised.
Battery settings
At least the battery settings menu is less confusing overall. All the standard Android percentage and usage breakdown values are present. There is also a convenient shortcut that leads out into the Asus battery management centre - a separate app which we will discuss in a bit. Probably the most odd bit, however, is the entry for "TwinView" dock battery modes. This will surely perplex anybody who happens to own the ROG Phone, but not the optional accessory. Perhaps they should only be visible if the dock is detected? Better still, why not have them pop-up in a separate menu, only accessible once the accessory is plugged-in?
Advanced settings
This really is rather indicative of a bigger problem concerning proper organization on the ROG Phone. We definitely get and appreciate the sheer extent of the feature set we are dealing with here, but that shouldn't be an excuse not to keep things well organized. To Asus' credit, though, they appear to be actively addressing the issue, which is really not a common sight. What we mean is that one of the OTA updates we received actually moved quite a few of these "stray" options and features under one roof in the Advanced menu.
Advanced features
Some of these are pretty self-explanatory and some are definitely more interesting than others. Page Marker is a web linting tool. Twin apps, deserves a shout-out for the full list of supported apps it provides, with links for you to get them from the Play Store. ZeniMoji is Asus' attempts at copying the big boys in their efforts for animated emojis.
The Mobile Manager is another clear effort to bring order to the ROG Phone and its abundance of features.
Mobile Manager smart scan
Most of the UI is actually executed like a guided tour for optimizing your device settings and introducing certain features. After a quick overall scan, the app starts suggesting relevant improvements you can make to certain settings, as well as using some features, like Super Clean mode for closing-up background processes.
Super Clean mode
The AppLock feature we mentioned earlier also gets suggested after a scan, so even if you are not the nosy type and haven't stumbled upon it by accident, it won't necessarily remain unused forever.
AppLock
As for specific options within the app, some are, again, more clear in their function than others, like Data usage, Notification manager or Junk files.
Notification • Junk • Data Usage
Others, like the Security and permissions menu look pretty simple, but actually, hold AI-infused scanning and suggestion algorithms of their own. Pretty in-depth, overall.
Security and Permissions
PowerMaster is where things really start to unfold. Anything and everything you could want to know and do for your battery live and overall health is in here.
PowerMaster
In fact, there are some things in here, like what seems to be a vanity screen pretending to do some checks on a list of "Power-safe technology" features that simply look there just to impress and confuse.
Even more battery management
Still, we were never ones to turn down perfectly good graphs with information and info-boxes with tips, especially when all they want is to improve the longevity and overall health of the phone's battery. By the way, if you find AI charging too inconsistent for your taste, you can also charge the phone on a manual schedule. Just pointing it out.
AudioWizard
Seeing how the ROG Phone doesn't skimp out on audio hardware, it only makes sense to include a powerful equalizer suite to match. Asus calls it AudioWizard and it comes packed with plenty of features to enhance both the stereo speaker output, as well as the headphones experience. Yet another really in-depth tool.
That's quite a bit of software we already went through, yet nothing really regarding gaming. Well, we're just keeping the best for last. Enter Game Center. This is the home of X Mode, among other things. It is ROG's moniker of choice for a performance-optimized mode of operation for the phone.
X Mode
It effects are actually a few and include things like special priorities for the foreground application, more aggressive resource management and probably most-importantly - higher clocks on both the CPU and GPU, mostly achieved through more aggressive governors.
This is the mode you want to game on. And also the mode Asus naturally wants its phone showcased in. Hence, the ROG Phone is kind enough to automatically detect benchmarking or otherwise heavy graphical apps and pop up a notification that you probably should turn on X Mode.
X Mode notification
And frankly, we see no reason not to turn X Mode on if you do plan on some more intensive gaming. Of course, baring that you are prepared to chew through your battery a bit quicker. It does make a difference in some cases, which we will mention in the performance section.
While in X Mode you can also expect relatively more heat, which is why you should probably snap on the AeroActive Cooler, bundled in the box. The latter really is an impressive piece of kit. Not only does it have a measurable effect on the average temperature of the phone's internals (about 4 degrees or so lower), but it also provides more convenient place for your Type-C and 3.5mm ports and even mirrors the ROG RGB logo it ends up covering up. It nothing else, it really does keep your hands cool and sweat-free while gaming.
Fan speed
Its speed can be controlled through Game Center. Since it is quite quiet, we just left ours on full blast all the time. But there is also an intelligent auto mode that monitors thermals and loads as best it can.
Aura lighting
Game Center also houses all the settings for the Aura lighting software, powering the ROG Phone's RGB logo. We already went through those in the hardware overview.
Game Profiles
Then there are the Game Profiles and these should not be underestimated. From here you can tweak settings on a per-app basis. This includes things like 60Hz or 90Hz mode selection for the display, as well as CPU frequency cap and a few other X Mode customizations. Hidden away here is also an anti-aliasing toggle. Again, we wish that this was a little more visible since it is pretty cool in its effects and can help eliminate some jagged lines in titles that struggle to do so by themselves. At the cost of some performance, of course.
Speaking of performance, as any good gamer will tell you, you probably want to be monitoring that. Not necessarily since you can do a whole lot about it on a mobile device, even one as feature-rich and actively-cooled as the ROG Phone, but so you can bask in your high frame rate glory and quantify just how awesome your experience should feel.
Game Center settings
This is the main reason why ROG has included a Game toolbar. It hovers over your game once launched and can provide a number on real-time statistics and numbers, like an fps counter, temperatures and hardware utilization.
Game Toolbar
Like you probably noticed already, this settings menu also features entries for recording and live streaming. Yes, the ROG Phone can definitely do that for you, no added software necessary. Currently, YouTube and Twitch are both supported for instant live streaming.
Naturally, you're going to need a place to manage the video recordings and streams while in game. That interface is actually part of yet another custom ROG Phone gaming overlay and probably the coolest one of all - GAME GENIE.
GAME GENIE • AirTriggers • Macro • Record *Online search
You can toggle recording and streaming from here. There is also a manual speed-up, if you feel like something is hogging resources in the background. A few convenient toggles are also scattered about. The G logo at the top opens up a mini online search interface, so you can do some quick research on a game while playing, without having to close it. Game GENIE is also where you can map your two AirTriggers to certain on-screen controls. If it is a button, you can map it. There is even a macro interface, which is really powerful and can be used to map whole sequences of inputs.
Key Mapping
If that sounds a bit like cheating to you, wait until you hear about Key Mapping. In our books, it is probably the single greatest gaming-geared software tool Asus has brought to the table with the ROG Phone. It's an incredibly in-depth interface for mapping on-screen controls to physical ones. Directional pads, buttons, sliders all work and do so really well.
