We have been a fan of the Asus Rog series for as long as we can remember. This series has opened up a whole new chapter of gaming smartphones. There are Xiaomi Black Shark or ZTE Nubia series as its competitors, but Asus is way ahead in the game and is the genuine leader in this sector, at least in our evaluation. So, the expectation from the Rog 8 series was quite high. We have seen leaked images from Asus Rog Phone 8 and Rog Phone 8 Pro and frankly; we were disappointed with its design. It looked flat with little to no charm. But after the announcement right now, we had to evaluate these devices for a whole day to make a summary.
These devices are announced for the US, Europe and India. The pricing is different and the specs also in some cases which we’re going to discuss in a moment. The perception of the design of these phones completely changed after we had a closer look at its style, with some obsession. Asus totally nailed it this time. They introduced something much closer to a gamer’s soul. Now, we are talking about adults here. Children may like the Rog 7 series better because it has a bit of fancy nostalgia in it. These 8 series phones are just plain sexy. It would be unauthentic to try to describe it in any other way than that. These gadgets radiate a grown up, mature, pro gamer’s style of the current era. Something that we haven’t seen yet in this niche. So far, we had a lot of fancy stuff going on to show off that gamer’s vibe. Asus silenced it all.
The main thing you notice is really the RGB Aura Light for the Rog 8 and the so-called AniMe customizable LED lights for the Pro model in their back part. Everything else is minimized to make it look like an elegant powerhouse and give an exclusive focus to that illuminated area. That’s high-class contemporary art and in our opinion, it couldn’t get better than this right now. Asus sure invested a lot of time and concentration to create this universal gamer’s style and we take a moment to appreciate it.
Rog Phone 8 Pro
The Pro model logo (AniMe Vision) at the back is basically a programmable area made with 341 LED lights. You can put your own text or symbols there or pick any predefined structure. You can also make it invisible if you think that’s too much for certain environments.
That’s pretty cool and unique. There are gaming triggers used with finger pressures to give a console feeling. You can also buy extra accessories for turning it into a full-on gaming console. There is an advanced cooling system with tons of distinct features. Asus calls it “GameCool 8 thermal structure” which is made of various stuff such as AeroActive Cooler, graphite sheet, vapor chamber, rapid cooling conductor, dual batteries and so on. The AeroActive Cooler is a separate accessory which is included in the box for the 24GB/1TB “Edition” model. The 16/512 GB model may not have it in the box. At least not for the Indian version, but you can buy it extra.
With a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, 24 GB RAM and 1 TB UFS 4.0 storage, the Pro “Edition” model is arguably the most powerful smartphone of the world as of today. The thermal system sustains it, so that has to be considered here as well. We have seen some of the latest powerful flagship phones to drop performance because of heating issues. But here you are getting max effort from the brand to have no such issue. But the 16/512 GB model would work excellently for most consumers. Its 5500 mAh battery is good enough for a gaming device and you’ll get a 65W charger. But the 16/512 GB Indian version surprisingly comes with a 30 watt charger and we can’t assign it anywhere in our mind to understand how this could be the case for a phone of this price and standard.
The phone comes with a solid body with Gorilla Glasses on both sides, IP68 water resistance and a metal frame. You’ll get a Full HD screen like the previous generation Rog and no 1.5K or QHD resolution. This can disappoint some users, minding the cost of it. But on the other hand, you are getting much more battery back because of the lower resolution. Although Full HD is a standard resolution, we still think it could be a bit better. A 165Hz refresh rate option is there for a very smooth touch experience, and the LTPO AMOLED panel with HDR10 is able to provide deep and vibrant colors.
You can’t compare its cameras with iPhone cameras, for example, but they have been quite improved compared to the Rog 7 series. Now you can call these some proper cameras. We liked its color tones as they match with the gamer’s vibe, more in a subtle sense. It’s again very genuine and classy from Asus. The gimbal stabilization is a huge topic and after seeing video recording samples, we were pretty impressed to find out how smooth these video footage were. Low-light / night time photos looked pretty good as well, and the same goes for the portrait mode. Sony IMX890 is a trustworthy sensor, and it does its job well in this case, too. The selfie camera is also a proper one. Again it’s nothing over the top but still pretty cool, fits with the style with good enough details.
The sound system has Hi-Res and Hi-Res wireless audio, stereo speakers and a few other features. We got the latest Wi-Fi 7, Android 14, wireless charging. Basically, pretty much everything else is also included. The brand promised 2 years of Android upgrade and four years of security upgrade. Most other phones are giving four years OS and five years security updates around this budget, so it’s somewhat behind.
Rog Phone 8
The vanilla Rog 8 has almost all the features and characteristics like the Pro version. But here we got that RGB Aura light logo, and that’s not customizable. But you can adjust different color patterns and frankly we somehow like this better than the Pro model’s programmable LEDs. The rest of the design is very identical. The body dimension, material, screen size, resolution and features all are the same.
The camera of the Indian variant could be lower than the international variant as per some sources. The telephoto lens might be replaced by a lower quality macro lens. But this model has not yet been announced in India and the price is also unknown so, we can’t confirm it right now. But the charger is definitely remaining 30W here as well and the global one gets a 65W charger. We are getting a 12 GB RAM variant and the storage here is a single 256 GB.
Rog 8 price starts from €1,099 in Europe and $1,099 in the US. 8 Pro costs INR 94,999 in India, €1,199 in Europe and $1,199 in the US. Pro Edition (24GB/1TB) costs INR 119,999 in India, €1,499 in Europe and $1,499 in the US.
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