Review of Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate. The market is flooded with gaming phones; in fact, there are more of them than ever thanks to companies like Asus ROG, Redmagic, and Black Shark.
Although the best gaming phones are putting pressure on Asus ROG, the market leader hasn’t slowed down its twice-yearly release schedule for its ROG phones.
The top-of-the-line ROG Phone 7 Ultimate impressed me during my testing. It’s a huge phone with cutting-edge screen technology, cooling options, and software add-ons to satisfy even the pickiest gamer.
Read more: Review of Nokia G22 in 2023
Review of Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate:
All you need to spend an eye-watering £1,199/€1,399 on is a phone that will turn heads for its design and power while still running all of your favorite Android games smoothly.
This phone can fail because of its excessive pricing.
Design & build:
- Bulky and heavy
- Slick matt white design
- Cooling ‘AeroActive’ back flap
You’ll either adore or detest the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate’s appearance. Being as snobby as I thought I was about contemporary gaming aesthetics, I assumed I’d detest it. To my great surprise, after using the phone for a few weeks while carrying it in my pocket, I like it.
The ROG Phone 7 standard model, which I have not tested, is available in either black or white, while the Ultimate model, which I reviewed, is only available in matt white. It feels fantastic, is completely fingerprint-proof, and is a vast improvement over the glossy texture of so many other smartphones.
The rear is anything but plain; it has a symmetrical pattern punctuated by many cameras, two foreign additions in the form of a small LED panel and a black flap, and it is also dotted with multiple cameras. When the bundled AeroActive Cooler 7 fan is connected to the phone, the AeroActive Portal, a cooling hole, immediately opens.
This sounds ridiculously over-engineered on paper, and it is! But seeing it all come together gave me a nerdy grin. Though garish, it is well-planned and feels finished.
The build quality is great, and the power button, the camera lens, and the SIM tray all have a two-tone white finish with ROG branding. The sides are rounded, and there are two USB-C ports: one on the left edge to connect and power the AeroActive fan, and another on the bottom left to be less in the way when playing games in landscape mode.
The phone won’t survive a submerged plunge because it is just IP54 water and dust resistant because of all these ports and holes. At 239g, it will also sink quickly.
screen & speakers:
- 165Hz 6.78in AMOLED
- Extra mini rear display
- Excellent speakers
As you might anticipate from a phone for gaming, the screen is flat. There is no notch or cutout in the display because of the thick bezel at the top and bottom. You can also grasp it when playing games in landscape mode.
The 6.78-inch AMOLED panel has a variable refresh rate of 165Hz and is extremely crisp. It offers a high 720Hz touch sampling rate, up to 1,000 nits of brightness, and is HDR10+ certified.
When using it as a phone, I became aware of its less-than-stellar brightness, but I didn’t have any issues playing games in most lighting conditions. It’s a good size, and playing games on the phone for extended periods of time feels immersive.
I also took note of the coating that Asus applied to the screen’s surface “to reduce friction when hand sweating.” Ew. Despite the clamminess of a half-hour Call of Duty game, it still functions, with my thumbs gliding across the Gorilla Glass Victus display.
A PMOLED color strip panel is located on the back of the phone for aesthetic purposes; it can be turned off, although it does show colored notification badges if you place the phone face down. To conserve power, you can toggle it off.
Unquestionably the nicest speakers I’ve ever heard on a phone are the dual front-facing ones. They have a rich, booming sound that enhances your gaming experience. I was honestly astounded by their performance on the first use
Specs & performance:
- Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
- 16GB RAM and 512GB storage
- Included cooler accessory
The ROG Phone 7 Ultimate has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, the most powerful of Qualcomm’s arsenal at the time of the phone’s launch in April 2023.
This chipset is also used by phones like the Galaxy S23 Ultra and OnePlus 11, but the ROG Phone outperforms those devices in terms of gaming performance and capability thanks to a mix of additional, perhaps OTT specifications.
The specs are remarkably identical to the ROG Phone 6 Pro and ROG Phone 6D Ultimate despite the chip boost, thus the generational step up is hardly noticeable.
The specs are remarkably identical to the ROG Phone 6 Pro and ROG Phone 6D Ultimate despite the chip boost, thus the generational step up is hardly noticeable.
On the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate, I played a number of demanding games and experienced flawless performance. However, this phone is not affected by graphically demanding mobile games like Call of Duty Mobile, Asphalt 9, Genshin Impact, or FIFA Mobile.
This implies that playing a few games on the bus, such as Might Doom or Mario Run, is also acceptable. Asus also includes their cumbersome but otherwise fantastic Game Genie software, which allows you to customize the gaming experience by turning off notifications while you’re playing, changing the screen refresh rate, and doing a tonne of other things.
