Take Mobile Gaming To A New Level With The ASUS ROG Phone

Mobile gaming’s had a history of being left to the wayside by ‘serious gamers’, a tendency of being overlooked for its fancier console and PC counterparts. Granted, some of its more popular hits — the so infamous Candy Crush and Angry Birds — while addictive, do not an exalted art form make. They’re the sort of games you’d play on the go — maybe when you’re stuck in traffic during the morning rush hour or when you’re waiting for your dish to be served at a restaurant during lunch.

But those definitely aren’t representative of all the mobile games out there. The market’s also clearly been evolving, with games like PlayerUnknown’s Battleground (PUBG) taking to the more compact screens of our phones. And when you’re out chasing that chicken dinner, it would be exceedingly regrettable if your GPU can’t keep up with your opponent’s.

Now, in the midst of our burgeoning mobile gaming landscape, the ROG Phone has landed, here to solve all our persistent lag problems. Touted to have “more in common with a gaming laptop than a smartphone”, the ROG Phone boasts a specially binned Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, running at 2.96GHz instead of the standard 2.8GHz.

To prevent the chipset from overheating and slowing as a result, it’ll also come equipped with ROG’s Gamecool system, which is “designed like a layered sandwich” comprising of circuit board, copper heat spreader, carbon cooling pad and vapour chamber, something you usually see reserved for the higher-end GTX1080. There’s even an external cooling fan you can mount to your phone, which will direct airflow in while cooling down the chassis, although that accessory’s sold separately.

Speaking of accessories, the ROG Phone comes with a really enviable plethora, just take a look at that.

But if a girl can never have too many shoes, then a phone can never have too many accessories. The GameVice Controller, in particular, looks pretty nifty — we think it’ll help make game controls more intuitive, especially for those of us who grew up with handheld devices like the Gameboy, PlayStation Portable and Nintendo 3DS.

Like its desktop counterparts, the ROG Phone will also come with ROG’s Game Centre installed — which will allow you to monitor your phone’s performance and accordingly optimise it for gameplay. Its 90hz AMOLED screen will ensure that things run smooth, especially with that 1ms pixel response time.

And if you’ve been playing FPS and RPG games on your phone, you’ll likely also appreciate the fact that ROG thought to include multiple USB-C ports, one of which is positioned along the side of the phone, so charging while gaming won’t require some creative finger contortion — considering how a fair number of these games are played in landscape.

For those interested we’ve included a table with the rest of the phone’s specifications here:

Processor	2.96GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845
GPU	Qualcomm Adreno 630
UI	ROG Gaming UI
Display	6-inch 2160×1080 AMOLED 90Hz refresh rate with 1ms pixel response time 108.6% DCI-P3 colour gamut 10000:1 contrast ratio Capacitive touchscreen with 10-point multi-touch (supports Glove Touch) Discrete image processing chip support HDR display — gaming, video and images
Dimensions	158.8 x 76.2 x 8.6mm
Weight	200g
Battery	4000mAh
Weight	200g
Memory	LPDDR4 8GB RAM
Storage	UFS 2.1, 512GB
Sensors	Accelerometer, e-compass, proximity sensor, Hall sensor, ambient-light sensor, fingerprint sensor, gyroscope, 2 ultrasonic AirTrigger sensors
Wireless Connectivity	Qualcomm Wifi 802. 11a/b/g/n/ac/ad: 2×2 MIMO Wi-Fi Direct and WiGig (11ad/60GHz Wi-Fi) wireless display support Bluetooth 5.0 Qualcomm Snapdragon X20 Modem: Up to 1.2Gbps Cat 18 LTE download speeds Up to 5x20MHz carrier aggregation 4×4 MIMO on up to 3 aggregated carriers, License Assisted Access
GPS	Supports GPS, aGPS, Glonass, BeiDou
I/O Ports	Side: Custom USB-C Supports USB 3.1 Gen 1 / DP 1.4 (4K) / fast charging (PD3.0)(15W) ASUS Hypercharge direct charging Bottom: USB-C Supports USB 2.0 / fast charging (PD3.0)(20W) / Direct Charge 3.5mm headphone jack
Front Camera	8MP
Main Camera	12MP + 8MP (120-degree wide-angle)
Voice Wakeup	Yes
Speakers	Dual front-facing stereo speakers with smart amplifier 24-bit/ 192kHz Hi-Res Audio DTS Headphone:X 7.1 virtual surround-sound Qualcomm aptX High=definition Bluetooth wireless audio

Available at select retailers, the ROG Phone is priced at S$1598, but it’s worth every cent if you’re the sort who’s really devoted to mobile gaming — look, if you’ve already cashed a few hundred dollars on the game’s microtransactions, what’s a few hundred more to properly enjoy it as it’s meant to be enjoyed?

That aside, Asus has also announced that their newest ROG Zephyrus S is going to be available in Singapore. Only 14.95mm-to-15.75mm thin, Asus is selling it as the ‘World’s slimmest gaming laptop’, and it’ll boast super-narrow bezels that puts a 15.6-inch display on a 14.2-inch chassis. Its latest 8th Generation Intel Core i7-8750H should easily breeze through most tasks you throw at it, something gamers and content creators ought to appreciate.

The Zephyrus S will be available in Asus’ brand shop and authorised retailers from November 30, 2018, and it’ll be going at S$3198. What’s more ROG desktop or laptop purchases between November 22, 2018 to December 31, 2018 will entitle you to a limited edition ROG x CRUMPLER Endeavour Backpack (while stocks last, of course).