Asus announces the ROG Phone 7 and ROG Phone 7 Ultimate

Check out our Asus Rog 7 Ultimate review! We think these have a good chance to be the best gaming phones of 2023.

Performance

Base specs

Gaming is what the ROG Phone 7 series is all about, and there is a whole bag of improvements that Asus has included in this new generation to make it even more capable than the ROG Phone 6 series. The most obvious upgrade is, of course, the new 3.2 GHz Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which is 15% faster and 15% more power efficient than the previous generation.

The flagship chipset is perfectly paired up with 16 GB of 8,533 Mbps LPDDR5X RAM and 512 GB UFS 4.0 storage that's twice as fast as UFS 3.0. If you can't read geek, this means the ROG Phone 7 series has all the latest and greatest.

Power efficiency

If the only improvements were the new chipset, RAM, and storage, the Rog Phone 7 series would have little to stand out from other high-end Android phones. Thankfully, there is much more to these gaming phones.

One example is the new rapid-cycle vapor chamber design, which increases heat dissipation efficiency by up to 168%, allowing the ROG Phone 7 series to run games at its maximum capacity for longer periods. The phone makes use of this cooling mechanism during regular gaming sessions and a thermal compound on one side of the CPU during shorter ones to reduce throttling.

For prolonged gaming, however, there is the AeroActive Cooler 7. This is an accessory for the ROG Phone 7 series that helps actively cool the phone using AI (artificial intelligence). It attaches to the back and has a fan that gets positioned exactly over the CPU module. Compared to the previous version, the fan now has more blades and a built-in thermoelectric Peltier cooler, which Asus claims helps cool the front and back of the device more efficiently.

Special gaming software and hardware

Besides having the latest hardware, the ROG Phone 7 series also comes with some additional perks that make gaming a more pleasant experience. This includes support for Qualcomm's FastConnect 7800, which allows for 320 MHz channels and Multi-Link operation, or in other words a much more stable connection while playing online games.

Both phones also support Snapdragon Elite Gaming, meaning they can display real-time hardware-accelerated ray tracing in games that support it, making the image much more realistic and immersive.

We also can't forget to mention the AirTrigger ultrasonic controls that support a wide range of gestures such as Dual Action, Press and Lift, and Gyroscope Aiming. There are also 10 motion controls and an X-axis linear motor that provides powerful haptic feedback.

Display and audio

A gaming phone needs to be good at many things, and immersion is at the top of the list. The two most important parts of the phone in this regard are the display and audio quality.

Asus has added a 165 Hz Samsung AMOLED display with a 720 Hz touch-sampling rate. The company also claims that this panel has incredible color accuracy to top it all off. Additionally, the peak brightness has now increased to 1,500 nits so it is easier to play in brighter conditions. But let's be honest, how often do gamers find themselves in bright conditions? While on the road in the back seat of the car maybe?

The speakers have also been improved to produce 50% more effective volume than previously. The true game changer here, however, Asus claims to lie within the AeroActive 7 cooler accessory, which enhances bass volume by 77% to create 2.1 sound in games or movies when it is attached.

Asus ROG Phone 7 series price and availability

The ASUS ROG Phone 7 series will be available for pre-order from April 13 in Europe & Taiwan. The company has not given any information on whether the phones will reach other markets yet. If we had to take an educated guess, though, both of the latest ROG phones should come to the US rather silently at a later date, just like with the predecessors.