Asus ROG Phone 3 Review

The ROG Phone 3 is a pretty impressive piece of technology, rocking a powerful chip, a huge screen, and a “gamer” aesthetic, which some might find cheesy, though it will have its audience. I, personally, like the RGB light and the techy futuristic look of its shell, and I am sure others will, too.

It seeks to be your personal entertainment central — not just for gaming, but also for any type of media consumption. Its screen is large and the speakers are loud and spatial, so it works just as well for watching movies. Unfortunately, the display panel is not the best and leaves a lot to be desired.

Asus was pretty clear about wanting this device to be future-proof as well. Not only does it have a pretty generous spec sheet, which will last you a few years before it’s deemed “obsolete”, but an elaborate “battery health” system is also in place to make sure that the phone’s juicebox lasts as long as possible.

A slew of accessories and docks expand the ROG Phone 3’s media capabilities further, with a display dock that lets you connect a keyboard and mouse, a second screen folio-type accessory, a proprietary gamepad, and even an ethernet port adapter. If you bought into the ROG Phone II ecosystem, know that the ROG Phone 3 is compatible with all the last-gen accessories since it pretty much has the same shape and dimensions as its predecessor.

Design, Display, and Durability

The first two ROG Phones looked a little gaudy for the non-gaming crowd. While the ROG Phone 3 shares a similar design language, it's a bit more subtle. The copper vent from its predecessor is gone, the camera stack is less pronounced, and the geometric flourishes are much more subdued. It still has a customizable RGB logo, but you can turn it off if you want.

Back of phone with box

This ROG Phone 3 is big, at 6.73 by 3.07 by 0.39 inches (HWD) and 6.25 ounces. It's a handful, but it isn't as heavy as some other flagships, like the OnePlus 8 Pro (7.02 ounces), and the weight is evenly distributed, making it easy to hold for extended periods.

The top of the phone is bare, while the bottom is home to a USB-C charging port. On the left you’ll find a dual SIM slot as well as an accessory port for the included fan and other accessories; there's also an extra USB-C port if you want to charge the phone while gaming. The accessory port is covered by a plastic cap that, unfortunately, doesn’t stay attached to the phone in any way, making it easy to lose.

The right side of the phone is home to the power button and volume rocker, as well as two capacitive keys called AirTriggers (more on these in a bit). All the buttons are easy to reach and provide a satisfying click when tapped.

The front of the phone is home to a 6.59-inch AMOLED display with an built-in fingerprint sensor. The top and bottom bezels are a little chunky, due to stereo speakers that flank the screen to create a little extra space to hold the phone in landscape mode without accidentally tapping it. The in-display fingerprint sensor works as well as what you’ll find in most other smartphones—okay but not great—and there's a less secure face unlock feature if you prefer.

Display image with app drawer open

Resolution comes in at 2,340 by 1,080, for a density of 391 pixels per inch. It supports a variable refresh rate up to 144Hz and is HDR10+ certified with a 25ms touch latency. The phone can automatically detect the best refresh rate, or you can set it to 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz, or 144Hz.

Simply put, the screen looks excellent. It’s crisp, with spot-on color accuracy. Viewing angles are excellent and the phone gets bright enough to use in direct sunlight without any problems.

Asus includes a basic case, but there are so many ports and buttons on the phone that its utility is questionable. And while it has a Gorilla Glass 6 display, there’s no IP Rating for water or dust protection. Unfortunately, the phone's design seems to preclude it from offering these features, so you’ll want to handle it with care and keep it in the case when you're not using it

ROG Phone 3 Camera & audio

Nobody expects a “gaming smartphone” to put much emphasis on camera performance, right? Well, this is where the ROG Phone 3 pleasantly surprises!

The main camera of the ROG Phone 3 has a 64 MP sensor, but it’s set to take 16 MP photos by default. This is because the phone makes use of the so-called “pixel binning” to group pixels into clusters of 4, each cluster 1.6 μm in size. To put it simply — 1.6 μm is a pretty big pixel in the land of smartphone camera sensors. The point of a big pixel is to collect more light, giving you less noise, better detail, faster shutter speeds, and generally clearer photos.

Does the ROG Phone 3 deliver? Quite so! Pictures come out pretty sharp and detailed. The phone handles high dynamics greatly and when its auto HDR kicks in, sun-lit photos come out balanced and pretty. Shadows are visible, highlights are not burnt out. The colors get amped a bit — reds are vivid and the greens are a bit too saturated, which may or may not be down your alley. They are photos ready for social media, for sure.

Also, the contrast is a bit flat, which is visible when comparing the photos to a benchmark competitor like the iPhone 11 Pro. Color gradients, shades, and some details just don’t pop out as much as they should in photos taken out with the ROG Phone 3. But — in general — good pictures all around.

When in the dark, Night mode kicks in (or you can enable it manually). It looks and functions a lot like Night mode on an iPhone. Once you press the shutter, you see the picture slowly getting exposed, “coming to life” right on the phone screen in a satisfactory animation. The night shots do leave something to be desired. They definitely manage to pull out more detail and sharpness from shadows, but “night mode” photos sometimes fail to battle shaky hands, giving you blurred lines as a result of the long exposure. The colors also get amped up more — they certainly make for vivid shots that will wow you if you are just scrolling through, but zooming in will show some mishaps.

