Asus made its first foray into mobile gaming less than two years ago with the original ROG (Republic of Gaming) Phone. It was a solid first attempt, no doubt, but a niche one. Fast-forward to 2020, and the ROG Phone 3 ($999.99) is an entirely different story. Sure, it’s still a gaming phone first and foremost—and gamers will go wild for its low touch latency, fast screen refresh, and gaming-specific software and buttons—but it also packs best-in-class hardware, a 5G modem, a smooth AMOLED display, and truly impressive audio quality, giving it more widespread appeal. The ROG Phone 3 doesn’t support wireless charging, nor does it have an IP rating to indicate a level of protection from water and dust. Hardcore gamers, however, will likely be willing to forgive these omissions, because the ROG Phone 3 gets just about everything else right and wins our Editors’ Choice award.
Superb Design and Display, Not Matched by Durability
The first two ROG Phones looked a little gaudy for the non-gaming crowd. The ROG Phone 3 shares a similar design language, but it’s a bit more subtle. The copper vent from its predecessor is gone, the camera stack is less pronounced, and the geometric flourishes are much more subdued. It still has a customizable RGB logo, but you can turn it off if you want.
This phone is big, at 6.73 by 3.07 by 0.39 inches (HWD) and 6.25 ounces. It’s a handful, but it isn’t as heavy as some other flagships, such as the OnePlus 8 Pro (7.02 ounces), and the weight is evenly distributed, making it easy to hold for extended periods.
The top of the phone is bare. The bottom is home to a USB-C charging port. On the left you’ll find a dual SIM slot as well as an accessory port for the included fan and other accessories; there’s also an extra USB-C port if you want to charge the phone while gaming. The accessory port is covered by a plastic cap, but it doesn’t stay attached to the phone in any way and is easy to lose.
The right side of the phone is home to the power button and volume rocker, as well as two capacitive keys called AirTriggers (more on these in a bit). All the buttons are easy to reach and provide satisfying clicks when tapped.
The front of the phone is home to a 6.59-inch AMOLED display with a built-in fingerprint sensor. The top and bottom bezels are chunky, containing stereo speakers that flank the screen. This creates a little extra space so you can hold the phone in landscape mode without accidentally tapping the screen. The in-display fingerprint sensor works as well as what you’ll find in most other smartphones—okay but not great—and there’s a less secure face unlock feature if you prefer.
Resolution comes in at 2,340 by 1,080, for a density of 391 pixels per inch. It supports a variable refresh rate up to 144Hz and is HDR10+ certified with a 25ms touch latency. The phone can automatically detect the best refresh rate, or you can set it to 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz, or 144Hz.
Simply put, the screen looks fantastic. It’s crisp, with spot-on color accuracy. Viewing angles are excellent and the phone gets bright enough to use in direct sunlight without any problems.
Asus includes a basic case, but it’s lightweight and full of gaps to permit button and port access, so it’s not clear how well it will protect your phone. Though the phone has a Gorilla Glass 6 display, there’s no IP Rating for water or dust protection. You’ll want to handle it with care.
High-End Network and Audio Performance
The ROG Phone 3 is unlocked and and works on AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks. It can access the usual array of multi-carrier bands (2/4/5/12/66) along with a number of international bands, including band 7 for Canadian carriers. There’s also support for AT&T bands 29/30 and T-Mobile bands 25/26/41/71. The spec sheet claims band 13 support for Verizon, but the phone is not certified on Verizon’s network and will not work for Verizon customers.
The inclusion of band 48 is a nice touch. This is another multi-carrier band the FCC approved for LTE and 5G deployment in 2020, and it can really speed up LTE service on AT&T and T-Mobile, since it has a lot of capacity.
The ROG Phone 3 will also work on AT&T and T-Mobile’s sub-6GHz 5G networks, since it supports bands n2/n5/n41/n66/n71/n77. The inclusion of n77, aka C-band, is worth noting, since the iPhone and Pixel 5 are the only other phones that currently support it. We may not see C-Band coverage for another year or so, but when it arrives, it could be a blessing for AT&T customers, for whom current 5G coverage can be slower than LTE.
We tested the phone on T-Mobile’s 5G network in Philadelphia earlier in 2020, before T-Mobile rolled out its 2.5GHz coverage. Even then, speeds were pretty good: an average of 96.2Mbps down and 48.4Mbps up.
Dual-band Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi 6 are supported, as is Bluetooth 5.1. There’s also NFC with support for mobile payments and boarding passes.
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Call quality is excellent. All of our test calls were crystal clear, and noise cancellation worked well. Earpiece volume maxes out at 86dB, which is loud enough to carry on a conversation on a busy street without any problems.
The large, front-facing Dirac-tuned stereo speakers totally rock. Peak volume comes in at 92dB and produce some of the best sound we’ve heard from a smartphone. Bass sounds natural, treble is defined, and there’s none of the distortion we’ve become accustomed to in smartphone audio.
The phone also has several software features that allow you customize sound profiles based on what you’re listening to. And if you use a ROG headset, there’s an exclusive Game mode that enhances stereo quality.