So the real fun begins when you connect the ROG Phone to a compatible accessory, like the GAMEVICE. Every button on that controller can then be mapped to
In fact, it gets even better once you connect the ROG Phone to a mouse and keyboard via the Mobile Descktop Dock or the Asus professional dock. Then you can map all the controls to an actual mouse and keyboard. Imagine using a mouse to aim and look around in PUBG!
Well, that bit you can actually keep imagining since PUBG is one of the few titles that has become aware of the ROG Phone's "secret sauce" and can detect the use of control mapping. At least currently, that is. And even so, the majority of games we tested, even competitive online ones are perfectly fine with you totally owning the scene due to the huge advantage in controls precision.
One small note though, we did try to skip the Asus docks and use a third party Tyle-C dongle with an HDMI output and USB connections. And while that did work in grabbing a display output and giving us a choice between a mirror mode and an extended display mode, as the ROG Phone is currently intended to work, the control mapping never showed up. Perhaps a bug? Or maybe Asus wants a bit more of your money to give you the "Game Genie" of mobile games.
And on another side note, we are aware that other similar mapping solutions do exist on Android (most notable Octopus), but these seem to operate with a lot more restrictions and naturally all sorts of warnings for drawing over other apps and the like. What Asus have crafted for the ROG is clearly done right and on a much lower software level, making it a really added-value offer for any hardcore mobile gaming enthusiasts. Or are they even mobile once a keyboard and mouse come into play?
That's actually kind of a recurring theme with the ROG phone. Most of the features Asus imbued it with clearly take after and aspire to the glorious realm of PC gaming. While often daunting and confusing at first, we have to say that the fusion Asus has achieved here is nothing short of impressive on almost every level. This is definitely not your run of the mill Android experience.
Speed-binned Snapdragon 845
Yes, you read that correctly. While overclocking is not unheard of in the mobile phone realm, especially among flagship devices, binning is a little bit more "out-there". Again, to be fair, practically all chip manufacturers have at least some binning process in place and corresponding quality grades for their chips, but if the Asus PR is to be believed, what we have here goes one step beyond. If you are a PC gamer enthusiast then the term "silicon lottery" should be fairly familiar. If not, it simply boils down to inherent variances in quality and performance from unit to unit, usually referring to chips and processors in particular.
Winning the "silicon lottery" thus refers to getting a chip that can be pushed to perform sustainably past its specification. Essentially overclocked beyond the values that the manufacturer deemed safe and average enough to apply to all of its chips, thus adhering to the lowest common denominator of quality. This "winning" could, of course, be a matter of chance for an enthusiast end user. However, in the PC realm, there are also companies who make a living out of cherry-picking the highest grade chips and then selling them at a premium.
All this intricacy from the overclocking scene is not really relevant to the mobile realm, since modifying clock speeds and multipliers on a mobile device is far more difficult, not to mention risky due to the passive cooling nature of the devices and fairly limited in the potential performance gains that can be achieved. Hence, it is hardly a thing anybody bothers to do. That is, unless you decide to do it on the manufacturing side of things - another prime example of Asus taking a page out of its PC business experience and transferring it over to mobile and the emerging "gaming" hardware niche.
So, what did Asus do in particular? Well, a standard Snapdragon 845 chipset has a big.LITTLE CPU configuration featuring four Kryo 385 Silver cores, clocked at a maximum of 1.8 GHz and another four Kryo 385 Gold, going up to 1.8 GHz. In the ROG Phone, the latter cluster of powerful cores can go up to 2.96GHz. That is not an insignificant difference, at least of paper, especially when carried over four cores. The impressive bit is that this is a mobile device and for multiple reasons, some of which we already mentioned, you don't really see overclocked CPU's that often. Especially not ones the manufacturer guarantees are binned and verified to be stable at these sustained clocks. As far as how much of a difference that makes to performance, though, you can read on and find out.
In the meantime, let's look at how our review unit tacked standard benchmarks. Just to clarify, beyond the overclock we already mentioned, Asus has seemingly done nothing else to the Snapdragon 845. Its Adreno 630 GPU is working at stock speeds of 710 MHz, which is kind of odd, seeing how most overclocks we have seen in the past from manufacturers like Samsung typically meddle with GPU clocks. But, we digress. Beyond this our review unit has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage - the lower of the two tiers, but probably the one most buyers will go for anyway.
GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy S9+
3771 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
3642 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
3390 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
3291 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode
2573 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode (Fan on)
2556 - ASUS ROG Phone
2514 - ASUS ROG Phone (Fan on)
2504 - Asus ZenFone 5z
2488 - Sony Xperia XZ3
2486 - vivo NEX S
2466 - HTC U12+
2456 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
2438 - Xiaomi Mi 8
2431 - OnePlus 6T
2431 - Razer Phone 2
2424 - Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
2421 - LG V40 ThinQ
2408 - OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition
2376 - Google Pixel 3 XL
2363 - Oppo Find X
2322 - Oppo Find X Lamborghini Edition
2315 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
2199 - Motorola Moto Z3
1924
Starting with a pure CPU test and GeekBench, we can get a feel of just how much of a difference the bump in clock speed provides. In single-threaded workloads, we can clearly see the ROG Phone pulling ahead of the Snapdragon 845 pack, although not nearly enough to catch up the the Kirin 980 and the Exynos 9810. Frankly, not an unexpected result.
GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
10110 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
9712 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode (Fan on)
9406 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode
9375 - ASUS ROG Phone (Fan on)
9309 - ASUS ROG Phone
9230 - vivo NEX S
9160 - Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
9110 - Asus ZenFone 5z
9030 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
9026 - OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition
9005 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
9003 - HTC U12+
9001 - OnePlus 6T
8977 - Razer Phone 2
8923 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
8883 - Sony Xperia XZ3
8607 - LG V40 ThinQ
8568 - Xiaomi Mi 8
8494 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
8349 - Google Pixel 3 XL
8088 - Oppo Find X Lamborghini Edition
8032 - Oppo Find X
8018 - Motorola Moto Z3
6614
Engage all the cores and the ROG Phone and its overclocked Snapdragon 845 pull ahead of the Exynos 9810 and surprisingly even manage to come close to the Kirin 980 and its 7nm prowess.
We should probably reference the fact that there are four entries for the ROG Phone. These are clearly marked and yes, we did go through the trouble of testing the handset with all available combinations of its "X Mode" performance toggle and the active fan attachment. It is also worth noting that the ROG Phone gets its CPU overclock regardless of performance mode or fan, so even the plain entry has the higher clock working for it.
