Asus ROG Phone 8/8 Pro review

Design and accessory compatibility

As we already mentioned, the ROG Phone 8 is the first device in the third generation of the ROG Phone line. As such, it only makes sense that it comes with a pretty radical redesign compared to previous models.

ROG Phone 8 Pro (left) • ROG Phone 7 (right)

Asus has been toning down the "gamery" looks of the ROG Phone line for generations now, and the ROG Phone 8 takes a huge leap forward in that regard. No aggressive lines and geometric shapes are anywhere on the phone's body anymore. No bold metal or other elements sticking out and exposed. Even the writing on the device has been reduced to a minimum, with just a couple of visible markings here and there.

You get a regular old slab smartphone with just a touch of "gamer flair". That said, we can't say that we don't like the new design language or understand and appreciate why Asus went down this route.

First off, let's discuss the visual differences between the regular ROG Phone 8 and the ROG Phone 8 Pro and Pro Edition. The latter two have an identical design with what is a very specific sparkly, slightly textured Phantom Black back side. It kind of feels like very fine sandstone to the touch, and it glimmers and shines very attractively in the light.

ROG Phone 8 Pro (left) • ROG Phone 8 (right)

The regular ROG Phone 8 offers a choice of two colors and a slightly different back finish - one much smoother and with almost no texture to it. While one of the color options is still called Phantom Black, like the Pro, the finish is, as mentioned, much different. Then there is also the Rebel Grey colorway that looks quite distinct from its black siblings. There are no bright or gaudy colors anywhere on the ROG Phone 8 models. The design is really subdued.

Asus did include a diagonal segmented design on the back of the phones as a subtle design trait. It sits much higher on the regular ROG Phone 8, and the ROG 8 Pro also has a rubbery diagonal stripe on the back that is missing from the vanilla variant.

Even so, it is hard to tell the vanilla and the Pro apart, which is a good thing since the two variants essentially share the same hardware, both internally and externally and only differ in terms of memory configuration. Asus could have carved out deeper segmentation and cut some features out of the vanilla, but thankfully, it didn't.

Asus' new design is indeed much different this generation. First, the whole device has gotten smaller this year and has a smaller total footprint. Yet, the display hasn't physically changed proportions and still measures 6.78 inches.

Asus has achieved this shrinkage by going for a punchhole selfie camera. This is a first for the ROG Phone line. With previous generations, Asus always made a point of not interrupting the user's visual experience and placing the selfie camera above the display. It was a selling point of sorts. We guess it's no longer a major priority for its users since it is now going back on this longstanding ideology.

Display now has a punch-hole camera

Still, Asus did extend some effort into how this new punch-hole is handled in software. A per-app setting in the OS allows you to choose whether an app/game is displayed on the entire display or alternatively shifted to the bottom/right to avoid the punchhole area or centered and pillarboxed on both sides.

Display positioning behavior

Moving the selfie camera into the display allowed the big top display bezel to be shrunk down a whopping 71% compared to the ROG Phone 7. The side display bezels are 14% thinner, all of which result in a pretty impressive and modern-looking 94% screen-to-body ratio. Much better than the huge bezels on previous ROG Phone models. Then again, there is no longer a convenient place to rest your fingers next to the display, which was arguably beneficial on a gaming phone.

ROG Phone 8 Pro (below) • ROG Phone 7 (above)

While on the topic of shrinking, the entire ROG Phone 8 and 8 Pro are now thinner than their predecessors. 15% thinner, to be exact. However, this does come at the expense of some battery capacity. We'll discuss this in greater detail in the battery section, but the ROG Phone 8 and 8 Pro now have 5,500 mAh batteries instead of 6,000 mAh like before.

We can't discuss the design of the ROG Phone 8 family without mentioning the light-up design on the back. This is another difference between the vanilla ROG Phone 8 and the ROG Phone 8 Pro. The vanilla model gets a basic RGB Aura logo with four individual RGB LEDs to light it up.

ROG Phone 8 Pro (left) • ROG Phone 8 (right)

The ROG Phone 8 Pro gets something Asus calls the AniMe VISION. Instead of integrating an actual display inside the back of the phone this year, Asus decided to go with a 341 Mini-LED programmable matrix. It supports black-and-white GIF animations in 254 x 128-pixel resolution. The matrix is absolutely invisible when off, which is neat.

