ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro: Sleeker Gaming Phone, But Still Plenty Of Power

Taiwanese consumer brand ASUS’s ROG (Republic of Gamers) line of phones have always been one of the most spec’ed out, maximal phone offerings around. But while in previous years the device had a very flashy (some might say gaudy) look to go with all the extreme specs, this year’s ROG Phone 8 Pro has an understated look that in my opinion is much welcomed. The ROG Phone 8 Pro is still a gaming phone, with more RAM, cooling components and hardware/software features than just about any phone in the world. It’s still got a flashy lighting on its backside (seemingly a must for gaming phones) and touch-sensitive shoulder trigger buttons, but the phone is also thinner (8.9mm and 225g) than before. The slimming down is impressive, considering the phone did not lose any feature from past generations, in fact it even gained IP68 water and dust resistance, the first in a gaming phone.

Most fun unboxing experience

One of the things about the ROG Phone series is ASUS always makes the unboxing experience fun. This year’s package comes in a tub like box that houses the phone and components like a clip on fan named the AeroActive X.

The box isn’t just for looks: it is part of a mini game that starts up at the first bootup. You can skip all this if you want, but if you are the type who wants to skip this part, this phone isn’t for you. It’s hard to describe in words, so I made a video on the unboxing and minigame experience.

Specs, specs and specs

The ROG Phone 8 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and paired with 16 or 24GB of RAM. The latter is more RAM than most laptops. The display is a 6.8-inch OLED using Samsung’s E6 panels, and it has a peak refresh rate of 165Hz. The bezels around the phone are thinner, so the selfie camera has moved to being part of the screen, with a hole-punch. This has annoyed some gamers, but I don’t mind much. The front-facing speakers still sound surprisingly good despite the smaller bezels. There’s a 5,500 mAh battery that can be charged wired or wirelessly, and the ROG Phone 2 includes two USB-C ports (one for charging conventionally, and the other for easier charging when the phone is held sideways in gaming mode).

On the right side of the phone (or the top when you’re holding it sideways) are two touch sensitive panels that serve as shoulder trigger buttons. This is very useful for playing many mobile games, especially first-person shooters.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is already a very powerful and efficient chip, but ASUS has made extra hardware bits to ensure it performs at the highest level. There’s the aforementioned clip-on fan, that doubles as a kickstand.

This provides external cooling. But the phone also has several layers of cooling sheets inside, including two layers of graphite sheet, vapor chamber, and other components. In fact, ASUS said it carved a small hole in one of the graphite sheets into which the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip could go. This way, the silicon is actively being surrounded by cooling elements.

It is here I must confess that I am not a serious mobile gamer—I don’t do enough to really push the phone to the limits that gamers would. But I did try my best to play PUBG and Real Racing, both are graphically intensive games, and the ROG Phone 8 Pro was able to sustain a peak framerate throughout. Benchmark numbers are through the roof, of course.

The phone has a host of software features that aid the gaming experience, like customizable actions for shoulder buttons, and an X Mode that allocates all of the phone’s resources to gaming, so you don’t have annoying non-gaming apps like WeChat taking up space in the back.

The aforementioned lighting strip 0n the back is discreet—when it’s not on, you just see a normal back plate. But when it lights up, you get a cool dot-matrix light show. This light strip can be customized to show various graphics or words. One little touch I love is when you charge the phone, the light shows the battery percentage.

The ROG Phone 8 Pro got improved optics, too: the main camera is a Sony IMX890 sensor with a 1/1.5-inch image sensor and 50-megapixel resolution. This is also supported by a miniature gimbal similar to ASUS’ ZenFone series. The telephoto lens got bumped up to a 32MP 3X lens.

From my testing, the cameras are definitely improved over previous ROG Phones, and very good for a gaming phone.

Battery life is hard to gauge, because as a normal phone, it’s an endurance beast, but if you are a heavy gamer, then the battery will drain, so it really depends on your usage.

The ROG Phone 8 Pro is overall a very powerful phone for gamers. However, it’s starting price of $1,200 is not cheap. But this includes the entire package shown here including the fan, so I think for people who will make use of the fan and gaming tools, the price is reasonable. The ROG Phone 8 Pro isn’t for mainstream consumers, but for a select group.