Asus ROG Telephone 8 Professional Evaluate: A Gaming Smartphone That Remembers It is a Telephone

There’s one thing totally different in regards to the Asus ROG Telephone 8 Professional. The Asus ROG gaming cellphone line at all times surprises me with its distinctive model historically interesting to avid gamers. But, this 12 months’s ROG Telephone 8 collection shocks me by how mainstream it appears. Gone are the spaceship-like white hues of the ROG Telephone 6 and ROG Telephone 7 and in comes a restrained matte black look — an understated look for a mature gaming cellphone. 

Whereas standing tall with its 6.78-inch show, gone is the higher bezel that hid the final ROG Telephone 7’s front-facing digicam — in any other case final seen in 2019 on telephones just like the Samsung Galaxy S9 and the Google Pixel 4. The ROG Telephone 8 Professional has a punch-hole front-facing digicam simply as we see on most Android telephones. The complete-color secondary show on the again of the cellphone says goodbye in favor of a nonetheless eye-grabbing mini-LED show, which is much more arresting on the Professional mannequin. 

What outcomes is one thing that appears paying homage to the black model of the Nothing Telephone 2 with the gaming chops of prior ROG telephones in addition to the specs and $1,200 (£1,100) beginning worth that we count on from this 12 months’s Android flagships. My explicit assessment unit is the kitted out $1,500 model of the ROG Telephone 8 Professional, with a ludicrously excessive 24GB of reminiscence and 1TB of storage. That maxed-out configuration permits me to simply multitask, which by way of my testing included alternating between Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Lifeless Cells and texting whereas ready endlessly to queue into GeForce Now’s free tier for cloud gaming.

The ROG Telephone 8 Professional’s look may not stand out as a lot in a lineup of different premium Android telephones, however as soon as I truly used it, I might rapidly inform it is nonetheless a gaming cellphone. In contrast to mainstream telephones on this worth vary, the Asus ROG Telephone 8 Professional features a headphone jack. It additionally continues to supply two USB-C ports, one on the underside and one other on the left facet, for 2 totally different attachments or to cost your machine simpler whereas holding it horizontally. This was notably good to have when plugging in my Xbox controller whereas charging. 

That facet USB-C port additionally connects the AeroActive Cooler X fan accent, which not opens a door into the cellphone to sit back the cellphone’s inside elements. As an alternative, the ROG Telephone 8 Professional has a sealed exterior to attain IP68 certification to maintain out water and mud, and the Cooler simply chills the surface of the cellphone. Clipping the accent to the cellphone does nonetheless really feel like attaching a spider to assist hold it cool. When you have the $1,200 mannequin, that accent prices $100, and it is included with the $1,500 mannequin.

The Telephone 8 Professional does a pleasant job capturing pictures and movies, with processing that is assisted by synthetic intelligence powered by its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip. It is early days for flagship telephones outfitted with the brand new AI-focused chip, and I discover the opposite ways in which the Telephone 8 Professional takes benefit of AI to be extra refined. They embody with the ability to carry out contextual searches on the machine, AI noise canceling on calls and textual content recognition inside video games. 

The AI options are good and positively useful, however nowhere close to the extent of picture manipulation that we’re seeing on Google’s Pixel 8. Whereas Asus probably plans to maintain the Telephone 8 Professional gaming targeted over AI-focused, we nonetheless should understand that in 2024 it is extremely probably that different firms’ flagships are going to have AI entrance and middle. It is potential that the ROG’s AI options will really feel extra like a lightweight contact by comparability.

However even with extra refined AI ambitions, the Asus ROG Telephone 8 Professional at its beginning spec of 512GB of house and 16GB of reminiscence continues to be a beast. You get the latest chip, tons of house, a number of reminiscence, and it is the one high-end cellphone on the market that provides you as many ports as a MacBook Air.

Asus ROG Telephone 8 Professional design, software program, gameplay

Whereas at first the Asus ROG Telephone 8 Professional appears like some other giant black cellphone, the corporate contains plenty of trendy thrives together with a brand new animated mini-LED display screen on its again. Asus prints its Republic of Avid gamers brand, its “Dare to Win” mantra and an “Est. 2006” message prefer it’s a pair of Levi’s denims. A pretty big digicam hump homes a trio of cameras.

However the star of the cellphone is its animating AniMe imaginative and prescient mini-LED show on the again. Whereas I am unhappy to see the total shade secondary show retire, the brand new show contains loads of particulars that I would like to see on extra telephones. For example, by default the display screen rotates between displaying the time, your battery degree and the ROG brand. The mini-LED display screen can show a digicam icon when you’re taking a photograph, a music visualizer when listening to music or customized animations that you may arrange in settings. It jogs my memory of the LEDs on the again of the Nothing Telephone 2, besides this small display screen permits for textual content and numbers which are simpler to delineate than Nothing’s summary gentle patterns. This display screen will also be turned off if you don’t need all this blinking.