A clip-on shell case and the AeroActive Cooler 7, a fan accessory powered by the phone’s side-mounted USB-C connection, are included in the box. Although it is incredibly overkill, I enjoyed using it. The design is innovative since it includes touch-sensitive shoulder trigger buttons on the right edge of the device in addition to four physical shoulder buttons that can be assigned to certain actions in games.
It helped increase my shooting accuracy in Call of Duty after some getting used to, but having more buttons is unnecessary for games that aren’t as complicated. However, given the demands on the system, you might want to clip it on to cool the phone.
Asus claims to have increased the vapor chamber’s surface area within the phone, and I thought the software was smart enough to choose which of four levels to set the fan at. To reach the top “Frozed” setting, which requires more power than the phone can provide, you must have the included charger connected to the Cooler.
Check out the phone’s top performance in comparison to the ROG Phone’s previous generation and a few current top smartphones:
software & updates:
- Dedicated gaming & performance software
- Android 13
- Only two guaranteed Android updates
Asus’s Armoury Crate app is a great way to access games and keep track of system performance in addition to Game Genie. The CPU and GPU temperatures may be read, storage and memory consumption can be viewed, and performance modes, AeroActive Cooler modes, and shoulder trigger settings can all be changed.
The amount of control is incredible, allowing you to choose the performance setting in which you wish to launch particular games to ensure they run smoothly.
It even knows to run AAA games in ‘X-Mode’ to boost performance, while simpler arcade games are preset at more balanced settings. The attention to detail is astounding, and you will get lost in the options.
The phone comes pre-installed with Android 13, and according to Asus, it will receive two OS updates—to Android 14 and 15—and four years of security patches, keeping it current through 2027.
You can choose between ROG UI and Zen UI to run the phone; the former is Asus’ standard smartphone software that you’d get on the Zenfone 9. The latter is a very non-gaming aesthetic theme with dark colors, RGB-like flashes, and stylized icons. In keeping with the phone’s customization goals, you can combine and match certain styles from both.
Camera & video:
- 50Mp main rear camera
- Basic ultrawide and macro
Cameras are not its strong suit because this is a gaming phone. The Oppo Find X3 Pro from 2021 uses the same Sony IMX766 50Mp primary sensor. No doubt, it’s a good sensor, but the fact that it’s been around for two years indicates that Asus may have cut corners in this area.
It has an adequate night mode that helps keep low-light photos in focus and well-lighted, and it shoots excellent crisp shots with good detail in the daylight. While Zoo can produce lossless 2x images, there is no optical zoom lens present.
The 13Mp ultra-wide lens is less stunning because it extends the image at the corners while maintaining superb detail in the center of the frame. My MacBook keyboard was quite dusty, and the 8Mp macro camera helped me discover this, although it distorts at closer distances than 4 cm.
A capable 32MP selfie camera is located on the front of the device. This camera is primarily used for gaming and video streaming, but it can also shoot 8MP images for crappy group or selfie shots.
Battery & charging:
- Expansive 6000mAh battery
- 65W wired charging
- No wireless charging
Asus crams in 6000mAh of battery to the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate by having two separate 3000mAh cells.
This amount is 1000mAh greater than the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s battery, but it is necessary because Asus anticipates that most buyers will be playing power-hungry games all the time.
You may easily get two days on one charge if you don’t play any video games. You’ll quickly run out of juice playing games and using the fan accessory to charge your phone, so you’ll need to recharge halfway through the day or at the very least before bed.
Thankfully, charging happens fairly quickly. In my test, the provided charger recharged the phone at 65W and restored 72% of the battery in 30 minutes. However, wireless charging is not an option.
Read more: Review of Sonos Era 300
Price & availability:
The Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate costs £1,199/€1,399. You can buy it direct from Asus.
Prices and availability for the US have not yet been disclosed.
Along with the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate from the previous year, it is the most expensive gaming phone available. In April 2023, Asus also introduced the ordinary ROG Phone 7, which retails for £999/€1,199 and which I have not tried.
The Galaxy S23 Ultra costs £50 more and has 256GB of storage, whilst the iPhone 14 Pro Max costs the same but only has 128GB at that pricing.
Check out our list of the best gaming phones for possibilities at various price points, or choose the £899 ROG Phone 6 if you want performance that is similar.
Specs:
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
- Android 13 (ROG UI & Zen UI)
- 6.78in 165Hz AMOLED display
- Qualcomm Adreno 740
- 16GB LPDDR5X RAM
- 512GB UFS 4.0 storage
- Cameras:
- 50Mp main sensor
- 13Mp ultrawide
- 8Mp macro
- 32Mp front facing
- Wi-Fi 6E (Wi-Fi 7 ready)
- Dual SIM dual standby
- Bluetooth 5.3
- 6000mAh battery
- 65W wired charging
- 173 x 77 x 10.3 mm
- 239g
