Asus on Tuesday (July 5) unveiled the new flagship gaming phones-- ROG Phone 6 and the 6 Pro.
In India, the company is offering Asus ROG Phone 6 (12GB RAM + 256GB storage) and ROG Phone 6 Pro (18GB RAM + 512GB storage) -- for Rs 71,999 and Rs 89,999, respectively.
Last week, I had the opportunity to check out the ROG Phone 6 Pro. Here are my initial thoughts on the new premium gaming phone.
Display and design
Asus is offering the new ROG Phone 6 Pro only in storm white colour in India. The device has an ivory-like feel and offers a really good grip for the fingers. This is really important given the device is for niche gamer customers.
The device comes with AirTrigger 6 Ultrasonic trigger buttons on the rails. Add to that, the device supports up to 10 motion control gestures. It can support various gestures, including new features such as dual action, press, and lift, and gyroscope aiming.
On the back, the ROG Phone 6 Pro features the trademark ROG Vision color PMOLED display. It is bigger than and better than the ROG Phone 6's Dual RGB LED light.
Users will be able to display more than 60 system animations on the back of the ROG Phone 6 Pro and this makes the device unique and visually better looking among its peer.
To make the gaming experience better, the company has incorporated a powerful audio system with 7-magnet Symmetrical Stereo loudspeakers. They are tuned by Dirac Audio for enhanced spatial immersion. It also comes with a new X-axis linear motor to create engaging Gaming haptics up to 130Hz. It also features 3.5mm headphone jack.
With the latest Bluetooth 5.2 tech and support for aptX Low Latency codec, the wireless earphones will always be in sync with the video games or the video played on the phone.
On the front, ROG Phone 6 Pro sports a 6.78-inch full HD+ AMOLED (made by Samsung) display with 2448 × 1080p resolution. The phone's display also comes with a Pixelworks i6 processor to ensure a good viewing experience be it watching a movie or playing a game such as Asphalt 9: Legends.
The display supports HDR10+ content format, and thanks to proprietary ROG tuning technology, it can 165 Hz refresh rate, up to 720 Hz touch-sampling rate (great for gaming) and a world-beating 23ms ultra-low touch latency, which comes in handy for playing BGMI (Battle Ground Mobile India) and similar first-person view (FPV)-like games.
The display also has an in-screen fingerprint sensor and the panel is protected by a 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass Victus shield.
Processor configuration
The new ROG Phone 6 Pro is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, which can clock peak CPU speed up to 3.2GHz and yet maintain the normal operating temperature inside the phone. It is backed by 18GB LPDDR5 RAM, 512 GB (UFS 3.1) storage, new-gen Adreno GPU and Snapdragon Elite Gaming features to offering smooth gameplay experience.
Add to that, the company is incorporated GameCool 6 cooling system. It promises 360-degree CPU cooling. Compared to the predecessor, it has a 30 per cent larger vapor chamber and 85 per cent larger graphite sheets 6. Also, it has the centred-CPU design to improve heat dissipation from the core better than any previous iterations or other branded phones for that matter.
It comes with the Armoury Crate feature and this will allow the ROG Phone 6 users to adjust performance settings for different games. This will allow gamers to competitive edge over other phone users playing in a multi-person gaming scenario.
Asus is also offering ROG AeroActive Cooler 6. It is touted to be the world's first wireless Thermo-electric + Fan Cooling accessory, which also comes with 4 input trigger buttons. This promises to enhance the gaming experience.
And also, the clip-on accessory houses an AI-powered thermoelectric cooler that can reduce the temperature on the phone's back surface by up to 25 degrees celsius degree and keep the phone cool even while playing graphics-rich games.
The device houses two 3,000mAh batteries separated by the CPU board in between. It supports 67W fast charging, but the retail box comes with a 30W HyperCharge Power adapter. Besides the fast charging, it supports optimized charging that can be left for overnight charging and users can even sync the speed of charging with morning alarm time too.
Photography hardware
Asus ROG Phone 6 is powered by a triple camera-- 50MP (1/1.56-inch Sony IMX766 sensor, 1μm pixel size, f/1.9) backed by a 13MP 125-degree ultra-wide camera (f/2.4) + 5MP macro sensor (f/2.0).
On the front, it features a 12MP (Sony IMX663 sensor).
In the brief time, I spent with the device, I could only test it in low-light indoor conditions. The picture quality was decent. I am keener to test the phone's capability in sunlight conditions.
It should be noted that ROG Phone 6 Pro supports up to 8K video recording at 30 fps (frames per second), 4K at 60fps, slow-motion 4K at 120 fps, 1080p at 240fps, and 720p at 480 fps.
Asus will be sending us the ROG Phone 6 Pro for full review soon. Stay tuned.
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