There are over 20 pre-loaded animations, and some are already set to trigger with some device actions and events. You can also import your own animations, and if you encounter another ROG Phone 8 Pro user in the wild, tapping the two phones together will unlock some hidden animations, too. The system can also display things like battery level, time, and weather information.

AniMe VISION intraface

Accessories used to be a major part of the ROG Phone ecosystem and appeal in the past. That hasn't really been the case for a while now. For better or worse, the days of dual display accessories and docks are long gone. In fact, with the ROG Phone 8 generation, Asus didn't even provide an official compatibility guide for the existing accessories already out there.

Since, again, there aren't really many accessories left, we are going to go off of what we can test for ourselves and inform you that from a recent lot of gadgets, the ROG Phone 8 and 8 Pro are definitely still compatible with the ROG Clip. As for the Kunai Gamepad 3 - it works just fine in Bluetooth mode, but naturally, due to the redesign of the phone itself, the older ROG Phone 6/7 clip-on case does not work for the ROG Phone 8 series. Perhaps Asus might put out a revised model at some point.

The Asus Professional Dock works with the ROG Phone 8 generation just fine, as do most other Type-C hubs, as expected.

AeroActive Cooler X

Every generation of ROG Phone typically gets its own iteration of the AeroActive Cooler accessory, and the ROG Phone 8 is no different. This year, it is called the AeroActive Cooler X, though we did notice that the writing on the cooler itself also reads AeroActive Cooler 8, so the two names might be interchangeable. As usual, the AeroActive Cooler X is an optional accessory, retailing for $99.99, and it comes with its own bumper case for the phone in the box but can be used without it. You do get the AeroActive Cooler X bundled if you opt for the most premium ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition package.

Left: AeroActive Cooler X • Right: AeroActive Cooler 7

Compared to last year's AeroActive Cooler 7, the AeroActive Cooler X has shed some weight and overall volume while gaining some cooling efficiency. However, it has also lost some features. For one, there are no longer four programmable shoulder buttons on the accessory. The new model just has two. These are omnidirectional and offer great tactile feedback no matter where you press them. Also seemingly gone is the built-in subwoofer, which used to be a thing last year.

Left: AeroActive Cooler X • Right: AeroActive Cooler 7

Other than that, the core components of the AeroActive Cooler are unchanged. You still get a combination of a spinning fan plus an active cooling element, commonly referred to as a peltier cooler. Also in the mix are RGB lights, a kickstand and passthrough USB Type-C and 3.5mm ports.

As mentioned, the AeroActive Cooler X has shrunk by 29% in overall volume and 10% in weight compared to its predecessor. Despite that, the active peltier cooling area is 2.6 times larger, and the fan speed has been improved 1.1x times. This has resulted in 1.2x the overall thermal efficiency of the entire system.

Build quality

Asus has always paid attention to the build quality of its devices and delivered in the past. The ROG Phone 8 family takes that to a new level by offering IP68 ingress protection. In comparison, the ROG Phone 7 and 6 only had IP54 ingress protection. Then again, it also featured an actual cooling vent with access to the phone's internals. As per Asus' marketing, the ROG Phone 8 line might be the first gamer-specific phone family to feature IP68 protection.

You also get Gorilla Glass on both sides of the ROG Phone 8 - the latest Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front and some undisclosed type of Gorilla Glass on the back. The middle frame of the phone is made of aluminum.

There is practically no flex to the phone's body. It feels perfectly solid. There is no hollowness to the back, either. Overall, the ROG Phone 8 and 8 Pro are incredibly well-built.

Controls

The ROG Phone 8 and 8 Pro have a pretty standard control loadout and layout, all things considered. Some specific aspects are still worth pointing out, like the signature Asus Side port. At its core, it is still a convenient way of hooking up extra accessories to the ROG Phone 8 and is placed in such a way as to be as least intrusive as possible.

Seeing how the ROG Phone 8/8 Pro is expected to spend most of its time in a horizontal orientation, doing heavy and battery-intensive gaming tasks, it only makes sense to have a cable or other attachment hanging out of the bottom side where it won't interfere with your hands.

The Side port has undergone several design iterations over the years. We particularly enjoyed seeing the general process of simplification of the port that seemingly culminated with the ROG Phone 6 generation, where the side port was just another standard Type-C port. The ROG Phone 7 generation backtracked a bit on that front and reintroduced a couple of pogo pins to the mix. We generally don't like those since they are not very reliable and tend to break with use. Now, with the ROG Phone 8 generation, we are thankfully back to simplicity with just a second standard USB Type-C port.

