In the past I have tested variants of this – the pinnacle of gaming phone development – and I say this not without deference to the other gaming smartphone players in the market but the ecosystem behind the ROG Phone is just something that none other have accomplished or dared to even touch; and the jury is out in the performance department touting the Snapdragon 8 Elite specifically tuned to the device. It is on the various nuances around the device that make gaming with the ROG Phone an experience that elevates your performance up to the level that you would like for it to get to… ANY LEVEL.
Having previously published non-gamer outlooks on these devices, I decided it’s actually time to try out just how big of a gap using an ROG Phone can give you. After all, you can equate using an ROG Phone to equipping the BiS (best in slot) for a character in game… just IRL IYKWIM ROFL
OK enough with that.
My experience with the ROG Phone 9 is ‘refreshing’ this is because my 6y/o kid is quite smitten with the device. Everything was normal until I decided to turn ON the AniMe panel behind the device – I initially showed him that games can be played on the back showing him how the airtriggers activate different effects with each different pixel game… and then, when I turned it on semi fulltime – with the status displays, that’s when things turned “incredible”.
He was rousing from sleep then when while I was holding the device, he spotted the iconic red and white patterns dancing about the rear letting everyone know that I was inside a game at that particular moment and I was rushed I tell ya… Rushed! And so he saddle up next to me to find some really fine battle animations from a just started (Zenless Zone Zero) ZZZ account. I have been hearing about it and I thought what better way to test the Hoyoverse approach than with a relatively new one (just about to get its first anniversary IIRC) – to put things into perspective, the longest running gacha game I got installed had just passed 10 years – Battle Cats… I’m not anywhere near a level on that game that would use up some of the resources that the ROG phone has to offer.
To properly exercise the capabilities of such a high level of equipment needed an equally comprehensive title that would push the device to its utmost limit – hence I started the playthrough of ZZZ. Suffice it to say that playing this very intricately animated, thoughtfully executed, feature rich, story driven game on the ROG Phone 9 was perfectly timed. You see one of the issues that gamers would have with a title would be pacing and since this game has already had nearly a year under its belt, there was plenty to play through and you can only do that effectively once you get the hang of navigating around the fancy menus – and these are some really fancy work they put into here – of course its nothing that the ROG Phone 9 can’t handle.
Everything at max and with all the particles and physics allowed to manifest is how you’re meant to play this game and this runs the device hot. It gets uncomfortable enough to really warrant the use of the AeroActive Cooler X Pro almost consistently, technically transforming it from a gaming phone to a proper handheld console with additional shoulder buttons mappable in a separate space within the in-game armoury crate with unique settings for each individual title conveniently detected and curated into the nice carousel where they can adopt individual presets to use more of the device processors and allow/disallow certain tasks/phone activities maximizing gaming performance.
The AAC has 4 levels of cooling which pertain to fan speed with the fastest and most consistent option only available if you have the AAC on the mains using its own (package included) high powered 65W charger. This AAC is also only included in the Pro Edition variant of the ROG Phone 9, I can tell you that this iteration is much easier to latch to the device without having to stress out any part of the accessory.
The only missing part from this experience is to have the controls completely outside of the screen, and ROG got you covered on this from with the Tessen (sold separately)
My playthrough saw me map out the airtriggers to dodges/assists and ultimates and these two buttons alone let me better time attack sequences which can get pretty convoluted pretty quickly, especially with the on-field, off-field systems they got up in ZZZ. I can only imagine a similar state when dealing out the hurt on FPS titles.
And because it’s 2025, you can’t be doing a proper gaming phone without the integration of AI onto it right? Absolutely! So within the ROG Phone 9’s In-game Armoury Crate Overlay Menu you can find something called XSense and what this does, for some specific titles, is automatically upgrade a skill once the conditions are met without you needing to go and mess about the controls… this assistance can lead to proper assaults when it happens at just the right and critical moment – you know when Sung Jin Woo got that upgrade while clashing with Behru? It’s just like that. RTS games benefit from this because of the limited amount of screen where your fingers will be situated on – having at least one less menu opened up or button held down could mean the victory. Every PRO player knows that! And this is just one gaming focused AI improvement that you can find on the ROG Phone 9
AI on the ROGPhone9 is naturally not limited only to gaming. Everything you would expect a modern flagship would be able to accomplish can be found here: photo manipulation, document processing, transcription, call assistance, the works – and these were just freshly delivered!
The ROG Phone 9 comes in FE (Php44,995), Pro (Php62,995), and Pro Edition (Php76,995) variants
