Last year a smartphone named the ROG Phone 2 set a world record in benchmarks for mobile gaming.
And guess what, it’s the elder brother of the ROG Phone 3, which is the device that I’m going to dig deep in this post.
Design
At the first glace, the signature ROG logo embedded aesthetic is pretty cool to look at.
And in this iteration, we have an even sleeker look while maintaining that robust construction.
And when it comes to design and performance, it is quite a bit the same to the previous version of the ROG Phone 2 with some bumped up blasted specs.
We have a massive 6.59-inch screen this time with the latest flagship Snapdragon processor and a configurable 8 – 16 GBs of RAM and a massive 6800 MAh battery housed by a beautiful glass design outside.
It looks a little bit chunky, but its 9.8 mm thin and only weighs 240 grams, which is mind-blowing even to hear for a spec beast like this.
This, of course, has the same design language on the back as its predecessor but with a few considerable numbers of upgrades.
It also comes with the horizontally aligned camera setup as its predecessor, which is also something nice to have, and the microphone and the flash module as well on the back.
Right in the middle of the phone’s back is where the ROG logo sits down, configurable with all the RGB magical effects.
It still has the cool ROG logo lighting, which looks super perfect when paired with the case.
And this time, we got a triple camera setup configuration while there were only two in the previous version.
On the back of the phone there’s also a window that showcases and lets you see the heatsink underneath it, made out of metal.
Next to the heatsink is the
air vent cover with a waterproof mesh design to avoid any unwanted materials accessing the phone internals while still dissipating the heat generated indie the phone through its internal components.
The front top right corner is where the secondary camera is located while the notification LED is located on the left.
It also comes with the fabulous front-firing speakers on each side of the device.
But Unfortunately, we get a considerably noticeable amount of a bezel size on both the top and the bottom on the device’s front side.
There’s nothing special on the top except the two antenna bands in each corner and a noise-canceling mic, which continually follows down to the primary mic of the device and an off-centered USB type C port, of course, for data transfers and charging.
On the left side of the device, you have the dual SIM card tray followed by the side-mounted USB type C port that can serve as either a secondary charging port and other ROG phone accessories like the aero active cooler that comes packed in the same box.
On the right side of the phone is where the Volume controller buttons are, and the power button with a red accent and another noise-canceling mic and the air triggers, which is one of the main featured highlights of the ROG Phone is on each of the two corners of the phone as well.
Display
This beast comes with a 6.59-inch 144Hz AMOLED display with a resolution of 1080 x 2340 with a touch latency of 25ms, which is pretty crazy.
The display is also protected by the latest Corning Gorilla Glass 6 on both sides and has HDR10+ support and has a pixel density of 399 PPI.
Also, the phone maxes out at a brightness of 650 nits, which is nuts.
Cameras
You mainly wouldn’t ever buy this intentionally for photography. Still, it houses a 64-megapixel SONY IMX686 at an aperture of f1.8 as the primary lens and the 13-megapixel ultrawide lens with an aperture of f2.4 and even a 5-megapixel macro lens with an aperture of 2.0 on the back of the phone in a horizontal array alignment.
The picture quality is stunning with superior color reproduction and details.
When talking about the video, the ROG Phone 3 can record up to a crazy 8K resolution at 30 fps, 4K up to 60 fps; whats even better is that it even features HyperSteady for beautiful looking amazing, super smooth shots.
And if you are into some mobile photography, it has some cool features that you can take advantage of.
Overall the shots are stunning and vivid, especially under daylight.
Even in low light photography, you will find the shots are very detailed with just a little washed out colors, which can be easily fixed by turning HDR mode ON. All the photos look great as long as there is some ample lighting without getting any annoying noise.
For selfies, the 24-megapixel front-facing camera does a great job as well. Still, on portrait mode, it sometimes can mess up a little bit when separating the subject from the background, which most likely could be fixed by a software update in the future, so make sure to keep an eye out for those, but overall the front-facing camera is pretty great as well.
OS
The ROG Phone 3 comes with Android 10 skinned with ROG UI right out of the box, which is a pretty cool UI feature to see, especially when talking about gamers.
We also get the excellent Armory Console, which gives the ROG Phone 3 the ability for full customization capabilities like changing the RGB color setting up profiles or even overclocking the CPU for the best maximum possible performance turning on the X mode.
It also has an integrated game settings window with many shortcuts that you can use to look at the phone’s current status, change your refresh rate and even live streaming, and many more.
And X Mode that comes in the ROG Phone 3 is far ahead of its competition, especially when talking about how customizable it is.
It also houses an in-display fingerprint scanner and even comes with face unlock to make sure you are the only person who can log on to your phone to protect your privacy as usual.
This beast comes packed with a configurable 256 GB or even with a 512 GB of internal storage to make sure you have your most essential games installed whenever you want to play them.
Processor
The latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ CPU powers this beast powerhouse with a clock speed of up to 3.1 GHz combined with an Adreno 650 GPU, which is pretty insane same time exceptionally valuable if you are a hardcore mobile gamer.
It also comes in another variant named the Strix Edition, which comes with a lower-powered Snapdragon 865 CPU with a clock speed of up to 2.84 GHz combined with the same Adreno 650 GPU.
One thing to note is that both of these versions can run the most demanding graphically intensive games available right now in the PlayStore.
And the Active Aero Cooler 3 that comes with the phone in the box does help a lot when gaming, especially when playing at the highest graphical settings possible in-game.
And swapping the Active Aero Cooler 3 reduces the heat up to 4 degrees, and it is mounted right in the middle of the phone where that heatsink is located that you can see from the window on the back.
Apart from the RGB branding, another pretty cool thing is the kickstand that you get with it to use the device in the landscape mode where you will get to see a USB Type C port for charging while playing your most loved games and a 3.mm jack, which would come in handy if you love to use a headphone while gaming.
ROG also has kindly included a USB Type C to 3.5mm jack adapter in the super convenient box.
As you would expect, everything runs smoothly and flawlessly no matter what game you throw at it without any lag at all.
And talking about benchmarking, the ROG Phone 3 once again broke the world record for the most powerful phone globally, which I think justifies the performance that you can get out of it.
Battery
The battery depends on how you primarily use it, meaning the ROG phone usually lasts for about two days on regular use per charge. Still, the numbers come down when it comes to gaming cause it has to power up all those fantastic components inside to make sure you get the best gaming experience out of it, which would let you game for about 6 hours straight per charge, which is mind-blowing.
And the full charging time for the ROG Phone 3 is around 1 hour and 30 minutes for the battery to go from 0 to 100 percent with its USB Type C to USB Type C cable with its included 30 Watt Quick Charging brick, which is insane and will make sure you can game for days without losing any time just for charging your ROG Phone 3 for particular competitions.
So should you buy the ROG Phone 3?
Well, the ROG Phone 3 is arguably the best gaming phone in the market right now cause it has proved its name to the world through its real-life benchmarks, which makes it the best gaming phone for anyone looking for some severe heavy-duty gaming while retaining a battery life of up to 2 days on regular use meaning it is the best overall regular-use/gaming phone anyone could buy in 2020.
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