The Type-C port, part of the Side port on the ROG Phone 8/8 Pro, is more potent than the other Type-C port on the bottom frame of the phone. While both handle charging just fine and support the same Asus HyperCharge/Direct Charge and PD + QC 5.0/3.0 protocols at up to 65W, the side port is USB 3.1 gen 2 in terms of transfer speed. That means theoretical speeds of up to 10Gbit/s. All the while, the bottom Type-C comes with a simple USB 2.0 data link.

The side Type-C is also how you get video out of the phone - DisplayPort 1.4, in particular. That means 4K@30Hz, 144p@75Hz or 1080p@144Hz without any chroma subsampling.

These are generally the same I/O capabilities as the ROG Phone 7, 6 and ROG Phone 5 generations of phones. Which, by the way, is not us complaining since even as they stand, these are miles ahead of the connectivity of your average smartphone.

Circling back to that second or rather first, depending on how you look at it, the USB Type-C port, you will notice that it is also deliberately tucked away as far to one side as possible. The same goes for the 3.5mm audio jack, which made a return with the ROG Phone 5 and is still present. Both of these are placed so as to be as out of the way as possible.

Let's briefly discuss the front of the ROG Phone 8 and the major redesign it has undergone. As already mentioned, the display bezels have been shrunk down significantly. So much so, in fact, that there is no longer enough space for the selfie camera to reside outside the area of the display. This was, of course, a conscious decision that makes the overall design look more modern but has its downsides, especially for gamers.

For one, you no longer get an uninterrupted display experience for your gaming and multimedia enjoyment. You can still shift the image in software on a per-app basis to avoid the area of the display with the punch hole, but that also means you are giving away valuable screen real estate. Also, while arguably unsightly for many, the extra wide top and bottom display bezels on the ROG Phone family always served a secondary purpose of convenient locations to rest your thumbs. With the ROG Phone 8 and 8 Pro, you have to rely on accidental touch protection and palm cancelation like on most modern phones. It works decently enough, but again, it is not the same.

Last and probably least for most users, the ROG Phone 8 generation does away with the notification LED. The ROG Phone family was previously one of the last device families, particularly premium ones, to still actually include a notification LED. Instead, you get a virtual notification indicator. It is an AOD that only lights up the display's top left corner to show notification icons. It is a separate feature from the regular AOD, which is also still available on the ROG Phone 8.

This might be a polarizing opinion, but overall, we think that the bezel shrinkage on the ROG phone 8 family is not an entirely positive thing on what is primarily meant to be a gaming phone. Then again, Asus does officially state that it is changing its focus with the ROG Phone 8 generation, no longer positioning it simply as "your best gaming phone" but as "your best gaming and premium phone".

Speaking of gaming and holding your device comfortably, you can rest assured that any grip you choose will not interfere with Wi-Fi, thanks to the trio of internal antennas. The same goes for the trio of on-board microphones. It is really hard to cover all of them up at once.

Continuing our control tour with some more-traditional entries, there is a standard volume rocker and a power button right underneath that on the right-hand side of the device. Both are strategically placed to avoid accidental touches, which surprisingly left them in a convenient location for reaching with a thumb.

The in-display fingerprint reader is speedy and accurate. It is nothing special in hardware, just a regular optical unit. Still, this tech has matured nicely over the years. It also uses machine learning to improve over time. Plus, Asus still brings that extra bit of flair to it with a set of unlocking animations.

For the last boring bit, we have a dual nano-SIM card slot on the ROG Phone 8 Pro. If you remember the ROG Phone 7 generation, the SIM tray acted as a nice little color accent on the phone. This is no longer the case. The exterior of the SIM tray is just color-matched with the aluminum middle frame. This is just one more aspect of the toning down of the gaming aesthetics on the ROG Phone.

The AirTrigger system strangely seems to be a bit downgraded this generation compared to the ROG Phone 7 generation and the ROG Phone 6 generation before that, but it is still one of the most attractive and fun input setups on the entire device.

