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
Video Recording
Video recording on the ROG Phone III is interesting because it’s one of the newer phones which promise 8K recording capabilities. As the phone lacks OIS, it’ll be also interesting to see how the EIS is able to stabilise the video recording and how it holds up against the competition.
Starting off with 4K30 recording, the stabilisation employed by the phone is actually significantly better than I had expected and is able to produce an excellent result even without OIS.
4K30 on the ultra-wide gives a much better field of view and giving the EIS a better frame to be able to stabilise the video in, however the quality of the video isn’t too great as it’s lacking dynamic range – with the processing flattening highlights quite a lot.
4K60 is reserved just for the main camera, and the footage is very good, although again it’s visible how the HDR isn’t the best as we’re seeing highlights clip in and out. Overall, however, it offers excellent amounts of detail and smoothness.
8K30 is also limited to the main camera. Again, dynamic range is a weakness, however it’s one of the modes that allows for almost no quality loss when digitally zooming in. Notice the video noise when zoomed in in the video sample. The biggest issue I have with this mode is that it’s still pretty much a gimmick and not viable for every-day usage as bitrates come in at 105Mb/s and result in about 800MB of storage consumption per minute, and the phone does not have expandable storage.
Audio Evaluation
I’ve moved offices so I don’t have the same audio measurement setup to be able to showcase apples to apples measurement data, so I’ll keep my evaluation of the speakers on the ROG3 brief.
The stereo speakers of the phone are augmented by a speaker calibration by Dirac, allowing the phone to achieve actually quite impressive sound quality. The phone has quite deep bass, and the stereo balance of the two speakers is perfect given that we’re seen two identical driver setups.
Virtualisation of sound isn’t quite as good as some other devices out there, however the ROG Phone III makes up with a flatter sounding frequency response curve. It has better audio playback than Apple and Samsung devices, and edges out the Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro as well as the device with the phone with the best audio playback on the market right now.
It’s just a pity the company had dropped the 3.5mm headphone jack – it would have otherwise been a complete winner in the audio department.
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ArcadeEngineer - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
I don't get this idea that bluetooth headphones are somehow more convenient than wired ones. Having another charger to juggle outlets on is the opposite of convenient.Tchamber - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
I use my headphones all day work. For fun, I can listen to music, whatever. But I'm standing, walking, bending over and leaning in my CnC mill all day long, and having a cord was a hassle for me. That's pretty much the only place I listen to my phone. For me, it's no hassle having one more plug, especially when my LG Tones last two days at work.ads295 - Saturday, August 29, 2020 - link
High five from someone who owns two Swiss-types :-)flyingpants265 - Sunday, August 30, 2020 - link
Of course it's not a f****** hassle.The reason for deleting headphone jack is to sell wireless headphones, it is a multi-billion dollar market on its own. This is a tech website, everyone should know this by now.
Comments about removing the 3.5 jack, have been bought and paid for. Haha. What I mean is, Corporations have successfully used money for advertising and other various influences to ultimately engineer legions of smooth-brained human beings to tell me that plugging in my headphones is bad. Yeah, ok. I'll do anything you want. Why don't you just sodomize me too while you're at it?
Great_Scott - Monday, August 31, 2020 - link
The good news here is that there's a cottage industry of USB-C sound cards with 3.5 jack support for phones like this. And the huge battery means that you wouldn't need to charge it at the same time...s.yu - Wednesday, September 2, 2020 - link
You don't. Because there are two C ports. As long as there exists flagships with headphone jacks or two C ports, I will not buy one with one C port no jack.Quantumz0d - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
Tell me does any of those BT sets have a good driver to boot, and then tell me whether any of them support AptX technology to be able to play my FLAC files / 24 Bit files or Can they work without an app always to function.Dude I have a V30 with me, the ESS DAC in that is not possible to be beaten by any company, I even have a Modi stack with me for monitors, and I can plug in my IEMs, Monitors, HD600s and I don't have to fiddle with some stupid charging box and worry about them, my IEMs are Triple Drivers with Hybrid technology. And you say you want Audio fidelity ? nice joke esp with Power Beats ? Muddy Bass technology is what they have.
I'm sorry there's none of the BT technology which makes any aspect from Sound quality, Fidelity, Convenience & Price to Performance, there are NO BT sets in mainstream that we can buy which have stunning audio performance you need to shell out for MMCX, like Shures.
Let me tell you one more thing, my phone has BT as well, and I can buy any BT set I want and a 3.5mm enabled any of the ChiFi or Japanese or European IEMs/Cans. Also instead of that overpriced Powerbeats Apple set go and buy an RHA T20 wireless, it has AptX, great battery, superior sound, superior build quality and have 3.5mm wire also.
vol.2 - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
you're just walking into a dumb argument here. people are allowed to like their specific wired headphones and they should be able to use them if they want to. i have both; i use the bluetooth for calls and watching youtube, i use one of my many pairs of wired headphones for music.Tchamber - Friday, August 28, 2020 - link
Sure, I didn't think I was arguing though. I get it, wired headphones sound better.Lolimaster - Sunday, August 30, 2020 - link
Thing is, the two technologies can coexist till the end of time. Point is, there's no excuse to remove the jack from a phone or worse, from a tablet (S7 line). Then ironically, gigantic camera bumps are protruding from phones in futile attempt to keep the rest of the phone "slim". 0.9 or 1cm thicc phones are perfectly fine, that's around my S9 + cover included and that phone feels way more secure in the hand than the stock 0.85cm.