Asus ROG Phone 3 – Best For Professional Gamers

Unsurprisingly, Asus ROG Phone 3 doesn’t require an introduction. Promised to provide the ultimate smartphone gaming experience, ROG Pone 3 takes somewhat of a leap in terms of specifications when compared to its predecessor. With one of the best display tech onboard and a processor, several times faster than the predecessor, ROG Phone 3 is an ultimate gaming machine that leaves no corner untouched. Flamboyant, exuberant, and the most powerful Android smartphone, the minds behind ROG Phone 3 did engineer every aspect of the phone to deliver a high-octane performance like no other. The improved audio, a myriad of features including liquid cooling tech with an internal fan and a bucket-load of accessories to attach, Asus ROG Phone 3 will leave you gasping for air.

Also Read: Asus ROG Phone 3 Price in India

If you are a Pro Gamer, read this full review of Asus ROG Phone 3 and check if this one is the best for you.

Asus ROG Phone 3 is available in two variants in India i.e. 8+128GB and 12+256GB. Its pricing is Rs 49,999/- for the base 8+128GB variant while the higher 12GB+256GB variant fetches a price tag of Rs.57,999/- for the phone. The phone is available via Flipkart India with a tonne of discounts and deals to check out. It’s higher 12GB+256GB variant is priced at 999 Euros and finally, the top-most 16GB+512GB variant goes as high as 1,099 Euros although the two aren’t available in India. The phone was on its first sale on August 6 and will return soon although the higher 12GB+256GB variant will be up for sale on August 21.

Asus ROG Phone 3, at the first look itself, succeeds in pleasing you with its very interesting prism type box packaging. It unboxes in a unique pattern before you start to see the box contents in it.

• Asus ROG Phone 3
• Aero Case
• USB-C to USB-C cable (120 cm)
• USB-C to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter
• Ejector pin (SIM tray needle)
• USB power adapter (30.0W)
• Documentation (user guide, warranty card)

Here is the list of what the Realme C11 has to offer:

• Display: 6.59-inch AMOLED display, 144Hz refresh rate, HDR10+
• CPU & GPU: Qualcomm Snadragon 865 Plus, Adreno 650 GPU
• RAM & ROM: 8GB / 12 GB LPDDR5 RAM, 128GB / 256GB UFS 3.1 ROM
• Software: Android 10 with ROG UI
• Rear cameras: 64MP + 13MP + 5MP
• Selfie camera: 24MP
• Battery: 6000 mAh, 30W charging
• Weight: 240g
• Dimensions: 171mm x 78mm x 9.85mm

Asus ROG Phone 3 isn’t a biggie in terms of design since it is still inspired by the predecessor. At the front, you’ll design a similar design to ROG Phone 2 as there’s no notch here and it uses a notch-less form factor. The phone measures at 171x78x9.5 which makes it slightly wider and thicker than last year’s phone. The aerodynamic design is still on-board along with etched lines though fewer than the ROG Phone 2. There’s an RGB logo on the centre of the back panel that glows with various colours signalling notifications and other stimuli.

There’s a transparent window with a geometric shape which is a redesigned vent that gives a glimpse of the internal heatsink inside. It is followed by an inlet and outlet vent for air to pass through in an attempt to dissipate the heat effectively. There’s a Corning Gorilla Glass 6 sitting on-top that prevents the display from any damage. Asus has included a Side Port in addition to the USB Type-C port at the bottom enabling users to connect to a charge during a gaming session that eliminates the discomfort a bottom USB port would introduce. The new AirTrigger 3 now does a lot as it can be customized, programmed to perform tasks such as swiping, clicking, etc.

Talking about the display on-board Asus ROG Phone 3, it is a 6.59” AMOLED display with a resolution of 1080×2340 pixels. It has a 19.5:9 aspect ratio with a pixel density of 391. The display has a Corning Gorilla Glass 6 on top and comes pre-loaded with HDR10+. What makes it out-of-the-box is its ultra-fast 144Hz refresh rate which is currently unmatched by others.

