Asus ROG Phone 6 series Malaysia: Everything you need to know

Asus debuted their ROG Phone 5 lineup in March of last year, so we’re long overdue their latest gaming smartphone now. Well, the Taiwanese giants have indeed returned with the ROG Phone 6 series today, making it the first smartphone with the new Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 system-on-chip to be available in Malaysia.

Asus ROG Phone 6 series Malaysia pricing and availability

The ROG Phone 6 lineup will feature the regular model with two configurations as well as a higher specced ROG Phone 6 Pro version. You can get the ROG Phone 6 in either Phantom Black or Storm White, while the ROG Phone 6 Pro will only be available in Storm White. Here’s how much they’ll cost:

• ROG Phone 6, 12GB RAM, 256GB storage – RM3,599
• ROG Phone 6, 16GB RAM, 512GB storage – RM4,399
• ROG Phone 6 Pro, 18GB RAM, 512GB storage – RM4,999

They will be available for pre-order from the 6th of July onwards on their official store on Shopee as well as their physical retail partners nationwide. Full availability for the ROG Phone 6 will be sometime in August, with the ROG Phone 6 Pro to follow in September. If you do pre-order them, you’ll be able to snag yourself freebies worth up to RM548, which includes a year of warranty extension as well as the new AeroActive Cooler 6 that is normally priced at RM349. Furthermore, if you pre-order an ROG Phone 6 on Shopee, you’ll also get 10% the ROG Slash Hip Bag and ROG Slash Crossbody Bag which retail for RM499 and RM399 respectively.

Asus ROG Phone 6 series specs

If you’ve used any of the ROG gaming phones prior to this, you can expect the same kind of gamer aesthetic and large size on the ROG Phone 6 as its predecessors. This means a huge 6.78-inch, FHD+ AMOLED display capable of pushing a ridiculous 165Hz refresh rate as well as a 1ms response time. It also has a 720Hz touch sampling rate, a 23ms touch latency and HDR10+ certification. The screen has a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, covers 111.23% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut with a Delta E average < 1 and has a peak brightness of 1200nits. There’s a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus over it too for scratch resistance too.

Meanwhile, on the back of the phone, you’ll notice the edgy look of the ROG Phone 6 series in its full RGB glory. Here’s also the first difference between the ROG Phone 6 and the ROG Phone 6 Pro; while the ROG Phone 6 has an illuminated ROG logo on the rear, the ROG Phone 6 Pro gets an ROG Vision colour PMOLED display instead, which can be customised to display different things as you use and play on the ROG Phone 6 Pro. The whole rear of the device gets a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 3 too for scratch resistance. They weigh a chunky 239g and measures 10.3mm thick.

Under the hood, you’ll be getting the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 system-on-chip. This gets mated to either 12GB or 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM on the ROG Phone 6 and 18GB of LPDDR5 RAM on the ROG Phone 6 Pro. Both devices also come with up to 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage on board. All that silicon gets cooled by its Gamecool 6 thermal system for heat dissipation. As for software, the ROG Phone 6 lineup will come with ROG UI and Zen UI skins of Android 12 out of the box. However, Asus are only guaranteeing at least two major Android OS upgrades and two years of security updates which is unfortunate when you see the likes of Samsung guaranteeing up to 4 major OS upgrades on their flagship devices.

As you can probably expect, the cameras aren’t the main focus of the ROG Phone 6 here, but you are still getting a triple camera setup on the rear of the device. It has a 50MP main camera using the SONY IMX766 sensor flanked by a 13MP ultrawide angle lens as well as a 5MP macro camera too. On the front of the ROG Phone 6 meanwhile is a 12MP selfie camera using the Sony IMX663 sensor.

Keeping the lights on meanwhile is a huge 6,000mAh battery consisting of two 3,000mAh batteries. It’s powered by a 65W USB-PD 3.0 charger that Asus says will be able to charge the ROG Phone 6 from zero to 100% in just 42 minutes, and incredibly the charging brick comes in the box too. You’ll also find two USB-C charging ports on the ROG Phone 6 lineup, with one on the bottom and one on the side of the device, with the side USB-C port featuring HDMI output support. There’s IPX4 splash resistance too, stereo front-facing speakers and a 3.5mm audio jack along with Snapdragon Sound wireless audio support. The ROG Phone 6 also has an in-display fingerprint sensor and support for NFC, Bluetooth 5.2, 5G and WiFi 6E.

The ROG Phone 6 series also has a plethora of gaming-focused features too. You’ll find Asus’ Armoury Crate and Game Genie software pre-installed on the device, allowing you to customise performance modes depending on your use case as well as to map your additional buttons such as the AirTriggers. Speaking of the AirTriggers, Asus says that the new AirTrigger 6 features better sensitivity and motion control sensors, along with gyroscopic aiming functionality.

You’ll also find a bunch of optional accessories with the ROG Phone 6 lineup. First off is the new AeroActive Cooler 6. You can hook it up to the back of the ROG Phone 6 via the side USBB-C port, and can work completely wirelessly too by sapping power off the phone’s battery. You can opt to use just the fan on the AeroActive Cooler 6, or get additional cooling using the Peltier cooling chip in the cooler. For even more heat dissipation, you can also use external power to increase the amount of cooling from the Peltier chip, with up to 8°C in lower temperatures. The AeroActive Cooler 6 also features four physical buttons which you can map for even more actions in-game.

On top of that, there’s also the ROG Kunai 3 gamepad for a more console-like gaming experience. You’ll get the controller together with a case made for the ROG Phone 6, allowing you to slide on the controllers like a Nintendo Switch Joy-Con. Alternatively, you can mount the ROG Kunai 3 onto the included grip and connect it wirelessly to the ROG Phone 6 for an experience more akin to using an Xbox controller.