ASUS’ entry into the smartphone scene with its Zenfone series devices was a nice addition to the ever-growing smart device industry, and it was only a matter of time before the company integrated its ROG gaming line along with its smartphone lineup. With that in mind, the latest ROG Phone 9 and 9 Pro finally made their debut, and they come with quite a lot of gaming-centric features.
First up, let’s talk about that design and display – ASUS still maintained the angular “gamey” design seen on earlier ROG phone models, although with a somewhat “subdued” look this time around. Somewhat similar to the Nothing Phone line, the ROG Phone 9 models also come with a lighting setup on the rear panel, although arranged in a vastly different manner. Users can customize the panels though to their liking, to add a bit of extra personalization to their phone. Both phones also feature 3.5mm headphone jacks, a rarity on flagship phones these days.
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Both phones also share similarly-sized displays, which are sized at 6.78 inches. They’re AMOLED panels (which means you’ll get good-looking colours and contrast), and also come with up to 2,500 nits of peak brightness, FHD+ resolution, and the option to enable up to 185Hz refresh rate, the latter of which is only available for certain games.
As for what’s inside, ASUS isn’t messing around when it comes to performance – both the 9 and 9 Pro run on the Snapdragon 8 Elite, Qualcomm’s most recent flagship smartphone chip. The 8 Elite comes with impressive performance, offering users ray-tracing support, faster load times and better efficiency, at least when compared to older Snapdragon flagship chips. The ROG Phone 9 also comes with 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage, while the Pro Model is a bit more beefed up with 24GB RAM and 1TB of storage.
Given that the new phones focus on performance for gaming and other resource-heavy tasks, ASUS has equipped the ROG 9 series with a new cooling system. This consists of a larger graphite sheet this time around, in addition to an improved active cooler component. The phones likewise come bundled with an “AeroCase” which keeps the phones relatively cool while redirecting audio output towards the user during gaming sessions. Both phones are powered by 5,800 mAh batteries, which are pretty large especially when compared to other premium devices.
In terms of camera hardware, both devices feature a 50MP main camera which is based on Sony’s 1/1.56-inch Lytia 700 sensor. This is accompanied by a 13MP ultra wide camera, and there’s a 32MP front camera for selfies and video calls. There are some differences though, as the regular ROG Phone 9 comes with a 5MP macro camera, versus a 3X telephoto lens on the 9 Pro. ASUS promises users that it will provide two major Android upgrades, with up to five years of security patches.
As for pricing and availability, the Asus ROG Phone 9 comes in two storage configurations – 12GB of RAM with 256GB of storage for $1,000 (€1,100), and 12GB of RAM with 512GB of storage for €1,150. Meanwhile, the ROG Phone 9 Pro is available in one configuration with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for $1,200 (€1,300), and there’s an ROG Phone 9 Pro Edition which comes with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage for $1,500 (€1,500).
