Following in Razer's footsteps, ASUS has announced the ROG
Phone, it's first "gaming phone". It may be a phone but it sure looks
different than smartphone we've seen.
Apart from having a
USB-C port and a headphone jack at the bottom, the phone also has an accessory
port on the left in the center. The side port can be used for charging while
gaming so the cable doesn't interfere with your hand. The headphone jack
supports 24-bit/192Khz Hi-Res Audio playback and DTS Headphone:X.
The phone has three
ultrasonic pressure sensitive zones. One is on the side like on HTC phones,
which can be squeezed to activate the "X MODE", which optimizes
performance by shutting down background tasks and turning the theme red. It
also activates the fan on the optional AeroActive Cooler accessory, which also
includes a USB-C port and a headphone jack that comes out the left side of the
phone so they don't interfere with your hands on the bottom edge. The other two
are on the two corners in landscape mode. These are called
"AirTrigger" and work as virtual trigger buttons in games. You can
map them to any function within the game as long as it is supported.
Internally, the phone
packs a special, binned version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, which clocks up
to 2.96GHz instead of the usual 2.8GHz. It is paired with 8GB of RAM and a
choice of either 128GB or 512GB of storage. A "GameCool" vapor-chamber
is included to pull the heat away from the chipset and distribute it along the
phone. The phone also includes 802.11ad Wi-Fi, which is still quite rare. The
battery is a sizable 4000mAh with ASUS "HyperCharge" 20W fast
charging.
The display is likely
the star attraction. It's a 6-inch, 18:9 AMOLED panel with a resolution of
2160x1080. Most importantly, the panel refreshes at 90Hz and has a response
time of 1ms. ASUS also claims HDR support and 108.6% DCI-P3 coverage.
The accessory support
is quite extensive. Apart from the aforementioned AeroActive Cooler, there is
the Gamevice controller, which attaches to either side of the phone. It
includes a WiGig Dock for streaming the game on to a big screen over the fast
802.11ad connection. There's also a dock for connecting the phone to
accessories like a keyboard, mouse and monitor. Lastly, there is the TwinView
Dock, which has a clamshell design. The phone goes into the top part and the
bottom part has a second 6-inch, 1080p display. The accessory also has its own
6000mAh battery.
The price hasn't been
announced yet but the device will go on sale some time in the third quarter.
Now, there's no doubt the phone is impressively specced, even if you don't plan
on playing any game. However, the whole gamer aesthetic and silly brandings are
as kitsch as they get. Secondly, the gaming scene on Android isn't exactly
exploding, with most of the games on the store being of the casual kind that
won't benefit from the various controller accessories in anyway. The more
challenging titles are few and far between and also don't need a powerhouse
device to run. Most of the titles also don't run above 60Hz as we saw with the Razer
Phone, so the 90Hz refresh rate will only really be useful while navigating the
phone's menus.
Lastly, it's likely
none of this is going to be cheap, so the whole value proposition is already
out the window. And having a whole ecosystem of accessories around one phone
has never really worked well. There is no guarantee these will be compatible
with future ASUS ROG phones or if there even will be any future ROG phones. So to
expect people to drop a considerable amount of money on these with no guarantee
for the future seems not so price worthy.
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