Asus ROG Phone 3: Born for Optimal Mobile Gaming Experience

By Carrie Tsai, Last Updated: August 28, 2020INDUSTRY

Late last month, Asus just released a new version of its ROG (Republic of Gamers) Phone named ROG Phone 3, which has taken mobile gaming up a notch. This gaming phone, since it appeared, has been well received by the the vast majority of the individuals who use it especially gaming lovers and has become the champion of gaming smartphones.

In fact, the latest ROG Phone 3 is the progressive fruit of Asus's consistent push of its Republic of Gamers (ROG) smartphone series in the gaming sector. Back in 2018 when gaming phones started gaining prevalent, Asus stood out to launch its first gaming-focused smartphone under the ROG brand dubbed ROG Phone 1. Since then, it has been becoming one of the few real providers that have a separate gaming smartphone portfolio.

From ROG 1 to last year's ROG 2, Asus showed how gravely it pushed mobile gaming with its dedication to offering top-of-the-line gaming phone series positioned to outstanding gameplay. Now Asus keeps on progressing in mobile gaming as the ROG Phone 3 was launched lately. While looking similar to the previous ROG 2 model, the ROG Phone 3 takes mobile gaming up a notch coming with upgraded techs and improved features which are specifically engineered to offer optimal gaming experience.

Besides, while there are many competing gaming smartphone brands on the market, each of which is powerful at a competitive price, Asus ROG Phone 3 still sticks out to be the champion due to its unique and advantageous features. The following will give you a detailed insight on this gaming smartphone to make you understand why it can be the king of gaming smartphones. Keep reading.

Asus ROG Phone 3 Explored - Design

The ROG Phone 3 shares a similar look and a nearly identical size with its predecessor (ROG Phone 2). This allows the new model to be compatible with the accessories coming with the ROG 2. However, the new version is, on the whole, more gimcrack and more sophisticated in appearance coming with plenty of upgrades and improvements.

Also, compared to a number of other gaming smartphones which share the similar design with each other, Asus's ROG Phone 3 looks comparatively distinctive. Let's get into its design deeply to understand why it can stand out from the crowd.

Overall Appearance

In terms of the overall appearance, The ROG Phone 3 looks very unique and offers the feel of gaming phone entirely. It comes in a dimension of 171 x 78 x 9.9 mm and weighs 240 grams. Although comfortable to hold, it's still a considerably thicker and heavier smartphone.

Compared with its predecessor, it is slightly toned down in appearance. The glass on the rear panel is glossy rather than matte and is made from Corning Gorilla Glass 3. On the rear side, the new ROG Phone 3 reduces cuts and angled lines but still remains the aerodynamic feel with carved lines and diamond-cut bevel.

The RGB-equipped ROG logo that was on the previous model also remains on the rear side of the new model. However, this ROG logo looks brighter and more colorful since there are a plethora of lighting and color-altering patterns to change. Overall, all these improvements bring up softer, cooler and more mature ROG Phone 3, making it more attractive especially for gaming lovers.

Shoulder-mounted Ultra-Precise Touch AirTriggers

There is one powerful improved feature that makes the ROG Phone 3 bring more immersive and more intuitive gaming experience - the ultrasonic AirTriggers pressure-sensitive touch sensors around the edges of the right side of the phone. The touch sensors act as controllers which are used as shoulder-mounted buttons and are mapped to on-screen controls for scores of different in-game actions such as tapping, hold-down, swiping and splitting.

This feature can be activated during gaming by using the slide-in screen Game Genie menu. Once activated, it can make the in-game controls quicker and smoother to use and can prevent the fingers from covering the screen, leading to smoother and more efficient mobile gaming experience. In short, this feature can allow for more immersive and more efficient gaming experience, making the ROG Phone 3 more powerful.

AirTriggers Touch Sensors on Asus ROG Phone 3

Side-mounted & Bottom USB-C Ports

The position of the USB-C ports also makes the ROG Phone 3 distinctive and powerful in using experience and charging. There are two USB C ports on the ROG 3. One is located off-center at the bottom while the other lies in the left side. The side-mounted one allows gamers to hold the phone to play games in landscape more comfortably during charging, which is more user-friendly. More comfortable holding of the phone while playing games can also help lead to more efficient gameplaying.

