Asus ROG Phone II
Price: £829 from fave.co/2nc9nSk
The gaming phone market barely existed a couple of years ago. Now, it’s exploded into not only one of the fastest growing areas of the market but also one that’s driving some of the biggest technical advances. So it is with the Asus ROG Phone II – the first phone to feature the souped up Snapdragon 855+ processor, and a 6,000mAh battery.
Performance
On paper, it has a credible claim to being the fastest and most powerful smartphone in existence. In
addition to having 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, it comes with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855+ processor. This is an improved version of the company’s flagship chip and boosts CPU performance by a slender 4 percent and GPU speeds by a much meatier 15 percent.
To the average phone user that won’t mean much, or even be noticeable in day-to-day usage. If, however, you’re throwing some serious games at it day-in, day-out, then that extra performance will start to add up in frames per second. It helps that with solid cooling (and an optional fan accessory) there should be no need for throttling performance even at high loads.
You can see how the ROG Phone II compares with its predecessor and key rivals, including the Razer Phone II and Red Magic 3, in our benchmarks overleaf. It’s tight at the top, but Asus’s latest offering smashes it out the park by coming top in every single test.
Display
You’ll need every frame you can get, too, if you want to make the most of the 6.59in AMOLED display, which has a 120Hz refresh rate – up from 90Hz in the original ROG Phone. This means silky smooth navigation and scrolling, and even smoother performance in, for example, MOBA games, where the high refresh rate tends to pay dividends.
Note that the screen is set to 60Hz by default, so you’ll need to head into the settings to change it – 90Hz is also an option if you want a halfway house.
At 19.5:9, the display is taller and thinner than its predecessor – in line with most other flagship phones these days – and there’s HDR10 support too, which means great contrast and bright, punchy colours. Plus, it’s coated in Gorilla Glass 6, so it shouldn’t break easily either. Asus says the display can reach a whopping 600 nits, and in our tests we found maximum brightness to be an impressive 587, which is more than double that of most other phones. You will have little trouble seeing what’s on the screen even in tricky lighting conditions.
Battery
All of that power means serious power drain, of course, which is where the impressive 6,000mAh
battery comes in. It’s one of the biggest we’ve ever seen in anything close to a mainstream phone, and when you factor in the Asus’s 30-watt fast charging (Quick Charge 4.0), this is undoubtedly one of the best phones on the market – gaming or otherwise – from a power perspective.
If you don’t play any games, it has the potential to last three or maybe even four days. If you do, then you’ll have more then enough power to last a long session. In our Geekbench 4 battery test, it lasted a massive 12 hours and 56 minutes – the longest we’ve seen to date. Just as impressive is the fact that it charged a whopping 44 percent in 30 minutes from dead despite the size of the battery.
The ROG Phone II can also reverse charge if you have another handset that needs topping up. The only feature missing here is wireless charging.
Cameras
Photography is usually one of the weakest points of gaming phones. Here, though, Asus has included a 48Mp primary lens (f/1.8 lens at 26mm), backed up by a 13Mp ultra-wide angle shooter (f/2.4 and 125 degrees), and powered by Sony’s IMX586 sensor.
The main camera offers what Asus calls ‘Quad Bayer’ technology, which is says allows you to “capture the best photos, day or night”. In our tests, we found it took some excellent shots, with lots of detail and next to no noise. The wide-angle lens was also able to fit a lot into the frame without too much distortion. There’s a 2x button in the camera app, but it’s just a cropped image, not an actual telephoto lens.
Both HDR+ Auto and HDR+ Enhanced modes yielded good results and you can choose which you prefer. There’s no need to turn HDR off, though. You also get options, including Pro and Portrait modes – the latter is okay, but we sometimes found that parts of our test images appeared blurred due to the phone using the wide-angle lens for depth sensing.
Low light images are about average with a Night mode helping out, but it’s not as good as some of the non-gaming flagships out there.
There isn’t a fancy flip around camera like on Asus’s ZenFone 6, though the selfie shooter is no slouch. It’s 24Mp (f/2.2), takes reasonable photos and will suffice for 1080p streaming if you need. Overall, then, it can’t beat some of the top flagships in the overall phone
market, but in the gaming phone sector it’s easily the best we’ve tested to date.
Design
Of course, all that tech makes the ROG Phone II a big beast. It’s not unreasonably massive, though at 240g it’s certainly heavy (even a hefty handset is under 200g), and the 6.59in screen is complemented by bezels at the top and bottom that make it even larger than those specs might suggest.
The design is broadly similar to that of the first ROG Phone – think lots of jagged lines and angular cut-outs – but feels subtly refined, and the taller, slimmer design suits the aggressive aesthetic well. It will appeal to gamers, including the exposed copper, which is part of the cooling system.
