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00:00This is the most powerful and feature-rich phone on the market right now.
00:08It's the Asus ROG Phone 2, it's got a Snapdragon 855+, it's got a 120Hz AMOLED display,
00:14it's got 12GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, it's got a lot of amazing hardware in this thing.
00:19But the problem is that it's a gaming phone.
00:22And traditionally, gaming phones are just not a great purchase.
00:26So I did a video last year entitled, I think it was called,
00:29Are Gaming Phones Worth It? Or, Are Gaming Phones a Rip-Off?
00:32And the conclusion I made at the end of the video was that,
00:35for most people, they shouldn't be purchasing gaming phones.
00:38They're just not a good value, even if you're looking for something that's really high-performance.
00:42But this phone is different, because I feel like they geared the ROG Phone 2
00:46to be appealing to people that aren't even interested in games at all.
00:48Like, if you just want a high-performance phone that just kicks ass, this is that phone.
00:53Now if you look at the specs on this thing, obviously it's going to perform well.
00:56The Snapdragon 855+, is overclocked. The CPU and the GPU are overclocked.
01:01The GPU in particular is bumped up by like 15%.
01:04So when I run benchmarks on this thing, it's a clear leader.
01:06And package that with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of UFS3 storage, it's very fast.
01:12Granted, this is an engineering sample, I don't know the exact configurations that they'll have for their retail units,
01:17but this engineering sample is, it's super fast.
01:20And then, the screen. So this is a 120Hz AMOLED display.
01:24And I did a video recently about how I switched over to the OnePlus 7 Pro as my phone of choice.
01:29And the main reason why I chose this phone was because of the display.
01:32I don't love the size of this phone, I don't even love the curved edges on this display,
01:36but because that 90Hz AMOLED screen is so smooth and so nice, I mean, that just trumps everything else.
01:42I absolutely love the screen on this phone.
01:44This screen is even faster. It's 120Hz.
01:48Now, my eye can actually discern the difference between the two.
01:52It'll be impossible to show this difference on a video that's being shown at 24 frames per second,
01:56but I think most people can actually tell the support.
01:59I'm not saying that the 90Hz is trash compared to the 120Hz. Like, not at all.
02:03But, if you're looking for like the smoothest possible experience, the 120 is faster.
02:09And because the ROG Phone 2 is a gaming phone, there's more support from game developers
02:13that actually make use of the higher refresh screen on this phone.
02:17On the OnePlus 7 Pro, as fast as the screen is at 90Hz,
02:20there are a lot of games that don't display 90 frames per second on this screen.
02:24So, if you're looking for the smoothest possible experience right now, this is the phone to get.
02:29I'm someone who doesn't play a lot of mobile games.
02:31I play a lot of shooters on PC, I love high refresh games, but mobile gaming is just not my jam.
02:37I actually remember there was a comment on one of my videos about mobile phones
02:40where someone was like, there are more gaming phones on the market right now
02:44than there are mobile games worth playing.
02:47And like, I found that kind of hilarious, but at the same time, somewhat true
02:50because there's just not a lot of mobile games that appeal to me.
02:53But despite that, despite not being like a big mobile gamer,
02:57when I see mobile games take advantage of a high refresh screen, I can't help but be impressed.
03:01Like, stuff like Vainglory looks so good on this phone.
03:04The overclocked Snapdragon and the 120Hz AMOLED display really do justice to the games
03:09that support this kind of high performance hardware.
03:12There's other stuff to this phone that make it kind of gamer friendly.
03:15It's got the error triggers on the top which allow you to bind these kind of pseudo buttons
03:19at the top of the device. They're not actually physical buttons that depress,
03:23it's more of a capacitive sensor that when you press that area,
03:26it can trigger a software button in the game.
03:29It allows you to just have extra functionality within games.
03:32They've improved on the latency and the sensitivity of it,
03:35so it feels a little better compared to last year's version.
03:37It also has some great speakers. These are loud, they're clear, they're well positioned right in the front.
03:41Like, these are significantly better speakers than the ones on the OnePlus 7 Pro.
03:45And it also has the RGB lighting on the back.
03:48This is something that's honestly a little gimmicky,
03:50but it is kind of cool to be able to change the color of the light on the back of your phone.
03:53It's clearly not for everyone. It's not even for me,
03:55but for the people that are interested in this kind of stuff, they have that availability.
03:59And you can also turn it off if you don't like it.
04:01You also have simple hardware upgrades.
04:03Like, they have a fingerprint sensor that's built into the screen this year.
04:06The camera hardware is improved. It's now running a wide-angle lens.
04:09So the components on this device are excellent.
04:11But it is a gaming phone, right?
04:13And like I said in the beginning of the video,
04:15gaming phones are traditionally not that great of a buy.
04:18But, thankfully, this year they did a couple things that make this thing appealing to more people.
04:24So first, the design of this phone.
04:26Last year's ROG phone had a lot of copper accents on the front and the back.
04:30This year it's just slightly more muted.
04:32The copper on the front is not as visible,
04:34and on the back there's only kind of a sliver of that copper.
04:36So it's a cleaner design.
04:38And the international version of this phone is supposed to be matte black instead of this glossy material.
04:42And the vent is also functional this time.
04:44Like, the vent last year was more of an aesthetic gimmick.
04:47This is a functional vent this year.
04:49But more importantly is the software.
04:51They've finally decided to support stock Android right out of the box.
04:55So when you boot this thing up for the first time,
04:57you can choose between stock Android or their over-the-top ROG theme.
05:01And I think for most people in North America, they're going to opt for the stock Android experience.
05:05And it's something that really shapes what this phone can be.
05:08One of my biggest criticisms of the original ROG phone was the software.
05:12It was just super over-the-top.
05:14They had this extra thick layer of, like, ROG sauce over the entire UI.
05:18The phone had pretty good hardware last year,
05:20but that software experience just soured the whole thing.
05:23But this year, stock Android right out of the box.
05:25It's something that maybe they learned from, like, the Zenfone 6 launch.
05:28I like it.
05:29And I think it really makes this phone usable and appealing to a lot of people.
05:34The only app in here that isn't part of stock Android is their armory crate.
05:38And that's the thing that controls the lighting and the overclocking capabilities.
05:41So it's a necessary app.
05:42Everything else is just part of stock Android.
05:45So, I think that alone, like, that one change alone makes this phone so much more appealing across the board.
05:53The battery life.
05:54That's another thing that's pretty interesting.
05:56This is rocking a 6,000 mAh battery.
05:58I haven't been able to test it properly.
05:59I've only had this thing for a few days.
06:01But it definitely has a longer battery life than my OnePlus 7 Pro.
06:04Granted, it's a bigger device.
06:06It's thicker.
06:07It's heavier than the OnePlus 7 Pro.
06:08But that's kind of the price you have to pay for some big boy battery life.
06:11So the ROG Phone 2.
06:13This is a device that is much improved over the first iteration.
06:16It's got better hardware.
06:17Significantly better software.
06:19And I think for people that are gamers, like, this is a pretty obvious option.
06:22It's powerful.
06:23It's great for mobile games.
06:24But even for people that don't play games and just want a high performance phone that is really solid overall,
06:30I think this fits the ticket this year.
06:33Okay.
06:34Hope you guys enjoyed this video.
06:35Thumbs if you liked it.
06:36Subs if you loved it.
06:37See you guys next time.