Display adds another USP to the Asus ROG Phone 3 as it is a crowd gatherer. The display is not curved and there’s no notch and it is rather flat that gives it optimum control over it. The refresh rate is blazing fast even when compared to ROG Phone 2’s 120Hz refresh rate. The touch sampling rate has improved to 270Hz allowing the phone to optimize Android’s input and output stimuli. It can bring down touch latency to 25ms and that all makes Asus ROG Phone 3 highly responsive. The higher refresh rate introduces a few issues though such as it is power-hungry so you have to deal with it. But luckily, users can bring down the refresh rate based on the use case.

The display produces a whopping 464 nits of brightness while the max auto max yanks it up to 719 nits. Next up, the display is HDR10+ rated and capable of showing 1.07 billion colours. It has Widevine L1 support allowing users to watch HD content on OTT platforms like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. The colour reproduction of the display is supported allowing users to toggle from its Splendid mode to Customized or three other options in-between such as Default, Standard, and Cinematic each have their deltaE score and colour accuracy.

Under the hood, you get a stunning and the most powerful processor aka Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ which is an overclocked version of the standard Snapdragon 865 released earlier this year. It is an octa-core processor that has a single high-performance and overclocked 3.1GHz Kryo 585 processor followed by 3×2.42GHz Kryo 585 cores and 4×1.8GHz Kryo 585 power-efficient cores on-board. It is coupled with Adreno 650 GPU along with up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage based on which variant you choose.

The overclocked Snapdragon 865+ is something you will become an immediate fan of as it offers a 10% higher performance in both CPU and GPU sections. No matter what you throw at it, it’s just a piece of cake for Asus ROG Phone 3. It also uses ultra-fast UFS 3.1 storage which is a lot faster than its previous iterations. Furthermore, the LPDDR5 RAM equipped on the phone offers a 50% battery throughput rate than its predecessor LPDDR4X while consuming 20% less power.

Also Read: Best Gaming Smartphones

When tested, Asus ROG Phone 3 scored a whopping 3,357 points on a multi-core test on GeekBench 5.1 while a single-core test resulted in 981 points using its X Mode L1. Its score on AnTuTu is at 601,858 points on 144Hz mode while the X Mode L2 + Fan yanks it to 614,827 and finally, the X Mode L1 puts it at 621,646 and finally, 621,932 points on X Mode L3 + Fan. This puts it at the forefront of Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro 5G (595K), Oppo Find X2 (593K) among other bigwigs which include Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max, Nubia Red Magic 5G, Samsung Galaxy 20 Ultra 5G among others.

Talking about its thermal management and throttling, the device has CPU governors, thermal-thresholds, and schedulers among other mechanisms in place to vent off heat. The advanced hardware cooling system integrated on ROG Phone 3 postpones the thermal throttling by dissipating the heat to a later stage with a well-controlled drop in performance by driving down the clock speeds gradually rather than curtaining it all at sudden when gaming.

Games like Call of Duty: Mobile, Arena of Valor, Shadowgun Legends, Free Fire, all are throttled at a max 60fps which is less than half of what ROG Phone 3 can handle but it works super fluidly so you won’t notice any lag for hours of gaming at a stretch.

The ROG UI is custom-made for ROG Phones and ROG Phone 3 is no exception. The attractive gaming-based UI adds to the schematics of this gaming phone with flames, reactors, glowing effects, and all other gaming-inspired visual effects. Based on Android 10, it does bring all the features of Android 10 while Asus has added a few more of its own. The X Mode toggle kickstarts a transformer’s type of animation that converts the UI according to the gaming language. The PowerMaster option addresses the power consumption while you can change battery modes on your UI to throttle if further. A lot of features including Game Genie, Mobile Manager, Twin Apps, OptiFlex, and Safeguard are added too.