The entrance 6.78-inch show has an optical in-screen fingerprint sensor that may unlock the cellphone. By default the display screen runs at an adaptive refresh price between 1 and 120Hz, however you may have the display screen run at 165Hz always. The display screen has a 720Hz contact sampling price — the identical as final 12 months’s Telephone 7 — for responsiveness. 

Each options helped after I performed Lifeless Cells, for the reason that sport helps a better refresh price and battling by way of dungeons was simpler with that responsiveness price. The Telephone 8 Professional additionally contains its AirTriggers sensors, which I can program like shoulder buttons when holding the cellphone horizontally. My desire continues to be to hook the cellphone up with a sport controller when time and house permit, however for subway commuting the responsiveness for the touchscreen has been enough for the fast-paced sport.

Like different gaming telephones, the Telephone 8 Professional will get heat when enjoying video games on the larger graphics and body charges that the cellphone is able to. Whereas Asus says that the cellphone now makes use of conductive cooling to attract warmth to the again of the cellphone, I did discover that it makes the again of the cellphone noticeably sizzling to the touch. A case ought to assist alleviate that, as ought to the aforementioned AeroActive X cooler attachment. 

Utilizing 3DMark’s 20-minute stress check when paired up with the fan attachment working at its highest cooling setting, the cellphone’s dashboard reported a temperature beginning at 35 levels Celsius (95 levels Fahrenheit) and ending at 44 levels Celsius (111 levels Fahrenheit). By comparability after I ran the check with out the attachment, the cellphone began at 33 levels Celsius (91 levels Fahrenheit) and ended at a noticeably hotter 53 levels Celsius (127 levels Fahrenheit). It is value noting that 3DMark’s check is especially demanding for any cellphone however may very well be a comparability for a gamer that is notably adept at pushing the boundaries.

Asus carried over different gaming-focused options from prior years, together with a Background mode that may hold an app energetic even should you flip off the display screen, an in-game dashboard to rapidly entry settings, the power to customise settings for explicit video games and the brand new AI-grabber to scan textual content inside a sport. Asus means that the characteristic may very well be helpful for rapidly copying and pasting phrases inside a sport after which looking out the online for associated guides.

One other of the Telephone 8 Professional’s AI options is its noise cancellation characteristic for voice and video calls, which works throughout any service that makes these. This contains providers like WhatsApp and inside sport chat providers like Discord.

Whereas these gaming modes are the principle draw for the ROG Telephone 8 Professional, the brand new redesign comes with quite a lot of perks towards how the cellphone appears and feels. It is noticeably lighter than final 12 months’s cellphone, coming in at 225g versus the Telephone 7 Final’s 246g. And by eliminating the highest bezel of the cellphone, the Telephone 8 Professional’s now 163.8mm (6.4-inches) tall, shorter than the Telephone 7 Final’s 173mm (6.7-inches). Whereas Asus was capable of hold the show dimension between the 2 telephones the identical, it is value noting that the front-facing digicam now occupies a punch-hole house throughout the show very like different Android telephones, which could not be nice for avid gamers that favor an uninterrupted view throughout their total display screen. 

Gaming cellphone rival RedMagic as an illustration makes use of an under-display front-facing digicam to offer that unobstructed view, however pictures taken by under-display cameras aren’t but on the similar high quality as these capturing from a gap reduce out of the show. To accommodate this, Asus gives an choice to both let video games fill the total display screen or shrink the show space barely with a view to keep away from the cutout from interfering. Most video games are unlikely to be affected by the lack of house, however the possibility is there within the occasion that it’d.

The ROG Telephone 8 Professional has a 5,500mAh battery, which is smaller however nonetheless sizable in contrast with the ROG Telephone 7’s 6,000mAh battery. Whereas I discovered the ROG Telephone 7’s 6,000mAh to simply get me by way of two days of use, I discovered a extra blended outcome with the ROG Telephone 8 Professional. 

On days with heavy use, equivalent to one the place I ran GeForce Now within the background for a number of hours whereas I did different duties and performed video games saved regionally, I drew the total battery down to twenty% by the top of the day. With much less intensive use, which nonetheless included an hour of gameplay and miscellaneous duties like calls, texting and music, I used to be capable of stretch the battery to final by way of two days of use on a single cost. Whereas your mileage will fluctuate based on how energy hungry your utilization is, Asus does ship the cellphone with a 65-watt wired charger and this 12 months’s cellphone contains 15-watt wi-fi charging. In my 30-minute wired charging check, I used to be capable of get the battery from 0% to 69% whereas the 30-minute wi-fi charging check took it from 1% to 26%.

