Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate review

Familiar triple camera setup

The ROG Phone 7/7 Ultimate carries forward most of the camera setup from the ROG Phone 6. The main camera uses a 50MP Sony IMX766 sensor. It is a fairly-popular Quad Bayer sensor used by a number of BBK devices like Oppo, vivo and OnePlus models. It has a 1/1.56" size with 1.0µm individual pixels. It sits behind an f/1.9 lens. There is nothing particularly fancy about this camera. No OIS or Laser autofocus, just plain PDAF.

Even so, the sensor itself is solid. Plus, Asus also has a nifty habit of making the most out of the hardware at its disposal. In this case, the excellent Spectra triple 18-bit CV-ISP has allowed an impressive feature set out of an otherwise modest camera. Especially in the video capture department, where the ROG Phone 7/7 Ultimate has impressive 3-axis EIS, all the way up to 8K@24fps resolution, 120fps slow-motion at 4K, as well as HDR video capture and even a full-featured Pro video capture mode. Mind you, this is not exactly new coming from the ROG Phone 5 and even the ROG Phone 3. Still, even though the feature set is more or less carried forward, Asus has continuously improved quality behind the scenes.

The ultrawide camera is also borrowed from the ROG Phone 6. It uses a rather unremarkable 13MP OmniVision OV13B sensor and has a 120-degree field of view and an f/2.2 aperture lens. No autofocus or anything fancy of the sort.

Last and probably least - a 5MP macro, f/2.0 camera. Per our hardware-digging efforts, it actually uses an OmniVision OV8856 sensor, which has a native resolution of 8MP. Or maybe it is based on the Samsung S5K5E9YX04. It acts as a dedicated macro shooter, which is arguably, a bit better than simply having a depth sensor. The ultrawide and macro cameras are actually carried over from the ROG Phone 5/5s and are not too dissimilar from those on the ROG Phone 3 either. Not that we have anything against such a practice.

At least the selfie camera on the ROG Phone 7/7 Ultimate is new. It uses a 32MP OmniVision sensor (OV32C) with Quad-Bayer binning, resulting in 8MP photos. It sits behind an f/2.45 lens. There is no autofocus here, but the focal plane is pretty deep and forgiving.

The ROG camera app UI is a fairly custom affair. We would say it is surprisingly feature-rich without being chaotic.

Main camera UI

The options on the main camera UI are all self-explanatory, perhaps with the exception of achieving separate spots metering for exposure and autofocus. This is done by long-pressing on a spot to fix both and then sliding the AF circle to a different location.

There is just a single beauty slider to the right, with no additional options. If you want more control over that, you must switch to the dedicated Portrait mode. Besides a slider for the intensity of the blur effect, it also features in-depth controls to thin cheeks, enhance eyes, brighten skin, soften skin and change its tone.

The camera app does a fair bit of automatic scene detection. This is indicated by a small scene icon in the top left corner and a Night Mode UI, which automatically pops up in the bottom right corner when the camera decides it is dark enough. Clicking on the Night mode icon itself presents two options for exposure duration. The numbers themselves are dynamic and also dependent on ambient light conditions. One denotes a shorter exposure, while the other - a longer one.

Automatic Night mode detection

If, for instance, the light is almost enough to pull off a good shot without night mode, but the ROG Phone 7/7 Ultimate still automatically decides to turn it on, you usually get an exposure time of around 3 seconds. If you then enter the quick selection menu, the 3-second mode should be set as the "long exposure" value, with the lower one simply turning Night Mode off.

Alternatively, if it's really dark, you might find that the lower exposure time is in the 5 to 8-second range, with the longer option potentially going all the way up to 25 seconds. This dynamically populated selector is definitely a custom Asus control and one that is surprisingly convenient.

On top of that, the camera app also has a dedicated Night mode, which always applies at least some minimal value to the shorter exposure option.

Pro mode is surprisingly versatile. You get a level meter in the middle of the frame and a histogram in the bottom left corner. WB adjustment goes from 4500K to 7500K. Exposure compensation can be set between -2 and +2. ISO goes from 25 to 3200. You can do shutter speeds between 1/60 and 32 seconds, and the is a manual focus slider.

Pro camera mode

Pro mode has the ability to save up to two distinct sets of settings. These are denoted as C1 and C2 and can be flipped on the fly. Neat! Auto Exposure Bracketing is also quite convenient. In Pro mode, you can set up a range of up to plus and minus two stops for exposure. The camera will then capture successive shots with different shutter speeds/ISO values and combine those into a single one with a greater dynamic range. Perfect for scenes with lots of backlight.

