ASUS ROG Phone 6 Review: Capturing True Desires

Being under an embargo can be fun but it’s not fun when you want to talk about something that the whole world is excited about. That’s the ROG Phone 6 and this is the review from us.

ROG Phone 6 Review

Looks and Feel

While there aren’t many changes in terms of looks from the front, it’s the back where you can tell that the phone has changed drastically. But only an ROG user can pick up the subtle changes. A well rounded off metal rail with matte coating that I am in love with, a much better curved glass for display that’s also a Gorilla Victus Glass.

Gone are those small cameras cut out and comes a big bump with writings on it that adds a gamer-esque accent to it. The last time we reviewed the ROG Phone 5, we had the White version with blue accents, which I genuinely loved. This time, we got all black with the shiny glossy coat, reminiscent of the ROG Phone 2 and 3 – which the latter is my personal daily driver till date. I do wish it had the same matte coating as the ROG Phone 6 Pro.

The design isn’t over this time around, and you don’t see that AeroActive Cooling grill or any perforations indicating like it’s the vent. But that’s okay. It seems like ASUS has gone with a much more cleaner design element on the back with the dotted RGB light which gives it a Tron like vibe and now also has a “Tagline” logo which is also RGB-fied.

Unfortunately, the customizability in terms of the RGB lighting is truly limited to the ROG logo. You can use the Armoury Crate to customize like, use it to indicate the battery life and so on. Nothing Phone isn’t the first to do that by the way. * wink wink *.

I like the subtle RGB glow on the ROG Phone 6 better than my ROG Phone 3 which can be over the top and bright at night as well. Since both side is covered in glass, you will need some sort of protection and funny enough, ROG isn’t just launching the phone but also a slew of accessories to take it up a notch – which we have reviewed all of it right here. This is also the first IPX4 Splash Resistant Gaming phone in the market, so thank goodness – it can take a good splash.

Display

The display element of the ROG Phone 6 has been a key factor in making the experience whole. For the past few generations of ROG Phone, this has been a hit and miss. But it’s safe to say that the ROG Phone 6 features one of the nicest looking displays and not just any display by the way. It features a 6.7” FHD+ with a 165Hz refresh rate, giving you a much more smoother touch experience. It’s not easy to differentiate between a 144 and 165, as they may seem to be the same.

But hey, the buttery smooth display isn’t threatening anyone with a bad time because its super smooth.

With HDR10+ and given that it’s a Samsung Display, which comes with all that Eye Care certification which we have seen with their very own smartphone, gives users a pleasant viewing experience. Watching shows on Netflix or Prime Video, immediately launches their colour profile that’s suited for such content and while playing games like Grid Motorsport, seeing cars move with such grace is a remarkable sight. The peak brightness is a bit of a hit and miss, but it can at least do a good job under bright sun.

Specification and Performance

The ROG Phone 6 Series is one of the few as of the time of launch to be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, the successor to the problem riddled Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 which we did not have an enjoyable time with. Just like the ROG fashioned way, the internals that comes along with it is overkill, to say the least. Our ROG Phone 6 came with the following: a whopping 16GB RAM and 512GB storage.

This is a proper flagship tier specification. For one, I am extremely glad that ASUS has gone and ditched the 128GB variant entirely for good, as the ROG Phone 5 we reviewed which came with the base configuration, was not a pleasant long-term smartphone – due to the storage, one of the two reasons. The RAM is a bit over the top but from the looks of it, the base variant now comes with 12GB which is decent too. So, the experience in performance should be marginally different.

Geekbench

3DMARK Benchmark

Now onto benchmarks, every test we put the phone at, blew the phone away. In our Geekbench test, we got a good score of 1313 points for single core and 4156 for multi core. In Wildlife Extreme Stress Test, this is where the phone showed its true colours with the performance. After a good 20 minutes of stress testing, the phone has a good loop score through out with a stability integrity of 86%. If you are wondering about the thermals during this test, yes – it was hot, capping at 50 degrees Celsius. It sure is hot but not ROG Phone 5 hot, which even capped at 60 degrees.

