Asus gaming line Republic of Gamers (ROG) recently held a virtual global announcement to signal the arrival of the 3rd gen ROG Phone which will be featuring a 5G SoC Snapdragon 865+ and a 144Hz display refresh rate that is marketed for hardcore gamers seeking the highest specs in the market.
In the Philippines, the ROG Phone 3 will be officially arriving this August 15 at 8PM, although the local price is yet to be revealed. It weighs at 240 grams, has an aluminum frame sandwiched by a Gorilla Glass 6-protected front display and Gorilla Glass 3 back panel, and also features the ROG phone staple RGB lighting panel at the back.
The smartphone is equipped with the GameCool 3 cooling system, a modular device that acts as a third-party cooling fan, and the AirTrigger 3 system which are ultrasonic touch sensors with an added motion sensor. The charging port is also located on the side of the device to facilitate landscape orientation gaming even while charging.
Although it is missing a dedicated memory card slot, the device comes with the newest LPDDR5 RAM at 16GB partnered with 512GB UFS 3.1 storage. It runs with the help of a large-capacity non-removable 6000mAh battery at 30W charging capacity and reverse charging at 10W capacity.
The wide 6.59” AMOLED screen with around 80% screen-to-body ratio has a screen resolution of 1080×2340 and has a pixels-per-inch density maxed at around 391. Although 4k resolution would have been preferable when running heavy gaming titles, the ROG Phone 3 still comes with a 144Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ color reproduction, paired aptly with a high 650 nits of brightness as advertised.
It will run its own dedicated ROG UI platform built on top of the latest Android 10 version, while the 7nm octa-core Snapdragon 865+ chip with its Adreno 650 GPU runs the show under the hood. Even though a presence of a 3.5mm headphone jack would have been better, the ROG Phone 3 already comes with dual DTS:X stereo speaker amplifiers to enhance the sound experience when gaming.
Even if it is strongly marketed as a gaming device, the ROG Phone 3 also doesn’t lack in the photography department. It comes with a 64MP main camera with Phase Detection Autofocus, a 13MP ultrawide lens at 125˚, and a 5MP macro sensor. With a triple-camera setup, the device can actually shoot 8k quality videos at 30fps or 4k quality videos at 120 fps.\
Other functionalities include two USB Type-C ports at the side and bottom of the device, NFC connectivity, Bluetooth 5.1, an optical under-display fingerprint scanner, and a 24MP selfie shooter. The ROG Phone 3 will come in a single Black Glare colorway and retails for $638.99 or around P31,323. Asus will also release a Strix edition which will not be 5G-ready.