AnTuTu 7
Higher is better
- Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
308050 - OnePlus 6T
293994 - OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition
292716 - ASUS ROG Phone (Fan on)
292371 - Oppo Find X
291218 - ASUS ROG Phone
290975 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode (Fan on)
288821 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode
288176 - vivo NEX S
287081 - Oppo Find X Lamborghini Edition
286938 - Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
286076 - Razer Phone 2
285051 - Sony Xperia XZ3
284555 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
273913 - Asus ZenFone 5z
266590 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
265314 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
264044 - HTC U12+
263696 - Google Pixel 3 XL
258244 - LG V40 ThinQ
254304 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
248823 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
246660 - Xiaomi Mi 8
217298 - Motorola Moto Z3
207903
Heat is always a concern for electronics and especially passively cooled phones. Since, no matter how good of an internal cooling solution you have in place, heat will inevitably build up over time, since there is no was to actively pull it away from the silicon.
Hence, practically all smartphones thermal-throttle sooner or later. The real challenge is to do this as gracefully as possible - gradually lowering clock speeds in hopes of sustaining smoother and higher average performance for as long as possible.
ROG Phone thermal-throttling test: No Fan
Here is another interesting visualization oh just how well the ROG Phone manages to handle thermal-throttling with and without the fan attached.
ROG Phone thermal-throttling test: With Fan
We can clearly see a lot less dips in frame rate, which is ultimately what you are after. Just for reference, here is how well the Razer Phone faired with the same test.
Razer Phone 2 CPU throttling test
It is worth noting that higher benchmark scores with active cooling is not a new revelation. In fact, we have been cooling certain phones for quite some time now, mostly to point out poor thermal performance. And, like we said, every phone is going to thermal-throttle sooner or later, even the ROG Phone with its active fan. But since the latter is actually part of the retail package and hence available to every ROG Phone user, we thought it's curious to see how the performance is affected in all of our benchmarks.
Basemark OS 2.0
Higher is better
- ASUS ROG Phone X mode (Fan on)
4702 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode
4700 - ASUS ROG Phone (Fan on)
4684 - ASUS ROG Phone
4614 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
4610 - OnePlus 6T
4452 - Asus ZenFone 5z
4309 - HTC U12+
4300 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
4196 - Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
4189 - vivo NEX S
4167 - Razer Phone 2
4163 - LG V40 ThinQ
4003 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
3939 - Google Pixel 3 XL
3895 - Xiaomi Mi 8
3858 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
3713 - Sony Xperia XZ3
3700 - Oppo Find X
3636 - Motorola Moto Z3
3432 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
3354 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
3064
Graphics
Now let's turn our eyes to the graphics benchmarks.
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
61 - OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition
61 - ASUS ROG Phone
60 - ASUS ROG Phone (Fan on)
60 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode
60 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode (Fan on)
60 - HTC U12+
60 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
60 - Oppo Find X
60 - Oppo Find X Lamborghini Edition
60 - OnePlus 6T
60 - vivo NEX S
60 - Asus ZenFone 5z
60 - Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
60 - Sony Xperia XZ3
56 - LG V40 ThinQ
56 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
54 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
53 - Xiaomi Mi 8
53 - Razer Phone 2
51 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
47 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
45 - Google Pixel 3 XL
44 - Motorola Moto Z3
42
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- vivo NEX S
55 - Asus ZenFone 5z
55 - ASUS ROG Phone
54 - ASUS ROG Phone (Fan on)
54 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode
54 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode (Fan on)
54 - OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition
54 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
53 - Oppo Find X Lamborghini Edition
53 - OnePlus 6T
53 - Xiaomi Mi 8
50 - Oppo Find X
50 - Motorola Moto Z3
37 - Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
37 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
34 - HTC U12+
33 - Razer Phone 2
33 - Sony Xperia XZ3
31 - LG V40 ThinQ
29 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
27 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
27 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
25 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
24 - Google Pixel 3 XL
24
As you can clearly see, having the fan on or off, as well as "X Mode" for that matter makes no actual difference to the results. This is true across the board for the various GFXBench tests we ran. In fact, even when we did record some GPU performance differences in Basemark X these did not align perfectly with the expected results, so we can easily write them off as margin of error.
Basemark X
Higher is better
- ASUS ROG Phone X mode
60713 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode (Fan on)
60171 - ASUS ROG Phone (Fan on)
59983 - ASUS ROG Phone
59072 - Razer Phone 2
54750 - Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
53273 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
44780 - HTC U12+
44390 - LG V40 ThinQ
44260 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
44013 - Asus ZenFone 5z
43911 - OnePlus 6T
43886 - Sony Xperia XZ3
43843 - vivo NEX S
43810 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
43652 - Xiaomi Mi 8
43285 - Google Pixel 3 XL
43073 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
42134 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
41994 - Oppo Find X
40537 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
40269 - Motorola Moto Z3
34848
Digging through the various results a bit deeper did reveal somewhat of a patter regarding "X Mode" though. We noticed that having it on does seem to boost GPU performance a tiny bit - a fact only visible in the newest and most difficult OpenGL ES 3.1 and Vulkan GFXBench runs.
Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)
Higher is better
- ASUS ROG Phone X mode
22 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode (Fan on)
22 - ASUS ROG Phone
21 - ASUS ROG Phone (Fan on)
21 - OnePlus 6T
21 - Razer Phone 2
13 - Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
13 - Sony Xperia XZ3
12 - Google Pixel 3 XL
10 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
7.5
Aztek OpenGL ES 3.1 High (onscreen)
Higher is better
- ASUS ROG Phone X mode
22 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode (Fan on)
22 - OnePlus 6T
22 - ASUS ROG Phone
21 - ASUS ROG Phone (Fan on)
21 - Razer Phone 2
15 - Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
15 - Sony Xperia XZ3
14 - Google Pixel 3 XL
14 - LG V40 ThinQ
13 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
11
Basemark X naturally registered this fact as well. Its results are probably the most comprehensive and comparable of the bunch since other tests, especially the on-screen GFX runs are very dependent on resolution, which is all over the place with the current tall display trend.
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- ASUS ROG Phone
74 - ASUS ROG Phone (Fan on)
74 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode
74 - ASUS ROG Phone X mode (Fan on)
74 - Xiaomi Pocophone F1
59 - Oppo Find X Lamborghini Edition
59 - OnePlus 6T
59 - vivo NEX S
59 - Asus ZenFone 5z
59 - Oppo Find X
58 - Xiaomi Mi 8
57 - Razer Phone 2 (cooled)
56 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
51 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro
50 - Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
50 - HTC U12+
50 - Motorola Moto Z3
49 - Samsung Galaxy Note9
46 - LG V40 ThinQ
46 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
45 - Sony Xperia XZ3
45 - Razer Phone 2
44 - Google Pixel 3 XL
39
Last, but not least, we should make a few notes on the high refresh rate aspect of the ROG Phone. First off, all the benchmark runs were done at the full 90Hz of the display, which is the reason for certain glorious scores like the above fairly low-stress on-screen Manhattan GFX 3.0 run.
Mind you, since this is still a benchmark, it is hardly indicative of real-world rendering difficulty.
