Asus ROG Phone 8/8 Pro review

Brand new triple camera setup with a telephoto and gimbal stabilization

After essentially carrying forward the camera setup from the ROG Phone 6 to the ROG Phone 7, Asus finally decided to do what we can only describe as a major upgrade for the ROG Phone 8 family. The ROG Phone 8 and 8 Pro get a new triple camera setup now with a dedicated telephoto instead of the old macro shooter.

Let's start with a quick hardware tour and the new main camera. It is still a 50MP Quad-Bayer unit, just like before, but the sensor is now a Sony IMX890 (replacing the Sony IMX766). It is a 1/1.56" sensor with 1µm individual pixels 2x2 OCL capable of full 50.3MP resolution output at 30fps. This sensor sits behind an f/1.9 lens and is equipped with a new gimbal stabilizing system. The ROG Phone 8 has Asus' new Hybrid Gimble Stabilizer 3.0 system. We'll get into it in more detail, but its highlight feature seems to be the new Super HyperSteady video mode.

Up next, we have the brand new 3x telephoto camera. It uses a Samsung JD1SM15 sensor, known as the JD1 with a pretty big 32MP resolution. It is also a Quad Bayer unit and captures photos in 8MP by default. It's a 1/3.14" sensor with 0.7µ individual pixels, though Asus does advertise the binned 1.4µ pixel size. The telephoto has 3x optical zoom and supports up to 30x digital zoom, with Hyper Clarity AI zoom being advertised at up to 10x. The telephoto has OIS and also supports Asus' Super Night Mode.

Finally, on the rear, we have a 120-degree ultrawide camera. It seems to be borrowed straight from the ROG Phone 7 and the ROG Phone 6 before that. It is based on a 13MP OmniVision OV13B sensor. It doesn't have anything too fancy, like autofocus, which would have been a nice addition now that the ROG Phone 8 has lost its dedicated macro shooter. The f/2.2 lens in front of the ultrawide sensor is free-form, though, which helps with edge sharpness and reduces distortion, particularly near the edges of the frame.

The selfie camera on the ROG Phone 8/8 Pro isn't particularly impressive in terms of hardware, but it is still a nice upgrade over the ROG Phone 7 generation, primarily for its increase in field of view from 73 degrees to 90 degrees. Other than that, you still get the familiar OmniVision OV32C Quad Bayer sensor, which captures 8MP stills. There is no autofocus here, but the focal plane is pretty deep and forgiving.

Before we move on, it is worth noting that while the ROG Phone 8 Pro only exists in one camera variant worldwide, the regular ROG Phone 8 has a variant specifically meant for India and some Southeast Asia countries that lacks the new dedicated telephoto and has a macro camera instead.

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 8/8 Pro 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. You get white balance, exposure compensation, ISO, shutter speed and a manual focus slider with focus peaking.

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 main camera on the ROG Phone 8 Pro captures 12.5MP binned photos by default. At first glance, these look good, with plenty of detail and natural color rendition.

However, that's just on the surface. Look closer, and the details appear overprocessed and oversharpened in areas like foliage, grass, and some other fine geometrical details, which also frequently have artifacts.

There is also a notably low contrast, and the main camera seems to have a tendency to overexpose shots a bit, resulting in clipped highlights.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 12.5MP main camera photos

You can force the main camera to shoot in its full 50MP resolution without really gaining any benefits in terms of detail. Colors come out looking just as good regardless of the choice of resolution. The 50MP shots are just as oversharpened and the contrast is again, less than ideal. The dynamic range is narrower in this mode, too.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 50MP main camera photos

Here's how the main camera on the ROG Phone 8 Pro stacks up against the competition at both 12.5MP and 50MP in our extensive photo compare database.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro against the Asus Zenfone 10 and the Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate in our Photo compare tool

50MP: Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro against the Asus Zenfone 10 and the Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate in our Photo compare tool

Before we get to the new telephoto camera, we should mention the included "hybrid" digital zoom modes and Asus' Hyper Clarity mode. Asus is pretty confident about its digital zooming capabilities. So much so that the camera viewfinder includes quick toggles for 2x and 10x zoom modes, both of which are digital zooms and use what Asus calls Hyper Clarity mode.

At 2x zoom, photos from the main camera do look pretty nice. We would even say the exposure and contrast are quite alright in this mode. Colors still look nicely saturated in these shots.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom photos

Dynamic range and contrast remain a bit of an issue but hardly a major one.

Up next, we have the brand new 32MP 3x telephoto camera. Being a Quad Bayer unit just like the main cam, it also captures binned photos - 8MP, to be exact. Overall, sharpening is more balanced, and the contrast and dynamic range look better than the photos from the main camera.

