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
Battery Life - The Best
The previous generation ROG Phones have impressed us a lot when it comes to their battery life, and that’s easily attributed to the massive 6000mAh battery that’s included in the 240g heavy phone.
The ROG Phone III this year doesn’t increase battery capacity, but does feature a more efficient SoC that should showcase even better results. The minor bump to 144Hz shouldn’t come with a notable power consumption increase.
As expected, the ROG Phone III is topping our battery life charts. At 60Hz refresh rate, the new phone slightly edges out the older ROG Phone II with an astounding 16.51h runtime.
Turning on the 144Hz refresh rate comes with a large 22% hit in battery life, but in absolute terms it still maintains an excellent 12.9h runtime, making this the longest-lasting phone amongst the 120Hz+ crowd.
In PCMark, the improved power efficiency of the new SoC is further exposed, with the newer generation having a bigger leap of the Snapdragon 855 ROG Phone II.
The absolute battery life runtimes here are outstanding.
Overall, there’s very little to say about the ROG Phone III’s battery life other than it being class-leading. There’s no other flagship device out there with such great battery life, as vendors only employ such huge battery capacities in lower-end devices. You have to pay the price in terms of device weight, but you’re also getting a lot in return.
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s.yu - Monday, August 31, 2020 - link
iPhone batteries are still small for their screen size, while iPad batteries are not.Great_Scott - Monday, August 31, 2020 - link
Forget using the phone for games. I'd lock the screen to 60Hz and charge it every other day (every 3rd day?).flyingpants265 - Tuesday, September 1, 2020 - link
Yeah, the display thing is dumb. Remember when people said over 1080p was a waste for phones? Well.... They were right. And here we go again with the display thing.Kishoreshack - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
Always felt Snapdragon Plus versions were a gimmickThis review proves it
The plus versions suck a lot of power
s.yu - Monday, August 31, 2020 - link
Not really, it's pretty clear that last year's ROGP2 with 855+ was a notch above the regular 855. Either Asus made a mistake here or 865 doesn't scale as well.Spunjji - Tuesday, September 1, 2020 - link
Pretty sure it's the fault of the 856+ - they just pushed it further than it really needs to go.Kishoreshack - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
Want Anandtech to do more phone reviewsMany devices are pending
Quantumz0d - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
No 3.5mm jack and no SD card slot is a joke on this. Not interested at all, It's just a chastity block with zero freedom.ads295 - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
Agreed, this is one device where even ASUS agreed that size doesn't matter. Such a dumb decisionTchamber - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
I hear this a lot, no 3.5 jack means no buy. I love good music, with quality sound, but when I'm on my phone I have given in to the convenience of Bluetooth. And I've been impressed with the audio fidelity some headphones deliver. I have two sets right now, LG Tones, which are really comfortable, and Beats PowerBeats3, which sound amazing, and even deliver nice bass. So I'm wondering, when was the last time you tried Bluetooth? Not to say wireless headphones are as good as wired, but there are some really good options.