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00:00What can I say?
00:04Gaming phones have come a long way since they first started coming out a few years ago,
00:08not just because there's more gaming phones and that's more competition, but also just
00:12because regular flagship phones now have insane hardware too.
00:16But still at the top of the heap for gaming phones sits this guy, the Asus ROG Phone 7
00:23Ultimate.
00:25Let's just start with just the numbers, okay?
00:27Numbers on paper.
00:28Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 at 3.2 gigahertz with the Adreno 740 GPU, 16 gigs of LPDDR5X RAM, half
00:37a terabyte of UFS 4.0 storage, a 6.78 inch 1080p AMOLED display at 165 hertz, up to 1,200
00:47nits, a 6,000 milliamp hour battery with 65 watt charging, and two USB-C ports plus a
00:54headphone jack.
00:55Kind of sounds like it has everything because it nearly does, but I actually do want to
00:57start with the one thing that it doesn't have, which is a world-class camera system.
01:03But the thing is, I mean, that's probably fine.
01:06It is a gaming phone after all.
01:08Now, obviously it's still expensive, so you don't want to feel like you're getting a bad
01:12camera, but let's be real, the camera is not the priority in these phones or for the people
01:16buying these phones.
01:18So I mean, really the objective is to give you a good enough camera system that you're
01:21not mad, but it's not going to be a good enough camera that you're out bragging about it.
01:25So this is a 50 megapixel primary camera that bends to 12 and a half megapixels and
01:29can do that lossless 2x zoom.
01:32And then there is a 13 megapixel ultra wide, and that third camera is a 5 megapixel macro,
01:38so not a telephoto.
01:40It's all fine, right?
01:42It's a pretty classic, like daylight shots, decent lighting is fine, and then as soon
01:46as the lighting conditions deteriorate, so do the photos and videos, you get a lot of
01:50noise pretty quickly.
01:51I still got to give props to Asus for doing a pretty great job with HDR though, and getting
01:55a good amount of detail out of most normal shots.
01:58And they've actually even added some pretty clever features to their default camera app.
02:02I know you don't think of Asus phones usually as like the best cameras ever, but there's
02:06the pro photo and video modes that are getting you a few new features to play with that are
02:10just like fun to use.
02:12So combined with the 32 megapixel selfie camera, I feel like I can confidently give this whole
02:17camera suite like a B.
02:19It's definitely not bad.
02:21It's just, it's not why you buy this phone.
02:23I mean, if you're looking for the reason you buy this phone, look no further than the design,
02:28because that says everything you need to know.
02:30This is the phantom white finish on the back here still.
02:33This year, it's a combination of satin white and I guess a different satin white, maybe
02:38matte white, but it still has the text everywhere, ROG 07, Republic of Gamers 206, 8K Ultra HD.
02:49The ultimate version still has this display on the back, which you can't even see while
02:53you're using the phone, but it will display to the people around you, either an animation
02:58or some information in a scrolling banner, or when it's facedown and charging, you can
03:02see your percentage, things like that.
03:04You can't have too big of a camera up, like you have these gigantic camera rings now on
03:08a lot of these flagship phones.
03:09You can't do that on this phone because it's supposed to be perfectly balanced for when
03:13you're gaming and holding it in landscape mode.
03:16And so that's why you have that split battery design, 3,000 milliamp hours over here, 3,000
03:21more milliamp hours over here.
03:23And actually the motherboard is in the middle, which is a pretty clever design.
03:27And so now it's perfectly balanced as all things should be.
03:33Now, like I said, gaming phone, right?
03:34So we have these awesome flagship phones, S23 Ultra, Oppo Find X6 Pro.
03:40They also have incredible numbers and specs, but this one separates itself by leaning a
03:45little bit more towards gaming and media and that experience.
03:51Not that those aren't good at gaming and media, but well, gaming is media.
03:55So the things that this does to be good at gaming are great at that and watching videos
03:59and just sort of scrolling around and using a phone like normal.
04:02So that's why you end up with not just 120 Hertz LTPO, but a Samsung built flat 165 Hertz
04:10OLED with a 720 Hertz touch sample rate and a 23 millisecond touch latency.
04:15It's once again, the most responsive and smoothest display I've ever used in a phone.
04:21My eye can actually tell the difference between this and 120 Hertz display in a lot of the
04:26other flagships out right now, which is awesome.
04:28So that's of course going to be great for gaming, getting every single last frame out
04:32of the games that actually support that.
04:34But also that's pretty nice for just scrolling around and flipping through apps and social
04:39media too.
04:40The split battery setup they've got going on, they've been doing that for a couple of
04:42years too, 3000 plus 3000 is a 6,000 milliamp hour battery.
04:48And that actually allows them to fast charge them in parallel.
04:51So you get 65 Watts going into the phone.
04:54It'll charge from zero to a hundred and like 45 minutes, which is already 10 minutes faster
04:57than last year's phone.
04:58And they even have this graphic that they sent me showing the standard batteries need
05:02a thin separator while fast charging batteries need a thicker separator because they push
05:07more current and it's just safer to do it this way.
