The Asus ROG Phone is a smartphone designed for mobile gaming. It’s the first phone with an AMOLED display featuring a 90 Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time. It has an overclocked Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor. And it has a docking port that makes it possible to connect a bunch of optional accessories for gaming.
It’s also not cheap.
As promised, Asus has announced the ROG Phone will go up for pre-order in the United States on October 18th. And now the pricing has been revealed.
The Asus ROG Phone will sell for $899 and up.
The entry-level price gets you a phone with 8GB of RAM, 128GB of UFS 2.1 storage, and a 6 inch, 2160 x 1080 pixel AMOLED display. It features stereo front-facing speakers, a 4,000 mAh battery, and programmable “air trigger” buttons.
If you need more storage, there’s also a version with 512GB of storage that will sell for $1099.
And then there are the optional accessories:
- ROG Phone Case – $60
- ROG Gamevice Controller – $90
- ROG Professional Dock – $120
- ROG Mobile Desktop Dock – $230
- ROG WiGig Dock – $330
- ROG TwinView Dock – $400
The Gamevice controller lets you slap physical gaming bottons on sides of the phone for gaming sessions that don’t involve touching the screen. The TwinView dock is one of the phone’s crazier accessories, offering a secondary screen that you can use for chat windows or other features.
The mobile desktop dock lets you turn your phone into a gaming desktop by attaching a mouse, keyboard, and monitor. The WiGig dock lets you stream games to a TV. And the Professional Dock features Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, USB 3.1 Type-C and two USB 3.1 Type-A ports.
Other ROG Phone features include a USB 3.1 Type-C port with support for 15 watt fast charging, a 12MP + 8MP wide-angle rear camera system, an 8MP front-facing camera, support for 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There’s a fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone.
Both the device and the accessories are blatantly overpriced. It may not look like it, but that’s because both Apple and Google have raised their prices over the past 3 years, and with Samsung and later Huawei, Oppo, and OnePlus joining the fray.
I wouldn’t have any qualms with the price if they included the GameVice and Desk-Dock in the box….because those are two things expected of a PRO/Gaming phone.
There’s also other concerns such as waterproofing, is it IP68 without the branding or is it the non-existent “splashproof” protection?
How about the cameras, are the dualcamera quality to the likes of the iPhone XS Max, or is it more reminiscent of the Essential Phone?
And lastly, does the phone have other aspects to high degree of quality…such as radio strength (ie not Galaxy S6), strong housing durability (ie not Nexbit Robbin), adequate battery life (ie not Razer Phone).
But I’m still stoked about what’s on offer and what we know of it currently.