The ASUS ROG Phone III Review: A 144Hz 6000mAh Beast With Caveats

Camera - Low Light Evaluation

Low-light photography of the ROG Phone III is a wildcard. On one hand, the phone lacks OIS which is a big detriment to low-light photography, but on the other hand, the device has a potent sensor, wide aperture, and now also features a night mode that might be able to still produce good images.

[ ROG Phone III ]
[iPhone 11 Pro ] - [Galaxy S20+(E) ]
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ X-T30 ]

As expected, the non-night mode shots of the phone are quite disappointing and are considerably worse than the competition.

The ultra-wide here is also night unusable and in the same bottom-tier as the iPhone 11’s unit.

When turning on night mode however, which by the way is triggered to come on by default when under low-light conditions, there’s a dramatic improvement in quality and it becomes usable, although it still can’t compete with other phones which have OIS.

[ ROG Phone III ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Galaxy S20+(E) ]
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ X-T30 ]

I did like the ROG3’s exposure here as it was the most realistic of the bunch, however it lacked the higher dynamic range in the shadows of other phones.

[ ROG Phone III ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Galaxy S20+(E) ]
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ X-T30 ]

In brighter scenes, the ROG3 does ok, but the lack of OIS shows in the lack of detail, and the shot just has worse dynamic range than the competition, although it remains quite usable.

[ ROG Phone III ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Galaxy S20+(E) ]
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ X-T30 ]

Surprisingly enough this scene was to the liking of the ASUS as it produced an excellent result that although it a bit bright, has tone of good retention of textures and detail and is quite ahead of all other mobile phones.

[ ROG Phone III ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Galaxy S20+(E) ]
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ X-T30 ]

The darker the scene, the worse the ROG3 fares as its shutter speed can’t go as low as other phones. The S20 is able to get double the amount of light at 1/8^th a second over 1/20^th of the ASUS, and the iPhone ½ second exposure really shines.

[ ROG Phone III ]
[ iPhone 11 Pro ] - [ Galaxy S20+(E) ]
[ Pixel 4 ] - [ X-T30 ]

And in the last shot again, the much slower shutter speeds of the ROG3 mean that it captures a lot less light than the competition.

Overall Low-Light Evaluation: Meh

Generally, the ROG Phone III just suffers greatly from the lack of OIS. Although its night mode seems to perform quite adequately and be competitive in terms of computational photography, the fact that its shutter speeds are always around four times faster than the competition means that it’s only able to capture about a quarter of the light. It’s very clearly a tier below other flagship devices, and generally not competitive.