The ROG Phone is an amazing performer, currently setting the bar for what the Snapdragon 845 can do through some hardware and software optimization and love. It is also more than capable of chewing through practically any Android game out there, likely even maxing out its frame rate.
And that is actually a thing to consider if you plan on taking full advantage of that glorious, smooth 90Hz refresh rate since not all games can go past 60fps, even if you have the horsepower for it. Unfortunately, it is largely going to be a hit-and-miss affair finding titles that can saturate the refresh rate of the ROG Phone.
Thankfully, after finding itself in the unfavourable early-adopter position with its two handsets, competitor Razer did start compiling a list of titles that are know to be able to push past the 60fps mark. You can check it out at this link.
ROG Phone accessories and attachments
We have to admit, a lot of the appeal of the ROG Phone lies with its extensive accessory package. That seems to be yet another page off the PC market realm Asus simply decided to apply to this new and emerging "gaming" mobile hardware niche. Definitely nothing wrong with some experimentation, just to see what sticks. The Taiwanese giant clearly felt comfortable going all out with said hardware experiment since this has to be the most complete, or failing that, most impressive and ambitious accessory ecosystem we have ever seen on a smartphone.
Naturally, some of these gadgets are going to be better and more useful than others. Seeing how there is a lot to cover here, let's just jump in.
AeroActive Cooler
The AeroActive Cooler is the one gadget you get in every retail box and is frankly one of the most universally useful of the bunch.
AeroActive Cooler specs
If you read the performance section of the review, you already have the gist of it. Its purpose is to aid in cooling the ROG Phone and our tests largely confirm it is measurably useful in this role. Naturally, since it snaps on to the back of the phone and simply blows on the Gorilla Glass back, it is pretty limited in the thermal delta it can achieve. Our test in this respect mostly coincide with the claimed Asus numbers of about four, four and a half degrees less in reported internal component temperature while using the fan at full blast.
It is a very quiet unit, which is surprising given its size. So, there really is no reason in our mind not to use it at full speed. If nothing else, it really helps keep the surface of the phone cool and your hands less sweaty.
In case you are wondering how the thing snaps on the ROG Phone, it uses a rather simple slide-up mechanism to clear a bigger opening and can then be slapped back into place. It works well enough but does feel rather flimsy. Frankly, this is the same with some of the other accessories as well. But, all that flexibility and expandability was bound to take its toll. Just be careful when you put it on, that's all.
Some other noteworthy aspects of the AeroActive design include the RGB Aura Sync logo on the back, which acts as a substitute for the phone's logo since it gets covered up by the fan. It's the little details, we suppose. Joking aside, we very much appreciate the bottom positioning of the pass-through Type-C port and the 3.5mm audio jack on the AeroActive. That's probably the only convenient place to have dangling cables while gaming.
TwinView Dock
On to probably the most eye-catching of the accessory bunch - the TwinView Dock. We hate to spoil things from the get-go here, but frankly, for all its tech coolness, it is probably the least useful accessory for the ROG Phone.
TwinView Dock specs
Before we get to the meat of that criticism - a short hardware tour is due. The TwinView Dock is a chunky beast, weighing in at 390 grams. That's enough weight for a whole smartphone, which means that once the ROG Phone is inserted in it, you end up with a fairly heavy setup that can easily tire your hands. So, it is best used on a table or a good armchair for elbow support.
On the flip side, there is a lot of hardware packed inside the aggressive ROG-styled clamshell. A 6,000 mAh battery is probably what contributes most of the weight. That being said, the 6-inch, AMOLED display embedded in the bottom half can't be all that light either.
Examining it a bit closer it becomes abundantly clear that it is actually the very same display assembly for the ROG Phone itself, simply lacking the rest of the phone guts under it. Even the selfie camera hole is left intact. Pretty understandable, since removing it would actually mean setting up a different assembly line just for that slight panel variety, which would cost a lot.
Another interesting consequence of using the same front display assembly is that there are already two stereo speakers fitted in there right where they are on the phone. So, the TwinView Dock actually adds two more identical speakers to the ROG Phone making for a total of four. Due to the odd positioning, we can't really say it improves the experience too much, though. Plus, the phone's equalizer settings menu remains unaware of these extra speakers and extends no effort to create some spatial audio effects like it can for the main speaker.
In fact, this lack of feature and compatibility depth kind of defines the TwinView Dock in its current state. Once docked, the ROG Phone doesn't really register or react in any meaningful way to the fact that it now has a second screen at its disposal. The two displays appear to behave entirely independently. All you can do is launch a second app on the other display. Oddly enough the top display, which is to say the phone itself takes a back seat in the experience since the Game Genie and all its features are only available on the bottom display. It is a pretty wonky and arguably crude experience. Another complaint we have is that once docked, both displays get set to 60Hz, so even if the second screen is the same 90Hz panel like the one of the phone, you can't use anything beyond 60Hz on either display in the current implementation.
The only real tweaks available as to how the TwinView Dock has a settings item in the battery menu of the phone that lets you chose whether to use the dock's 6,000 mAh battery as a power bank and deplete it first, while keeping the phone's battery full or have the two batteries discharge in tandem.
You can also tweak the RGB logo and fan, included in the TwinView Dock using the familiar settings in the Game Center. As for those beefy physical shoulder buttons, they definitely look cool, but feel rather hollow and off. That is due to the fact that they are not actual buttons, but simply elevated hollow plastic "pushers" that activate the two existing AirTriggers on the ROG Phone.
So, for all that extra hardware, the TwinView Dock doesn't even give you any extra physical controls to map and play around with. In fact, the whole thing seems like a wasted opportunity to implement some nifty tricks, like experiment with some second screen gaming experiences - an inventory or perhaps a map on that screen would be great.
Failing that, it would have been really cool to see some virtual button and control inputs on the bottom panel. These could potentially be mapped in the same way physical controls get mapped to actions and areas on the main screen. That way you would be able to use the top screen for viewing the game properly while still having all or some of the touch inputs mirrored on the bottom one.
Our Verdict: As it stands, the TwinView Dock is a really chunky and admittedly geeky toy that is not very convenient for anything other than monitoring a chat window while streaming and we can't really recommend buying it.
GAMEVICE
Moving from the incredibly cool-looking and over-engineered TwinView Dock to the GAMEVICE controller feels like a downgrade at first. It looks kind of overly simplistic and frankly, the way it attaches to the ROG Phone, via an expandable elastic band and slide-in grips on both sides could use some extra work to instill more confidence. It constantly feels like you are exerting too much force on the poor Type-X connector whole playing. Still, it is an upgrade over the slide up the latch of the TwinView Dock and the constant scraping of plastic to glass back and metal frame that it requires during insertion and especially removal. Slap on a few soft pads, maybe?