The ultra-wide-angle camera has a 13 MP sensor and also produces pretty satisfactory results. It’s calibrated closely to the main camera, but there are some differences in color. In fact, I like the ultra-wide’s tamed reds more, and its contrast appears to be less flat.

The 24 MP selfie camera is pretty detailed — it delivers sharp pictures with mostly accurate colors. It also deals with high dynamics pretty impressively, even if there’s a light source directly behind you. There’s also a 5 MP macro camera, which is… OK. It introduces some chromatic aberration and 5 MP don’t make for the most wowing photos, but whatever is in the center of your frame does come out sharp.

The Asus ROG Phone 3 supports 8K video, which is pretty insane — not many computers can actually reproduce that footage when you upload it! My 2017 MacBook Pro certainly has trouble there.

Going down the quality ladder, you’ve got the option to shoot 4K video at 60 FPS, and once you go a step down — 4K @ 30 FPS or anything below that — you can record HDR video.

Needless to say, the clips look super sharp. I also like the stabilization of the videos, as they completely removed any “shaky hand” and made for non-nauseating footage. The colors, again, are amped a bit, giving you unnatural blues and greens in some spots. But overall — good performance.

The Asus ROG Phone 3 has stereo speakers, which — just like last generation — are mounted on the front of the phone, firing right at the listener. Yes, this makes for slightly thicker top and bottom bezels, but Asus believed the tradeoff is worth it.

The speakers are slightly improved over what the ROG Phone II had. They sound decently loud, thick, and detailed. Asus employed some software magic to add artificial overtones to anything that comes out of the speakers, giving us a perceived boost in bass. They also employed some spatial sound algorithms to trick our ears into believing the speakers are further apart than they actually are.

The result? A pretty satisfactory smartphone sound. They still couldn’t escape the “small speaker” characteristics of sometimes sounding like a tin can, but overall — I enjoyed these speakers for gaming, Spotify playing in the background, YouTube videos, and Netflix binges, whether I was in the living room or outside on my balcony.

The ROG Phone 3, unlike its predecessor, does not have a headphone jack. You will need to attach the AeroActive Cooler accessory if you want a 3.5 mm jack, or use the USB Type-C dongle that comes in the box.

Gaming features

The ROG Phone 3 is made for gaming, so we subjected it to hours of testing with Asphalt 8 and PUBG: Mobile. We created customized profiles for the games in X mode, an app that allows you to create individual game profiles, customize speed settings, and see overall performance.

We also mapped on-screen buttons and set up the aforementioned AirTriggers, which are a vast improvement over similar triggers we've seen on other gaming phones, including ROG models. While previous AirTrigger iterations were basically ultrasonic shoulder buttons that responded to taps, the updated sensors here are capable of much more—they can be partitioned into multiple buttons, respond to slide gestures, and even be used as a continuous trigger button if you hold your finger on them. 

Like previous ROG phones, the ROG Phone 3 is bundled with an AeroActive Cooler, a fan made primarily for times when you're charging the phone during gameplay.

Software

The ROG Phone 3 runs Android 10. When you first set it up, you’re presented with the option to use ROG UI or ZenUI. Both are excellent skins that are near-stock versions of Android with additional optimizations. If you opt for the gamer-centric ROG UI, you get OptiFlex, an AI system that manages memory and recommends apps based on your usage profile. 

With the exception of Facebook, Google Stadia, Instagram, and Netflix, there isn't much bloatware on the phone. There is, however, Armoury Crate, which helps you organize your games and create profiles for each one. There’s also Game Genie, which allows you to tweak notification and performance settings, and even stream your gaming sessions over YouTube Live.

Asus hasn’t confirmed whether the ROG Phone 3 will receive an update to Android 11 when it comes out, but we think it’s a pretty safe bet.

ROG Phone 3 battery life

The ROG Phone 3 has a massive 6,000 mAh battery — that’s more than some of the portable power packs you can buy at the local tech store. Needless to say, the handset can last you quite a while on a single charge. That all depends on how much you like to game and whether or not you like to use the Always-On screen feature and cranking the brightness of the RGB light up. But, even with heavy use, the phone lasted me a day easily.

There are elaborate battery options that help you keep that 6,000 mAh juicer healthy for longer, too. You can choose to hard-limit your phone charging to 80% or 90%. Keeping the battery away from that 100% on the regular will slow down the degrading process and, in turn, improve the length of its lifetime. Alternatively, you can “tell” the phone when you go to bed and when you wake up. It will then set up the nightly charge cycle to slow down once the phone hits 80% and slowly charge it to 100%, which is the healthier way of doing it.

Conclusions

The ROG 3 Phone looks like a top-notch phone for gamers, with powerful hardware complemented by strong audio, a buttery smooth display, genuinely useful AirTrigger buttons, and thoughtful software. Depending on how much Asus decides to charge for it when it comes out in September, it could wind up being a solid phone for non-gamers, as well. We'll update this story with more testing and information as it comes out, so make sure to check back.