Asus ROG Phone review: More than a flagship smartphone

X Mode

Asus has created a new profile to enhance the gaming performance of the ROG Phone, called X Mode. X Mode is similar to the game-boost mode, which is generally found on other smartphones, which free-up the CPU, GPU, and RAM and channelize everything to the game or app that is opened at the time.

I ran a couple of benchmarks with X Mode turned on, and there was a slight improvement in the overall performance of the device, with respect to CPU and CPU. However, I did not notice any kind of difference while playing graphics intensive games like Asphalt 9, Critical Ops, and PUBG.

AeroActive Cooler, which comes in the retail package does help the device to cool-down faster while playing games. However, as the AeroActive Cooler has a fan, it does consume a bit of a battery.

Geekbench

Here are the Geekbench results with X Mode and without X Mode. On single core CPU performance, the device scores 2531 on X Mode and 2483 points on normal mode.

AnTuTu

Here are the AnTuTu results with x Mode and without X Mode. The ROG Phone scores an overall score of 254695 points on X Mode and 252504 points on normal mode. With respect to GPU performance, the devices score 126122 points on X Mode and 126061 points on normal mode.

The Asus ROG Phone, without a doubt, can play any Android game with flying colors. However, most of the Android games offer 30fps, and Critical Ops was the only game that provides 90fps performance for utilizing the true 90Hz refresh rate display on the ROG Phone.

Battery

The ROG Phone has a massive 4000 mAh battery. The speed binned Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 does impact the battery performance, where I ended up charging the device at least twice a day with normal usage (surfing web, YouTube, and social media).

Battery life should not be an issue on the ROG Phone, as the device supports super-fast 30w fast charging, which can refuel the battery from 0 to 100% in less than 80 minutes. Playing games and running CPU intensive apps does not impact the charging speed, which is again a highlight of the smartphone.

What’s missing?

Keeping aside the gaming-phone concept, the Asus ROG Phone is a perfect flagship smartphone. IPX4 water-resistance certification, super-fast charging, 3.5mm headphone jack with a dedicated DAC, faster chipset with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage are just some of the highlight features of the smartphone.

However, the smartphone misses out of some of the features, which could have made the Asus ROG Phone, the best Android smartphone. Here are some of the features that I would like to see in the next generation ROG Phone.

microSD card slot
Up to date Android OS (still running on Android 8.1 Oreo)
Improved camera performance
Improved battery life

Verdict

A gaming smartphone powered by Android OS cannot get better than the ROG Phone at this point. It has the fastest chipset (at the time of launch), one of a kind OLED display with 90Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time. The smartphone ships with AeroActive cooling add-on, which helps to sustain peak performance for an extended period of time.

Though the ROG Phone is a perfect gaming smartphone, there are no games on Android eco-system, which can take benefit of the state-of-the-art hardware specs that the ROG Phone offers. Yes, at this point of time, the ROG Phone is one of the fastest smartphones in the market, and this equation is going to change in the next few weeks, especially after the launch of smartphones with Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC, which offers better performance and battery life compared to Snapdragon 845 SoC.

Asus ROG Phone is for those, who require the absolute performance, a dynamic design, and a bunch of other features which no smartphone offers. However, if you are looking for a smartphone that just performs like the ROG Phone (95%), then smartphones like Poco F1 and even the Asus ZenFone 5z seems like the right choice.

Asus ROG Phone is a no-compromise gaming smartphone. Go for the ROG Phone for the absolute performance.