ROG Phone II Is The Most Spec-Heavy Gaming Phone ASUS Has Ever Made

Gaming phone has proven itself to be too hard for Razer to excel. However, other companies still have hope for the ever-growing community of esports. No matter what other phone makers offer, nothing can be more appealing than what ASUS ROG Phone has, including a WiGig screen-casting dock, a clip-on fan, a dual-screen dock, a clamp-on controller pad, and a mobile desktop dock.

We never know the sales figure of the ROG Phone lineup, but it must have been a decent number otherwise there would not be a sequel with upgrades to be introduced this year.

ROG Phone II has a series of firsts when it comes to specs. There has never been a smartphone that has a 120Hz AMOLED display and the integration of two vibration motors before it, and it is also the first to sport a Snapdragon 855 Plus chipset.

What makes ROG Phone II stands out is the accessories, including a clip-on fan with AeroActive Cooler II that can ensure a quieter operation and five more degrees of temperature to be reduced, as well as the Aero Case that will light up the logo.

Those are the features that have made a comeback in this sequel. Here are the new additions. When you prop up the phone on a desk, for example, the two controllers can be clipped together by using a holder. In this way, you can switch among 2.4GHz RF connection, Bluetooth, and USB. When you want to bring it along on trips, the controller can be attached to the phone too. And by mounting the whole thing on a TwinView Dock II, you will unleash the ultimate form.

Given the length and the weight, instead of the top side, the dual-screen TwinView Dock will mount to the bottom. We will have the identical 120Hz AMOLED panel, but the battery is just 5,000mAh, but in total, we will still have 11,000mAh.

Here are what we have on the dock, a USB-C port, a headphone jack, a cooling fan, volume keys, and RGB lights. The omissions are SD card slot, haptic vibrators, extra speakers, and trigger buttons. However, most of these absent features are covered by the phone.

ROG Phone II comes with tailored content just for it in Shadowgun War Games, Rockman X Dive, and Asphalt 9. The optimizations come in the form of fine-tuned haptic vibration, boosted frame rate, TwinView Dock II support, and Kunai Gamepad support.

Now go back to the phone. Some of the specs are refresh rate of 120Hz and a 6.59-inch FHD+ AMOLED panel. Users have the choice to make use of 60Hz and 90Hz to save power. While Razer was the first phone to offer this whopping refresh rate, it comes with just an LCD screen rather than an AMOLED like the ROG Phone II, which makes for a more vivid display.

ASUS has gone big with the battery this time with a large 6,000mAh cell, quite a leap from the original 4,000mAh. This more capable battery has pushed the overall weight of the phone to 240g and the thickness to 9.48mm.

The ROG HyperCharge adapter allows the phone to hit 4,000mAh in 58 minutes, and a full battery in two hours. According to ASUS, its technology offers a longer battery life than the Warp Charge of OnePlus 7 Pro. However, we will have to wait and see if that statement holds true.

One of the firsts of the ROG Phone II is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus chipset, which features faster 675MHz GPU and 2.96GHz CPU than the non-plus version.

The chip is 7nm, so it should let out less heat than the Snapdragon 845. However, overheating is not something you should worry about as there are air vents, a vapor chamber, and heat sink to prevent the phone from getting too hot. With the ROG Phone II, users will have a super-fast UFS 3.0 storage of 512GB and RAM of 12GB. All of the above features prove that this gaming phone is a high-spec option.

This latest ROG Phone’s camera setup is the same as that of ZenFone 6, meaning you have a 48-megapixel f/1.79 main camera as well as a 13-megapixel 125-degree ultra-wide camera. On the other side, there is a 24-megapixel snapper for livestreams and selfie.

While the all-screen display is the hottest trend currently, ROG Phone II’s bezels are still quite visible, and the company does that for a reason. These extra spaces are there for a better grip. They want to make sure that users can hold on tight to the phone without affecting the gameplay.

Thanks to the 240Hz touch sampling rate, the phone is responsive and has a low touch latency.

More and more gaming phones are adopting the shoulder triggers, and with this latest ROG Phone, ASUS has added AirTriggers for an improved haptic response. With this technology, you do not need to lift a finger to tap, and the sliding gestures are now applicable on this phone.

ASUS’s Armory Crate app is where you can tweak all the features you want. There is also the X Mode for a better performance of hardware. Users can use short squeeze and long squeeze to switch between apps.

The original ROG Phone has a triple-mic arrangement, and with this sequel, we have four microphones. This means whatever you need to say, the messages will be transmitted loudly and clearly. On the front, the stereo speakers are also improved, so the DTS: X Ultra seems to be more immersive.

Connectivity can make or break gameplay; that is why the ROG Phone II has a quad-antenna design to make sure that users have the best WI-Fi connection possible. In comparison with other phones, like the Samsung Galaxy S10+, this gaming model from ASUS clearly has an advantage. When you hold phones with only two WiFi antennas in landscape mode, the reception might be affected.