Asus ROG Phone 2 is a breakthrough in gaming smartphones in 2019 and is the best gaming smartphone out there. Asus has not just crammed some high-end hardware in a smartphone and call it a day. There are some in-depth customizations done by Asus, which makes it a true gaming smartphone. Here, we are going back and take a good look at this future proof phone from Asus.
Built Like a Tank, Literally!
The ROG Phone 2 from Asus comes with a very aggressive design and robust build quality. The smartphone has a thickness of 9.5mm and weighs 260 grams which is pretty wild for a smartphone of 2019. The back panel of the smartphone is all glass with a fragment of polycarbonate for decoration. Asus used aluminum for the frame which makes the smartphone sturdier.
The smartphone is a bit heavy for one-hand use and a bit slippery because of the glass panel. But when comes to gaming and using with two hands, you won’t realize the weight that much. The smartphone comes with charging at the side of the phone as well which makes it better to game without getting the charging cable in the way.
Performance and User Interface
The Asus ROG Phone 2 comes with a near to stock user interface with two themes built into the settings. You can select the one with more ROG icons and customization or the one with a pure stock Android user interface. The smartphone runs on Android 9 Pie with ZenUI 5 with Android 10 update on the way by Asus.
Coming to the performance, this is the only smartphone that broke the 500,000 score barrier on the AnTuTu benchmark. Even though we got this score with the X-Mode turned on but still, this is the highest score we have seen so for from the Snapdragon 855+. Also, there is plenty of RAM so even multitasking heavy games is a piece of cake for ROG Phone 2.
Gaming on ROG Phone 2
Coming to the most important part of a gaming phone; Gaming. The smartphone comes with all the needed power which a smartphone needs to run any game available right now at maximum frame rates. Not even a single hiccup experienced while playing games on this ROG Phone 2.
And as ROG Phone 2 is built for gaming, you can expect it getting heated and no exceptions here. The smartphone gets heated during heavy gaming, especially the top half of the smartphone gets hot. That heat escape vent at the back seems to be working because the smartphone cools down fast when idle.
Battery
The battery on gaming smartphones always been an issue but Asus created an exception in ROG Phone 2 by providing a 6000mAh battery. Using the smartphone with no gaming whatsoever can give you more than two days of battery backup easily. Even with gaming, the battery drops is low, you can get about one complete day with extensive(not continuous) gaming.
The difference comes to light when you switch the display frame rates; so if you use the smartphone at 120Hz, you will get a complete day with light gaming included. When comes to charging, it comes with an 18-watt wall adapter (up to 27W supported) to charge it and you get decent charging speeds despite the 6000mAh battery.
Camera
We kept the camera section at the end because this is the one category where Asus compromised. You get a dual-camera setup which includes a 48MP sensor and a wide-angle sensor. The quality you get is not what we expected from a smartphone at this price range. The samples are included so you can take a quick look at them by yourself as well to decide.
The smartphone seems to be smoothing the pixels a little bit which degrades the details in the pictures. The smartphone comes with a single selfie camera at the front for selfies which also captures decent pictures.
Wrapping up
Asus has created a future proof smartphone with everything you need in a smartphone only if you don’t care about the camera or bulkiness. Asus created some amazing accessories for this smartphone to get the best out of it which is a bit expensive but works seamlessly.
