Everything you need to know about Asus’ ROG Phone 3

Asus’ ROG Phone 3 is a new flagship phone built specifically for gaming. ROG Phone 3 is the third flagship gaming smartphone in the series after ROG Phone 2’s release in 2019 and ROG Phone 1’s release in 2018. The phone comes equipped with a powerful Snapdragon 865+ chipset that is highly capable handling any type of task.

Let’s take a look at the basic specifications:

The phone comes with a Kryo 585 64 bit octa-core processor and a Qualcomm Adreno 650 GPU.

It has a 6.59-inch screen panel made up of Corning Gorilla Glass 6, with Glass 3 back and an aluminium frame that looks sturdy and durable. The FHD AMOLED display supports up to 144 hz refresh rate.

In India, the phone is available in 2 variants, the 8GB+128GB and the 12GB+256GB. The memory used is LPDDR5 while the storage uses UFS  3.1 technology, which allows the phone to retrieve data as fast as 2900 MB/s.

The dual front facing stereo speakers have good sound imaging, helpful when playing competitive games without headphones.

ROG used Sony’s flagship IMX686 64 MP image sensor and a 24 MP front camera that is quite good and captures minute details. You can record up to 8K resolution videos at 30 FPS and 4K videos at 60 FPS

If you are an advanced user and want to capture video with a specific setting, you can use the PRO Video Mode.

Whether you use your smartphone only for gaming or extensively for all kinds of task, the strong, durable 6000 mAh battery ensures that you never run out of power.

Just to show you how insane the battery is, The Samsung Galaxy Note10+ comes with a 4300 mAh battery, while the iPhone 11 Pro Max has a 3969 mAh battery.

The phone supports all network bands and also supports 5G in both SIM slots.

Some interesting features:

The phone is incredibly fast with up to 25ms touch response and 18ms slide response. Also, it has a 270hz touch sampling rate. The UFS 3.1 storage also helps the phone load data into the memory faster, making the phone very responsive and smooth.

ROG3 comes with a side mounting USB port that provides great convenience when you’re using the phone for gaming, but also want to charge up the device while at it.

Air Triggers 3 are really useful for someone who always faces the problem of tapping the wrong button while playing fast paced games like Asphalt and COD Mobile. The air triggers can be customized to perform different functions in-game. They can also be used out of the game to launch specific apps or perform certain actions.

You can also monitor your device’s heat and amount of resources allocated to a game in ROG Phone 3. If you turn on the X Mode, it will clear the background tasks and free up memory (RAM) to improve battery life and performance while you are gaming. For customization, you can also make custom profiles for each game you have installed.

Allows user to make custom profiles for each game.

There’s a hidden 160hz mode available. Yes, that’s right. The refresh rate on the ROG Phone 3 can go as high as 160hz. ROG Phone 3 is using a 160hz display panel that’s capped at 140hz. You can unlock the 160hz display by setting up Android Debug Bridge and running some commands. But, it’s probably not stable and is an unfinished display mode that Asus didn’t have enough time to work on. Asus might unlock the mode in future software updates, but until then we recommend not taking the risk.

Asus has really put some effort into cooling and it’s not just decorative back panels this time around. Thanks to the large heat sink and the large graphite cooling pads, the ROG Phone 3 doesn’t heat much. Surely, lesser than its predecessor, the ROG Phone 2. The large vapour chamber is also covered with a lot of copper tape.

Also, there’s AeroActive Cooler 3 (an optional accessory), that Asus claims, helps keep the temperature even lower. But, the AeroActive Cooler 3 doesn’t come with a heatsink or a thermo-electric cooler. There’s just a single tiny fan to cool the device, the fan is super fragile and flimsy. It isn’t really useful. There’s not even any other cooling mechanism in the AeroActive Cooler 3, apart from the simple fan.

The only 2 positives with the accessory is RGB on it and the 3.1 mm audio jack. You can also use the dongle connector that comes inside the box for the audio jack, so that’s leaves us with just one positive.

The phone has built-in Quad Microphones with Asus’ Noise Reduction Technology. The 4 smartly placed microphones help you to seamlessly talk in-game.

The phone also has 4 WiFi antennas which enable the phone to receive signals from any direction and provides an overall stronger connection.

Just like every ROG product, you can use the built-in Armoury Crate application that lets you monitor and customize your device. The armoury crate not only helps to better customize the experience, but also suggest applications and games that support the phone’s unique features. For instance, games that support 120 /144 hz.

There’s an interesting little feature called the Hyperfusion Network Bridging which intelligently bridge your mobile network with your WiFi to provide a stable optimized internet connection. This helps you enjoy your games, even with a poor and unstable connection.

The ROG logo with the gimmicky RGB lighting complements the gaming centric phone and gives a premium feel.

Most users don’t know that the phone uses passthrough charging, which lets users set the charging limit to 80% or 90%, after which the phone starts drawing power directly from the charger instead of the battery.  This feature helps to extend the battery lifespan. Also the phone does not need to be continuously charged and heats less when you are gaming with a charger plugged in.

Some flaws we noticed,

The Phone doesn’t have an IP Rating, which won’t be a big problem for most. Still, it means, the phone might be vulnerable to the intrusion of foreign objects and dust or water. Even though there’s no IP rating, the bottom speaker is covered with water resistant mesh, but the same cannot be said for the charging port.

The phone doesn’t have a dedicated 3.5mm audio socket/port. Although the world in moving towards wireless technology, some users prefer the option of having a dedicated audio port. Also, using the type C connector for headphones is not really convenient compared to using a direct dedicated audio port.

The phone doesn’t support a MicroSD card. Even though the storage space is enough to house 100s of apps, it would’ve been better if the storage was expandable.

The Camera is not the best, but an upgrade compared with ROG Phone 2. Not much of a problem for gamers, which is the target audience for this device.

Note: If you use your phone for photography and expect really detailed and vibrant pictures out of your phone’s camera, this might not be the phone for you.

Our Take:

This is one of the, if not the most powerful gaming smartphones in India, the high end hardware specs ensure that the phone is capable of handling every game with ease.

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