Asus already has some of the best gaming phones in the market. What can the company do differently? Make the best phones better. On the ROG Phone 6, Asus has maxed out everything you could think of having on a flagship gaming phone. There’s a bunch of improvements that Asus has done over the previous model, making this a joyful device in the hands of a gamer.
Full points in the engineering department
One of the first things to love about it is the Samsung AMOLED HDR10+ display that comes with the dedicated Pixelworks i6 processor. It offers a lightning-quick 165Hz refresh rate with better calibration for colour accuracy and faster maximum refresh rate. This is one of the aspects that make the phone stand apart from, say, an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy S22 series device. Not only that, there is 720Hz touch sampling rate and 23ms touch latency.
The phone offers sustained frame rates while gaming
To make it a truly gaming phone, the selfie camera is on the bezel and not as a holepunch option. When you are playing a game or watching a film, there is no “camera hole” on the screen to bother you. At the same time, the top and chin are slightly thick but a gamer won’t mind it at all. Another fine touch is how the speakers are hidden under the top and bottom of the glass.
The selfie camera is on the bezel and not as a hole-punch
The phone offers sustained frame rates while gaming
The phone appears like a huge device on paper but the weight distribution is perfect, making it comfortable to hold most of the time, even though while gaming one has to use both hands. Going that extra mile, Asus has given the body IPX4 splash resistance, which is not something that’s easy to achieve. Being a gaming phone, a lot of space is required for the dual-cell 6,000 mAh battery, besides a large cooling vapour chamber.
Adding that dash of customisable RGB lighting at the back makes this appear a gaming phone and when you keep the phone on the table, it doesn’t wobble.
For those who haven’t used the ROG phone before, there are two USB-C ports, one at the bottom and one on the left frame. The side USB-C port is where the new clip-on AeroActive Cooler 6 (needs to be bought separately) fits.
Completely redesigned, the cooler takes advantage of improvements made to the GameCool 6 cooling system, helping with big temperature drops when you are pushing the phone to its extreme. The new Cooler 6 uses an integrated Thermoelectric AI Cooling System, which is a based on a Peltier cooling chip inside the cooler. Does it work well? Since we were not able to try this with our review unit, we can’t comment on the degree to which temperature drop is achieved.
Thankfully, the phone has retained the 3.5mm headphone jack. The front-firing dual stereo speakers are loud and offer enough bass, which I prefer on a gaming phone. I like this set-up more than having the second speaker at the bottom where one’s hands tend to block it while gaming or watching a film in landscape mode.
Power pumping
The phone comes with Android 12 and, like in previous generations of ROG phones, the user can choose between a gaming-inspired ROG UI theme or a more minimalistic stock look of ZenUI. There is no bloatware but here’s a quibble: Asus offers two OS updates and two years of security updates while Samsung and others are offering four generations of OS upgrades.
And we come to gaming and performance. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor is very powerful and the loaner unit came with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. What I like about the chip is its performance as well as power efficiency. Needless to say, the phone has excellent benchmark scores and is faster than the previous generation. What matters is real-world performance. Playing a game like Genshin Impact or any racing game makes the phone shine. There is consistency in frame rate and even after playing for about 45 minutes, turning it up to the highest graphics settings, I could only feel the back of the phone warming up slightly. Since the processor is at the centre of the phone, you won’t feel the hottest part of the phone.
An important part of the ROG Phone 6 experience are AirTriggers, which are ultrasonic sensors embedded within the phone and can be mapped to emulate physical buttons. The AirTrigger 6 control system allows user mapping of up to 14 specific touch points on the screen simultaneously and with AeroActive Cooler 6 you get an extra four physical buttons at your disposal. The AirTrigger 6 system can be used beyond gaming to activate useful actions with a simple squeeze motion while in portrait mode.
As usual, the Armoury Crate game launcher lets you customise several elements, like screen refresh rate and the amount of power you want the processor to pump.
Should you buy it?
I haven’t touched on the camera, which is pretty good. The 50MP main camera keeps a 13MP ultra-wide and 5MP macro camera company. The images are definitely usable but don’t expect anything out of the world; for that, turn to Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, the iPhone 14 Pro or Pixel 7. Colour reproduction is accurate but night photography is just about good. There is a 65W HyperCharge plug in the box and it juices up to 100 per cent in 45-odd minutes. But there is no wireless charging. At a time when flagship phones from Samsung and Apple are blurring the boundary between gaming and mainstream phones, Asus continues to hold its own. Asus ROG Phone 6 is an exceptional purchase for the gaming community.
At a glance
Device: Asus ROG Phone 6
Price: Rs 71,999
High notes
- Top-of-the-line gaming performance and heat management
- The display is among the best you will find on a smartphone
- Excellent audio output
- A range of gaming accessories can be added
Muffled notes
- No wireless charging
- Few OS updates