REVIEW: ROG Phone 8 Pro - Not your ordinary Gaming Phone

Gaming mobile phones has been in the market for almost a decade now and ASUS Republic of Games is one of the brands that started creating mobile phones for gaming.

This mobiles phones have features that offers smooth and and uninterrupted gaming experience to users.

Today we are lucky enough to get our hands on the latest gaming phone from ASUS ROG, the ROG Phone 8 Pro.

Disclaimer: This unit has been lent to us by ASUS Philippines for review and they have no say or influence on what we will write about.

There are two models on the new ROG Phone 8, the ROG Phone 8 and the ROG Phone 8 Pro which we found out that the only difference in specs is the customizable mini-LED matrix at the back.

UNBOXING EXPERIENCE

The ROG Phone 8 Pro comes in a large unique locket box that is not usual on most mobile phones that are released in 2024.

Inside the box contains the accessories that we think is an addition for the "Pro" model. The accessories are as follow:

• Braided USB Type-C to Type-C Cable
• 65 Watts power brick
• Pouch bag for the 
• Aero Active Cooler X
• Bumper Case

I was said that one of the key difference between the Pro and non-Pro is the additional Aero Activel Cooler X accessory that if you'll purchase separately will cost you around PHP 4,995 depending on store.

SPECIFICATION

One cool highlight of the ROG Phone aside from its high specs are the ports, it has 2 that allows you to connect its accessories on the side using USB Type-C and the good news is that it supports display features

DESIGN

ASUS ROG is know for it making their design something extra and the ROG Phone 8 Pro is no exception to this. They have add 341 Mini-LED programmable matrix at the back that you can customize using their Armoury Crate mobile version.

The back part has matte textured surface that with our smooth hands usually slips. Though over all, the ROG Phone 8 Pro has more minimalist compared to its predecessors that screams gaming phone, with out the accessories, we can say that it looks more like a normal phone which in our opinion is a good choice making it more stealthy.

We mentioned that having the 2 USB Type-C port is a great idea especially on a gaming phone that are usally used horizontally, this allows you to connect the Aero Active Cool X accessory seamlessly.

With the 2 USB Type-C ports, we were able to plugin additional accessories on the ROG Phone 8 Pro along with the Cooler such as their latest ROG Cetra TWS Speed Nova or we can connect their ROG Tessen along with the ROG Cetra TWS Speed Nova leveling up your gaming experience.

GAMING PERFORMANCE

Speaking of gaming, we have tried some games using the ROG Phone 8 Pro though disclaimer that we are casual mobile gamers only, we still prefer PC games...

We did try some popular games such as Mobile Legends Bang Bang, Geshin Impact and Aspalt 8 and we can say that playing on the ROG Phone 8 Pro shows a lot of difference compared to playing with non-gaming phones.

Geshin Impact with ROG Tessen attached

Mobile Legends Bang Bang connected to a portable monitor

We also played PUBG mobile and CODM and we can say that the 165hz refresh rate of its display makes our gaming experience much smoother than on an iPhone 15 Pro even on higher game settings. The only trade off is the battery depleting much faster. While playing, our 100% charge lasted only around 3 hrs with remaining 15% (we usually don't let our mobile device battery charge gone lower that 15%, what ever brand we use).

The battery also depletes much faster if you activate the Game X mode, making your experience much better and with the Aero Active Cool X fans runs faster to lessen the heat from the mobile phone.

When it comes to gaming we agreed that the ROG Phone 8 Pro has an advantage comparing to the general brand of mobile device especially to those heavy mobile games and competitive esports title games.

BATTERY LIFE

We have mentioned that playing games on the ROG Phone 8 Pro can deplete its battery much fast which is around 3 hrs at least which is expected if you maximize all the settings on you game that will push the phone its limits, the higher performance we expect the more power hungry the phone will be. Though with the 65 watts power adapter that comes in the package, charging the ROG Phone 8 Pro will only last you around 1hr or less.

Another good thing about the ROG Phone ecosystem is that even if you attached its accessories such as the Aero Active Cool 8 X, ROG Kunai, ROG Tessen, you can still charge them with the ports on the said accessories extending you gaming sessions.

PHOTOS AND VIDEO

We thought that a gaming phone manufacturers only focus on gaming features but ASUS ROG also did pay attention on the other aspect of a mobile phone, the Camera. Taking photos on the ROG Phone 8 Pro can be compared to brands that focuses on photos and videos.

Photo taken using ROG Phone 8 Pro 1x

Photo taken using ROG Phone 8 Pro 2x

Photo taken using ROG Phone 8 Pro 1x outside at 12noon

Photo taken using ROG Phone 8 Pro 5x

Suprisingly we didn't expect that a gaming phone can have OIS on its camera, but the ROG Phone 8 Pro does have, it comes with gimbal OIS

With this camera features, the ROG Phone 8 Pro can be a good option not just for gamers but also for those who use their camera for photos and videos of their trips and getaways.

BENCHMARKS

A review will not be a review without benchmarks and even mobile phones have its own way when it comes to benchmarks.

We did use the Antutu v10.3.2 benchmark for this and the ROG Phone 8 Pro got a whoapping 2118109 score

We also did try the Storage Test within the Antutu benchmark app and we got a 154947 score with sequential read speed of 3,632.7MB/s and sequential write of 3,548.3MB/s.

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark test that measures the capability of the processor on multi and single core performance and here are the results for ROG Phone 8 Pro.

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

As of writing the ROG Phone 8 Pro is available in the Philippines with the following SRPs 

CONCLUSION

The ROG Phone 8 Pro is one of the best gaming mobile phone in the market right now with the upgrade features such as the 165hz display refresh rate, the upgraded processor, RAM and storage and our favorite feature the gimbal OIS on its camera and the sthealty look design.

Here are at All of the Above we have a way to award our review products. These are the scores we give the ROG Phone 8 Pro. We categorize this minimalist yet monsterous gaming phone a Class S rank.

• 10/10 for design, minimalist and sthealty design
• 10/10 for performance, 165hz refresh rate, fast charging, it comes with 65w power brick and gimbal OIS
• 9/10 for the price, reasonable price to performance

Overall, we give the ROG Phone 8 Pro a 9.6/10 and we round it up to 10/10 (giving credit to the locket box packaging) perfect rating. This can be justified with the performance and price ratio of the product, and we are looking forward to new technologies that will come for mobile device since AI has been creeping in on some of the newly release phones from other brands.

If you have comments and suggestions on our review and posts, you can write it down in the comment section below. Let us know what other gadgets you want us to review.