Asus is bringing its new flagship gaming smartphone to Malaysia, less than a month after it made its global debut. The completely redesigned ROG Phone 8 series is coming to our shores, bringing with it not just a fresh new look but also upgrades such as better cameras, the latest silicon, some AI features and even an IP68 rating too.
Asus ROG Phone 8 series Malaysia pricing and availability
The ROG Phone 8 lineup will feature three models, the regular ROG Phone 8, the ROG Phone 8 Pro and the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition. Here’s how much they’ll cost:
- ROG Phone 8, 12GB RAM, 256GB storage – RM3,999
- ROG Phone 8 Pro, 16GB RAM, 512GB storage – RM4,799
- ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition, 24GB RAM, 1TB storage, bundled AeroActive Cooler X – RM5,999
On top of that, you’ll also find a bunch of accessories on sale to go along with your new gaming smartphone, such as the aforementioned AeroActive Cooler X, cases and screen protectors.
- AeroActive Cooler X – RM349
- ROG Phone 8 DEVILCASE Guardian Case – RM149
- ROG Phone 8 Silicone Case – RM149
- ROG Phone 8 Antibacterial Glass Screen Protector – RM149
As part of the launch promotion, Asus is also giving everyone who gets the base ROG Phone 8 a free AeroActive Cooler X, while the ROG Phone 8 Pro will come with a DEVILCASE Guardian case. Both of those along with the Pro Edition will come with a year of extended warranty too worth RM399, with this promotion lasting from now till 20 February while stocks last. You’ll be able to find the ROG Phone 8 Pro lineup from all authorised Asus retailers as well as the official Asus Malaysia store on Lazada and Shopee.
Asus ROG Phone 8 series specs
As you can probably tell if you’ve been keeping an eye on the ROG Phone series over the years, the ROG Phone 8 family is like no other ROG Phone before. It’s part of what Asus is calling the third generation of ROG Phones; while the first three ROG Phones explored the concept of gaming smartphones in the first place, the next three generations focused more on making it the fastest and coolest gaming phone around. With the ROG Phone 8 lineup, Asus says that they’re now taking it beyond just gaming, tweaking things to make it better for daily use.
This means that the ROG Phone 8 series gets a sleeker, more industrial look to it, with a thinner 8.9m thick chassis and less gaudy gamer aesthetics, instead getting a simpler RGB ROG logo on the back of the ROG Phone 8 and an AniMe Vision customisable miniLED matrix on the back of the ROG Phone 8 Pro. The sides are now flat and on the right is still the pressure-sensitive AirTriggers that double as shoulder buttons in games. They all however still have The biggest change in terms of design though is probably with the display, as it no longer has the notchless full screen display of ROG Phones past.
In its place is a 6.78-inch, E6 AMOLED display pushing a FHD+ resolution that’s also capable of a HBM brightness of 1,600nits and a peak brightness of 2,500nits. Thanks to its LTPO backplane it’s also able to drop its refresh rate down to 1Hz, with a maximum refresh rate of 165Hz. Notably, it now has a 94% display-to-body ratio as Asus has shrinked the bezels down to just 1.65mm on the top and 1.67 on the side. This does however mean that there’s now a punch hole cut out on the top of the display for the selfie camera.
Under the hood, you’ll find the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 system-on-chip, mated to up to 24GB of LPDDR5X RAM running at 8533MHz and up to 1TB of UFS 4.0 storage. It runs Android 14 out of the box, with Asus guaranteeing at least two years of major Android OS upgrades and four years of securty patches. As usual, you’ll find Asus’ suite of gaming tools such as Armoury Crate and Game Genie, but also some new ones too like X Sense 2.0 that comes with some features to help you ‘progress’ through games like Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail faster, and can even help you solve quests if you get stuck.
Over in the camera department, the ROG Phone 8 series gets some pretty big upgrades too. For starters, the main camera is now a 50MP, f/1.9 main camera using a 1/1.56″ Sony IMX890 sensor and equipped with a 6-axis hybrid gimbal stabiliser for more stability in video. Unfortunately for our region, Asus has decided that the base ROG Phone 8 Pro will only come with a 5MP, f/2.4 macro sensor while the ROG Phone 8 Pro will get the new 32MP, f/2.4 telephoto shooter instead, offering a 3x optical zoom. In front meanwhile housed in the punch hole cut out is a 32MP, f/2.5 selfie shooter.
Other features of note include a 5,500mAh battery that Asus rates for up to 23.8hours of use, and also supports not just 65W HyperCharge fast charging that can get it back to 100% from zero in as little as 39 minutes but also for the first time, 15W Qi wireless charging. There’s also two USB-C ports as usual, one on the bottom and one on the side, as well as stereo speakers though they are no longer dual front firing anymore. The 3.5mm audio jack returns thankfully, along with an in-display fingerprint sensor. You’ll also find support for 5G, NFC, WiFI 7 and Bluetooth 5.3 wireless connectivity.
Bundled along with the ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition but also available optionally standalone, Asus is also debuting the new AeroActive Cooler X for this generation. While the previous AeroActive Cooler 7 was a large accessory offering four buttons and a subwoofer, the AeroActive Cooler X goes in the opposite direction. It’s now 29% smaller and 10% lighter, with a faster fan inside for. more cooling too. However, it loses the subwoofer and also comes with just two physical buttons instead of four.
