The ASUS ROG Phone 3 has been doing rounds on the rumour mill for a while now, and as with every smartphone nowadays, we have a considerable amount of information to guess what the new gaming phone will bring to the table. The ROG Phone 3 is set to launch in India later today, and is slated to be a Flipkart-exclusive offering in the country. While not a lot is known about its pricing, the ASUS ROG Phone 3 has most of its specifications out already. Going by the rumours, Asus will be offering an overall well-equipped smartphone, and not one that uses its ‘gaming phone’ tag as a mere gimmick. While more details are awaited for its 8:15PM launch, here’s what we have about the smartphone so far.
Processor, RAM and storage: Flagship to the hilt
The ASUS ROG Phone 3 is expected to be powered by the top of the line Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC, which sits at the very top of the pile in terms of Qualcomm’s offerings right now. The chipset offers arguably the best performance for smartphone processors, and is also 5G-ready. This will make the ROG Phone 3 future-proof in terms of making the most of 5G services in India, when it is launched by Reliance Jio in 2021. In terms of RAM and internal storage, rumours suggest that the ROG Phone 3 can have as much as up to 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of native storage.
These, however, will certainly be peak offerings if true, and ASUS is sure to offer lower RAM and storage combinations as well. A Bluetooth SIG certification of the purported ROG Phone 3 claimed to offer 8GB RAM and 128GB storage, which may be the base offering of the smartphone. What’s encouraging to note is that rumours have suggested that the smartphone will feature LPDDR5 grade memory, and UFS 3.1 fast storage medium, which should keep the overall performance snappy if Asus does not bloat its custom interface too much.
Display: At par with expectations
Rumours have pointed towards a 6.59-inch full HD+ AMOLED display on the ASUS ROG Phone 3, which is about as much as you would expect from a flagship gaming phone. Rumours have suggested that the display will get 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch response rate, which will bring the ROG Phone 3 up to speed with other flagship smartphones such as Samsung’s Galaxy S20 lineup.
Cameras: 64MP triple rear, front remains unclear
While camera performance may not be utmost priority on a “gaming phone”, ASUS will still need to contend heavily if it is to go up against big guns such as the OnePlus 8 series, or the Samsung Galaxy S20 series. Rumours have suggested the presence of a triple rear camera unit aligned horizontally, with 64-megapixel main, 13-megapixel secondary (ultra-wide), and a third telephoto unit, which might come with an 8-megapixel sensor and 2x or 3x telephoto lens. There is not much information to go on here, so we are speculating based on industry trends.
To the front, however, the rumours have so far not revealed the presence of a notch, a display cutout or even a pop-out module, which keeps us perplexed in terms of how Asus will place the front camera unit.
Battery and ports: 6000mAh, no headphone jack
There is good and bad news on this front. The ASUS ROG Phone 3 will seemingly feature a 6,000mAh battery coupled with 30W fast charging to speed up the charging speed of the massive battery pack. While that is great, some gamers might be disheartened by the lack of a dedicated audio port on the phone. According to rumours, the USB-C port at the bottom will double up as a wired interface for audio accessories, and it remains unclear if Asus might throw in a 3.5mm adapter into the box as well. Apart from this, the ROG Phone 3 is expected to retain its Aura RGB LED light strip at the rear of the phone, while Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and other features should remain standard. All things taken together, the ROG Phone 3 is said to be rather bulky – rumours suggest that it will weigh 240 grams, which is quite heavy in today’s smartphone parlance.
Expected pricing: To rival the OnePlus 8?
While there has been no word on the ROG Phone 3’s pricing so far, isolated rumours suggest that it is almost certainly going to be more expensive than the ROG Phone 2. That said, ASUS will likely try to remain competitive with other offerings with Snapdragon 865 chipsets, such as the OnePlus 8 (priced Rs 41,999 onward) and the Samsung Galaxy S20 (priced Rs 70,499 onward). As a result, the base pricing of the ROG Phone 3 might be closer to the price of the OnePlus 8, while other variants will almost certainly breach the Rs 50,000 price barrier.
The ASUS ROG Phone 3 will be launched in a YouTube live stream at 8:15PM IST today, and will subsequently be available for sale on Flipkart. To watch the live stream of the ROG Phone 3 launch, you can tune in to the Asus live stream here.
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