Asus ROG Phone: Game On- on your smartphone
When physicist William Higinbotham created what is widely believed to be the first video game in 1958, he would have never imagined what his work would one day lead up to. As it stands, from its humble beginnings six decades ago, the video game industry has grown on to become one of the most profitable entertainment industries in the world.
According to a report published in gameinustry.biz, in 2017 alone, the industry generated revenues of close to a $110 billion. Interestingly, the report goes on to add that of this amount, close to $60 billion was generated from mobile games, while $33 billion from PC games and $8.3 billion from consoles respectively.
Looking at these numbers, one could be fooled into believing that mobile gaming is going through a purple patch. However, the reality is quite the opposite.
The truth is that gaming on mobile platforms still hasn't arrived properly. Ask any ardent gamer and they will tell you that gaming experience on Android and iOS smartphones is nowhere comparable to what you get on handheld gaming devices such as the PSP and Nintendo Switch, let alone on consoles and gaming PCs.
There are multiple reasons why this is the case. First and foremost is the lack of raw processing power available on smartphones. Though in 2018, this may not appear to the biggest problem at hand, but processing power still remains a bottleneck for developers looking to create high-quality games for smartphones.
The other, and arguably the more important reason, is the existence of an ecosystem that pushes for gaming on smartphones. Even today, smartphones are majorly marketed as pocket computers that are great for consuming multimedia content on the go and can even replace point and shoot cameras.
But phones that sell gaming as central to their user experience remain extremely rare. In the past 12 months, we've seen the of Razer Phone, and Xiaomi's Black Shark, attempting this, but fail because of their shortcomings. And now, Asus, under its gaming hardware sub-brand has jumped into the fray with its ROG phone that could write the wrongs of these devices and truly usher in a new era of gaming on smartphones.
Asus ROG Phone- Most powerful Android smartphone
Unveiled at the Computex 2018, Asus ROG phone is a device that has been designed with gaming in mind, and as such comes with the best in class technology that makes it not just a great phone to play games on, but also makes it arguably the most powerful Android smartphone in the market once it goes on sale.
Taking a cue from the gaming hardware Asus makes under the ROG sub-brand, the smartphone uses a specially binned variant of the Snapdragon 845 SoC running at 2.96Ghz – a higher clock rate than found on regular 845 chips. Asus has paired this SoC with 8GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage.
To keep things cool, Asus has equipped the phone with a system that makes use of vapor-chamber cooling, a carbon cooling pad, and copper heat sinks. However, if vapor cooling isn't enough, there's also a special attachable fan accessory that users can buy to bring the phone's temperature down some more and prevent the device from throttling while playing a graphics intensive game.
For audio, the phone has a dual front-facing stereo speakers system that makes use of 24-bit/192kHz DAC.
90Hz display
Coming to the front of the phone, Asus has equipped the device with a 6-inch 2160 x 1080 AMOLED HDR display which has a 90Hz refresh rates with a 1ms response time.
It is important to note that a display with such a high frame rate is unheard for smartphones as most of them max out at 60Hz, but this excess that the company has introduced for gaming should also help game shine in daily use. The device's display that is optimised for gaming and promises fast refresh rates and zero lag while playing games also ends up delivering more than just crisp and sharp images during normal usage.
Though we haven't used the device yet, it is easy to say that with a refresh rate so high, scrolling through pages or just browsing the internet on the phone's display will be buttery smooth experience.
Why should we be excited?
As impressive as the above specs may be, except for the display, the internals that Asus ROG Phone packs should help it perform pretty much like any other flagship phone out there. So why should you be excited about Asus' ROG Phone? Apart from the display that makes this phone great for playing games on it, the device brings with it a design that enables the use of modular accessories to help it stand out as a proper portable gaming device.
The phone has been announced with a Gamevice controller, which brings with it analog sticks, and some gaming keys on either side of the phone’s landscape display. There’s also the TwinView Dock accessory that allows for the phone to be turned into a two display gaming device.
From the dual speakers on the front to charging port placed on the side of the display to allow for gaming in landscape mode while charging, the device feels crafted for gamers and gamers alone.
But that's not all. There are also software tweaks that help this phone stand out as a gaming centric phone. The phone's "X Mode" activated by squeezing the sides of the phone helps activate the maximum performance of the device by shutting down background processes and prioritising the game a user is playing for both RAM allocation and data transfer.
But will all this help mobile gaming popular? Maybe not.
There's no denying Asus put in months of work to create a phone that is crafted for gaming. With its design and internals it is undeniably a step in the right direction. With its internals and super smooth diplay, it has all the tools to facilitate great gaming sessions, but as we've seen before from the days going as far back as the first Nintendo Gameboy, gaming on a mobile platform is more than just about the hardware or the features that the phone offers.
What will truly define the success of this device are the games on offer, and quite frankly there aren't too many available that can truly take advantage of what the phone brings at the moment. But this could change in the coming days. Asus ROG Phone has come out with the hardware, its now for the developers to follow and create the kind of games that can make gaming phones a hit.
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