The ROG Phone series is getting a major shakeup for this years edition. Asus’ flagship gaming smartphone has gotten a complete makeover, with the ROG Phone 8 lineup now slimmer and lighter than before with better cameras while still continuing to feature some of the best mobile gaming features around.
For starters, the whole aesthetic of the ROG Phone 8 series is different than before. The loud-and-proud gamer look has been significantly toned down here, with a sleeker, industrial looking design but still retain just enough to make it stand out. For instance, the back of the ROG Phone 8 comes with Aura RGB lighting showing off the ROG logo, while the ROG Phone 8 Pro gets an AniMe Vision MiniLED display, a 341-element display that can be customised with your own animations. The ROG Phone 8 series is now 15% thinner and 9% lighter too, weighing just 225g.
The display itself though will likely be quite polarising especially if you’re one of the few people left who refuse acknowledge the notch/punch hole cut out. The bezels have been reduced down to a 94% display-to-body ratio, but at the cost of it now coming with a punch hole cutout for the selfie camera. Gone is the full screen of ROG Phones past, replaced with a 6.78-inch AMOLED display pushing an FHD+ resolution, an up to 165Hz adaptive refresh rate with an LTPO backplane letting it go as low as 1Hz and a peak brightness of 2,500nits on top of a Delta E<1 colour accuracy and a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 over it for scratch resistance.
Under the hood is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, with up to 24GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage for maximum performance. The ROG Phone 8 series will come with Android 14 out of the box too, skinned with their own ROG UI theme over it and a host of gaming features as well as some AI-powered tools too, such as ‘AI Grabber’ that apparently will help you finish a quest as you’re playing the game, along with an AI Wallpaper feature.
In the camera department meanwhile you’ll find what is perhaps the biggest upgrade to the ROG Phone 8 series. The camera island itself has been reshaped, now housing a main 50MP, f/1.9 main camera with a 6-axis hybrid gimbal stabiliser and a 1/1.56″ image sensor. That gets flanked by a 13MP ultrawide shooter and a 32MP, f/2.4 telephoto offering a 3x optical zoom, a first for the ROG Phone series. As for the selfie camera it’s a 32MP front facing shooter.
Other features of note include a 5,500mAh battery with 65W wired fast charging as well as 15W wireless charging. You’ll find the AirTriggers on the side of the frame again that act as shoulder buttons, while the new AeroActive Cooler X is much smaller than before for easier portability. There’s stereo speakers too, though they aren’t both front-firing anymore, along with an IP68 dust and water resistance rating, the first for any gaming smartphone.
The ROG Phone 8 will start at USD1,099.99 (~RM5,106.15) in the US, with the ROG Phone 8 Pro starting at USD1,199.99 (~RM5,570.35). There’s also an ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition that is priced at USD1,499.99 (~RM6,962.95), which as far as I can tell is basically just the ROG Phone 8 Pro with more memory, storage and has the cooler bundled along. Asus Malaysia did say though that they will be bringing the ROG Phone 8 series to our shores very soon, so stay tuned for more details on that.
