ASUS Gaming Smartphone: 11mm-style ROG Phone with Speed-Binned Snapdragon 845
by Ian Cutress on June 4, 2018 7:35 AM EST
ASUS producing a gaming smartphone is one of the more esoteric news stories at the Computex 2018 trade show this year. To fire a shot right across the bow of Razer, ASUS is putting its ROG credentials on display: a speed-binned Snapdragon 845 running at a higher frequency than the standard S845 smartphones, a higher-than-standard 90 Hz refresh rate display with 1ms response time and 108% DCI-P3 gamut, programmable ultrasonic AirTrigger sensors, force feedback, and additional docks for purchase. One of the key elements is that ASUS built this phone with an 11mm thickness, well beyond the 7-8mm we see on flagship smartphones today. They have put that additional volume to incredible use for extra battery, more haptics, bigger speakers, more connectivity, and it's a showcase of what we could see if other smartphone manufacturers offered a bit extra z-height.
The 6-inch 2160x1080 AMOLED display is paired with the high-performance Snapdragon 845 SoC, 8GB DRAM, 128GB and 512GB of UFS 2.1 storage, along with a 4000 mAh battery, 20W ASUS Hyper Charge, support for 24-bit audio, and Corning Gorilla glass. One of ASUS’s key marketing points is the use of ASUS Aura RGB lighting, with the company stating that this is one of the first phones (if not the first) to fully exploit RGB in this way.
Comparing the size of the LG V30 (left) and ROG phone (right). It's big
For control, ASUS will be adding three ultrasonic air touch sensors – two shoulder triggers being the main ones. These are designed to be fully programmable and are more sensitive with haptic feedback.
With the AeroActive cooler, which is bundled with the phone, aside from an additional fan to help cool the phone and sweaty fingers, it provides an extra USB Type-C connector which is side mounted for direct charging, HDMI output, Gigabit Ethernet, and headphones.
Bundled AeroActive Cooler, attaches to side port
How the cooler is inserted
ASUS will be offering the ROG Phone with a series of accessories, including a TwinView Dock to convert the machine into a dual-screen hand-held console. The Dock also offers front-facing quad-speakers, two extra physical trigger buttons, better haptic feedback, an enhanced cooling system, and a 6000 mAh extended battery back.
The Mobile Desktop Dock, another accessory, allows the phone to be connected to a 4K monitor, mouse, keyboard, and wired gigabit networking.
Desktop Dock, Rear
The Gamevice controller and the WiGig dock, also to be available, focuses on 802.11ad wireless display connections as well as a dual analog stick gaming – like a console
.
| ASUS ROG Phone | |||
| Processor | World’s fastest, speed-binned 2.96Ghz octa-core Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 845 Mobile Platform |
||
| GPU | Qualcomm® Adreno™ 630 | ||
| UI | ROG Gaming UI | ||
| Display | 6.0“ 18:9 (2160x1080) AMOLED 90Hz refresh rate with 1ms pixel response time 108.6% DCI-P3 color gamut 10000:1 contrast ratio Capacitive touchscreen with 10-point multi-touch (supports Glove Touch) Discrete image processing chip support HDR display – gaming, video & images |
||
| Dimensions | 158.8 x 76.2 x 8.6mm | ||
| Weight | 200g | ||
| Battery | 4,000mAh | ||
| Memory | LPDDR4 8GB RAM | ||
| Storage | UFS 2.1, 128GB / 512GB | ||
| Sensors | Accelerometer, e-compass, proximity sensor, Hall sensor, ambient-light sensor, fingerprint sensor, gyroscope, 2 x ultrasonic AirTrigger sensors | ||
| Wireless connectivity | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ad 2x2 MIMO; Wi-Fi Direct and Wi-Fi Certified WiGig® 802.11ad wireless display support Bluetooth® 5.0 |
||
| GPS | Supports GPS, aGPS, Glonass, BeiDou | ||
| I/O ports | Side: Custom USB-C™ Supports USB 3.1 Gen 1 / DP 1.4 (4K) / fast charging (QC 3.0 +QC 4.0/PD 3.0) (15W) ASUS HyperCharge direct charging Bottom: USB-C™ Supports USB 2.0 / fast charging (QC3.0/PD3.0) (20W) / Direct Charge 3.5mm headphone jack |
||
| Front Camera | 8MP | ||
| Main Camera | 12MP + 8MP (120° wide-angle) | ||
| Voice Wakeup | Yes | ||
| Speakers | Dual front-facing stereo speakers with smart amplifier 24-bit/192KHz Hi-Res Audio DTS Headphone:X™ 7.1 virtual surround-sound Qualcomm® aptX™ High-definition Bluetooth® wireless audio |
||
| NFC | Supported | ||
More information as we get it at the show, hopefully with some hands on.
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83 Comments
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jordanclock - Monday, June 4, 2018 - link
GPP prohibited the use of the same brand for Nvidia GPUs and AMD GPUs. But it still allowed brands to be used in other areas without issue. So they could have ROG on everything EXCEPT AMD GPUs.At least until GPP died.
Vayra - Monday, June 4, 2018 - link
Wakey wakey, GPP was blown up and Arez is already long gone, after an official ASUS statement on the matter.edzieba - Monday, June 4, 2018 - link
The storm remained confined to the teacup, the sky failed to fall. Some GPUs got a sticker swap, but that's about it.Spunjji - Tuesday, June 5, 2018 - link
No, the storm was killed by consistently bad press because GPP was a stupid, legally dubious and consumer-abusive concept.Retycint - Monday, June 4, 2018 - link
Asus Mobile dept != motherboard dept. And even within the same department, different products from different generations are often not consistent enough in their quality to make a judgement on the reliability of the brand's products anyway.babadivad - Friday, June 8, 2018 - link
hahaCaedenV - Monday, June 4, 2018 - link
The specs on this monster are amazing!If I could kludge WoA to work on it with that dock, it could probably replace my laptop... that would be awesome.
*sigh* some of the specs on this thing are better than my gaming PC.
But seriously. This is the future of computing. A device in your pocket that holds all (or at least most of) your files and horsepower to run 90% of the applications that you need. Need more juice? Throw it on a dock to take over external computing power through a PC or external GPU, or use an online service/VM that has access to the hardware you need. This first gen device of it is a bit chunky, but it will get better over time for more mainstream users.
Manch - Monday, June 4, 2018 - link
I don't want that future. MS sad half ass attempt to have a one platform to rule them all didn't pan out and now rebadge RT wont either. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Windows or MS in general but I don't want WoA. I sure as hell don't want to use an online service/VM. My own? Sure, Theirs? nope.ZeDestructor - Monday, June 4, 2018 - link
Except WoA is a very different beast from WinRT, for a single very simple reason: it's intended to let you install and run Win32 x86 programs, not just Windows store programs.MS and Qcomm have so far said that the emulation will be hardware-assisted and local, even though there will be LTE in all of em.
In short: you want (or at least want to try) WoA, but have no interest in WinRT.
Manch - Monday, June 4, 2018 - link
Except all the tests and reviews so far have shown it to be meh performance wise and meh on the price of the devices. I tried RT and I was disappointed. I used WP8/WP10 and held out hope and was ultimately disappointed. <Insert GWB fool me quote> and never again will I jump in. If it pans out in the future, maybe. As of now I have zero faith that it will last as a product.