GAMEVICE specs
But, we digress. Back to the GAMEVICE, which, apart from some structural imperfections is actually one of the coolest and most functional accessories available for the ROG Phone. Not to mention the most ergonomic, by far.
This probably has a lot to do with the fact the GAMEVICE is an actual pre-existing product in itself. As such, the company that makes it has obviously put a lot of thought, time and effort optimizing it properly as a comfortable and usable gamepad. The spacing and positioning feels just right.
Now for the really cool part - the GAMEVICE clearly lacks fans, and RGB logo or an extra battery, but what it does have is a set of controls and really good ones at that. All the button feel great, so do the analog sticks. The bottom shoulder controls are even pedal-style inputs that register different pressure levels. Best of all - all of those controls become available to the Key Mapping function within GAME GENIE once the phone is docked.
Better still, Key Mapping has an online repository and can automatically download pre-made keymaps for many games, so most of the time you just have to snap the GAMEVICE on and start dominating. And believe us, you will. The GAMEVICE controls are such a major improvement over touch input that it should be considered cheating. In fact, like we already mentioned in the software section, some games do ban the practice since it is simply so "OP".
Of course, you can also use the GAMEVICE with any Android game that supports standard controller input. In fact, that is what GAMEVICE is usually used like on other phones, which lacks the ROG Phone's amazing key mapping functionality. You can find a convenient list of gamepad-friendly titles on the GAMEVICE website.
Our Verdict: We definitely recommend picking up the GAMEVICE. In fact, if you are only going to get a single extra accessory, it should definitely be this one.
Mobile Desktop Dock
Unlike the TwinView Dock, which looks really flashy and cool, but doesn't quite hold up in terms of usability, the Mobile Desktop Dock finds itself on the polar opposite of that spectrum.
Aside from its bold ROG gamer looks and aggressive lines, it actually looks pretty unimpressive and could easily be disregarded by many who mistake it for a simple way to cast your phone to a bigger screen. Even the ROG logo on the front of it isn't backlit, which is just a missed opportunity in our mind and limits the potential for an unassuming impulse purchase by a member of the ROG fans crowd, who is after some swag.
Mobile Desktop Dock specs
Joking aside, the Mobile Desktop Dock is an impressive piece of kit that works on more than one level. First, there is the obvious - hooking the ROG Phone up to a monitor, along with a mouse and keyboard. That opens up space for a bit of productivity work. Unlike Huawei or Samsung, with their dedicated desktop environments, the ROG Phone doesn't really have any fancy window manager when docked. It does, however, offer a choice between two display modes - mirroring or extending the display.
Mobile Desktop Dock display modes
Extending the display is probably the mode you want to be using most of the time, except for a few gaming scenarios when certain titles simply don't want to cooperate with the extended mode. In TwinView mode, the output matches the native resolution of your monitor and since the Mobile Desktop Dock is equipped with both an HDMI 2.0 port and a Display Port 1.3, you don't have to limit yourself to FullHD, like some of the competing mobile docking solutions. 4K is easily attainable.
While using TwinView mode, you also end up with a slightly tweaked version of the app launcher on the monitor and a fully functional UI on the phone display. This means you can multitask or simply fire up Game Center on the phone while gaming on the monitor to keep an eye out on performance stats.
And since we are on the topic of gaming, this is probably the single game-changing functionality (see what we did there) the Mobile Desktop Dock has to offer since the Asus Key Mapping not only works with gamepads but also with a mouse and keyboard as well. Once you pair those, you get to enjoy the massive advantage of looking around and aiming in any game with unreal precision. Again, the practice has been banned in certain titles for that very reason. Most notably PUBG.
We have to say, we were very surprised at just how well the Key Mapping layer manages to translate mouse movement to presses on a directional know on-screen. Plus, just like with gamepad mapping, you can get pre-made control maps automatically for many games, so you don't have to fiddle about making those yourself.
But, as impressive as this is, we actually think that the Mobile Desktop Dock has a more impressive feature, still. Looking at that abundant I/I closely serves as somewhat of a spoiler. Why the whopping four USB 3.0 ports? Also Gigabit LAN? That simply sounds like overkill for docking a phone. Plus, there are a couple of odd ports on the left side of the unit as well, right next to the full-size SD card reader.
It all becomes rather clear once you realize that the Mobile Desktop Dock is actually a potent and extensible KVM. Yes, a 4K KVM! Well, one of the devices needs to be the phone, but still, anybody familiar with a KVM will know just how much a good 4K one costs and here it is, sitting dormant as part of a mobile phone accessory. Crazy!
If you are wondering what all this means, basically, you can use the dock to "implant" the ROG Phone into your existing PC setup without interrupting it one bit ore having to re-wire things every time you want to dock the phone.
This works by unplugging all your things from the PC and then plugging them into the back of the Mobile Desktop Dock. Don't worry, chances are there are enough ports for everything. Asus was even thoughtful enough to provide a separate microphone 3.5mm jack and make the other one a combo S/PDIF for multi-channel audio output. No compromises at all.
As for the PC, you simply need to route a display cable from it to the side DP of the dock (presumably a gaming PC's existing display connection), along with a USB-A to micro USB 3.0. Yes, that's what that is. Unfortunately, Asus decided to stick with this old connector on the receiving end of the USB connection instead of something newer like Type-C.
The only Type-C connector on the Mobile Desktop Dock is the one on the back intended solely for power. While on the subject, probably our sole complaint about the Mobile Desktop Dock is that there is no power brick included in the box. Instead, you will have to use the one that comes with the ROG Phone.
Anyway, back to that weird USB cable, there is actually a chance you might have one lying around from an old mobile phone. For a time these appeared on certain phones, like the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. If not, the cool and versatile part of the connector is that you can actually make it work using a regular USB Type-A to micro USB connector, plugged in half of the port. Everything will still work, but only at USB 2.0 speeds, which won't do for data transfer, but are fine for plugging a keyboard and mouse.
So, with all that done, you can now simply use your phone and PC interchangeably by pressing the small button on the front of the Mobile Desktop Dock. And that, in a nutshell, is KVM functionality right there and incredibly convenient. When the ROG Phone is docked and you are in PC mode, the phone actually reacts and mounts as an external storage device, which is just an amazing small touch.
Speaking of data transfer, at one time the official specs page for the Mobile Desktop Dock did mention a SATA connection was available on the dock. That mention has since been removed from the website, but we still felt like we had to check. Opening the bottom panel of the Mobile Desktop Dock up (which we do not necessarily recommend since there is a warranty sticker) does reveal a perfectly sized 2.5" bay. Sadly, no SATA connector. We're not going to lie, that would have been an amazing cherry on top of the amazing Mobile Desktop Dock cake.
