Asus ROG Phone 7 and 7 Ultimate arrive with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2

Today Asus announced its latest beastly gaming phone duo - the Asus ROG Phone 7 and the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate. The pair is built around around the same silicon - the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, paired with up to 16GB of LPDDR5X (8533Hz) RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage.

So how's the Ultimate better than the vanilla? It has the AeroActive portal, which opens up to allow air directly onto the built-in vapor chamber, and it has the iconic ROG Vision display on the back.

Asus boasts of big improvements to the gaming performance on its new flagships. The GameCool7 cooling system is bigger and better - it has a Boron Nitride layer, dual Graphite sheets with a combined area of 16,000mm² that allow for a 10% improvement in thermal efficiency, a Rapid-cycle Vapor Chamber, and the 15% efficiency benefit provided by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

All of that combined with Asus' X Mode and new AeroActive Cooler 7 that will be supplied in the Ultimate's box and you will get sustained gaming performance that's unmatched by any other phone. The Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate will open its AeroActive portal when the AeroActive Cooler 7 is connected for an even bigger cooling advantage. Here are the numbers from the Asus testing lab - the phone barely heats up even after an hour of extreme load.

Speaking of, the new AeroActive Cooler 7 has a built-in 5-magnet super linear subwoofer with a 13*38mm speaker, that paired with the ROG Phone 7's stereo speakers brings 2.1 audio with stronger bass. The cooler, like the phones themselves, brings a 3.5mm headphone jack with Dirac tuning.

The ROG Phone 7 duo brings its iconic AirTrigger ultrasonic shoulder controls and they support gestures like Dual Action, Press and Lift, and Gyroscope Aiming. The X-axis linear vibration motor provides vibration mapping to give realistic haptic feedback for on-screen buttons and actions.

The ROG Phone 7 can also enable ray tracing in supported games, which means you will get more realistic reflections on water and metal surfaces.

The ROG Phone 7 sports a 6.78-inch 2448x1080px Samsung-made AMOLED display, which is even brighter than its predecessor with a peak of 1,500nits. The panel supports variable refresh rate up to 165Hz and a touch sampling rate of 720Hz.

Like with the previous generation ROG Phones, the 7 packs a 6,000mAh battery (split in two equal 3,000mAh parts to improve cooling) with 65W charging. The new chipset should provide a healthy bump in endurance too.

Asus ROG Phone 7, ROG Phone 7 Ultimate

Asus mostly kept the same camera system. The configuration on the back is still a 50MP IMX766 main camera, a 13MP ultrawide unit, and a dedicated 5MP macro shooter. The front camera has a 32MP OmniVision OV32C Quad-Bayer sensor that outputs 8MP images.

The Asus ROG Phone 7 measures 173 x 77x 10.4mm and weighs 239g. The regular 7 comes in Phantom Black and Storm White, while the Ultimate can be had only in Storm White. Both are IP54 rated for splash resistance.

The ROG Phone 7 is available for pre-order today in Europe and Taiwan through Asus' online store and retail partners. The vanilla 7 starts from €999 but lacks an AeroActive Cooler in the box (€110, separately), while the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate is €1,399 with the cooler included.