There is a Pro video capture mode, as well. It offers the same set of controls on the right-hand side as Pro photo mode and a nifty smooth zoom feature. You can just click on an area in the frame and have the phone gradually zoom in. The ROG camera app also allows smooth switching between the main and ultrawide cameras while filming.

Pro video mode

Video options on the left side of the frame are the same for regular Video recording mode and Pro mode. Interesting among these is the stabilization toggle. It enables and disables HyperSteady, which goes one step beyond the regular EIS video stabilization, controlled via a central toggle in the Video setting screen. HyperSteady is only limited to FullHD resolution but does work on both the main and ultrawide cameras.

There are plenty of settings to play around with in the camera app, both for stills and video capture.

Camera app settings

Daylight image quality

The 50MP main camera of the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate captures 12.5MP stills by default. These look great, with plenty of detail and nice, true-to-life colors. The dynamic range is also pretty good.

Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 12.5MP main camera samples

Regarding criticism, certain things like straight lines are a bit oversharpened, and contrast is a bit high for our taste. Certain areas with fine detail, like grass patches, look a bit artificial. Nothing too serious, though.

Even though the main camera is not meant to operate at its full resolution, you can force it to do so. Asus has made the process rather convoluted since the 50MP mode is not listed in the camera UI's regular image aspect and size selector. You have to know to look for it in the same menu in camera settings, which takes three clicks. But that's nitpicking.

These 50MP stills don't really offer significantly more detail than the regular 12.5MP ones. There is less sharpening applied to the photo, which results in a more natural look overall but also makes the photos seem softer as a whole.

Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 50MP main camera samples

You are also giving up on some HDR stacking by going for the 50MP mode, which can result in a narrower dynamic range. Add the hassle of dealing with large file sizes to the mix, and we really aren't sure 50MP mode is worth it.

The ROG Phone 7/7 Ultimate can do up to 8x zoom on its main camera in 12.5MP mode. It is digital zoom in nature, but Asus says that 2x zoom is pretty much lossless and has it as a quick toggle on the camera UI right next to the 0.6x selector for the ultrawide camera.

Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom samples

These photos look nearly indistinguishable from the regular 1x ones. We have no additional complaints besides the slightly excessive sharpening we mentioned.

The ROG Phone 7/7 Ultimate captures really nice portraits. Subject detection and separation are less than perfect but certainly good enough. The quality of the background bokeh effect is very high and convincing.

Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 12.5MP main camera portrait samples

You can also capture portraits at 2x zoom, and these look just as great.

Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 12.5MP main camera portrait samples

Non-human subjects work just as well too.

Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 12.5MP main camera portrait samples

Before we move on, here are shots of our standard posters as taken by the main camera on the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate. You can compare them against our extensive photo database.

Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate against the ZTE nubia Red Magic 8 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra in our Photo compare tool

50MP: Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate against the ZTE nubia Red Magic 8 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra in our Photo compare tool

The 13MP ultrawide camera captures very decent photos overall. Detail is good, even great for an ultrawide. Dynamic range is also nice and wide. Colors generally look nice, but are a bit on the oversaturated side. Definitely not a good match to the main camera's color rendition.

Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 13MP ultrawide camera samples

There is a bit of noise and grain here and there on uniform surfaces, and corner softness is a bit of an issue, though not a major one, which is great to see.

Sharpening is still a bit too aggressive at times.

The 5MP macro camera captures surprisingly clean and usable photos. Detail is plenty, and colors look great. While there is no autofocus, the focal plane is wide and pretty forgiving. Just don't expect to get super close to your subject.

Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 5MP macro camera samples

Selfies

The new 32MP selfie camera captures binned 8MP stills by default. These look great with plenty of detail, nice natural skin tones, and well-preserved skin texture.

Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 8MP selfie camera samples

There is no autofocus, which is a real shame, but even so, the focus depth is pretty wide. Plus, the camera does a great job of detecting faces and marking them while they are in focus. The dynamic range could be a bit wider, but that's nitpicking.

Video quality

The ROG Phone 7/7 Ultimate can capture video at up to 8K resolution. However, it is still limited to 24fps@8K, just like the ROG Phone 6 before. Once again, this is a rather perplexing limitation since the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset is more than capable of 8K@30fps. It doesn't appear to be a sensor limitation either since other devices have gotten 8K@30fps from the IMX776.