As per the hardware, Asus ROG Phone 3 is equipped with a triple rear camera setup followed by a single front camera setup. The front sports a 24MP shooter with an aperture of f/2.0. On the back, the phone sports a 64MP primary sensor with PDAF, f/1.8 aperture, 0.8micron pixel size; a secondary cam of 13MP ultrawide sensor with f/2.4 aperture, 125° field of view, and finally a tertiary 5MP macro sensor with an aperture of f/2.0

The 64MP primary cam is Sony IMX686 that has already proven its calibre in other phones. The video is captured is available to 8K resolution along with other resolutions with EIS stabilization. It is supported by a 13MP ultrawide sensor capable of shooting photos with 125° FoV. It can shoot photos at 2x optical and 8x hybrid zoom with enhanced quality although it isn’t lossless. There’s an 8MP macros shooter for excellent macro shots on your ROG Phone 3.

The camera app offers an excellent automatic scene detection allowing the mode to change as per the lighting conditions. There’s a Night Mode UI for low-light photography. The exposure time considers the lighting condition such as exposure of 3 seconds on daytime while the nighttime photos take 5 to 8 seconds of exposure that users can yank up to 25 seconds for a brighter shot with details. There’s a Pro mode capable of shooting excellent photos if shot with the right settings that include exposure compensation, WB adjustments, shutter speeds, etc.

There’s a HyperSteady mode on-board that uses EIS to grab FHD resolution videos with its ultrawide sensor. There’s a microphone feature that enables users to select either automatic mic zoom or wind suppression and uses 4-microphone arrays to capture great sound while shooting videos. Still image quality of the primary sensor is perfect thanks to the Quad-Bayer algorithms that capture four images of 16MP to create an image with all the details, sharpness, colours, and other factors preserved. Even the portrait shots are excellent with superb subject detection and separation.

Finally, the front uses a 24MP Quad-Bayer snapper that captures images at excellent clarity with its 4-in-1-pixel binning technology. It can shoot videos at 1080p.

Asus ROG Phone 3 is shipped with a colossal 6,000 mAh battery on-board which is capable of pulling off more than a day’s worth of battery backup even on a mix of moderate to heavy use. It is coupled with a 30W ROG Hypercharge fast charging speed and supports both Quick Charge 4.0 and Power Delivery 3.0. You also get a Reverse Charging tech at the speed of 10W to charge other gadgets. According to the stats, the phone has an endurance rating of 120 hours with over 19:20 hours on video playback, and so on. The battery reached 4500mAh in 4 minutes and dials down to constant voltage charging ahead. Overall, it can charge the battery to its capacity in just 1 hour and 50 minutes. It does have custom battery charging and usage modes enabled.

Asus ROG Phone 3 does have a loudspeaker onboard unmatched by its predecessors. It has a pair of huge front-firing stereo speakers with an NXPTFA9874 amplifier with a 7-magnet design mounted on each speaker. This gives ROG Phone 3 a score of -23.1 LUFS which is slightly less than the -19.5 LUFS that last year’s ROG Phone 2 offers.

Asus has partnered with Dirac that offers a new audio platform called GameFX although it lacks the DTS:X Ultra support. There’s a bass enhancement technology that works in the background and uses psychoacoustics to elevate the bass of music and audio and it uses a complex process to produce enhanced bass.

About the connectivity features, ROG Phone 3 supports 2G/3G/4G and up to 5G networks. It has a Wi-FI 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6 (Wi-FI 6) and also supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies. Next up, it supports Bluetooth 5.1 along with aptX Adaptive, aptX, aptX HD, LE, and A2DP with it. For navigation, the phone supports dual-band A-GPS, QZSS, GNSS, Galileo, BDS, and Glonass with it. There’s also an NFC mounted on the back to handle contactless payments and more. Finally, there are two USB Type-C ports (3.1 and 2.0) along with an accessory connector on-board.

Apart from the usual password, PIN, and pattern lock, Asus ROG Phone 3 is equipped with an under-the-display fingerprint scanner that works pretty fast. It also has a face recognition feature that unlocks the phone in just a blink.

Pros

• Ultra-powerful Snapdragon 865+ SoC
• 144Hz HDR10+ AMOLED display
• Excellent audio from Dirac
• Enhanced AirTrigger 3
• Unrivalled accessory ecosystem

Cons

• No water/dust resistance
• No 3.5mm jack, microSD card