Asus ROG Phone II: Strix Edition vs Tencent Edition

There’s now a more affordable Asus ROG Phone II that costs RM2,499. It’s called the Strix Edition and it is RM1,000 lower in price as it comes with 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage. Some might think that this is basically the global version of the Chinese market Tencent edition but you’re actually getting different things in the box.

For starters, the Malaysian ROG Phone II Strix Edition comes in a prism box and this has been confirmed via DirectD’s unboxing. The ROG Phone II Tencent edition is shipped with a typical square box. In addition, the Strix Edition also gets the same 30W fast charger with USB-C to USB-C cable like its more expensive models. You’ll also get an AeroActive Cooler II and an AeroCase for free worth RM398.

As a comparison, the Tencent edition is only shipped with a transparent bumper case and the device is bundled with a slower 18W charger with a USB Type-A to C cable.

Based on Asus Malaysia’s spec-sheet, the actual radio bands for the Strix edition appear to be similar to the Tencent model. It supports FDD-LTE Band 1, 2,3,4,5,7,8 and 28, and TD-LTE bands of 34, 38, 39, 40 and 41. There’s also support for China’s TD-SCDMA Band 34, 49 and CDMA Band BC0.

When Asus made a comparison last year, they highlighted that the Tencent edition doesn’t support 802.11ad for WiGig mode but it isn’t clear if this wireless display feature is enabled for the Strix Edition. We’ve reached out to Asus for further clarification on this.

[ UPDATE 14/1/2020 4:22PM ] Asus Malaysia has confirmed that 802.11ad WiGig support is not available for the Strix Edition.

The rest of the specs remains unchanged and it still gets a 6.59″ Full HD+ display that pushes a fluid 120Hz refresh rate on an AMOLED panel. It runs on a Snapdragon 855+ processor and it uses LPDDR4X RAM along with high-performance UFS 3.0 storage.

For imaging, it gets a 48MP + 13MP ultra-wide-angle dual-camera combo and a front-facing 24MP selfie shooter. Powering the device is a huge 6,000mAh battery and it still comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack. To recap, below is the official pricing for the current ROG Phone II range:

ROG Phone 2 Strix Editon 8GB RAM + 128GB storage – RM2,499
ROG Phone 2 12GB RAM + 512GB storage – RM3,499
ROG Phone 2 12GB RAM + 1TB storage – RM4,499

According to Asus, there will be a Chinese New year promo for the ROG Phone and more details will be revealed this coming Friday, 17th January 2020. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can check out our unboxing below for the 12GB RAM version.

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