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
System Performance
The ASUS ROG Phone II’s system performance is naturally of double interest: First of all, it’s actually the first Snapdragon 855+ based phone we’ve gotten to benchmark here at AnandTech. We don’t have too high expectations over the meagre clock frequency increase of the Prime core from 2.84 to 2.96GHz, but possibly ASUS’ tuning and the X Mode might be able to differentiate performance a bit more above what we see in other Snapdragon 855 devices out there.
We’re testing the phone in both its default out-of-the-box mode, as well as the X Mode:
In the PCMark Web Browsing test, we already see quite a bit difference between the two operating modes. The default mode is quite conservative as is matching the lowest scores that we’ve seen of other Snapdragon 855 phones.
X Mode on the other hand seems to increase the performance here to be more equal in behaviour to that of the Galaxy S10 – the best performing S855 device in this test. It’s to be noted that this test is also very sensitive to various DVFS shenanigans – for example the score might go up quite dramatically if the vendor decides to peg the frequencies to a higher minimum frequency. X Mode in this regard doesn’t behave this way and still properly scales along the full frequency curve – albeit doing it in a much more aggressive manner.
The writing sub-test is one of the most representative of overall performance of a phone. In the default mode the ROG Phone II performs well and is amongst the top S855 devices. Turning on X Mode makes the RP2 stand out amongst its competitors.
In the Photo editing test, the RP2 performs the best in both its modes. The higher scores here can also be attributed to the higher GPU frequency of the S855+ SoC in the device.
Overall, the RP2 lands in as one of the most performing phones on the market, and the X Mode in particular puts it ahead by a large margin. It would come at a cost of power efficiency, but with a 6000mAh battery, the RP2 shouldn’t worry too much about that.
In the web browsing benchmarks, the RP2 oddly falls a bit behind in Speedometer when enabling X Mode. Given that the test is a continuous workload with high load, the different scaling modes should indeed not affect it, but it’s still a bit odd to see the minor regression.
In WebXPRT 3, we’re seeing a more expected scaling between the two modes. The ROG Phone II here is able to take almost the highest scores amongst Android devices, just falling short of the Huawei P30.
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plewis00 - Monday, September 30, 2019 - link
I don’t know what games you play but the ones I do can’t cope with multiple connections - if they detect a network or IP change they usually treat that as a disconnection. So you’d need the game companies to get onboard too. I suspect the IP change thing is to do with your session being intercepted and that’s why it disconnects you.brucethemoose - Monday, September 30, 2019 - link
Asus could theoretically host a VPN (or contract someone else) to keep your visible IP the same across all connections.That would also be MUCH less work than mucking around with Android's network handoff code.
Lochtror - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
good idea, i think just any vpn usage would have this effect, so i will try that. but still needs some setting or software on the phone that switches the connection faster than what i experienced so far.Lochtror - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
interesting. thanks. its mushroom wars 2 and hearthstone for me. hearthstone is forgiving regarding connection issues. can even reconnect for a while. turn based game.mw2, real time, more disconnects.
Wardrive86 - Monday, September 30, 2019 - link
I buy a smartphone with gaming specifically in mind. There now you know one person who does that 😏AdhesiveTeflon - Monday, September 30, 2019 - link
I don't get it, is somebody planning to load up battlefield V on this thing and play it?PeachNCream - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
I think we're heading in that direction and these early entries into adding external case plastics and lighting that might appeal to the target audience are indications that some PC manufacturers are seeing the need to enter the phone reseller and/or production market in order to establish corporate identities ahead of other potential competitors. When it comes to playing games, the end objective is amusement and as we move forward, the underlying device that provides said amusement is certainly subject to change. Look at how we have transitioned with other elements of entertainment and information consumption for examples. Families used to gather around a single, large radio console to listen to evening programming together. They eventually shifted to doing the same thing with television consoles. Television became more commonplace and more personal so more of them started popping up in individualized spaces as cost of ownership declined so they ended up in bedrooms in addition to centralized areas. Computers went the same way, from single PC per household to personalized devices and now that same data processing is moving from larger to smaller, even more portable systems via phones that will naturally supply a certain amount of entertainment value via video games. It's just the way of things that change is constantly afoot.johansyren - Tuesday, November 10, 2020 - link
I've been using this phone for a week now and as a daily driver, it is great. In terms of photography, it is not that great but when using it with GCAM, it improves your shots. It is a gaming phone so the camera is good overall. As for the games, almost all games can run on ultra high settings and still run in a smooth manner. Don't worry about the temps going high 'cause if you bought the strix edition one, it comes with aero cooler v2 and aero case. I found a good article about this phone https://casinovalley.ca/best-picks/best-gambling-p...Tams80 - Wednesday, October 2, 2019 - link
Not Battlefield V or it's like, but numerous people have made careers out of mobile gaming (and not just game developers).Lord of the Bored - Monday, September 30, 2019 - link
"Game Genie"How nostalgic.