The colors do not perfectly match the main camera, but they are pretty close. The telephoto seems to have a slightly warmer, perhaps a bit "yellower" pallete as a whole the colors are even more saturated than the main camera's.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 8MP telephoto camera 3x photos

As mentioned, Asus is pretty confident in its digital zoom capabilities and includes a 10x zoom toggle on the main camera UI. These shots come from the telephoto camera and look quite impressive overall. This is where you start to see noise creeping in, but it's nothing major, and we are quite happy with the results.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 8MP telephoto camera 10x zoom photos

And finally, Asus also has a 30x zoom toggle in its camera UI. That's as far as the digital zoom will go on the ROG Phone 8/8 Pro. These shots also come from the telephoto camera, but the fancy Asus Hyper Clarity mode apparently tops out at 10x for one reason or another. These 30x shots are heavily processed, with a lot of "smudging" and "watercolor effects" brought about by the various algorithms working hard to restore, or rather "paint in" some of the lost details. Even so, we would definitely call the shots usable, without offering much praise beyond that.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 8MP telephoto camera 30x zoom photos

Now, let's backtrack a bit and talk about portrait shots. The ROG Phone 8/8 Pro captures these with its main camera and can do so at both 1x and 2x zoom levels.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 12.5MP main camera photos

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom photos

We didn't notice any particular difference in quality between 1x and 2x portraits, which figures given they come from the same camera. They are pretty decent overall, with nearly perfect subject detection and separation and nice, even if a bit soft even in the absence of filters, facial features and skin tones.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 12.5MP main camera portrait Mode photos

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom Portrait mode photos

The background blur isn't perfect or too convincing. It is decent, but nothing to phone home about.

Moving on to the 13MP ultrawide camera, we get some pretty nice shots for an ultrawide. Detail is good overall, and while there is some edge softness, it is very well-contained, so the free-form lens Asus is using is paying off. There is hardly any distortion near the edges, either. Colors are well matched with the main camera, which just leaves the telephoto with a noticeably different color rendition out of the bunch.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 13MP ultrawide camera photos

Finally, let's look at the 32MP selfie camera and its 8MP binned stills. We quite like how these look and appreciate the extra width in the field of view. Mind you, you can still choose whether to use the 73-degree wide FoV or switch to a tighter 90-degree one.

There is plenty of detail, and the skin tones look nice and natural. Colors are a bit saturated otherwise, but not too badly.

Dynamic range could use some improvement, but we can't complain too much about what we are getting.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 8MP selfie camera photos

Video capture quality

The main camera on the ROG 8/8 Pro can capture video at up to 8K@24fps resolution. By default, these videos get saved in a standard h.264/AVC video stream at around 105 Mbps with a stereo 48 kHz AAC audio track inside a standard MP4 container. You can also capture video in h.265/HEVC format to save some space.

Honestly, you don't get that much more detail at 8K from the main camera, but you have to deal with much bigger file sizes. We would stick to 4K videos ourselves with a much more reasonable video bitrate of around 50 Mbps at 30 frames per second.

Overall, we would say that videos from the main camera look great, with plenty of detail, practically no noise and a nice and decently wide dynamic range. Colors are not exactly what we would call "true to life" and do have a bit of extra "pop" to them, but nothing egregious.

Here's how the main camera stacks up against the competition in our video compare database.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro against the Asus Zenfone 10 and the Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate in our Video compare tool

8K: Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro against the Asus Zenfone 10 and the Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate in our Video compare tool

The ultrawide camera tops out at 4K in terms of resolution, and its color rendition is more saturated still. Other than that small gripe and perhaps the smidge of corner softness, we have no gripe with it. It has plenty of detail, no noise and quite a decently wide dynamic range.

You can only do 1080p video capture on the telephoto camera, but it's a pretty good 1080p with surprising detail. Like with stills, the telephoto colors come out warmer and even a bit "yellower" compared to both the main camera and the ultrawide. We don't really mind the look, though. Dynamic range could be a bit wider, though having said that, we can't expect miracles from the hardware at hand.

Finally, we have the selfie camera, which also tops out at 1080p video capture. Still, just like with the telephoto, we find the level of detail impressive for FullHD. Colors look nice, even if they are a bit on the saturated side. Dynamic range and contrast could be better, but they aren't dealbreakers either.

Asus has really upped its video stabilization game for the ROG Phone 8 generation, particularly on the main camera, which now gets both a 6-axis Hybrid Gimbal Stabilizer and what Asus is calling version 3.0 of its Super HyperSteady system.

To break things down a bit, V1 of the stabilization system brought basic steady image and video to the table, which V2 then improved with Adaptive EIS, Handheld Light Trail mode and Quick Shot. The new V3 has a whole new revamped Super HyperSteady mode.

In more practical terms, you get two levels of stabilization on the ROG Phone 8/8 Pro ultrawide and main cameras. The first level, called Adaptive EIS, provides a balance between stabilization and FoV. It also works at 4K resolution on the main and ultrawide cameras and FullHD on the telephoto. Honestly, we find this level of stabilization plenty for almost every use case out there.

The second level of stabilization is called Super HyperSteady. It has a resolution cap of 1080p and a noticeably tighter FoV. It is capable of some really impressive stabilization, but unless you are partaking in some appropriate sports activity, we probably won't choose it over the regular EIS since it comes with too much compromise to overall video quality.

