Asus ROG Phone : First Gaming Phone In India Launched For Rs- 69,999

Asus has launched the ROG phone in India which was first announced at computex 2018 in Taiwan. The ROG Phone was Asus’s maiden gaming smartphone.

It goes head-to-head to some other gaming phones like Xiaomi's Black Shark Phone or Razer's Gaming phone, though none of those phone launched in India. Of  course, Honor Play, the cheapest phone with Kirin 970 was launched in India but it had a misplaced gaming pitch. 

Republic of Gamers

The term ROG, stands for Republic of Gamers, is Asus's brand name that they use to address their gaming laptops and peripherals. Things that come in ROG term are devices and accessories –traditionally with flashy branding and RGB lighting. Now they have brought that RGB to their first ever gaming phone. Not only that but the specs are also heavyweight to match the phone.

Asus ROG Phone

Design

The ROG phone has a glowing RGB logo on the back surrounded with sharp edges and exhaust windows. The ROG Phone looks like a “gaming phone” like no smartphone. It matches perfectly with the rest of ROG lineup.

Display

The Asus ROG Phone sports an 6-inch 2160 by 1080px 90Hz AMOLED display that supports HDR. It may seem low when compared to Razer's Gaming Phone that has 120Hz refresh rate. But the ROG Phone has AMOLED technology that has better colours and more contrast than the IPS display of the Razer Phone.

Internals

The Asus ROG phone just like any other flagship phone of 2018 packs an Snapdragon 845. But with the Asus ROG Phone, the chipset has been over clocked to 2.96Ghz  which is unusual than normal as the Snapdragon 845 is generally clocked at 2.8Ghz on other flagship smartphones.

Along with the slightly over clocked Snapdragon 845 the phone also has eye-catching configurations - 8GB of Ram, 128/512GB of storage. The higher-end model takes the crown of highest-spec'ed Android phone in the market till date. Unfortunately, that's not coming to India.

Camera

As per as the cameras are concerned, the Asus ROG Phone has the same set of cameras as seen on the Zenfone 5Z. Meaning on the rear it's got a 12-megapixel camera + 8-megapixel ( Wide-Angle) camera along with a 8-megapixel front facing camera. If you have used the camera of the Zenfone 5Z you won't see any major difference in terms of camera.

What’s different for gamers

Asus have put three AirTrigger ultrasonic touch sensor on the phone that can help you while gaming. These can also be reprogrammed to launch specific apps or to toggle tasks.

Another praise-worthy feature of the phone is the new X mode. Like other gaming phones, it's just a performance enhancing mode for ROG Phone. Asus says the X mode lets you to raise up the minimum clock frequency of the phone as well as restrict any background process.

The software of the phone is also gaming like. The ROG Phone runs on ROG UI on top of Android 8.1 and yes, this phone will get the Android P update soon. The software let's you configure many of the gaming features of the phone.

Accessories

Asus has launched ton of accessories along with the phone and they do serve a purpose. The accessories include - an AeroActive Cooler, a TwinView handheld dock and a third-party GameVice controller with WiGig functionality.

The AeroActive Cooler, a heat sink, is included in the box that mounts to the back of the ROG Phone. It has a fan in it to keep the phone cool along with an USB Type-c port and headphone jack - giving you the ability to keep your phone charged while gaming.

The Twin view dock turns the phone into a dual-view console that has an 6-inch ( 2160 by 1080 ) auxiliar display that's great for playing games and doing split-screen multitasking with an additional 6,000mah battery. It comes with an front-facing quad-speaker system, two extra physical trigger buttons, dual-haptic force-feedback engine, an enhanced cooling system for longer gaming sessions.

Battery

The ROG Phone has a monster 4,000mah battery with Quick Charge 4.and 20w fast charging. It’s like icing on the cake for the ROG Phone.

Price and Availability

The ROG Phone has been launched in india only in one variant – 8GB/128GB. It’s priced at Rs-69,990 ($1001). It will be available only on Flipkart. The professional dock is priced at Rs- 5,499,  GameVice at Rs- 5,999, TwinView Dock at Rs- 21,999, Desktop Dock at Rs- 12,999 and the ROG Phone case at Rs- 2,499.

What are your thoughts on the ROG Phone ? Do you think Asus did the right thing by bringing this phone in India. Tell us in the comments!