The ASUS ROG Phone II Review: Mobile Gaming First, Phone Second
by Dr. Ian Cutress on September 30, 2019 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Asus
- Qualcomm
- Smartphones
- ROG
- RGB
- Snapdragon 855 Plus
- ROG Phone II
Battery Life
With a 6000 mAh battery, the ROG Phone II already promised out of the gate to have some substantial staying power. The big battery is meant to compensate for having additional features like the 120 Hz display and X Mode which might consume more battery during gaming. Nonetheless, in our standard Wi-Fi battery test, it smashes new records.
Setting the display to 200 nits, our web battery test simulates accessing webpages with a variety of features with scrolling – standard operation for any smartphone.
In the default 60Hz mode that the phone ships in, it results in over 16 hours of runtime, that caters for any ‘all-day’ battery claim, and is certainly above any other smartphone on the market. Moving to a perminent 120 Hz mode loses about 20% of the battery life.
Similarly, the PCMark battery test also dropped 20%, however the average score in the PCMark battery test on 120 Hz mode did increase by 17% (10746 vs 9152) , indicating the tradeoff that a higher refresh screen might bring.
Not being the standard smartphone reviewer, unfortunately I do not have access to all the tools that Andrei does for his testing. As a result, our display testing is fairly basic. At 100% APL, the peak brightness was measured at ~450 nits, which is below ASUS’ claim of 600 nits. It is likely that ASUS’ number is peak brightness (1% APL), not full screen. We also measured the white point at ~8450K.
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Doc Rob - Monday, September 30, 2019 - link
the only reason I do not buy one of the ROG phones is simply I NEED wifi calling on tmobile.. I do no want to try and use other apps etc.. allow the use of voLTE and WIFI calling and it would open the market up for many more consumers.Kishoreshack - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
Volte is enabled & WiFi Calling tooyou might have got wrong memo
TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, December 26, 2019 - link
Not in the USA it isntPeachNCream - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
Alternatively, if you use Skype you can pay a fairly minimal amount of money to get a phone number and that will work both over WiFi and cellular data as a VoIP phone. It may fill your needs and mitigate the need for native WiFi calling support on the device.Kishoreshack - Monday, September 30, 2019 - link
@iancutress Where is the Display Analysis?Very sad you skipped on it
s.yu - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
There's also a ton of mistakes in the spec sheet.It's 128/8GB or 1TB/12GB, there is no 256GB variant but there seems to be a 512GB one.
It's UFS3.0 not 2.1.
There are two C ports, which is highly unique but not noted.
Possibly other mistakes.
Death666Angel - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
Probably some copy-paste issues in the table. And the second USB C port is mentioned on the first page below the picture of the connector.s.yu - Wednesday, October 2, 2019 - link
Yeah it was most certainly noted elsewhere, but the spec sheet should be comprehensive.Kishoreshack - Monday, September 30, 2019 - link
Why there is no display analysisNever seen Anandtech such an important aspect
Kishoreshack - Monday, September 30, 2019 - link
Ian Cutress you should have let Andrei do the display analysis or the review itselfhalf review is never expected from Anandtech