Asus ROG Phone 2 has just been officially uncovered in China as a follow-on to the ROG Phone which was launched last year. The second generation in the brand’s gaming smartphone series, this latest device has everything that worked well in the previous model and comes with a few upgrades as well. You wouldn’t find any newer mind-boggling specifications, but the brand surely has polished the existing features to enhance the overall gaming experience of the ROG fans.
The brand has withheld a similar comprehensive look of the previous model. However, there are a few amendments that make the handset a little more visually alluring. The latest handset has an in-display sensor at the back which has superseded the offsetting fingerprint sensor.
Design
Also, the fake vents have been replaced with a refined and delicate function vent. The device is flanked with bezels on both sides with Gorilla Glass 5. It flaunts a 6.59 inch AMOLED screen with a 19.5.9 aspect ratio. The screen has a resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels, 391 PPI density and utilizes 10-bit HDR to provide the most accurate and detailed colors for professional-grade visual experience.
The bezels on either side are packed with dual stereo front-facing speakers which support DTS: X Ultra and offers 2.5x more volume over the previous model.
In addition, the company has embodied four noise cancelling microphones around the chassis to ensure great audio doesn’t get smothered no matter what way you are holding the device.
In order to make it effortless to use the phone in landscape mode, the manufacturers have used flat piece of glass to join the bezels instead of curved glass. This makes it easier to hold the phone as well.
AirTriggers in the device have been further improvised and the vibration motors are definitely a lot better than in the predecessor device.
At whopping 240 grams (8.47 oz) the ROG Phone 2 may seem heavy in hands, but the company has made sure to evenly distribute the weight of the device and keep the dimension in check for unhindered gaming experience. The phone measures at 171 x 77.6 x 9.5 mm.
Specifications
The Asus ROG Phone 2 comes with a sturdy configuration and what makes this particular gaming device to stand out completely is the fact that this is the first smartphone to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus with an Octa core Processor which has a clock speed of a maximum 2.96GHz as compared to 2.84GHz in the previous version. This development unquestionably provides more power than the standard Snapdragon 845 Processor. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ Processor offers a 4% boost in CPU and 15% enhancement in the GPU performance. The phone is further equipped with Adreno 640 GPU for better graphics and smooth gaming experience.
The device runs on Android 9.0 Pie operating system and has a RAM of up to 12GB with a maximum storage space of 512GB. The RAM Module is still the same as the last variant however; the storage has been changed to UFS 3.0 which enhances the I/O speeds to almost double in comparison.
Coming to connectivity, the device supports 4G VoLTE and has Wi-Fi 802.11, Mobile Hotspot, a/b/g/n, 3.55mm headphone jack, USB Type C charging port, GPS with A-GPS, and more.
The AMOLED panel has a refresh rate of 120Hz which provides a noticeably smoother experience while scrolling in the applications or browsing through the phone. The response time is 1ms with a touch sensitivity of 240Hz.
Nobody wants the phone battery to die after a few hours of gaming. That is why, the smartphone is loaded with a gigantic Li-Po 6000 mAh battery. As per the company, you can play uninterrupted 7.1 hours of PUBG mobile.
It is further provided with 30W ROG hyper charging features with Quick Charge 4.0 support too which again is an impressive accomplishment of engineering for the Asus flagship series. The brand claims that the device can charge 66% of the battery within 58minutes. Yes, the phone is heavy and doesn’t support wireless charging. However, you wouldn’t be complaining if the device doesn’t need to be charged on a daily basis.
To impede thermal throttling, the company has embedded a three layer cooling system in the device. Along with a larger vapour cooling chamber, there are now heat dispersing vents and carbon cooling pads in the phone.
The device is all about gaming, but that doesn’t mean that you cannot take some interesting shots and videos. ROG Phone 2 features a decent camera with 48MP and 13MP lenses at the back and is further flanked by a 24MP sensor at the front for selfie.
Accessories
Obviously a phone from Asus wouldn’t come without some riveting add-ons. The most prominent feature of the first gaming smartphone from Asus was its accessories. Good thing that the brand has further updated the range with the newer device and hasn’t limited the numbers of accessories that you can get for this variant.
There are several phone cases which also include those that use the RBG lightning effect to light up the brand logo at the back. The ROG Kunai Gamepad with joypads similar to Nintendo Switch can be installed on the phone to play a few games. The Twin View Dock 2 now comes with a fan, a 120Hz second screen, and a 5,000mAh battery.
Asus ROG Phone 2: First Impression
With the growing popularity of gaming smartphones, Asus has tried its best to stay on the cutting edge technology and compete with other potent flagships available in the market. The ROG Phone 2 has come out as the newest horse in the running.
By the first impression, the ROG Phone 2 seems like a promising handset. The phone is massively powerful and heaves with performance. With the much needed upgrades, the phone aims to diminish the various low-latency features including the touch response, refresh rate, audio, etc. Furthermore, it undoubtedly has some of the best features and specifications that one can seek in a gaming smartphone. We have just touched the surface with the device; however there will be a full-throttle review soon.