Our Verdict: Getting the Mobile Desktop Dock is a no-brainer if you have the cash and know what you are getting and intend to make full use of it. The Mobile Desktop Dock simply dwarfs all competing mobile dock solutions in sheer hardware capabilities and functionality.</b>
ASUS Professional Dock
In order to make the ASUS Professional Dock a justifiable purchase you probably have to make proper use of its PC-switching KVM functionality, If that's not the case, then you can definitely save a few bucks and pick up the ASUS Professional Dock instead.
ASUS Professional Dock specs
Anybody already forced to live the "dongle life" due to limited I/O electronics will be familiar with the concept - plug the ASUS Professional Dock into one of the two Type-C ports on the ROG Phone nad you get a couple of USB 3.1 Type-A ports, Gigabit Ethernet and an HDMI out, capable of up to 4K resolutions.
It is definitely a much simpler and limited device than the Mobile Desktop Dock, but it does still provide most of its docking capabilities. That includes Key Mapping support, which was not the case with a couple of third-party Type-C docks we tried on the ROG Phone. Despite having all the same ports, the option never popped-up in Game Genie, so Asus might be protecting their accessory ecosystem a bit here.
Our Verdict: The Professional Dock is also not marketed under the ROG brand and it sports a toned-down, subdued and serious look. It is also less costly. Pick one up only if you intend on using the Key Mapping functionality, which currently seems to be a prerogative of Asus official accessories. If you simply want video out and USB in, there are cheaper third-party options out there.
WiGig Display Dock
Last, but not least, we have the WiGig Display Dock - a wireless display solution with a lot of promise and a focus on interesting tech. Namely, 60GHz WiGig Wi-Fi. This is a wireless data transfer standard that uses a very high spectrum to achieve impressive transfer speeds and even more impressively low latency. Both perfect for playing a game on a bigger display, like a TV or projector from a distance, without ruining the experience with lag.
WiGig Display Dock specs
The tech does have some serious limitations, though. In order for it to work properly and get a decent connection, the sender has to reside within a 120-degree cone in front of the receiver and no more than 5 meters apart from it. So, being in a clear line of sight is definitely necessary.
In fact, in our testing, every cm ended up counting towards a noticeably better experience, mostly in terms of lag and connection stability. Still, if you position yourself just the right distance and angle from the receiver, the end result is pretty impressive. Well, not exactly HDMI connection impressive, but impressive nonetheless.
Some other limitations we personally encountered that are worth noting are the 720p, 60Hz (the phone locks to 60Hz as well) output resolution of the WiGig Display Dock, as well as some hiccups here and there while trying to connect.
We also experienced a few connection drops, so there is work to be done on the connection quality. We also noticed that the ROG Phone got really hot while gaming this way. Probably the 60GHz radio inside the phone is making things quite toasty.
Another rather trivial complaint we have towards the WiGig Display Dock is that it doesn't include an HDMI cable in the box. At least there is a power adapter. But that part is kind of mandated by the fact that the WiGig Display Dock doesn't use a Type-C connection for power.
Speaking of ports, the WiGig Display Dock does have a USB 3.0 on the back. When the ROG Phone connects to the dock that port actually gets mounted to the phone as if it were local. Yes, we are talking wireless USB 3.0!
Unfortunately, we couldn't really think of anything more interesting to plug into that port other than an external HDD. Although to be perfectly frank, that setup is really stupid, since what you are doing is sending raw file data wirelessly from a device that is pretty close to your screen to get decoded and then sent back to the said screen. It would be a lot more sound to just have a device decode that next to the display with a hard-wire display connected to it and then simply control that remotely from across the room.
That ties in pretty well with our verdict for the WiGig Display Dock and whether or not we think it's is worth it.
Our Verdict: While the WiGig Display Dock definitely looks clean next to a TV and the features it provides are kind of futuristic, it is not reliable or versatile enough to actually replace a console or a media player. And even if the kinks in 60GHz get ironed out, this would be a really inefficient way of going about things. We would definitely pass on this one.</b>
In fact, this conclusion is mostly applicable to most of the Asus ROG Phone accessories. Some of them are really cool and functional and definitely fun to play around with, but most lack real day-to-day usability. Alternatively, they suffer from a syndrome rather common among ambitious ecosystem builders - the assumption that the buyer will have absolutely zero pre-existing tech and come in wanting for a one-stop solution for their entire digital lifestyle. That's hardly the reality though. Then again, like we already pointed out on numerous occasions throughout this review, the ROG Phone is more of a concept device, a tech showcase rather than an actual product aimed at any form of end-user popularity and market share. The same applies to its accessories.
Dual camera setup with ultra-wide and OIS
On paper, the camera setup on the ROG Phone looks really impressive. On the back - a 12MP, f/1.8, 24mm wide main camera, with a fairly big 1/2.55", 1.4µm pixel-size sensor. It even has a few bells and whistles at its disposal, like dual pixel PDAF and 4-axis OIS, that actually works surprisingly well. Alongside this - an 8MP, 12mm ultra-wide snapper, with a fixed focus point - perfect for big group shots of all of your friends.
In fact, this camera setup, including the front-facing 8MP, f/2.0 snapper, and the main IMX363 sensor seems to be lifted directly from the Asus Zenfone 5z. Not a promising resemblance as when we reviewed the 5z, we were mostly unimpressed by its camera performance. Unfortunately, the same is true for the ROG Phone, which appears to suffer from the very same shortcomings as its sibling in the camera department.
Before we get to quality, though, it is worth giving out some praise to the Asus camera app. While it does have its shortcomings, like slightly small buttons and controls, a bit chaotic menu structure and no dedicated video viewfinder, it is surprisingly full-featured.
Main camera UI and settings
All the basics appear to be covered, like a choice of focus modes, an optional grid, and a comprehensive resolution selector - one that is also conveniently doubled as a small control in the top left corner of the main UI. It is also worth noting that it is separate from the aspect ratio selector unlike what many manufacturers are doing. There is even 18:9 ratio for photos, which will fill up the display of the ROG Phone nicely without any black borders, if that's what you are after.
It is also worth noting that switching over from one camera to the other, via the convenient toggle next to the shutter button results in a different set of settings within the camera options menu - slightly confusing at first, but convenient once you know what's going on.
Camera Modes
There is also no shortage of camera modes to pay around with. We found super resolution particularly useful, but more on that in a bit.
Pro Mode
Pro mode is really impressively packed with options on the ROG Phone. You basically get all the bells and whistles here. The simulated shutter can go from 1/10000 all the way to 32 seconds. ISO is on a scale from 25 to 3200. Manual focus, white balance, compensation, the works. There is even an histogram in the bottom left corner. Neat!
There are some AI smarts working under the hood as well. That little owl in the top left corner of the display signifies automatic scene detection. Naturally, certain settings get tweaked accordingly when the ROG Phone notices certain conditions. The system isn't exactly as in-depth as some of its competitors, like the one from Huawei, but it is still good enough where it counts - detecting shots with a lot of sky, glares or severe backlight. The phone also knows when it is on a tripod and turns off EIS for video automatically.