05:10Sounds like this would be a trade-off that you have to think really hard about in any
05:12other phone, except it doesn't matter in this phone because the whole phone is thick.
05:17It's thick enough to handle a gigantic battery and fast charging.
05:21I mean, that's, that's at least three C's, you know, plus there's a whole suite of battery
05:25management features that make this thing last forever.
05:29I mean, it's already a battery champ, easily pulling seven hours of screen on time at 165
05:34Hertz, but there's also scheduled charging.
05:37There's also study charging.
05:39So it doesn't fast charge every time you plug it in.
05:40If you don't want it to, there's also custom charging limits.
05:43There's also pass-through charging.
05:45There is no wireless charging, but there are two USB-C ports, as I mentioned, one on the
05:51bottom and one on the side.
05:53No, it doesn't charge twice as fast if you plug in both at the same time.
05:56I tried, that's still the Legion phone dual little trick.
05:59But interestingly, the side USB port is actually considered the primary one.
06:05That's the faster USB 3.1 data speeds.
06:07So either way, if you plug in, you can get the fast charging.
06:11But if you want to plug in any accessories or anything like that, that will go into that
06:14side port here.
06:15But speaking of accessories, this is, this is probably all you need to know about how
06:20ridiculous this phone is and who it's targeted for.
06:23So this thing, this is the AeroActive Cooler 7.
06:28So this is a clip-on plug-in active cooling accessory that you plug into and connect to
06:36the back of the phone that has a heat sink, fan, RGB lights inside.
06:44And this little, this black tab on the, on the side of this ROG phone is actually an
06:50opening.
06:51It motorizes and opens up.
06:53So you clamp on this cooler over the side of the phone, just like this, plug it in by
06:57the USB on the side and the fan starts spinning up.
07:00And then this black like lift gate over here on the side of the phone opens up to allow
07:05active airflow through the side of the phone.
07:08It's opening up the phone and spinning in that cool air.
07:11So when you're gaming, this will help bring down the back cover surface by as much as
07:1620 to 25 degrees Celsius, according to Asus labs.
07:19But there's also like, there's four trigger buttons back here.
07:23There's RGB lights that change and breathe depending on what you're doing.
07:28And there's a whole subwoofer for enhanced bass.
07:31And it actually works.
07:41There is a genuine improvement in the sound quality when listening to it with the subwoofer
07:45on the back of the phone and the front facing speakers combined.
07:49You never expect these things to be as good as they are, but just the whole thing, just
07:52this, this whole dedication to building something that is going to take a few degrees off your,
07:59your phone and give you a couple extra frames.
08:01Their dedication to that gamer is impressive.
08:04It literally opens up the back of the phone.
08:07And by the way, you can take this off and it closes that port on the back.
08:11And it's still IP54 water resistant when it's closed.
08:14This one feels like a sports car where a lot of the ridiculous specialized tech is completely
08:20unnecessary to most people, but it'll eventually trickle down into everyday cars.
08:26Like most regular cars slash phones don't need this crazy moving part and active aerodynamics.
08:32They don't need extra Ram and extra power, but eventually, eventually regular flagship
08:40phones in a few years, we'll have all of this power and all of this cooling and all the
08:44capabilities of this phone.
08:45They'll just be normal phones.
08:47So make sure you subscribe to see the reviews of those phones when they come out.
08:51But for now, this is still going to separate itself as a phone for the gamer, especially
08:55just because of the way it's built.
08:57Obviously it's thicker than a normal phone, but they still have things like bezels on
09:01the front for your thumbs and the front facing speakers.
09:03So you can hold it like this and have a place when you're gaming to rest your fingers.
09:08That's something most phones aren't going to do anymore.
09:11The extra port of course, and the compatibility with the crazy accessories and just their
09:15willingness to just use like basic off the shelf parts for the things that don't really
09:20matter so much.
09:21Like sure, this optical fingerprint reader, it's fine.
09:24It's totally normal.
09:25The cameras as well, like I said, you don't get a telephoto camera.
09:28You just get like an off the shelf B plus B camera system, fine.
09:31But when it comes to anything that a gamer could possibly want to get that last one or
09:36two FPS, to get that last second off of your lap time or that last kill or to be able to
09:42have that little bit of an advantage, they'll throw the kitchen sink at it.
09:46They'll do all the software features in the world and hardware stuff to make that happen.
09:50And I respect that.
09:51There's no way I could go through all those things in this single video, but I respect
09:54that a lot.
09:55Here are some of my personal favorites.
09:57There is a new vapor chamber cooling system inside of this phone that you'll never see,
10:02but the new Y-shaped wick columns with larger radii give a 168% improvement to thermal efficiency
10:09according to Asus' testing.
10:11The custom mappable air triggers built into the top corners of this phone have been improved
10:15for better sensitivity and they can be custom mapped for all kinds of stuff even outside
10:19of games.
10:20This phone has Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 support, even though none of our routers really do
10:25yet.
10:26This is a really impressive purpose-built machine through and through.
10:29I'm glad they made it.
10:31And yeah, gaming phones of today walk so that flagships of tomorrow can run.
10:40Thanks for watching.
10:41Catch you guys in the next one.
10:43Peace.