There are still two pressure-sensitive areas on the side of the ROG Phone 8/8 Pro, but these are no longer called "ultrasonic". They are still positioned on either end of the phone's right side - pretty close to the top and bottom of the bezel, which has been the case since the ROG Phone 5/5s. We find the position uncomfortable and requiring too much thumb-stretching, but Asus seems to be sticking with it. Asus justifies the position by claiming it is more convenient for users with smaller hands and shorter fingers, which makes sense on paper. We're sure they've done their research.

Most of the base input types the system recognizes seem to be carried over from the ROG Phone 7, 6, 5/5s and the ROG Phone 3 before that, but there are some notable omissions. You can tap on the whole area or half of it. Long presses, swipes and slides seem to be gone, though. Each can be individually and meticulously mapped to an on-screen control in-game for nothing short of a massive advantage.

You can also get pre-made mappings for many popular games and even skip some setup steps while still retaining access to an impressive array of tweaks to things like sensitivity. It is an industry-leading system on a level of its own that no other manufacturer has even come close to matching.

Gone are the rear ultrasonic buttons from the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate. Still, if you strap on the AeroActive cooler and its two omnidirectional buttons, you can get two additional mappable button inputs. Compared to last year's AeroActive cooler, the new AeroActive Cooler X only has two shoulder buttons instead of four.

Gyroscope Aiming is also available. It can be beneficial for some finer aim adjustments. As always, mapping can be used in any game out there.

AirTrigger settings

Beyond in-game use, the AirTrigger sensors also provide squeeze detection during the general use of the ROG Phone 8. This aspect of the system is fairly versatile, as well. The phone can differentiate between a short and long press.

Then there are Motion controls, which seem to be carried forward in their entirety from the ROG Phone 7 generation, the 6 before that, the 5/5s before that and are a few more in number than what the ROG Phone 3 could recognize.

If, for some reason, you feel like the pressure-sensitive mapping system does not provide enough inputs for your needs, you can also map the gestures to inputs. For what it's worth, we did try to test a few of these out, and they did seem to work. Ultimately, we were way too overwhelmed by the sheer number of things to remember.

This is an ongoing theme on the ROG Phone 8 and 8 Pro. The sheer number of options and their depth and scope are enough to make anyone's head spin. While this makes some of the systems less approachable to casuals or newcomers, this kind of complexity truly marks a pro-grade tool and sets it apart from the competition. We have nothing but admiration for what Asus has managed to build up over the years. And if you don't plan on using these features or you are reluctant to fiddle with them, they stay out of the way.

Connectivity

In keeping with its pedigree, the ROG Phone 8/8 Pro is loaded for bear in the connectivity department. It is a dual-SIM phone with dual standby SA/NSA Sub-6 5G on both slots.

Beyond that there is support for Triple-Band (2.4GHz, 5GHz, 6GHz) Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be, Wi-Fi 7 with three antennas. You get a total of three Wi-Fi antennas with 2x2 MIMO support and intelligent seamless switching for the best possible signal. HyperFusion technology allows for simultaneous connection to Wi-Fi and cellular data and seamless automatic switching to the more stable of the two.

Local connectivity also includes Bluetooth 5.3 with Bluetooth LE support.

The ROG Phone 8 Pro also supports Qualcomm Snapdragon sound and is certified for HI-RES AUDIO and HI-RES AUDIO WIRELESS. It also has support for multiple major Bluetooth audio protocols, including aptX, aptX HD, aptX adaptive, aptX Low latency, aptX Lossless Audio, LDAC and AAC.

There is NFC on board with card mode support. The GPS receiver on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has dual-band support (L1 + L5) and covers GPS, GNSS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS and NavIC.

In terms of other connectors, you still get a 3.5mm audio jack and a total of two Type-C ports. To reiterate, the Asus Side port is the more capable of the two, wired for USB 3.1 gen 2 data transfer up to 10Mbps and also carrying an alt-mode Display Port 1.4 connection.

In contrast, the bottom Type-C port is just wired for USB 2.0 speeds. Other than that, both ports support the same fast charging standards - Asus' own HyperCharge, sometimes called Direct Charge, which is entirely standard Power Delivery 3.0 with Programmable Power Supply (PPS) with additional support for Quick Charge 3.0 and 5.0.

You get a nearly full set of sensors, including a TDK-Invensense icm4x6xx accelerometer and gyroscope combo, an Asus-branded light and hardware proximity sensor combo and a Voltafield AF6837 magnetometer. There is no barometer on board.