The ROG Phone 9 Pro is here and it rocks the brand-new Snapdragon 9 Elite. Is it a beast? Yes! Does it beat all the scores? Check it out!
ROG Phone 9 and ROG Phone 9 Pro Intro
Asus has just announced the sequel to last year’s ROG Phone 8 — the ROG Phone 9 Pro and ROG Phone 9 are now official. The big deal here is the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chip — the 3 nm processor that’s about to rule the Android market. And getting to test it with Asus‘ superb thermal management and optimizations is probably the best introduction!
The ROG Phone 9 duo repeat of the „3rd generation design“, which means they don’t have the chin and forehead with front-firing speakers that older ROG Phones did. Asus is trying to walk the line of making them more mainstream-looking and more manageable, while still retaining the DNA of that heavy gamer phone that the ROG brand is known for.
But for another bit of good news — the subwoofer in the AeroActive Cooler is back! There’s now a new AeroActive Cooler X Pro accessory, which is sold separately or included with the ROG Phone 9 Pro Edition, which we have. The good news is that it’s also compatible with the older ROG Phone 8 series, in case you just want to upgrade to having a subwoofer.
As one might expect, it’s a heavily-specced phone, which you can get in a configuration of up to 1 TB UFS 4.0 storage and up to 24 GB of LPDDR5X RAM. It’s launching internationally this December, coming to the US as early as January 2025. We ran it through all our tests, and it passed them with flying colors, of course. Well, the camera still needs some love, but it’s a gamer’s phone first and foremost!
Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro
What we like
Stellar performance
Fantastic battery endurance and good charging speed
Design mixes fun with classy
What we don’t like
A bit heavy
Camera is OK, but not on par with $1k competitors
Speakers still a downgrade from ROG 7, not as good as iPhone 16 Pro Max
7.5
PhoneArena Rating
7.5
Price Class Average
Battery Life
8.6
7.8
Photo Quality
6.3
7.2
Video Quality
6.2
6.5
Charging
7.9
5.9
View all ratings
Performance Peak
9.1
7.1
Performance Daily
8.9
8
Display Quality
7
7.8
Design
8
7.8
Wireless Charging
8.5
7.3
Biometrics
7
7.6
Audio
8
7.8
Software
4
8.4
Why the score?
This device scores average for this price class, which includes devices like the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max
How do we rate?
As you can see above, the ROG Phone 8 Pro total score is now slightly higher than the one at the time of writing. That is not because of some error on our end, but because we have implemented a new rating system at PhoneArena that gives readers a better idea of the performance of a phone across different categories. Remember to look at the scores and compare them to the average for the class, and we believe you will find these scores tremendously useful. Learn more about the new PhoneArena Review Scoring system here.
Table of Contents:
Specs
Design and Display
Camera
Performance
Software
Battery and Charging
Audio Quality and Haptics
Should you buy it?ROG Phone 9 and 9 Pro SpecsFaster than a speeding bullet
Of course, Asus went over the top with the hardware, to a point we wonder how it all fits in those phones. But subtlety has never been a part of the ROG Phone vocabulary!
SpecsROG Phone 9ROG Phone 9 Pro
Size and Weight 163.8 x 76.8 x 8.9mm
227g 163.8 x 76.8 x 8.9mm
227g
Display 6.78”, 2400×1080, AMOLED
185 Hz, 2,500 nits peak 6.78”, 2400×1080, AMOLED
185 Hz, 2,500 nits peak
Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite
4.3 GHz, 3 nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite
4.3 GHz, 3 nm
Software Android 15 Android 15
Cameras 50 MP main
13 MP ultrawide
5 MP macro
32 MP front 50 MP main
13 MP ultrawide
32 MP 3x telephoto
32 MP front
Battery Size 5,800 mAh 5,800 mAh
Charging Speeds 65 W wired charge
15 W wireless charging 65 W wired charge
15 W wireless charging
Price from $999 $1,199
The ROG Phone 9 and ROG Phone 9 Pro have very similar spec sheets. They mainly differ in the camera setup, as the Pro has a dedicated zoom lens, and the LED lights that adorn the phones‘ backs — we’ll get to that in the next section. Otherwise, if you choose to save some money and not get the Pro — the regular model performs just the same, no corners cut!
ROG Phone 9 and ROG Phone 9 Pro Design and DisplayThe subtle gamer
The ROG Phone 9 models come with a pretty matte glass on the back, a metal frame, and a fullscreen front, like last year’s models. The screen is quite big, at 6.78 inches, but thanks to the super-thin bezels, it feels manageable. Well, as long as you are used to phones of the caliber of a Galaxy Note, Galaxy S Ultra, iPhone Pro Max, and other such big-screened handsets.
Of course, it has unique buttons, as always. The ROG Phones rock two shoulder triggers, which can be mapped for gaming. They are pressure-sensitive areas on the frame with ultrasonic tech beneath them, instead of actual mechanical buttons. You can edit and fine-tune the pressure they respond to, and the phone does give you a nice, clicky feedback through its vibration motor whenever a press is detected.
Your choice in colors is limited, though. The regular ROG Phone 9 comes in Phantom Black and Storm White. The Pro models only come in Phantom Black.
Where the ROG Phone’s flavor comes from is the lighting on the back. This time around, none of the models has an RGB-lit logo. Instead, both the Pro and the non-Pro have an area of dotted LED lights that can show a number of pre-made ROG animations, notifications, clock, and weather conditions. Or, you can upload your custom image, but there’s a ruleset for image resolution and colors, which you have to follow.
Asus calls these LED areas the AniMe Vision. As before, you can unlock special AniMe logos if you meet another ROG Phone user in the wild and tap your phones together. The ROG Phone 9 Pro has 648 LED dots and you can now play small games on it, too, when you need to quickly pass the time. Think games like Snake and Aero Invaders (kind of like Space Invaders but not quite), where you simply use the shoulder triggers to move left and right. Fun little touch.
The non-Pro ROG Phone has 85 dots, so its animations are much smaller and no games here.
But, with both phones, if you want them to be more subtle, simply disable AniMe from the Armoury Crate app (the gaming hub app that every ROG Phone has). The LEDs disappear under the matte glass back.
Asus still gives you everything you need in the box, meaning a charger, cable, and simple case. Long-term partner DevilCase is also launching new models for the ROG Phones, with a new „cool case“ specifically designed to keep the gaming phone cool.
The display is an excellent AMOLED panel, made by Samsung. It now goes up to 185 Hz refresh rate, yes you read that right. Small caveat, you can only enable 185 Hz when in-game, from the Asus gaming console. We can barely complain here — the ROG Phones were already overkill at 165 Hz, but hey, more bragging rights!
The colors are pretty amped out of the box, but the good news is that Asus gives you 5 different color calibrations to pick from, plus extra sliders for warmth and saturation if you really want to get in there. We found it easy to get a warmer, more natural tone with the „Standard“ and „Cinematic“ options.
