The newest ROG Phones are now official, and these are named the Asus ROG Phone 9 & ROG Phone 9 Pro. As always, these are gaming-centric phones from the company hence, the main upgrades are in the performance. The overall design language looks similar to the ROG Phone 8 series.
Design-wise, the two phones are not much different. There is an upgraded Dot Matrix panel on the rear, which the company calls “AniMe Vision.” Speaking of the count of mini LEDs in this panel, there are 85 on the ROG Phone 9 and 648 on the ROG Phone 9 Pro. This is a big upgrade over the four LEDs on the ROG Phone 8 and 341 on the ROG Phone 8 Pro. You can now showcase GIFs on this display and even play some retro games using the AirTriggers.
The rest of the design is the same as the ROG Phone 8 series. The camera module still has the same pentagon shape and houses a triple camera setup. The ROG Phone 9 comes in Black & White colors, whereas the ROG Phone 9 Pro comes in just Black.
Both phones are IP68-certified and have a 3.5mm headphone jack. Asus says with “Dirac Virtuo,” you can experience immersive theater-quality sound on these smartphones. The phones have a new “Audio Redirect” feature in the provided case where the sound from the bottom speakers is redirected to the front, thanks to the built-in chamber and the sound guiding element.
Under the hood, both phones have the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, and there is an upgraded cooling system that includes a 57% larger graphite sheet. The battery is 5,800mAh in both phones, and there is support for 65W wired and 10W wireless charging.
The display is the same on both phones – a 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED panel with a Full-HD+ resolution, 2500 nits peak brightness, and an impressive 185Hz refresh rate. The panel has 107% DCI-P3 coverage. The display is protected with Gorilla Glass Victus 2.
The camera setup is slightly different on the two phones. Both phones have a primary 1/1.56” 50MP Sony LYT-700 sensor with an improved 6-axis hybrid gimbal stabilization. The ultrawide camera has a 13MP sensor. The third camera on the Asus ROG Phone 9 is a 5MP macro, whereas it is a 32MP 3x telephoto on the ROG Phone 9 Pro.
Another difference between the two phones is in the storage options. The Asus ROG Phone 9 comes with 12GB LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB or 512GB UFS 4.0 storage. The ROG Phone 9 Pro comes with 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB UFS 4.0 storage. There is also an Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro Edition that has 24GB RAM and 1TB storage.
Finally, both phones run on Android 15 out of the box with ROG UI on top. There are some built-in AI features.
Speaking of pricing, the Asus ROG Phone 9 starts at $999 in the US and €1,099 in Europe. The ROG Phone 9 Pro is priced at $1,199 in the US and €1,299 in Europe. Finally, the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro Edition is priced at $1,499 in the US and €1,499 in Europe.