The telephoto camera on the ROG Phone 8/8 Pro only gets basic EIS stabilization, and even it isn't all that impressive since it tends to introduce some focus hunting. Thankfully, this issue appears to be isolated to stabilization on the telephoto camera alone, and we frankly don't see too many scenarios in which EIS on the telephoto would even be that useful in daily life.

The selfie camera only gets access to the regular EIS stabilization as well, but we found it to be more than enough for its needs. The resulting footage is rock steady while walking briskly, which is perfect for vlogging. You do give up quite a bit of the FoV, though.

Low-light camera quality

Let's start with the main camera first. It captures decent but mostly unimpressive low-light photos. These have a good amount of detail, including in darker areas, which are brought up nicely. Light sources are well-contained, too. Colors look mostly natural.

As far as downsides go, the biggest one is probably noise. There is plenty of it in the frame. We can also clearly spot visual artifacts in areas where the phone tried its best to reduce the noise, especially on finer geometrical patterns and things like faces. Overall, these photos look quite heavily processed.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 12.5MP main camera low-light photos

The ROG Phone 8/8 Pro has excellent low light detection that triggers an automatic night mode. Hence, nearly all of our samples have at least some form of night mode processing applied. Beyond that, however, there is also a dedicated Night mode. As already mentioned in the camera UI overview, said night mode offers a choice between a short and a long exposure setting. The actual exposure times are automatically calculated. To get the absolute most out of the mode, we made sure to test with the higher exposure time setting. This goes for all of our night mode shots from all of the cameras on the ROG Phone 8 Pro.

The results are impressive. Night mode manages to clean up much of the main camera's noise. Details come out looking sharper and, interestingly, less processed as well, especially in the darker portions of the frame. Light sources are handled marginally better, too.

If you have the time and patience, we would definitely recommend going for the higher exposure night mode for low-light photography.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 12.5MP main camera night mode photos

We also tried to capture some 2x zoom shots from the main camera. These look quite similar to 1x ones but are still slightly softer and noisier. They are not unusably so, mind you.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom low-light photos

There is no Night mode available at 2x zoom.

Next, we have the 3x telephoto camera. The ROG Phone 8 will happily allow you to capture even in pretty dark scenes with it and won't switch to a crop from the main camera instead. You can still get that at 2x zoom and any other zoom level before 3x, but at 3x, the telephoto steps in.

As expected, low-light photos from the telephoto are kind of dark. Not unusably so, but definitely darker than main camera shots. The parts of the frame that aren't overly dark still have plenty of detail, but the noise is surprisingly low. Light sources are handled competently, and colors look pretty good, even if not well-matched to the main camera and a bit "yellower".

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 8MP telephoto camera low-light photos

Enabling Night mode with the long exposure setting on the telephoto does brighten up the shots a bit, but not a lot. We honestly hoped for a more drastic difference. As things currently stand, the automatic night mode being applied by the camera app is already about as good as it can get, and we wouldn't recommend waiting around for the long exposure one.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 8MP telephoto camera night mode photos

The ultrawide camera holds up decently well in low light conditions for the hardware at hand. It is not spectacular, but it still manages to capture plenty of detail with not a lot of noise. Surfaces are a bit soft, but that is expected. Both dark areas, highlights, and light sources are well developed, almost surprisingly.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 13MP ultrawide camera low-light photos

Just like with the telephoto, manually enabling Night mode with the long exposure setting on the ultrawide does brighten up the exposure a bit, but not drastically so. The longer exposure also does not improve overall quality in any meaningful way. Once again, we probably wouldn't recommend waiting around for the long exposure time beyond the automatic night mode already applied by the camera.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 13MP ultrawide camera night mode photos

Low-light selfies are a bit of a mixed bag. We do like the amount of detail and the colors and skin tones. However, we wish there was autofocus on the selfie camera since the focal plane is not that wide, and subjects can often appear blurry.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 8MP selfie camera low-light photos

Once again, long exposure Night mode does little to improve these shots meaningfully beyond the automatic night mode that is already being applied.

Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro: 8MP selfie camera night mode photos

On to video capture then. The main camera records decent but mostly unremarkable low-light footage. The detail is there, colors look good, and light sources are handled quite well.

Darker areas tend to get crushed, though, and the frame has visible noise. It's not an egregious amount, but it's still noticeable.

Shooting in 8K resolution in low light is arguably even more of a waste than in good lighting conditions. Whatever small difference in detail the extra resolution affords is very hard to spot in practice. We would probably stick with 4K ourselves.

FullHD footage from the telephoto camera can probably best be described as almost too dark. Aside from that, it is actually quite detail-rich, especially from 1080p. Light sources are handled well, and there is very little noise. Given the right amount of light, the telephoto can honestly do quite well, even during the dark hours.

4K footage from the ultrawide camera is almost unusably dark. While some softness is visible, especially around the edges of the frame, it is not that bad. Neither is detail. Light sources are pretty blown out, though. Once again - usable results, but nothing to phone home about.