Dual Front-facing Stereo Speakers & Quad-Mics

With no excellent sound effects, gaming experience is half-baked. While playing games, having a proper sound effects is of great importance. The ROG Phone 3 is also outstanding in sound effects coming with a pair of front-facing gigantic stereo speakers as well as four mics in all directions.

Each of the two speakers facing the top is powered by the NXP TFA9874 ampliier and has a 7-magnet feature, allowing for tightly balanced and effective stereo sound effect. Also, the speakers output the sound in the proper direction, which is very beneficial when playing combat games. In short, the dual front-facing stereo speakers make the gaming more vivid and lifelike by offering balanced and impressive sound.

When it comes to the four microphones of the Asus ROG Phone 3, they further improve the audio gaming experience by locating themselves in all directions to better receive sound and reduce noise. They are near to the top left corner, on the bottom bezel, on the right side edge behind the power button and on the rear side back near to the camera respectively.

Removal of 3.5mm Headphone Jack

One thing that ROG Phone 2 users may observe is the removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack from the new ROG 3. In fact, ditching the headphone jack is also the optimization of the internal space of the phone. Eliminating the headphone jack can save the room for accommodating the PCB which is needed for the 5G antennas. Also, it can make the ROG Phone 3 maintain the same 6000mAh battery capacity and the same dimensions as the ROG 2, which makes the ROG 3 compatible with the accessories of the previous model.

Of course, the disappearance of the headphone jack doesn't mean that you cannot connect your 3.5mm gaming headset accessories to the ROG Phone 3. Since there's a dongle in the box, you're able to connect your 3.5mm headphones to the ROG 3.

Asus ROG Phone 3 Explored - Accessories

Asus ROG Phone 3 also offers a bunch of accessories (bundled or separately-sold), which pushes it to rival any gaming smartphone on the market today. The most attractive accessory is the AeroActive Cooler 3 which is included in the ROG Phone 3 box.

This attachment is basically a clip-on fan that clips onto the part of the back where SoC and modem run and produce heat to help cool the phone down. This is more effective during intense gaming. Cooling down the phone is also beneficial to improving battery life and enhancing performance.

In addition to cooling down the phone, the AeroActive Cooler 3 is also powered with a 3.5mm headphone jack which can enable you to connect your 3.5mm gaming audio accessory to the ROG Phone 3. Morever, there is also a kickstand on the rear of the Cooler 3 which can hold up the phone, leading to more convenient movie watching and game playing.

In addition to AeroActive Cooler 3, there are some of the other powerful accessories of the ROG Phone 3 although they need to be sold separately such as ROG Kunai 3 Gamepad, ROG Clip, ROG TwinView Dock 3 and ROG Lightning Armor Case. In short, these accessories help to make the ROG Phone 3 become unique and more powerful.

Also Read:

How Do You Cool Down an Overheated Phone?

Clip-on AeroActive Cooler 3 Coming with ROG Phone 3

Asus ROG Phone 3 Explored - Display

When it comes to the display, the ROG Phone 3 comes with a 6.59-inch AMOLED Full HD+ screen with a screen resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels (391 ppi) and a refresh rate of 144Hz. You can also shift between 120Hz, 90Hz and 60Hz refresh rates at your will. The large size and high resolution of the ROG 3 allow for wider and clearer screen viewing experience, which can bring better gaming experience.

Besides, the display is flat with no curved edges and retains a bezel at the bottom and top corners but with no notches or punch hole cameras which can easily detract from the overall viewing experience. Such a extremely smooth display is needed to improve gaming experience while playing mobile games.

Furthermore, another key aspect of the display of the ROG Phone 3 is the touch sampling rate which is quite important for mobile gaming. The touch sampling rate is the record of times per second when touching the screen. In a word, the higher the touch sampling rate, the more accurate and sensitive the touch control. The touch sampling rate of the ROG Phone 3 display is 270Hz which is very high, making the display become highly accurate and sensitive. This helps to reduce latency between the taps and actions during gaming, leading to fast-paced gameplay.

