Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro

It's no secret that we love Asus' ROG Phone series - like, a lot. Not only is there an elegance in not taking any reservations about the size of the current market they appeal to, but just throwing all the wild specs at the consumer, combining it with an exaggerated design and then pulling the trigger. And consumers have responded favourably over the years, and not only that, but the ROG Phone has beaten pretty much every other "gaming phone" on the market, even from key competitors like Lenovo and Razer.

The ROG Phone 8, already unveiled at this year's CES show and sent to us in surprisingly good time, is now upon us, and here we are with one of the biggest generational leaps for Asus' crucial smartphone series in years.

Okay, since specs and performance are really one of the most important aspects of the ROG Phone experience, let's not distract you any further with pointless descriptions of boring interface and design considerations. What's under the bonnet of this year's supercar?

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, up to 24GB LPDDR5X RAM (yes, 24-f*cking gigabytes), up to 1TB UFS 4.0 space, 165 Hz 6.78" AMOLED display with a brightness that can peak at 2500 NITS and a 720 Hz polling rate. We again have the GameCool 8 cooling system, DIRAC-certified speaker system with 3.5 mm headphone jack, WI-FI 7, IP68 certification and finally Qi 1.3-based wireless charging.

And those are just the core specifications. There's a miniLED panel on the back of 341 programmable LEDs that can not only display things you can design yourself, but in true Nothing Phone style, there's also support for certain system notifications, such as when you receive an SMS or get a call. It's something like two millimetres thinner compared to the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate, and it weighs a few grams less too. Furthermore, Asus has removed the rather prominent screen bezel in favour of a more Samsung Ultra-like design, with a hole punch selfie camera.

We haven't even finished, because we haven't even mentioned the AirTriggers, the X-Haptic vibration motor, the included AeroActive Cooler X cooler that comes with our Pro Edition and improved Sony camera lenses. It's not just that Asus is introducing the necessary generational improvements here, they're taking a welcome quantum leap, modernising certain features and giving us long-awaited additions that fans have been craving.

£1,100 is a steep price to pay, and considering what Asus actually delivers, other competing flagships suddenly appear restrained, artificially limited and, above all, stingy. Sure, a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra places much of its inherent value behind the camera system, but why isn't there more RAM? Why is there no notification panel on the back? Why stop at 120 Hz?

Of course, there's room for more identities in the Android market, but there's something quite pure about the ROG Phone 8. It has a clear prioritisation, a clear persona and showcases a myriad of improvements this year that are worth taking notice of. Of course, many will probably get hung up on the one spec that has gone the other way, and perhaps rightly so. The decision to shrink the battery from 6000 mAh to 5500 mAh is a curious one to say the least. Yes, it charges at 65W wired and 15W wireless, and Asus says there shouldn't be a significant impact on battery life, mainly because the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is considered to be more efficient compared to the previous generation, but 500 mAh is still a lot, and if the battery was the same size, we might have seen a pretty significant quantum leap forward in battery life. However, it must be said that we haven't noticed any immediate difference, even with the smaller battery.

Asus has given us a slight redesign on the outside thanks to the aforementioned bezel reduction, a different camera module and a matte black colour that's a little more subtle than last year's white Ultimate edition. Furthermore, the ROG UI is also an aggressive Android skin that offers plenty of performative customisation options, and it's still the case that you can just swap it out for something more stock if you really don't like Asus' specific skin. It's all acceptable and doesn't prevent you from enjoying the ROG Phone 8's relatively singular purpose. The only real complaint here is that Asus will only promise two core OS upgrades in the lifetime of the phone, which is unacceptable to say the least.

Finally, there's the camera, an aspect that Asus has continually insisted on improving, and while it makes perfect sense if poor camera quality is something that holds back otherwise convinced potential buyers, we can all agree that it's not the reason you'd choose the ROG Phone over... well, a Pixel 8 Pro. This time you get a 50 megapixel IMX890 lens with gimbal stabilisation, a 13 megapixel 120 degree ultra-wide lens and finally a 32 megapixel 3x optical zoom telephoto lens. You can record up to 8K/24fps and there are specific features such as stabilised Action Mode and much more. I can't really point to a specific feature that's missing, and it's pretty impressive. The sensor itself is the same one you'll find on the Nothing Phone 2, for example, and the images are pretty similar too. If Asus was really aiming for the stars here, we could call it a failed attempt, but even with three lenses, it's still pretty clear that the camera doesn't get as much love when it comes to developing a new ROG Phone, and considering everything else you get, it's pretty decent.

The ROG Phone 8 is Asus' attempt to really break into the mainstream market. Whether it succeeded or not, I don't really know. There's not much room for a lot of established competitors, and not only that, we're dealing with some pretty absurd platform loyalty here. The most important thing is that Asus has once again managed to design a fully-fledged, coherent and well-functioning smartphone that puts most people to shame on a number of key parameters.