Image quality
Photos taken with the ROG Phone's main 12MP camera can only be described as decent. Nothing beyond that really and honestly, not at the level of the competing flagship phones. Now, we will admit that the lighting conditions made our photoshoot with the review unit a bit more challenging.
ROG Phone main camera samples
Even so, the shots came out looking rather dull and a bit cold for our taste. Worse still, however, the ROG Phone seems to have trouble with sharpness all throughout the frame and especially near the corners. Aggressive noise reduction seems to be at least partially to blame.
ROG Phone main camera samples
And even if we look past all that, the shots simply seem to lack fine detail. Plus, dynamic range is pretty limited on the ROG Phone. Most of the shadows tend to get totally crushed. Highlights seem to fare a bit better, on average, but seeing overblown ones is still a fairly common thing.
ROG Phone main camera samples HDR: Off • On • Off • On • Off • On
HDR does help with dynamic range a fair bit. Plus, the camera app does offer an Auto mode for it, which tends to be pretty confident in its recognition algorithms. So, we definitely advise you to just stick to the Auto setting.
ROG Phone main camera samples HDR: Off • On • Auto
The secondary 8MP ultra-wide camera does hold some appeal for its alternative perspective on things. However, it tends to suffer from the same ailments as the main one. General softness in the frame, relatively low detail and pretty limited dynamic range.
ROG Phone ultra-wide camera samples
Again, HDR does help out a bit with the dynamic range part of the equation. Just leave it on Auto and hope for the best.
ROG Phone ultra-wide camera samples HDR: Off • On • Auto • Off • On • Auto
The barrel distortion on the 12mm wide-angle camera is pretty pronounced, but we don't really mind too much since it is part of the effect.
We did mention Super Resolution mode earlier since using it is a somewhat effective way of sharpening up your stills and combating the softness on auto mode 12MP photos. You can get up to about 49MP of not entirely real resolution this way. Although, having said that, it does seem that there is more than simple interpolation going on behind the scenes since Super Resolution shots do appear to have slightly more detail than regular ones. Then again, it might all be in our head.
ROG Phone Super Resolution samples
Another cool extra trick the ROG Phone camera can pull, or at least try to is Portrait mode.
Portrait mode UI
Instead of separating it out in a mode of its own, Asus has decided to leave it as a toggle on the left side of the main interface. That definitely makes getting to it quicker. You can adjust the strength of the effect via a simulated aperture slider and the algorithm seems to rely heavily on facial recognition. So, even though you can have some degree of success with a non-human subject, the results won't be great.
ROG Phone portrait mode samples: Off • Medium • High
And speaking of less than great results, even with good lighting, nice contrasting background, and a human subject, standing perfectly still, the results are mediocre at best. Edge detection is noticeably off most of the time. It appears the ROG Phone is trying to create the effect purely on software, with no depth info from the second camera. We do get that it's a fixed focus, ultra-wide unit, so probably not much help anyway. But even so, we have seen much better pure-software portrait implementations even on cheaper phones.
Before we move on to the selfie camera, as per usual, we took some shots of our in-studio, controlled lighting posters and uploaded them to the extensive photo compare database. You can pixel-peep to your heart's content.
Asus ROG Phone vs. Razer Phone 2 vs. Xiaomi Pocophone F1 in our Photo compare tool
Selfie camera quality
The 8MP, f/2.0 selfie camera is hardly impressive as well. The main issue is that the focus sweet spot seems to be quite shallow, meaning that most of your selfies are likely to end up out of focus.
ROG Phone selfie samples
Portrait mode is available on the selfie side as well. The results are about as good too.
ROG Phone selfie portrait mode samples
Beauty Mode
Beauty Mode is also available and Asus definitely didn't skimp on options either. In fact, there are some nay tweaks to apply that you can end up with some very funny results.
ROG Phone beauty mode samples
Video capture quality
The ROG Phone can capture video at up to 4K@60fps resolution with its main camera. EIS stabilization is also available on every resolution level, which, surprisingly wasn't the case on the Zenfone 5z when we reviewed it. Asus is thus clearly making the most of the capabilities of the Hexagon 685 DPS, inside the Snapdragon 845.
Videos look pretty good in terms of colors and detail. Noise seems to be kept at bay pretty well too. However, the ROG Phone does have a tendency to over-expose a bit and given the relatively limited dynamic range it has to work with, some highlights can get easily lost.
For instance, the sky and mountains seem to almost blend in these samples, leaving little sense of depth in the frame. FullHD resolution maintains pretty decent levels of detail.
Format-wise, everything is pretty standard: AVC video stream and a stereo, 48kHz stereo audio one, inside an MP4 container. Just about 43 Mb/s bit rate at 4K and 20 Mb/s at FullHD.
You can download short untouched samples as well - 2160p/30fps (11s, 57MB), 1080p/30fps (11s, 29MB) and ultra-wide 1080p/30fps (11s, 28MB).
EIS is available at all resolutions and actually seems to be working fairly well.
The 8MP ultra-wide camera can capture video as well. It is capped at FullHD, though. Aside from a vastly different exposure, out ultra-wide samples ended up pretty similar to the 1080p main camera ones. Detail is adequate, so are colors. Only dynamic range standing out as a notable issue.
EIS works on the 8MP ultra-wide camera as well. Using it does crop the frame quite a bit, though, negating some of the benefits of the extra-wide field of view.
Here we have the ROG Phone in our 4K video compare database as well.
2160p: Asus ROG Phone vs. Razer Phone 2 vs. Xiaomi Pocophone F1 in our Video compare tool
Overall, the ROG Phone camera experience is unimpressive on pretty much every level. One notable exclusion being the surprisingly rich feature set and collection of settings the camera app offers.
Beyond that, however, Asus has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to compete with the big boys in the imaging department.
Competition
With an MSRP of $900 the ROG Phone is clearly a luxury device. Then again, the same is true for most gaming gear out there, whether in the PC realm or not. Even so, event the phone's excellent specs sheet in itself, actually constitutes a pretty reasonable value 2018 flagship. And that's before taking into account the ROG Phone's unique nature and feature set, clearly going past the everyday smartphone realm and boldly threading into PC gaming territory.
Like we already mentioned, Asus is quite uniquely positioned to be carrying out such an intriguing hardware and software, for that matter, experiment. However, nothing really happens in isolation. Especially not in a multi million business like the mobile industry, so clearly the time was right for the ROG Phone to come about. It might be a yardstick for most of the gaming aspects it offers, but that doesn't mean its the only gamer-friendly option out there. Nor necessarily the best one.