Anyway, fps issues aside, 8K footage from the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate looks stunning. Detail is great, and so are the colors. You can choose whether you want to capture in standard h.264 or save some space and increase the compression to a modern h.265 (HEVC) encoder. In the former, for the best possible quality, clips get saved with an AVC video stream at around 105 Mbps and stereo 48kHz AAC audio inside an MP4 container.

Let's face it, though, 8K is still a bit of a gimmick, particularly the way it's being captured on a smartphone. Most users aren't and frankly shouldn't bother with it and stick to 4K instead. The objective difference in detail between the two is negligible in practice, even on a high-end 4K display. And 4K is still much less of a hassle to decode and playback nowadays.

Dynamic range is also great in 4K. Colors look vibrant without going overboard. They are not dull and have a little "pop" to them, but they are not oversaturated either. We think Asus struck a good balance here.

Here's how the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate stacks up against the competition in our extensive video compare database.

Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate against the ZTE nubia Red Magic 8 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra in our Video compare tool

8K: Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate against the ZTE nubia Red Magic 8 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra in our Video compare tool

The ROG Phone 7/7 Ultimate has several levels of stabilization. First, there is the 3-axis EIS that is available across both rear cameras and the selfie and generally does an almost perfect job of smoothing out the footage. Plus, it can work at any resolution, even up to the full 8K for the main camera. Beyond that, there is HyperSteady. This year HyperSteady works on both the main and the ultrawide cameras. We don't think we would ever resort to it in general use, but you can judge for yourself.

The ultrawide camera can capture at up to 4K@30fps. It does a decent job of it as well. There is plenty of detail, considering the hardware at play. The colors look great but are again more saturated than the main camera's. There is a bit of softness near the far edges of the frame, but nothing too severe.

The selfie camera performs well with video capture. It is worth noting that this generation's selfie video is limited to 1080p, which is a downgrade compared to the 4K selfie video of the ROG Phone 6. Other than that, detail is good, and so are colors. Contrast is a bit too boosted for our taste, and dynamic range could be wider.

As we mentioned, you can enable EIS on any camera, including the selfie, and it does an excellent job of smoothing out the footage. Just make sure to hold the phone at a good arm's length while using it since it does crop out a fair bit of the frame.

Low-light camera quality

The 50MP main camera does quite alright in low-light conditions. These photos are mostly unremarkable but do hold up well. The detail is there, and noise is kept to a minimum. Colors look good overall, though they can sometimes be a bit yellow and warm.

The dynamic range is also good and light sources are handled well. There is some detail in the shadows too. Overall, not a bad showing at all.

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 12.5MP main camera low-light samples

The ROG Phone 7 Ultimate does have automatic Night mode. It kicks in very consistently of its own volition. Beyond that, there is also a dedicated Night mode. On the main camera, it cleans up some of the noise, applies some additional sharpening and contains light sources a bit better.

The difference isn't stark, but it's there, especially upon closer inspection. It really takes the detail and image sharpness to another level. Given that Night mode shots on the main camera take around a couple of seconds to capture, we can see how using the mode would be worth it in most cases.

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 12.5MP main camera night mode samples

The ultrawide camera naturally struggles quite a bit more in low light. Its shots are generally darker, with a limited dynamic range. Many surfaces look noisy and soft. We've seen worse performers, but this ultrawide is mostly unremarkable.

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 13MP ultrawide camera low-light samples

Night mode has a dramatically positive effect on ultrawide shots. It brightens up the entire frame and particularly boosts shadows. Noise also gets noticeably reduced, and textures look a lot more detailed.

The only real problem with Night mode on the ultrawide is that each shot takes over four seconds to capture and process on average. That's a pretty long time to wait, even if it's worth it.

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 13MP ultrawide camera night mode samples

The selfie camera is also decent but unremarkable in low-light conditions. It captures skin tones well enough and even preserves some of the skin texture.

However, these photos have very limited dynamic range and are generally quite dark.

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: 8MP selfie camera low-light samples

The main camera captures very clean low-light videos. Detail is plenty, colors are okay, and light sources are handled well.

The only real issue we have with low-light videos are the crushed shadows and the fact that the video, in general, is kind of dark.

There is no real tangible benefit in terms of quality from shooting in 8K. We would probably stick to 4K ourselves.

Finally, we have low-light video from the ultrawide camera. It is mostly unimpressive but does hold up. The detail is there, colors look nice, and noise is quite low.

However, these videos are way too dark, with entirely crushed shadows. Light sources are blown out as well.