The ASUS ROG Phone III Review: A 144Hz 6000mAh Beast With Caveats
by Andrei Frumusanu on August 28, 2020 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Snapdragon 865
- ROG Phone III
Camera - Low Light Evaluation
Low-light photography of the ROG Phone III is a wildcard. On one hand, the phone lacks OIS which is a big detriment to low-light photography, but on the other hand, the device has a potent sensor, wide aperture, and now also features a night mode that might be able to still produce good images.
[ ROG Phone III ]
[iPhone 11 Pro ] - [Galaxy S20+(E) ]
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ X-T30 ]
As expected, the non-night mode shots of the phone are quite disappointing and are considerably worse than the competition.
The ultra-wide here is also night unusable and in the same bottom-tier as the iPhone 11’s unit.
When turning on night mode however, which by the way is triggered to come on by default when under low-light conditions, there’s a dramatic improvement in quality and it becomes usable, although it still can’t compete with other phones which have OIS.
[ ROG Phone III ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Galaxy S20+(E) ]
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ X-T30 ]
I did like the ROG3’s exposure here as it was the most realistic of the bunch, however it lacked the higher dynamic range in the shadows of other phones.
[ ROG Phone III ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Galaxy S20+(E) ]
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ X-T30 ]
In brighter scenes, the ROG3 does ok, but the lack of OIS shows in the lack of detail, and the shot just has worse dynamic range than the competition, although it remains quite usable.
[ ROG Phone III ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Galaxy S20+(E) ]
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ X-T30 ]
Surprisingly enough this scene was to the liking of the ASUS as it produced an excellent result that although it a bit bright, has tone of good retention of textures and detail and is quite ahead of all other mobile phones.
[ ROG Phone III ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Galaxy S20+(E) ]
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ X-T30 ]
The darker the scene, the worse the ROG3 fares as its shutter speed can’t go as low as other phones. The S20 is able to get double the amount of light at 1/8th a second over 1/20th of the ASUS, and the iPhone ½ second exposure really shines.
[ ROG Phone III ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Galaxy S20+(E) ]
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ X-T30 ]
And in the last shot again, the much slower shutter speeds of the ROG3 mean that it captures a lot less light than the competition.
Overall Low-Light Evaluation: Meh
Generally, the ROG Phone III just suffers greatly from the lack of OIS. Although its night mode seems to perform quite adequately and be competitive in terms of computational photography, the fact that its shutter speeds are always around four times faster than the competition means that it’s only able to capture about a quarter of the light. It’s very clearly a tier below other flagship devices, and generally not competitive.
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Kishoreshack - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
Just love how far ASUS has come with its phonesKangal - Sunday, August 30, 2020 - link
Yeah, in 2019... but this year they have gotten worse.Just compare the Zenfone 6 to the Zenfone 7 for starters.
On the ROG 2 vs ROG 3,
The new device is slightly larger, heavier, and lost the 3.5mm Jack. And it raised the prices.
But comparing the 16GB RAM vs 12GB RAM, isn't that big deal. And the uplift from the QSD 855 to the 865/865+ is hardly impressive. Or the 5900mAh battery compared to the 6,000mAh battery. Even the screen is the same comparing 144Hz to 120Hz, or the 270Hz-Touch to the 240Hz-Touch. By most metrics the new model is the same or worse than the older one.
And again, it's more expensive. I think that second chipset (Qualcomm's external modem) is the culprit for this year's lacklustre phones (larger, hotter, battery thirstier, less internal space, more expensive).
The only point where ASUS has made a notable upgrade is in the camera. And that's on both the ROG 3 and the Zenfone 7. But it's hardly a reason for someone to choose to buy a new ROG3, when they could get the ROG2 on a discount.
I think I could've been fine with the ASUS ROG 3, if they kept the 3.5mm headphone jack, added a microSD slot, and added wireless charging. That would've made the +$200 price hike easier to swallow. If they included JoyCons in the box, it would've been an instant hit.
To be honest, I would've preferred they downsized it slightly to around (166 x 74 x 9mm) which is like the size of the OnePlus 8 Pro, any larger makes it unpocketable for most regular mens jeans/pants. Even if that means downsizing the 6000mAh battery down to 5000mAh battery, it's worth it for the quality of life improvement.
s.yu - Monday, August 31, 2020 - link
When SD865 prices just got announced people were seeing a price hike of the handsets as inevitable. This phone looks decidedly less "gaming" than the predecessor and that's a big plus for me, and the second C port means the lack of the jack is at least tolerable. How they should cut corners on the optics so much confuses me, I'm wondering if this is a defective unit.There's rumor that Samsung is still contemplating bringing back the jack in flagships next year so I'm taking the wait and see approach, the S-Pen for me is worth it, but if Samsung doesn't follow through then I'll come back and buy one of these second-handed. With far superior battery to the Sony, it's already the closest thing to an all-rounder on the market.
Kangal - Monday, August 31, 2020 - link
I'm thinking the next year's QSD 875 will be like 8% faster simply because of the 5nm advancement. Plus another 8% speed due to slight architectural improvement in the X1 core, and modem efficiency.Yes most important, it should have the 4G/5G modem integrated (hopefully)... and that should mean better efficiency, and slightly larger internal space. So we could see the 3.5mm Headphone Jack make a comeback because of that.
But Samsung has killed the Jack for good. They have their own wireless earphones for sale. They got rid of it on the Note10 for no good reason. It's not coming back. Heck, even if they wrongly accuse the internal space restrictions, which is not true, there is no reason that they cannot integrate the 3.5mm Headphone Jack into the underside of the SPen.
I'm hoping this year has negatively affected all OEMs that they re-introduce some wanted features next year like Headphone Jack, microSD... on top of REDUCING the prices down (-30% ?) to regular levels to ensure strong sales/continued sales. I think this year proved that marketing wasn't strong enough to deceive the consumers.
s.yu - Wednesday, September 2, 2020 - link
lol I would bet on a comeback of the 3.5mm than a 30% price drop. Anyhow, the market hasn't exactly been exciting this year so I'm truly not in a hurry to upgrade, so I'll wait and see until there's something solid suggesting no jack again.flyingpants265 - Tuesday, September 1, 2020 - link
Joycons are stupid, it should be a whole PSP-like controller case that locks in place, to literally turn your phone into a PSP. Then we can have serious game development and ports for phones.This should have been available since 2007 or before. 13 years later and we're still using weird flimsy attachable joycon things.
The current Chinese Bluetooth psp-style controllers suck bad.
Kishoreshack - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
The most awaited review is finally hereWanted to see how it fares against other flagships
Kishoreshack - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
6000 mah battery with 865 plus & 144hz display is an instant sell for menico_mach - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
Yes, this, I think this phone is more compelling outside of its gaming. Esp in comparison to iphones - they dominate the performance but usually ship with tiny batteries. Android phones need to carve out a niche, and this phone does that.melgross - Monday, August 31, 2020 - link
They still have some if the best battery life. And they’re not “tiny” batteries. iOS doesn’t need very large batteries as Androud phones do.