If your current Android phone isn’t powerful enough for you, the latest from Asus is going to delight. By the end of August, Asus will have brought its new ROG Phone 3 to Australia, blasting away all over Android phones with sheer power, if this eye watering spec sheet is anything to go by.
Obviously the phone sports a gamer-first design, but it packs a punch for just about any consumer. What you’ll get is a 6.59-inch AMOLED screen with 1,000 nits peak brightness, a nifty 144Hz refresh rate, 1ms response time and unprecedented 25ms touch latency. Pure power will be handled by a workhorse Snapdragon 865 Plus chipset with 5G support and WiFi 6.
To top that, it’s going to have a 6,000 mAh battery which is, to my knowledge, the biggest battery in a smartphone (one that doesn’t look ridiculous at least) to date. Various advanced power-saving mechanisms will work to sustain any long gaming session, including an uprated GameCool 3 cooling system to keep the whole thing from overheating.
The ROG Phone 3 can be configured with up to 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of UFS 3.1 ROM storage, which is more than enough to reiterate just how beastly of a performer this will be.
In addition to the above, the phone is going to finesse the gamer-centric design of its predecessors and retain some of what’s made the series so beloved for Android users. This includes a side-mounted charging port, redesigned AirTrigger system, which now includes a motion sensor, and an enhanced X Mode performance-optimisation software which allows users to customise different system parameters to best suit their gaming preferences as well as maximise the phone’s AI and photography.
The AirTrigger 3 system has been overhauled to offer an experience closer to that of a real console controller. This includes the ability to re-map the control scheme, have swipe gestures on each button for a secondary command, and even add dual-partition, touch-sensitive button emulation so users can mimic a controller’s shoulders (L1/L2, R1/R2). Users can even reconfigure the phone to reload a weapon in-game just by shaking the device.
It’s also future-ready for when Google Stadia starts picking up its cloud-based gaming concept, having the nascent system pre-installed.
And although the phone is primarily going to be for gamers, photographers should be more than satisfied with a 24MP front-facing camera, and a 64MP primary camera on the rear with Sony IMX686, as well as a 13MP 125-degree ultrawide angle lens and a 5MP macro lens.
Australia will also be getting numerous accessories for the phone, an expansive range which includes the new modular ROG Kunai 3 Gamepad with physical console-like controls, a new ROG “Lightning Armor” case, the ROG Clip to attach the phone to selected console controllers, and the awesome looking TwinView Dock 3 which will allow gamers to augment the phone for a desktop keyboard, mouse and an external TV or monitor.
The aggressively powerful phone will be available in Australia by the end of August for an RRP of A$1,699.
