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The market of gaming phones is a separate and colorful segment where companies experiment with modern and queer solutions to make their handsets as perfect for gaming as possible. The Asus ROG Phone 8 is not just a device but symbolizes the current reality and that’s why the past tense is used there.
In terms of the design the Asus ROG phone 8 appears to be a fairly reasonable gaming phone. It has a high refresh rate screen, the latest and the fastest processor, and extra gaming options that are not common in other Android phones. But, to some extent, it is good for playing mobile games.
The Asus ROG Phone 8 was introduced and launched at the same time as the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro and Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition in January 2024, as a new promising mobile in the series.
It is by no means a cheap phone, and it is only slightly cheaper than the Pro version, corresponding to $1,199 / £1,099 (about AU$1,750) but providing more performance and memory. The Pro above Edition costs a far more expensive $1,499 / £1,299 (about Au$2200).
These prices make the ROG Phone 8 family nearly the most expensive gaming-centric phones you can currently get; the Red Magic 9 Pro costs $649/£579 (around AU$1,100) and is similar, and with it seems Black Shark is no longer in the space, you’ll have to look at other gaming phones for other competitors.
The ROG Phone 8 is not providing its money’s worth as well. But of course, it does boast a host of internal specifications that make gaming easy, as does every phone for throw-away money. At this price it would be unforgivable if this phone does not boast any shortcomings, luckily for LG, many of the issues we will get to later are still acceptable.
The Asus ROG Phones have nonetheless kept up with, what could be regarded as a conservative design outlook compared to most other gaming phones. The ROG Phone 8 follows this pattern, and it does not boast sharp ribs or right-angled structures. It measures 163. 8 x 76. 8 x 8. 9mm thick and tips the scales at 225g, so while it will not feel light as air, it never feels particularly heavy during gaming marathons.
Those who would like to try the black and gray versions of the phone would happily find the discreet LED panel, although it is hidden in settings. The large hump for the rear camera makes the phone to have a poor contact with surfaces when placed on them and is prone to scratching.
An important word is that the number of the USB-C port is two, which is rather unique for the gaming phones, so, the users will be able to charge ROG Phone 8 while playing games, without annoying cables. Thus one port is provided at the left end and the other is adjacent to a third port. The BO Eye finish below also has an airplane-style 5mm headphone jack on the bottom edge.
On the right side, there are a power key, volume control key, as well as the ‘Air Triggers’ which are touch sensitive areas of the phone which can be programmed to respond to game control functions such as aiming and shooting.
ROG Phone 8 is build with IP68 Rating for dust and water resistance so it can work with water but it is still delicate for full water proof since it is constructed with glass material.
The ROG Phone 8 features a 78-inch display, and it is as bulky of a phablet as it can get, though that is not unexpected, as all the iterations following the ROG Phone 5 have been as big (the ROG Phone 8 Pro included, of course).
The resolution is 1080 x 2400, or FHD+ – that is what you can see with the majority of the Android flagship devices this year, and although it’s not the 2K or 4K, which some of their competitors has, it is the output of many games and videos.
The display can also easily be considered pretty for a high-end smartphone; an AMOLED panel gives vibrant colors, HDR10 improves picture contrast, while a max brightness of 2500 nits should illuminate even the darkest corners of the lunar landscape, making it suitable for streaming or playing video games.
For the issues of gaming, I can support the view that the 165Hz refresh rate is perfect for the few games that can support such high refresh rates. 120Hz is truly an extra gem to have.
It is equipped with Android 14 on board with a custom shell on top of it developed by the Asus team. Expect ‘gamer aesthetics’: it’s much darker than before, and the icons are minimalistic and represented by simple geometric shapes: green application icons are hexagonal. Beyond the aesthetics, this software is quite close to vanilla Android.
There are some basic features in the interface where apps can be found in the app drawer and one can swipe down to get options which are quick settings. The ROG Phone 8 has a fairly limited set of options that allow you to enhance the font on the always-on screen of the device, icon shape, various animation effects and much more.
You can also choose what pattern is displayed on the LED panel located on the back, but it is located in the AniMe Vision part of settings or Armory Crate. This lets you choose conditions for the screen to light up: during an ongoing ringing, upon an incoming call, in the midst of taking a picture or when a camera starts counting backward, during charging and so on with some ambients that signify what’s going on. Yes, it is significantly way more muted than most gaming phone LED panels.