On to realistic loads of gaming, like Grid Motorsports, tackled the long gaming experience impressively. So did Genshin Impact at maximum settings. There are other games for casual players who can enjoy which is a breeze on this phone.

Gaming Experience

Now the gaming experience, we are going to talk about isn’t on the performance but its more towards the gaming experience. I have never been one to like the AirTrigger for certain reasons – it can be a wee bit unresponsive, and I never liked the haptics in the previous phones. ASUS fixed or improved the Haptic motor for vibration, which is now a lot nicer to the feel and responsive upon every touch. There are two different triggers: the AirTriggers and the AeroActive Cooler.

AirTriggers

The AirTriggers are baked onto the phone in itself. So, no need to purchase an extra accessory to make it usable. There are plenty of combos to execute: tap, swipe, dual control and so on. Tap and slide has been my go-to and assigning the taps to the respective function in game was simple. With the help of Game Genie, you can program it and if you do want a macro setup, you can do it as well. We tried the AirTriggers extensively on Grid as it does have many options of controls to choose from.

While the AirTrigger takes a while to get used to, because you do not know how much of a tap or hold is enough to get the car going in-game. Once you do get the hang of it, with some occasional hiccups, as it’s a tough and intensive game, it’s nice to play. But when you do have some complex choice of controls, this is where you need the AeroActive Cooler.

With AeroActive Cooler

The AeroActive Cooler is a behemoth of a cooler that looks like a miniature version of the more serious Bane’s Mask from Batman. The AAS adds extra triggers to the back of the phone which now connects via one USB port as compared to the 2 USB C port and the 1 USB C port with pogo PIN connectors.

Once again, these buttons are programmable, but I have to say, it is the least ergonomic controller I have used. The buttons have some nice clicks but otherwise, it’s a tough sell. The AAC is supposed to cool the phone down by a lot it seems, but I am going to let the accessory review we did answer it.

Camera

The Camera isn’t even a big focus for the ROG Phone 6, so any picture that comes out of it should be average at best. But ASUS did equip it with some decent cameras:

• Sony IMX766 50MP Sensor with f/1.9 aperture
• 13MP Ultra-Wide Camera
• 5MP Macro Camera

Honestly, we have seen far too many underwhelming cameras that the ROG Phone 6 didn’t disappoint us. Pictures from this camera is pretty alright with nice dynamic range and good clarity with colour science as well. There are times where it does the whole “too warm” of an image, especially in my room where my Dyson Lightcycle Morph hits a warmer temperature, it takes an image of the room with a hue that matches the colour of the sun. Otherwise, expect the camera to take neat pictures that does have a wee bit saturation at times.

1/7

Battery Life

One of the, if not the A+ grade experience is in its battery life and charging speeds. With a total of 18 whopping hours of battery life, I was able to get a crazy close to 8 hours’ worth of screen on time with the 6000mAh battery. To be honest, I have absolutely zero regrets with having this phone over my S22 Ultra for that endurance. To get this battery from 1% to 100%, it takes a good hour and half + but I am okay with it. ASUS is one of the two brands in the smartphone space to take battery health seriously.

So, if you are one of us that does connect the phone to a charger at night, you can enable the battery care mode to extend the charging speeds accordingly to protect and extend the battery’s life.

Conclusion

Again, gaming phones are not for everyone. It’s not even for me. But for some reason, my SIM and credentials always goes back to a ROG Phone. I have used the first-generation ROG Phone as my daily driver, then went with ROG Phone 3 and while I didn’t really enjoy the 5, I went back to the 3. It sure does have its appeal not just as a gaming phone but even as someone who likes their phone very vanilla.

I can say for sure that my SIM is going to be in the ROG Phone 6, not because it’s a gaming phone. It’s going to be in it because I like it for other reasons: steady battery life, good versatility between intense work and play, and a nice Vanilla Android Experience. The 6 marks a sweet spot for me. There’s no need to get the Pro to be honest, but it’s up to you really.