Asus ROG Phone 3 Explored - Performance

As to the performance, the Asus ROG Phone 3 delivers smooth and outstanding performance, which makes it undoubtedly the king of gaming smartphones. In terms of processor, it's powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus processor which is the best and most powerful CPU core processor for that it's the first mobile processor whose clock speed exceeds 3GHz.

As to the memory, the phone is powered by 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM which syncs with the processor very well and delivers excellent usage experience especially gaming experience. Also, it uses extremely fast UFS 3.1 storage and has 128GB ROM, which makes it absolutely enough for large files and apps storage.

Furthermore, with the help of its inbuilt thermal cooling system (AeroActive Cooler 3), it also effectively solves the heating issue during gaming, which helps to enhance the performance. In a word, by making full use of the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus processor, 16GB LPDDR5 RAM, UFS 3.1 storage as well as the thermal cooling system, the ROG Phone 3 easily wins the battle of the current gaming smartphone specs.

Asus ROG Phone 3 Explored - Software & UI

In terms of the user interface, the Asus ROG Phone 3 runs on its own ROG UI powered by top of Android 10. The ROG UI comes with aggressive curves, hue of color and plenty of graphics, all of which are complete with animations like flickering effects, fires and reactors. It's cool and attractive.

The UI offers a powerful app called Armoury Crate app on which there are a variety of interesting modes to improve the gaming experience. This app is the ROG Phone 3's control center in which you're able to create and customize "Scenario Profiles" to preset performance for the game. There are three performance levels you can select including default, gaming and hardcore, each of which has an array of advanced settings.

X-mode is one of the interesting modes that the Armoury Crate app offers. This mode helps enhance phone performance and minimize distractions during the gaming by allowing the users to customize the advanced X-mode settings such as system temperature control, CPU and GPU control, display settings, touch control sensitivity, internet quality enhancement and command mapping. All in all, this advanced weapon helps turn everything related to performance to its finest, leading to smooth and outstanding performance during gaming.

Asus ROG Phone 3 Explored - Cameras

Photo-taking performance has never been the key point of a gaming smartphone. However, Asus still spared no effort in enhancing photo quality to make the ROG Phone 3 a good smartphone for daily use in order to make it attractive to non-gamers. In terms of cameras, ROG Phone 3 still has a competitive edge over many other smartphones on the current market.

Compared with the ROG 2 which is equipped with threee cameras, the new ROG Phone 3 comes with four cameras in total. On the rear side, there are the triple-lens rear cameras including the main 64-megapixel IMX686 sensor, a 5-megapixel macro sensor and a 13-megapixel ultra-wide sensor. On the front side, there is a 24-megapixel selfie camera in the bezel.

What makes the ROG 3 powerful in shooting is plenty of different modes (night mode, portrait mode, motion-tracking video mode, and pro video mode) of the rear camera as well as the 4K and HDR video taking capability.

Related Post:

Top 6 Tips for Taking Awesome Photos

Asus ROG Phone 3 Explored - Charging and Battery

Charging and battery life are also of great importance for mobile gaming since game playing consumes much power very quickly. In this point, ROG Phone 3 is also outstanding since it offers up to 6,000 mAh mammoth battery and supports up to 30W fast charging.

6,000 mAh battery is one of the biggest capacity batteries on the current market, which can support up to 2 days of typical use. This mammoth battery life is especially useful for mobile gaming which needs to consume much power. Besides, the ROG Phone 3 comes with a 30W fast charger which supports fast charging the phone in 1 and half an hour.

Moreover, this model also brings users a comprehensive battery management called PowerMaster mode in the UI. This mode enables you to preset and customize the charging process and capacity, making the charging optimal.

Final Words

Asus ROG Phone 3 has been the king of gaming smartphones since it was released late last month. Whether compared to its predecessor or compared to any other gaming smartphones, this model is always the best one that brings you the optimal gaming experience. With forward-looking design, an amazing display, smooth performance, powerful accessories, plenty of software features and extremely large battery capacity, unquestionably it has the guts to be the champion of mobile gaming.

Besides, along with the extremely long battery life, the competitve four cameras and many other powerful features to optimize the using experience, the ROG Phone 3 is also a good smartphone for non-gamers.