Another thing about Asus ROG Phone 8 that you will either love or hate depending on your stance on the moral use of generative AI is the AI Wallpaper piece of the gaming phone. The built-in operating system has an AI image creation program that can generate a wallpaper out of one of few options, Space, Cyberpunk, SciFi.
The second thing that matches rather well with the theory is cameras. In this context, the use of cameras can be seen to match with the individualisation theory in the following ways:
The main camera is an f/1. 8 50MP. 9 snapper with OIS that uses a gimbal, something that most smartphones do not have. Photograph quality during Standard (1x) zoom shots taken by the phone is relatively bright and vibrant especially in well lit areas, though in low light area they are not that bad.
What may surprise you is, the actual picture that is being taken usually has a resolution of only 12. , with the camera using pixel-binning from the 50MP. Of course, there’s no full-res mode in this phone; therefore, if you try to blow up the below camera samples, they will look quite grainy.
If you wish to have a broader field of view, you can switch to the second lens at the back, which is a 13MP f/2. 2 snapper with new 120 degrees ultrawide lens. While this is kinda grainy and overshadows the edges, it actually matches the main camera’s color and has kind of good quality, so you can expand without having to deal with another color cast.
The third of them is portrait mode, the results of which do not differ from those of many flagships: the bokeh is quite delicate and light, and the face receives a small amount of beauty corrections; however, this is not critical.
Recording videos is also possible with the maximum recording quality of up to 8K at 24 frames per second, or 4K at 60 frames per second. Or, lowering the frame rate, you get FHD at 240 frames per second and 4K at 120 frames per second.
There are few more options on the phone, which includes the basic modes that are Pro, time-lapse, panorama and night mode but there is also light trails which sort of implies shutter speed control.
As expected from any Asus ROG Phone series, the Asus ROG Phone 8 is a gaming phone, so it should excel in terms of performance. The phone comes equipped with the fresh top of the line Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset together with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. That performance was also reflected in benchmark averages.
The phone delivered in a Geekbench 6 multicore test a score of 6,524 I decided to run another test an hour later while gaming, and that resulted in the score of 6,459 in order to see if overheating is an issue here and it isn’t.
In this regard, the highest-end versions will provide additional advantages as our tester received a score of 7,200 for the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition.
However, the fact that most mobile games are designed to work well on any device especially the lower end ones, having that extra horsepower will not make you a happier gamer in terms of performance. On an overall, phone has good or even great performance in theory but I did get a bit tired while gaming.
For instance, if you are navigating with the phone lying horizontally on a table, your hand obstructs the front-facing speakers hence the need to use headphones in order to hear properly.
A significant downside of the phone being big was that I developed hand ache when playing a game for hours and I would also sometimes hit the side of the device when going for middle buttons.
When it comes to the battery life reel of the smartphone, the duration that the device will work for before recharging depends on the type of battery used in it. Powering the handset for the ROG Phone 8 is a 5,500mAh battery which is as thick as you expected from a gaming-oriented phone like this one.
While many people might use the ROG Phone 8 as a regular phone, it’s worth knowing that this battery is more than sufficient to last a whole day. Do not fret about spending time on those elongated video meetings – this monster will surely sustain you.
The gaming phones are performing well in the market in terms of specifications and quality amongst which Asus ROG Phone 8 is iconic itself. However, at such a price, it fulfills the purpose of delivering high-speed gaming with the help of a potent Qualcomm SM8475 Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and sufficient RAM support.
The display easily stands at 165Hz refresh rate and allows for AMOLED rich colors perfect for gaming and other graphical content. However, its big size and some inconvenient factors as, for example, speakers’ positions which might be covered by players’ hands during long hours of game and hand tiredness might influence the overall averageness in the eyes of the customers.
Regarding camera, the ROG Phone 8 is able to perform quite well with flexible shooting modes and even videos up to 8k quality. This means enduring gaming hours without charging very often which is why it has a 5,500mAh battery making it appropriate for both the occasional and serious use.
The Asus ROG Phone 8 has an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance, providing protection against dust and brief submersion in water.
The phone runs on Android 14 with a custom UI designed by Asus, featuring gamer-centric aesthetics and minimalistic icons.
Asus offers a range of accessories such as gaming docks, cooling systems, and controllers that enhance the gaming experience on the ROG Phone 8.
