After the mobile phones with the Pro moniker, the manufacturers are now trying to target a new segment in the gaming category. The unique approach is essential for these devices, which mainly manifests itself in the colorful LEDs and the extravagant appearance. More important is, however, top-notch components reaching the users: the hardware should not be a restraining factor in achieving the best player performance. We were curious about the Nubia Red Magic 5G and wanted to see what Asus, the PC market leader could put on the table with the ROG Phone 3.
Last year, the ROG Phone II became the phone of the year or the large mobile of the year on several international sites – quite understandably. It was equipped with the fastest processor of the time, accompanied by a quality display and a large battery, so it perfectly satisfied the needs of top-end mobile gamers. While for low-end gaming, users usually prefer cheaper devices, and one can find the best Infinix phones price online at WhatMobile, the biggest mobile phone portal in Pakistan. end The ROG Phone 3 has inherited these great features, and in light of this, we would use the usual test method: before we start unpacking and walking around the phone with a rich range of accessories, let’s go over the specifications, right now this is not the most important thing.
Our test subject is an excellent, large Android smartphone.
Thanks to the powerful processor and a sufficient amount of memory (8-16 GB), there is no application that can withstand everyday use: there is hardly a better combo on the market than the Snapdragon 865+ with Adreno 650 graphics chip. Thanks to the huge 6,000 milliampere-hour battery, the device can easily last two days with calls, browsing, social media browsing, and some games, which is a big word in today’s world. In return, there is no wireless charging, and although those who took the phone apart found some waterproof layer inside the device, the ROG Phone 3 has not been certified, so it is not officially waterproof.
The rear camera system consists of a 64-megapixel main unit, a 13-megapixel ultra-wide lens, and a macro lens, and we can generally say that we get absolutely acceptable results during the day, but as it gets darker, the quality of the photos deteriorates. But we don’t buy this phone for that, but for what follows in the sequel.
Gaming experience
The box of the device is not ordinary, and the manufacturer did not skimp on the accessories either. When opening the trapezoidal packaging, it is not even clear at first which part of the box hides the phone. In addition to the usual pair of chargers and headphones, we also get a case and a cooling fan, which also functions as a table stand. What Nubia has built-in, Asus provides again as an accessory, but the cooling accessory really only needs to be attached when we plan to play a longer game.
When you pick up the phone, you immediately feel its weight (240 grams), the manufacturer worked with quality materials: a lot of metal, and strong glass (Gorilla Glass 6) – this device will not crackle in your hand. On the right side of the frame are the power and volume control buttons, and the two edges function as touch-sensitive triggers during gameplay. The port for connecting accessories has been moved to the left side, and there is a USB-C at the bottom. Although there is no traditional jack connector on the mobile phone, it is good news for many that the manufacturer saved one for the fan included with the device.
On the front of the mobile phone, there are two praiseworthy details – which is essentially three. On the one hand, we get world-class stereo speakers that face us (as they should be on every phone), so they provide a great sound experience. In addition, there is a 6.6-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels, which is capable of up to 144 Hz refresh rate – even in the PC world, only high-end devices know this. The display is fantastic, to put it mildly, and it is completely understandable that the manufacturer chose speed rather than resolution, since it is much more useful for games if the experience is smooth, it is unnecessary to cram a 4K resolution panel into a handheld device.
On the back panel, which is also glass, there is the camera island, the cooling fin of the GameCool 3, and a small ventilation opening where the Active Cooler 3 fan is connected. Of course, the large, LED ROG logo was not left out either, the color of which can be changed to our liking, or adapted to the games. This is hidden by the installed fan, but Asus has thought of everything, so we can also find a lighted logo on the accessory, so you don’t have to give up this extremely useful function under any circumstances.
When you turn it on, the phone asks you what look you prefer: you can choose between a more “aggressive” gaming and a clean interface reminiscent of factory Android. Fortunately, the phone is not overloaded with all kinds of unnecessary pre-installed programs, but Asus customized the settings menu a bit in its own image – of course, this still made it completely transparent.
The functions related to the mobile game can be found in an application called Armory Crate, which is also transparent. Here, for example, you can set the color of the back panel logo, and in the case of games, you can pre-define the image update with which the given program will run, and X-Mode can be associated with them, which can be used to squeeze the maximum performance out of the device. Here you can also see the temperature of the device and the current clock of the processor – as if we were holding a computer in our hands.
During the game, you can even turn on a small overlay to see the temperature and the frame/second value produced by the program. The GameGine menu, which can be pulled in from the side, is also a useful function, on the one hand, you can find the options that are also in Crate, but in addition to these, you also get easily accessible buttons that can be used to disable notifications and calls, for example. From here you can also adjust the touch-sensitive triggers on the edges of the frame and the various accessories – of which there are a few.
Supplements in all quantities
You can buy a desktop dock, which can be used to connect the phone to a monitor, and on the other hand, extra cooling is also included. WhatMobile offers the best Oppo phones price in Pakistan with bundle deals and amazing discounts. We couldn’t try an OPPO accessory, but we did test the ROG Kunai 3 controller and the ROG TwinView Dock 3. The first is a game controller that can be used in several ways. It functions as a simple controller via Bluetooth connection when the phone is propped up with the cooling fan, but it also comes with a replacement case that can be attached to the mobile, providing an experience like using a Nintendo Switch. The TwinView Dock 3, on the other hand, connects an extra display to the phone.
However, there are some problems with this concept.
We have already clarified that the ROG Phone 3 is a very good Android phone. As a result, Android games run on it. However, which of these Android games makes use of the phone’s knowledge, extra functions, and extra purchased accessories is mostly the responsibility of Szerencsejáték Zrt. On the second display of the TwinView Dock 3, the latest edition of Asphalt only displayed the map and nothing else. Real Racing 3 made friends with the Kunai controller without saying a word, so you could drive a car, but the mobile version of Call of Duty, for example, sometimes detected it and sometimes it didn’t, and there were a bunch of games that we tried in vain to marry with the accessory with the included software, it just didn’t work.
And this is characteristic of the whole experience: there is a 144 Hz display, but you have to hunt for what makes use of it. AirTrigger would come in handy for a bunch of shooting games, but it’s also a question of how we can combine the triggers. It would be best if Armory Crate had a recommendation, or perhaps a separate app store where compatible programs are placed. But when the extras work without a problem, you tend to forget that it’s just a phone.
Fortunately, there are more and more complex and longer games that hold our attention not only for one-minute bus rides, but even for hours, and the already-mentioned battery can withstand quite a few Fortnite matches with us. And the overlay display can be safely turned off since a significant number of programs simply do not use the phone’s resources. Of course, we can easily say that there is plenty of spare, and you won’t have to think about a replacement for years. It should also not be forgotten that both Google Stadia and Xbox Games Pass can run beautifully on the device – of course, with these services, the data center performs the tasks that require computing power and not the mobile.
With such a phone, just like in the case of the Nubia Red Magic 5G, we couldn’t miss running synthetic tests either. In AnTuTu, the ROG Phone 3 was able to beat the mentioned phone with its 613,076 points. We achieved 909 SingleCore and 3299 Multicore scores on Geekbench, 7300 Open GL, and 6600 Vulkan scores in 3DMark.
In fact, we get everything we expect from a top device in 2020, from 5G capability to an OLED display, and therefore the price of 290,000 is not an exaggeration, only the cameras are disappointing. Overall, we loved Asus’ new phone designed specifically for mobile gaming, but too many times we felt like we had amazingly powerful technology in our hands, but we simply couldn’t use it.
