ASUS ROG Phone 2 Review: The BEST gaming smartphone of 2019

The ASUS ROG Phone was a well-loved gaming smartphone due to the gaming-centric features and now, we have the ASUS ROG Phone 2 which has better features and of course, the faster processor inside that helps us experience in better gameplay. Do you want to know more about the smartphone? Check it out in our review below.

 ASUS ROG Phone 2 Review: Design and construction

If you’re a fan of the ASUS ROG products, I’m pretty sure that you’ll love the ASUS ROG Phone 2’s gamer feel and look. We have the Mayan-style design on the smartphone but we still have that premium feel and materials on the ROG Phone 2 which is still similar to the original ASUS ROG Phone.

The feel of the smartphone is pretty much the same but it does feel massive because of its large screen size and its chunky body but this does have some good feats including a large battery inside and a better thermal design for better performance on the smartphone.

The best thing about the ASUS ROG Phone 2 is there’s combination of glass and metal build on the smartphone which feels very premium and just like the previous generation, this one would have a USB-C port below the smartphone which is still accessible and doesn’t block the headphone jack of the smartphone and of course, there’s the special USB-C port on the side of the smartphone so you can charge the smartphone and still enjoy playing on landscape mode as the cable doesn’t block your hand and grip.

But this time, the fingerprint scanner is gone and instead, we now have an in-display fingerprint scanner on the ASUS ROG Phone 2 which is pretty good and of course, the face unlock is more reliable which is faster and better.

Another feature that I love on the smartphone is front-facing speakers and I’m telling you right now that it’s really great. It’s loud AF and it’s really good for playing games especially PUBG in where footstep sounds are really essential.

Another feature that gamers would surely love is AirTriggers. This feature lets you have shoulder buttons on the smartphone and it might not have haptic feedback, this one definitely helped me in playing games such as Call of Duty: Mobile and also at PUBG as I can easily aim and shoot with the shoulder buttons.

The smartphone also comes with the AeroCooler II and also a phone case that protects the edges of the smartphone but still shows the beauty of the ASUS ROG design. The cool thing about the second generation Aero Cooler is that I can use it even though I have a case on the smartphone. And yes, it still comes with RGB and 3.5 mm audio port and also a USB-C for charging.

ASUS ROG Phone II Review: Display

The ASUS ROG Phone 2’s display is a lot better compared to the predecessor. This time, we’re getting a 6.59-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. There’s no notch in here and there’s a decent amount of bezels on the top and bottom which is why the smartphone has more space for your hands and controllers when you’re playing on landscape mode.

But the display of the ASUS ROG Phone was really fine. The colors are great and the brightness was just fine on the smartphone. There’s no curved display and the viewing angles are fine for this smartphone that’s why I love playing on this smartphone.

The 120Hz refresh rate on the smartphone is really noticeable and it made a great difference when playing FPS games. The touch response is really responsive and every movement and transition on the smartphone are buttery smooth. I can really say that with the 120Hz refresh rate of the smartphone, I have a really big advantage compared to other people in most of my games.

ASUS ROG Phone 2 Review: Battery life

The ASUS ROG Phone 2 is a monster when it comes to gaming. The smartphone packs a 6000mAh battery inside and this amount of juice inside your smartphone guarantees that the ASUS ROG Phone 2 will last a single day despite playing games on the smartphone for almost the whole day.

Not only that, but the smartphone also comes with 30W HyperCharge with support for quick charge 4.0 and PD charging technology. So despite draining your large battery, the 30W charger can fully charge your smartphone in just an hour and a half.

In my usage of the ASUS ROG Phone 2, the smartphone is a monster and it can last really long. We were able to use the smartphone for two days despite playing some games once in a while and in PC Mark, the smartphone has decimated our records as we got these PC Mark 2.0 Battery life tests on the smartphone.

We benchmarked the ASUS ROG Phone 2 on X-mode and also without it and we managed to get a pretty good amount of battery life with the X-Mode turned off. With X-Mode off, we managed to get 20 hours of battery on PC Mark and with X-mode on, we managed to get 16 hours and 25 minutes of battery

ASUS ROG Phone 2 Review: Software

ASUS has decided to make the ROG Phone II cleaner than the predecessor. Yes, we still have the ROG icons and feel on the UI of the smartphone but it’s faster and cleaner than before as we got a faster UI with fewer modifications on the UI of the smartphone.

