- Analysis by KJ David
A premium-caliber smartphone infused with Asus's ROG (Republic of Gamers) gaming DNA, the Asus ROG Phone serves as the brand's answer to other gaming heavyweights like the Razer Phone and the Xiaomi Black Shark, incidentally challenging most of the best phablets as of this Phonerated pros-and-cons review. Having said that, we found a few things in this 200g-heavy 
Android's specs list rather off-putting, one of which is its 2160 x 1080 (FHD screen resolution , which makes it sound modest, compared to the 1440p (QHD/QHD resolutions boasted by some of its closest competitors. Other than that, its 6-inch AMOLED display, which comes with a PC-esque 90Hz refresh rate 
, support for HDR visual content , and a 1ms response time, winds up as a solid selling point.
Another thing we found slightly discouraging is its 8-megapixel-only front-facing camera , although selfie-snapping is not exactly a priority for gaming smartphones itself. On the contrary, its rear camera, which is a dual-lens system composed of a 12-megapixel main cam and an 8-megapixel 120-wide-angle sub-cam , safely lines up with those of the best photography smartphones when it came out.
Looking past the aforementioned pros and cons, the ROG Phone's strongest features can be found under the hood. These include a specially-binned version (Asus worked with Qualcomm to beef up the 2.8GHz stock chip) of the Snapdragon 845 eight-core processor, this time running at a blazing 2.96GHz , making it almost 200MHz faster than the standard version. This also makes it one of the fastest smartphones to date.
Like most other smartphones that can be classified as elite when it comes to hardware, this Asus model boasts a whopping 8GB LPDDR4X RAM (Get to know other premium 8GB-RAM phones here), while supporting its forenamed CPU with a high-octane Qualcomm Adreno 630 graphics processor .
To accentuate its gaming capabilities, the ROG Phone introduces AirTriggers , which are programmable ultrasonic sensors that basically transform the phone into a console joystick. It also comes with a vapor-chamber GameCool cooling system and it can be used with a bunch of optional gaming-focused accessories, such as a mobile desktop dock or Asus's Gamevice extension.
Despite lacking a microSD card slot , this ROG-imbued Android has no shortage of app and multimedia storage space, boasting 512GB's worth of native UFS 2.1 memory (A 128GB-only variant is also offered). Moreover, its pros and cons are aptly powered by a 40000mAh battery bedecked with Asus's HyperCharge technology as well as an AI-aided battery management suite .
With dual NXP-9874-amplified speakers and a three-microphone solution topping off its features, it's pretty clear that the Asus ROG Phone is tailored to hardcore gamers who want to play as much on their phones as on their PCs or console systems.
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