Last year, Asus launched four gaming phones – ROG Phone 6, 6 Pro, 6D, and 6D Ultimate. The ROG Phone 6 series was powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, whereas the ROG Phone 6D series featured the Dimensity 9000+ SOC. The Asus ROG Phone 7 series is now official & we have two phones under this series – ROG Phone 7 & ROG Phone 7 Ultimate. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset powers both phones & Asus has tweaked the design compared to the last year’s devices.
ASUS ROG PHONE 7
Starting with the ROG Phone 7, the phone has a two-tone design on the back, whereas the top portion has a transparent look, similar to the Nothing Phone 1. The phone has a ROG logo with RGB lights & there are over 16.77M color combinations. This time, Asus went for a less flashy design since there is less text on the back. The camera module is also smaller in size than the ROG Phone 6. The phone comes in two colors – Storm White & Phantom Black. The white option has a Blue colored power button & the sim tray. The black option has a red colored power button & a sim tray.
The phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack on top & there are two USB Type-C ports – one on the side & one on the bottom. The front design remains unchanged.
One of the things that are significantly improved this year is the audio. The ROG Phone 7 has 12 x 16 mm s stereo front-firing speakers that offer 50% more effective volume and 20% stronger bass performance. On top of that, if you use the AeroActive Cooler 7 accessory, it comes with a built-in subwoofer and offers up to 77% better bass performance.
Speaking of the specifications, the Asus ROG Phone 7 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SOC & has a new cooling system. The Gamecool 7 cooling system uses three cooling approaches. For normal gaming, the Boron Nitride thermal compound helps reduce CPU throttling, but when gaming a bit hard, the vapor chamber & the graphite sheets are used for better cooling. For high-end gaming, you can use the AeroActive Cooler 7 accessory.
Asus increased the graphite sheets’ size and reshaped them to maximize the heat transfer.
The AeroActive Cooler 7 offers up to 25°C lower back cover temperature, 8°C lower touch panel temperature, and 15% improved static pressure compared to the AeroActive Cooler 6.
Since it is a gaming phone, there are shoulder triggers that support over nine different gestures, and to name a few, we have a tap, horizontal slide, vertical slide, gyroscope aiming, swipe, etc.
And well, those are all the major upgrades this year.
The Asus ROG Phone 7 has the same display as last year – a 6.78-inch 165Hz AMOLED display with 720Hz touch-sampling rate, 1500nits peak brightness, and real-time SDR to HDR conversion. The battery size is the same at 6,000mAh & so is the charging speed at 65W. The phone has the same camera setup as well. So, there is a primary 50MP Sony IMX766 sensor, a 13MP ultrawide & a 5MP macro camera. The selfie camera has a 32MP sensor.
Finally, Android 13 runs out of the box.
ASUS ROG PHONE 7 ULTIMATE
As the name suggests, the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate goes further. The phone has a secondary 2-inch OLED display on the back which the company calls “ROG Vision.” It is a matrix color display that can show various animations triggered by incoming calls, X-mode activation, charging status, etc. Users can even create their own animations.
The ROG Phone 7 Ultimate has the “AeroActive Portal” on the rear, activated automatically as you attach the AeroActive Cooler 7. This lets the cooler direct the cool air onto the cooling fins of the vapor chamber inside. This was seen on the last year’s ROG Phone 6D Ultimate.
And well, those are the only two things that make the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate better than the vanilla model.
The rest of the specifications are the same.
The Asus ROG Phone 7 starts at €999 / ₹74,999, whereas the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate at €1399 / ₹99,999. You get the AeroActive Cooler 7 in the box with the Ultimate but not the vanilla model.