One of the main differences from its predecessor is the lack of a fingerprint scanner – it’s now embedded into the display. Sadly, we found this to be unreliable, though the face unlock works well.
There’s still space for the double USB-C port on the side, which Asus uses to power its accessories (more on these later), along with a 3.5mm headphone jack for audio. The front-facing speakers with DTS:X Ultra support sound good whether you’re plugged in or not, and overall the phone’s audio quality and sound stage is astonishing.
As with its predecessor, the side port is protected by a small rubber piece that you’ll no doubt lose. Asus includes two spares in the box, though.
It wouldn’t be a gaming device without RGB lighting, and once again the ROG logo on the back
of the device can glow, pulse, flash or just turn off entirely, according to your mood. You can also set different effects based on whether the screen is on or off, whether the souped up X Mode is on or not, or for incoming calls or notifications.
Included in the box is an ‘Aero Case’, which offers a skeletal design to combine protection without restricting cooling. It mostly protects the corners and should help in the event of a drop, plus can be used with the AeroActive Cooler 2 or TwinView Dock 2.
Accessories
Asus hasn’t focused all of its attention on the handset itself, though. The original ROG Phone shipped with a few optional accessories, and this time around the ante has been upped even further.
The clip-on fan – the AeroActive Cooler II – makes a return, but this time it’s quieter, and doubles as a handy kickstand if you need it to. That is, however, only the beginning. The Kunai gamepad takes a few cues from the Nintendo Switch, with a pair of slim controller halves that can either combine to form a single gamepad or attach to either side of the phone to create a full portable console experience.
If you don’t fancy paying extra for physical buttons, the usual gaming touch controls are supplemented by the return of the Air Triggers – pressure-sensitive buttons built into the frame of the phone that serve as handy shoulder buttons when used in landscape mode. They have adjustable sensitivity, and can double as shortcuts when you’re not playing a game, just like Active Edge on the Pixel 3. In various games, particularly first-person shooters, you’ll gain a nice advantage due to the extra control.
Also worth a look is the TwinView Dock 2, which gives you a full second screen for multi-tasking (much like in the LG V50), though in classic Asus overkill, this is also 120Hz and packs its own 5,000mAh battery. Throw in a variety of docks for connecting other devices or hooking the phone up to a monitor, and you have more add-ons than you could shake a stick at – or afford.
Software
If you get fed up of the gamer life, there’s now the option to swap the UI from Asus’s ROG-specific skin (in dark or light) to a classic Android look in case you want something a little more pared back. The gaming
interface will likely appeal though, and once again animates when you switch X Mode on – this gives you maximum performance.
This is part of Android Pie, which the phone ships with. Gaming skin aside, things are pretty stock and there aren’t too many pre-installed apps. Mainly Netflix and a handful of Asus’s own-brand additions.
The Armoury Crate has some pretty cool features, including a console where you can see the CPU and GPU clock speeds and temperature. You can also tweak various features such as the Air Triggers, system lighting, and fan speed. There’s also Game Genie, which can be called up to, for example, display game information or optimize performance.
Verdict
Between the ZenFone 6 and the ROG Phone II, Asus is on a bit of a roll with its phones this year. Combining
the ZenFone’s strong camera with over-the-top specifications and a wealth of gaming add-ons this is one of the few gaming phones that doesn’t ask you to compromise on other elements.
Although you can opt for a classic Android user interface, this phone is really all about the angles and lights in a typical gaming device way. If you’re looking for a gaming phone, then it’s likely to appeal, but others have a more subtle design if it’s too much.
When it comes to performance and features though, this is the best with its Snapdragon 855+ processor, 120Hz display, 6,000mAh battery, Air Triggers, and AeroActive Cooler II. Even the cameras are great, which is not something we’re used to saying for gaming phones.
All of this at a price that’s lower than many top flagship phones. It’s still a big beast, but that’s what you get if you want all this stuff in a phone, including that huge battery. The ROG Phone II isn’t a phone for the masses, but it does exactly what it sets out to achieve – be the best gaming phone you can buy. Dominic Preston and Chris Martin
Specifications
• 6.59in (2,340x1,080, 391ppi) 120Hz AMOLED display • Android 9.0 • Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus processor • 12GB RAM • 128/512GB/1TB storage • In-screen fingerprint scanner • Dual rear-facing cameras: 48Mp + 13Mp ultrawide,
phase detection autofocus, LED flash
• 24Mp front-facing camera • 802.11ac/ad Wi-Fi • Bluetooth 5.0 with atpX HD • GPS • NFC • USB-C 3.1 • Front-facing stereo speakers, smart amplifier • Headphone jack • Non-removable 6,000mAh battery • 171x77.6x9.5mm • 240g.