Power to the Max
The ROG Phone 3 is the first smartphone we’ve tested with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ chipset and an overclocked Adreno 650 GPU. There’s 512GB of UFS3.1 storage, of which 491GB is available out of the box. Our test unit has 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, though there’s also a 12GB model.
The phone will have no problem chewing through just about any task you throw at it. We never encountered any lag over hours of use with dozens of apps and Chrome windows open simultaneously. That’s largely due to the excellent hardware, but there’s something to be said about software optimization as well.
In terms of benchmarks, the ROG Phone 3 is the fastest Android handset we’ve tested. It managed a Geekbench 5 single-core score of 997 and multi-core score of 3,475, for a slight improvement over the more expensive Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra (973/3,249).
The phone has a massive 6,000mAh battery. During our power drain test, in which we ran streaming video over Wi-Fi with the display set to 60Hz at full brightness, the phone lasted 12 hours and 34 minutes. That trails the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE‘s rating of 13 hours, 31 minutes, but surpasses the 10 hours, 45 minutes of battery life we got on the OnePlus 8 Pro. Of course, you can expect the battery to drain faster when playing games and using higher refresh rates.
When you find the phone running low on juice, the ROG Phone 3 supports fast charging via the QuickCharge 4.0 standard, and it comes with a 30W charger. We were able to charge a depleted battery to 58% in just over 30 minutes. That said, wireless charging is nowhere to be found—likely a required concession for the extra USB-C charging port.
A Bevy of Gaming Features
The ROG Phone 3 is made for gaming, so we subjected it to hours of testing with Asphalt 8: Airborne and PUBG: Mobile. We took advantage of the X mode app and created individual game profiles. The app also lets you customize speed settings and see overall performance.
We mapped on-screen buttons and set up the aforementioned AirTriggers, which are a vast improvement over similar triggers we’ve seen on other gaming phones, including ROG models. Where previous AirTrigger iterations were basically ultrasonic shoulder buttons that responded to taps, the updated sensors here are capable of much more: They can be partitioned into multiple buttons, respond to slide gestures, and even be used as continuous trigger buttons if you hold your finger on them.
The ultra-low-latency display and sublime speakers make gaming incredibly immersive. In PUBG Mobile, with the frame rate and settings cranked all the way up, the ROG Phone 3 gave me that slight competitive edge it took to quickly move through a complex map and take down my opponents. The screen is so bright and clear that you feel like you could fall through it and into the game world.
Like previous ROG phones, the ROG Phone 3 is bundled with an AeroActive Cooler, a fan made primarily for times when you’re charging the phone during gameplay.
Cameras Are an Afterthought
The back of the phone is home to three camera sensors. The primary sensor comes in at 64MP with an f/1.8 aperture, and supports quad-pixel binning for super-sharp 16MP photos. There’s also a 13MP ultra-wide lens with an f/2.4 aperture, and a 5MP macro lens with an f/2.0 aperture. The front-facing camera clocks in at 24MP with an f/2.0 aperture.
The primary and wide-angle lenses performed well in daylight testing. Our test photos had excellent depth of field and color accuracy. There was some loss of fine detail, but it was only apparent when examining the images at full size. The macro lens, on the other hand, produced flat photos with mushy detail.
In low light, the primary lens did a decent job. Some of the test images appeared flat, but there wasn’t significant noise and colors remained accurate. The wide-angle lens had noticeable noise and lens flare in nearly all of our photos.
The front-facing camera did well in good light. Nearly all of our selfies featured crisp foreground detail and excellent color accuracy. In portrait mode the bokeh was natural, but there were a few monochromatic photos where we noticed slight edge blurring.
In low light, the selfie camera stuttered. Test shots were flat and muddy, and aggressive noise cancellation created some unnatural blurring in the foreground.
Android 10, Customized for Gamers
The ROG Phone 3 runs Android 10. When you first set it up, you’re presented with the option to use ROG UI or ZenUI. Both are excellent skins that are near-stock versions of Android with additional optimizations. If you opt for the gamer-centric ROG UI, you get OptiFlex, an AI system that manages memory and recommends apps based on your usage profile.
With the exception of Facebook, Google Stadia, Instagram, and Netflix, there isn’t much bloatware on the phone. There is, however, Armoury Crate, which helps you organize your games and create profiles for each one. There’s also Game Genie, which allows you to tweak notification and performance settings, and even stream your gaming sessions over YouTube Live.
Asus has confirmed the ROG Phone 3 will receive an update to Android 11 at some point in the near future, but did not offer any information on subsequent updates.
Outstanding Gaming Hardware for the Win
For a typical phone user, the ROG Phone 3 is a hard sell. The Apple iPhone 12 and Samsung Galaxy S20 FE also handle games well, support mmWave 5G, and are significantly less expensive.
However, if you’re a serious gamer who invests in your equipment, you’ll be very impressed by the Rog Phone 3. At $1,000, it’s not cheap, but the powerful hardware, clear audio, buttery-smooth display, genuinely useful AirTrigger buttons, and thoughtful software can definitely be worth the price. In the rarefied world of gaming phones, this is the one to beat, and well deserving of our Editors’ Choice award.