The ROG Telephone 8 Professional runs Android 14, and Asus plans to offer two years of main software program updates and 4 years of safety updates. Whereas this is similar timeline as final 12 months, Google’s Pixel 8 collection is now together with seven years of software program and safety replace help, making the Telephone 8 Professional’s timeline fairly brief for the worth vary. Whereas the gaming cellphone viewers would possibly nonetheless improve their telephones extra typically to have the most recent chips, that is nonetheless a really costly machine that some prospects could need to use for so long as potential. 

Asus ROG Telephone 8 Professional cameras

I will be direct: The Asus ROG Telephone 8 Professional takes good pictures for a gaming cellphone. It has a 50-megapixel fundamental digicam, a 13-megapixel ultrawide and 32-megapixel telephoto. In my testing, the cameras had been capable of decide up quite a lot of shade and element — and I wager the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is doing quite a lot of the heavy lifting.

My meals pictures of a shrimp and avocado salad captured the glisten of the French dressing sprinkled on high, and my workplace check pictures of a grass wall replicated lots of the shades of inexperienced on show. The cellphone’s 32-megapixel front-facing digicam does an honest job of differentiating between my black face masks and cardigan and held up for my video calls.

I took comparability pictures with the RedMagic 9 Professional, which additionally runs on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and packs a 50-megapixel fundamental digicam. In contrast with pictures taken by its Asus counterpart, the RedMagic 9 Professional’s pictures have extra shade and element.

This included pictures taken of the Arcade1Up cupboards within the workplace utilizing each the default zoom and 3x zoom.

Each telephones did a superb job brightening up CNET’s TV lab, which is a lowlight space when all of our blackout curtains are arrange. Each telephones had been capable of discern our sofa and the ground.

When turning the cameras towards a pitch black space — which is especially demanding — the Asus was capable of soften out the picture noise and discern not less than just a few particulars. However the RedMagic was drowned out by picture noise. We’ve not but reviewed the RedMagic 9 Professional, nevertheless it’s necessary to notice that its beginning worth is a a lot decrease $649 than the ROG Telephone 8 Professional’s $1,200 pricetag.

The Asus ROG Telephone 8 Professional may file video at 8K and 24 frames per second, in addition to at 4K and 60fps. When testing that 8K setting, I did discover the cellphone chug just a little bit, however the video high quality nonetheless got here out first rate for a gaming cellphone. Asus features a stabilizer in its digicam that the corporate says is used for each pictures and for movies.

It is nice to see that the Telephone 8 Professional can flip in some good pictures, and that can make the cellphone considerably extra helpful as a communication machine in addition to a gaming machine. However Asus additionally has a first-mover benefit proper now, and we’re prone to quickly see telephones that embody the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 that give the digicam much more emphasis.

Asus ROG Telephone 8 Professional backside line

The Asus ROG Telephone 8 Professional is an costly cellphone at $1,200 with solely the Samsung Galaxy S23 Extremely and iPhone 15 Professional Max coming near that worth, however in case you are in search of a high-spec gaming monster that also appears like a smooth cellphone, it’s comparably priced towards what we would count on from different high-end telephones with 512GB of storage. Doubly so in case you are in search of a media-focused powerhouse, due to its excessive refresh show, connectivity choices, quick charging and headphone jack.

Nonetheless most individuals who aren’t in search of a gaming-focused cellphone ought to wait and see what Samsung is planning to disclose with its rumored Galaxy S24 line and OnePlus with the OnePlus 12. Despite the fact that neither firm particularly focuses on gaming, each make telephones that readily play most cell video games, present broader pictures help and longer software program replace timelines.

That stated, present ROG followers and others who’re drawn towards gaming telephones will discover quite a lot of methods to customise how they play video games with the Telephone 8 Professional. And its lighter redesign that helps it act extra like a normal cellphone will make it all of the extra usable.

How we check telephones

Each cellphone examined by CNET’s evaluations staff was truly utilized in the true world. We check a cellphone’s options, play video games and take pictures. We look at the show to see if it is vibrant, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and construct to see how it’s to carry and whether or not it has an IP-rating for water-resistance. We push the processor’s efficiency to the extremes, utilizing standardized benchmark instruments like GeekBench and 3DMark in addition to our personal anecdotal observations navigating the interface, recording high-resolution movies and enjoying graphically intense video games at excessive refresh charges.

All of the cameras are examined in a wide range of situations, from vibrant daylight to darkish indoor scenes. We check out particular options like night time mode and portrait mode and examine our findings towards equally priced competing telephones. We additionally try the battery life through the use of the cellphone every day in addition to working a collection of battery drain exams.

We take note of extra options, like help for 5G, satellite tv for pc connectivity, fingerprint and face sensors, stylus help, quick charging speeds, and foldable shows, amongst others that may be helpful. And we steadiness all this towards the worth to provide the verdict on whether or not that cellphone, no matter worth it’s, truly represents good worth. Although these exams could not at all times be mirrored in CNET’s preliminary assessment, we conduct follow-up and long-term testing in most circumstances.