Whenever mobile gaming is on the topic it’s impossible not to remember the Asus ROG Phone series, with its new model on the market, it has got the gamer’s hold. It looks sleek yet eye-catching with its customizable RGB lighting design, appearing cool in its variant Phantom black, and an improved camera. But is the new ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro the ultimate gaming phone? Let’s find out.
Built & Design
The Asus ROG phone series is known for its captivating designs, gaming-inspired details, and easy-to-customize features, this year it feels the ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro has dropped down a notch with its exceptional hardware components it is trying to fit in with other flagships. The new design has no such out-of-the-ordinary look, there is a stripe design, lighting on the rear side with its logo, a few texts scattered around, and a programmable mini LED matrix using the AniMe Vision which helps you create personal animations. The back contains an aluminum frame with gorilla glass protection. It is light-weighted and smaller than its predecessors. Also its trademark side type-c port is back, to make your gaming experience smoother as you can plug in your charger and accessories easily, it supports the display port 1.4 for video output to your monitor to help you stream. Now, we have a rating of IP68 for the ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro you can submerge it in the water voluntarily or not. The new design may not impress you but it compensates with wireless charging, a better camera, and waterproof protection.
Display & Features
The Asus ROG Phone 8 contains a screen size of 6.78 inches, with an LTPO AMOLED Panel, a 1080p resolution, and a refresh rate of 165Hz. The frame of this phone is slender with a waterdrop-like notch camera, it also lets go of the LED notification and switches it with the virtual notification indicator, which highlights the notification at the corner. The display had around 828 nits of brightness (manual), and around 1700 nits of brightness (auto-mode). The screen has good contrast, sharpness, and a decent color accuracy supporting HDR 10+ for video content. The Delta E>1, out-of-the-box color calibration gives an accurate color profile and produces superb colors in the display.
Hardware
The ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro when compared with last year’s model ROG Phone 7, the stereo speakers are not facing at the front, and the loudness and bass also seem low. But its degradation is limited given that the result is decent. The optical under-display fingerprint reader is present, it would have been better if there was an ultrasonic sensor. The AirTriggers have again been inserted in this phone with its motion controls like before but the sensors are no longer ultrasonic, it identifies taps but cannot recognize slides, swipes, or long presses, thus making it moderate. The ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro uses the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with a 3.3 GHz clock speed. The CPU is 30% faster than the previous gen. The RAM is overclocked with a transfer speed of 8533 Mbps, it’s LPDDR5 RAM with up to 256 GB UFS 4.0 ROM. The processor handles all the intensive gaming for a longer duration without any fan strutting.
Camera
The ROG Phone 8 Pro is equipped with 3 camera lenses on the back including a 50 MP main lens with PDAF, gimbal OIS, a 32 MP telephoto, PDAF, OIS, 3x optical zoom, and 13 MP 120˚ ultrawide lens.
The photos captured by ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro’s main camera are of fair quality and do the job, it may not be perfect as a few elements in the photo don’t produce proper foliage. The contrast is not up to the mark. The portrait shots are good with details capturing the natural colors. The night photos captured are good in color and detail but missing sharpness and noise are observed in darker areas. The 4k 30fps videos are good and detailed. The EIS does smooth out the normal movement but the Super Hyper steady smoothens the whole movement and creates amazing stable video, although it is limited to 1080p resolution. The night mode videos are good, and the lens captures proper dynamic range colors and shadows. It also captures proper light from all light sources.
The 3x telephoto camera compared to the main camera captures proper sharpness, details, and dynamic range colors with warmer tones. The low-light photography comes out dark, with a warmer tone but with amazing details. No changes were observed in the night mode photography by telephoto lens and results are the same as auto mode. The telephoto camera captures 1080p at 30 fps with a warmer tone and has plenty of details, just like its photos.
The Ultrawide camera captures plenty of details, low contrast, and sharp corners and the color level matches the main camera. The night mode photos are detailed and less noise is observed than the telephoto camera. The manual night mode adds up little brightness and exposure which is ok. The ultrawide camera captures video at 4k 30 fps with a low level of detail and softer edges. The ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro has moderate performance and the camera follows similar trends as their previous generation.
The Selfie camera is 32 MP and captures photos in true skin tone and plenty of details.
Battery
The battery life has been reduced in the ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro it optimizes 5500 mAh with a 65 W charger, but it still performed well and gave stiff competition to the Asus ROG Phone 7, it took half an hour to charge up to 78%, and 45 minutes for a full charge. It also supports wireless charging at 15 W.
Gaming review
The ROG phone is equipped with tons of software integration for games. The AI-enabled software gives you a proper immersive experience. A few of these highlighted AI software for gaming that come in handy are
1. X Sense 2.0 The X Sense software helps you collect important items, detects key events, and helps in continuing conversation increasing your chances of being a perfect hero in the game. All this prowess by X Sense 2.0 is done by its pattern recognition AI.
2. X – Capture The X- Capture is a fantastic AI-powered tool that automatically captures your important in-game achievements (like slaying a boss or keeping a winning streak) so that you can later show it to your gamer friends.
3. Background Mode The background mode helps you to continue gaming in auto mode without pausing or killing the game in the background. So if you start the game again it will launch from the same stage with auto mode previously slaying enemies for you.
4. AI Grabber Imagine you are stuck in an in-game quest and don’t know where to look or are facing a hard choice that may change the game’s ending or alter your gameplay, in this crunchy situation the AI Grabber grabs relevant keywords to search it on the internet and get a better result.
5. Vibration Mapping – Vibration Mapping helps you set different levels of haptic feedback and map it on-screen options too. You can map light vibration for light attraction and strong vibration for heavy attack.
6. Microsoft Phone link – The phone links help you integrate with Windows computers and you can access all your phone data from a PC too.
All AI-integrated software helps ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro perform off the chart, it breaks all the benchmark records and gives sustained performance throughout the gaming session. The Aero cooler helps it thermally controlled and peak performance is delivered constantly.
The Asus ROG phone series is known for its striking accessories, the AeroActive Cooler X helps in managing the thermals of the phone. The AeroActive Cooler has Type-C and a 3.5 mm audio jack, it attaches to the phone’s back and controls the thermals.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
| Peak gaming and everyday performance. | Very Expensive |
| Gaming accessories and AI-integrated software for long and excellent gaming sessions | It caters to gamers, not all-rounder users |
| High refresh rate 165Hz with HDR10+ Display | Camera quality is mediocre better camera quality is available in lower price range phone |
| Strong hardware in audio, battery, and storage for no compromise gaming and peak performance delivery | Air-trigger capacitance is now less responsive. |
Conclusion
The ASUS ROG Phone 8 Pro is more streamlined and compact than its predecessor and more optimized and fast-performing hardware. The AI-integrated software enhances your gameplay and performance. It is breaking all the performance and benchmark records set by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and performance is off the charts. So, if you are looking for a gaming phone that delivers not stop constant performance then your search ends here. There are a few ifs and buts here in Camera performance, air triggers underperformance, and price but if you are not an everyday user, then this phone is for you. For gamers, it’s an ideal choice to go with.
