Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro in for review

Asus's yearly gaming flagship is always big news, but it doesn't get any bigger than this, or as the case may be - smaller. The Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro is here and it's more of a conventional smartphone than any of its predecessors. Though there is still a gaming beast living inside it, that much is certain.

The ROG Phone 8 packs a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset with a passive cooling system that features a rapid-cooling conductor board with a boron nitride layer. It dissipates heat from the SoC and can be further aided by Asus' AeroActive Cooler.

Take a look at the ROG Phone 8 Pro next to its predecessor, the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate. It's nearly 10mm shorter while carrying the same 6.78-inch display (with a matching aspect ratio). Asus pulled it off by removing the fat bezels on the top and bottom and embedding the 32MP selfie camera in the display. The bezels are 71% thinner on the top and 14% on the side. That also means you don't get a notification LED but Asus has thought of that and put an always-on notification where the LED was.

The ROG Phone 8 is also thinner and lighter than its predecessor, helped by a reduction in battery size - the new pack is 5,500mAh, down from 6,000mAh. The good thing is that Asus promises similar endurance - 22.7 hours of Netflix streaming, 17 hours of Instagram browsing, and 14.4 hours of TikTok streaming. We'll tell you how the two compare in our full review, don't worry. The 65W wired charging is finally joined by wireless charging support, to the tune of 15W Qi 1.3. The Asus ROG Phone 8 is also the first in the long lineup to be fully waterproof (IP68).

The Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro next to the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate

The Asus ROG Phone 8 comes in two flavors - the 8 Pro, which comes only in Phantom Black, and the ROG Phone 8, which comes in Rebel Grey and Phantom Black. The main difference between the two is the RAM and storage - 24GB and 1TB on the Pro, up to 16GB and 512GB on the Vanilla. The other difference is the lighting on the back - the ROG Phone 8 gets an ROG logo which lights up in different colors, while the Pro gets an AniMe Matrix, which you can customize to display different messages.

The ROG Phone 8 Pro on the left, ROG Phone 8 on the right

A third and final difference is the retail package. The ROG Phone 8 Pro ships with the new AeroActive Cooler X, which os 29% smaller and 10% lighter - but packs more than twice (2.6x) the cooling chip area, has a 1.1x fan faster speed, and brings a 1.2x bump in thermal efficiency.

The ROG Phone 8 Pro ships with an AeroActive Cooler X

Finally, a word on display and cameras. Upfront is a 6.79-inch FHD+ E6 AMOLED with a variable 1-120Hz refresh rate and a 165Hz max refresh rate for gaming. Meanwhile, the camera system is finally fully featured with the inclusion of a 3x telephoto unit - it's a 32MP f/2.4 camera with optical stabilization that outputs at 8MP. The main camera has a 50MP 1/1.56-inch imager, Hybrid Gimbal Stabilizer 3.0, and an f/1.9 lens. Finally, there's a 13MP f/2.2 ultrawide to make this a well balanced camera setup.