ROG Phone 7 series: Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, 165Hz display and an attachable subwoofer

The Asus ROG Phone lineup has always been one of the best smartphones to get if all you care about is pure performance, and if you’re someone who wants or needs a gaming smartphone you’ll be pleased to hear that Asus has launched the ROG Phone 7 series. There’s two models in the lineup, with the regular ROG Phone 7 accompanied by the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate. Both share nearly the same features, with minor cosmetic differences between the two.

As usual, you can expect one of the fastest displays on a smartphone with the ROG Phone 7 and ROG Phone 7 Ultimate. It’s a huge 6.78-inch, FHD+ display using a Samsung AMOLED panel that’s capable of a 165Hz refresh rate. This is on top of a peak brightness of 1,500nits, much higher than last year’s ROG Phone 6 that capped out at 800nits. There’s also Delta E <1 colour accuracy, support for HDR10, a 720Hz touch sampling rate and a 23ms touch latency. You’ll also find a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus over it for scratch resistance.

The regular ROG Phone 7 meanwhile will feature a light up RGB ROG logo on the back, while the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate will have a secondary ROG Vision matrix display on the back. Users will be able to customise it to have it display everything from incoming calls, charging status, notifications and even personalised animations.

Under the hood, you’re of course getting the latest and greatest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, with up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. This comes with Android 13 out of the box, with a revamped ROG UI skin over it. You’ll find a suite of gaming-focused software features too, such as X-Mode for better performance and a background mode for games. According to Asus, they’re also guaranteeing two major Android OS upgrades with four years of security patches on the ROG Phone 7 series.

One big upgrade though with Asus’ new gaming smartphones isn’t even actually with the device. Instead, the new and improved AeroActive Cooler 7 has been improved by Asus for better cooling while also increasing durability of the hinge. When used on the ROG 7 Ultimate, it makes use of the AeroActive Portal which opens up the chassis to directly cool the processor.

The AeroActive Cooler 7 also now has a ‘DualCool’ design, which is to say it can now cool the front of the phone too as you’re playing. The thermoelectric cooling system will vent cold air across the display, making it for comfortable for you to tap on the screen.

But perhaps the biggest upgrade on the AeroActive Cooler 7 is that it comes with a 5-magnet super linear subwoofer. By attaching the AeroActive Cooler 7 on an ROG Phone 7 series device, you’re basically attaching a subwoofer too with a 38mm speaker that Asus says will deliver 77% stronger bass. This is on top of what is already an excellent symmetrical dual front facing stereo speaker setup, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack with Snapdragon Sound and DIRAC VIRTUO technology.

Gaming smartphones won’t typically feature the best camera setup, but with the ROG Phone 7 series you care getting a reasonable triple rear camera setup on the back. It packs a main 50MP camera using the Sony IMX766 sensor flanked by a 13MP ultrawide camera and a 5MP macro lens. In front meanwhile is a 32MP selfie camera. Helping out the hardware meanwhile is AI segmentation with RAW super resolution technology for better photos.

Elsewhere, you’ll find a huge 6,000mAh battery with 65W fast charging, an in-display fingerprint sensor, an IP54 dust and splash resistance rating as well as support for WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC and 5G. As expected there’s two USB-C ports on the ROG Phone 7 series, with pogo pins on the side of the device too which allows the phone to use the subwoofer on the AeroActive Cooler 7.

The regular ROG Phone 7 will be available in Phantom Black and Storm White while the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate will be available in only the latter colourway, though it will come with the AeroActive Cooler 7 in the box.

At the moment, there’s no details just yet on how much it’ll cost, but Asus Malaysia has confirmed that they’ll be bringing the ROG Phone 7 series to our shores on the 10th of May. In Europe though, the regular ROG Phone 7 starts at EUR999 (~RM4,852.15) with the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate starting at EUR1,399 (~RM6,793.30).