As expected, we do have here some preinstalled applications but some of them are useful and for gamers, you’ll definitely wish that all smartphones would have this app called Armoury Crate. Just like in the ROG desktops and notebooks, the Armoury Crate is the only application that you need to control and optimize your smartphone when it comes to gaming.

Just like the previous generation, you can control the color of the ROG logo at the back of the smartphone, you can also control the speed of AeroCooler II’s fan and many more. Aside from that, the Armoury Crate can also be used to be the launcher for your different games that are installed on the smartphone. The ASUS ROG Phone II is definitely something when it comes to gaming.

The Armoury crate is also the home of X-mode in where you can fully optimize the power of the ASUS ROG Phone 2. I always turn this one on to get a seamless gaming experience on the smartphone.

ASUS ROG Phone 2 Review: Performance

Now, here’s the part that you are all waiting for — the performance of the ASUS ROG Phone 2. But as expected, the ASUS ROG Phone 2 has decimated our records and benchmarks as we got here a mind-blowing experience on games and really high scores on benchmarks.

Just to give you an idea, there’s a 12GB RAM inside the smartphone along with 512GB storage and of course, we have here a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus processor with Adreno 640 GPU and trust me, it’s the best combination that we can get on a smartphone right now because the ASUS ROG Phone 2 has again, a mind-blowing performance both on Gamebench and our other benchmarking applications.

In our Antutu benchmark, we noticed that the ASUS ROG Phone 2 was able to get a score of more than 500k on x-mode and it’s one of the best smartphones that we’ve ever reviewed when it comes to performance. But we noticed that the smartphone gets warmer than I expected when it comes to x-mode. Thankfully, there’s an AeroCooler II for that one.

The ASUS ROG Phone II easily decimated our gaming benchmarks by getting the highest possible on the smartphone with the NBA 2K20 even reaching more than 100fps thanks tot the amazing 120Hz display of the smartphone and yes, you won’t see any tearing on this one as the refresh rate of the smartphone is really good. Here are the fps that we got on different games and oh, the games are in the highest settings possible.

 

• Download Gamebench here: https://bit.ly/2Ei3daX
• Check out the Gamebench app here: https://bit.ly/2m4t0LR

 

In PUBG Mobile, we didn’t have any problems with the thermals despite setting it at Extreme FPS and HDR graphics and in NBA 2k20, we were amazed that we were able to get 98 fps on the game and with Real Racing 3, the smartphone proved that it can really run games at 120 fps.

Basically, the ASUS ROG Phone 2 can run everything including DamonPS2 emulators in where you can run PS2 games on Android smartphones. The performance that we just saw on the smartphone also proved that the smartphone is future proof and it can probably run next-gen games.

ASUS ROG Phone 2 Review: Camera

The ASUS ROG Phone 2 might be focused on gaming but this one can do its job fine on the camera department. It is not excellent but it has been an upgrade from the predecessor and it can shoot fine photos in most conditions.

In our shooting test, we were surprised that the smartphone was able to do well in our shots in both wide-angle and auto mode shots. Check out the shots that I took using the smartphone.

Overall, the shots produced pretty good colors and most of the photos were pretty fine and sharp. The ASUS ROG Phone 2 is a leap from the previous generation when it comes to the camera.

The selfie of the smartphone is already decent too. it might not be the best camera on any flagship smartphones but I’m pretty sure that you’ll be happy with the shots that you can get on this smartphone.

ASUS ROG Phone 2 Review: Verdict

The ASUS ROG Phone 2 is the best gaming smartphone out there. Why? We got a lot of gaming-centric features and they’ve refined the missing points on the ASUS ROG Phone including the camera and we now have an in-display fingerprint scanner. The smartphone’s performance was really well too and it’s one of the best in the market right now when it comes to that.

If you’re looking for a smartphone and you do have the budget to spend for it then the ASUS ROG Phone 2 is the right smartphone for you. The smartphone starts at Php49,995.