First and foremost, of course, there are the other "gaming" phones to consider. Unfortunately, not many of those have passed through the office to get our full review treatment. Of those, the Xiaomi Black Shark Helo looks like a pretty close specs match to the ROG Phone. The same is mostly true about the ZTE nubia Red Magic Mars (now that's a mouthful). Well, minus a downgrade to LCD on the latter.
Xiaomi Black Shark Helo • ZTE nubia Red Magic Mars • Razer Phone 2 • Huawei Honor Play
In fact, neither of those really has any "unique" hardware feature going for it. A cool paint job on a regular flagship, but that's about it. That's not the case with the Razer Phone 2 we recently got the pleasure of reviewing. 120Hz variable refresh rate is definitely a different experience. One that actually kind of ruins you for most other displays out there. Really, it's that good. Unfortunately, it's the sole trick the Razer Phone 2 has up its sleeve and it comes at a very high price in battery endurance. Whereas the ROG Phone makes a more reasonable compromise in said department. Not by much, but still more reasonable.
Frankly, we wouldn't really recommend any of these other "gaming" phones over the ROG Phone simply on the grounds of the immense added value package the Asus has in its favour. That being said, if you technically consider the Huawei Honor Play as a "gaming" device, it definitely has the performance per dollar equation stacked in its favour. Sure, it's not nearly as powerful or cool as the ROG Phone, but definitely a more sound investment a arguably a more versatile daily driver.
In fact, this more practical line of thinking opens practically endless possibilities exploring the current flagship phone market. Samsung instantly springs to mind. If nothing else, the Korean giant does currently have an advantage is display tech. That being said, however, we can't necessarily recommend a curved panel for gaming. Multimedia perhaps, but not precise touch input.
Samsung Galaxy Note9 • LG V40 ThinQ • Xiaomi Mi 8 • Google Pixel 3 XL
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro, Sony Xperia XZ3 and Oppo Find X, among other options are clearly excluded from the running, if you decide to agree with out anti-curve logic. The LG V40 ThinQ clears that particular bar, plus is does have a fairly good P-OLED panel - smack in the middle ground, quality-wise, between a good LCD and a Super AMOLED. The rest of the 2018 flagship internals naturally go without saying. However, it does have a notch on its display - another potential off-putting detail for the avid mobile gamers out there. The Xiaomi Mi 8 finds itself in pretty much the same boat, but it does come with a great Super AMOLED panel. And the Pixel 3 XL is an obvious choice for Android purists.
OnePlus 6T • Xiaomi Pocophone F1
Come to think of it, not even the OnePlus 6T and the Xiaomi Pocophone F1 offer up an interrupted, curve-free large display for gaming. And since we're not about to recommend the vivo NEX S, given its very Western-unfriendly OS, it seems we might have to adjust our criteria or alternatively wait out the notch fad.
Verdict
In all seriousness, though, any of these flagships would be a stellar choice for mobile gaming. Of course, since nobody is likely to pick up a smartphone just for gaming and nothing else, there are many other factors and small bits and pieces, differences and variations, strengths and weaknesses to consider when choosing from the flagship pack.
As far as the "gaming" metric is concerned, though, nothing out there is currently on the level of the ROG Phone. It really does set a bar for what can be achieved in this emerging niche of the mobile market.
Pros
- Unique look and amazing build quality.
- Lavish packaging with plenty of added value, including a versatile 30W wall charger, nice Type-C to Type-C cable and the Asus fan attachment
- The Asus ROG Aura RGB logo implementation offers plenty of options and is arguably more versatile than the competing Razer Phone solution.
- The specialized docking connector is very well engineered, combining a standard Type-C interface in the mix, which opens up to room for many interesting connectivity use cases.
- The Air triggers are a rather unique hardware control that works incredibly well thanks to ultrasonic sensors and the ROG Phone's excellent taptic engine.
- The ROG Phone is fully decked-out when it comes to connectivity. It even supports the 802.11ad 60GHz standard and makes good use for it with the wireless dock accessory.
- It is really rare to see a high refresh rate OLED. And 90Hz do make a noticeable difference in the smoothness of the ROG Phone. The panel is also very color-rich. Brightness and contrast are pretty good and sunlight legibility is stellar.
- The ROG Phone scored a solid battery endurance rating of 78 hours in 60Hz mode and 69 hours in 90Hz. High refresh rate definitely takes its toll, but it is a fairly reasonable trade-off ta nake for the improved experience. Charging is pretty snappy with the included charger.
- The two front-facing stereo loudspeakers are powerful and very crisp. The bundled in-depth equalizer enhances the experience even further.
- Audio output is really great in quality with almost no noise and stereo crosstalk. THe only issue we have here is that there is no apparent way to turn off the equalizers completely, so you are stuck with whatever profile the software and guided setup deem best suited for your headphones or speakers.
- The ROG Phone is an excellent performer and currently pushes the limits to what is possible with the Snapdragon 845, a little overclock and lots of software optimization.
- The AeroActive Cooler included in the box does make a difference and keeps the CPU for thermal-throttling a bit longer. Plus, it keeps your hands and the surface of the phone nice, cool and comfortable.
Cons
- Even in this arguably subdued form, the "gamer" aesthetic is not for everyone and doesn't really fly under the radar.
- The fingerprint reader is poorly positioned and offset, also it's shape and small size make it hard to use. Plus it is rather slow, compared to contemporary competitors.
- The power button and volume rockers are too thin and very mushy.
- There is no expandable storage. Although Asus does offer a 512GB model, if you need the xtra space.
- Despite its numerous other benefits, the display on the ROG Phone is not very color accurate. It doesn't really get overly bright either.
Still, a smartphone nowadays, especially a flagship you invest a lot of money into has to click on multiple levels. For most of us it's an electronic multi-tool. The one piece of tech that is always there, has to be dependable, reliable and versatile enough and often end up to be deeply personal. Since we found little to no issue with the ROG Phone in terms of quality, build, reliability and its versatility is practically through the roof, we can definitely see it receiving all the love, fut only within the right crowd.
And that's a rather major "if" right there. The ROG Phone is clearly a different and highly unconventional beast with a lot of very particular strong-suits and innovations and its equal share of compromises as a daily-driver. If you are willing to live with its occasional quirk, flawed camera experience and are the type of person who enjoys the gamer aesthetic and is in the right circles to flaunt that around with pride, then look no further than the ROG Phone for the ultimate "gaming" phone the market currently has to offer.
On the other hand, if you simply took a liking to the odd Asus device for any of its particular features, extras, but are still looking for a conventional daily-driver and note necessarily a "gaming" phone, then we would advise you to look elsewhere. The ROG Phone is first generation product and a tech showcase in every sense of the word and one aimed at a very niche and still emerging market, at that. It's definitely a glimpse into a great potential future mobile branch, but it still needs some work to earn an all-round recommendation.
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