Asus ROG Phone 2 with 120Hz AMOLED screen & Snapdragon 855 Plus launched in India

Announced in July, the Asus ROG Phone 2 has finally made it to India. The gaming-centric offering by the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer comes fitted with a 120Hz refresh rate AMOLED screen making it one of a kind. The Razer Phone 2 comes close at offering 120Hz display but uses an IPS LCD panel instead.

The ROG Phone 2 was also the first phone to be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus chipset but since its announcement we've seen a bunch of other phones rocking it like the Black Shark 2 Pro and more recently the Redmi K20 Pro Premium.

Let's take a brief look at the specifications, pricing and availability of Asus ROG Phone 2.

Price and availability

The ROG Phone 2 is being offered in two storage configurations-- with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage priced at Rs 37,999 and with 12GB RAM and 512GB storage priced at Rs 59,999.

It goes on sale starting September 30 at 12 AM on Flipkart during the Big Billion Days sale. There's a 10% discount for Axis Bank Debit/Credit card owners and ICICI Bank credit card holders.

We went hands-on with the Asus ROG Phone II: First impressions

Asus ROG Phone 2 specifications

Asus ROH Phone 2 features a 6.59-inch Full HD+ (2340 x 1080 pixels) resolution AMOLED screen. The display is certified for True 10-bit HDR gaming and video playback and has a 120Hz refresh rate with 1ms response time. There is a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 6 on the front for protection against drops. The fingerprint sensor has been built into the display as well.

The phone's chassis is made from aluminum and the rear cover receives circuitry highlights in the form of leading lines that reflect different shades of colours as light falls on it from different angles.

It moderates heat dissipation via ROG Aerodynamic Game Cool II system which consists of a heat sink, 3D vapor chamber, graphite, copper pads and a heat transfer vent. These elements are layered together inside the body and aim to improve the thermal performance of the phone.

It is 9.48 mm thin and weighs a considerate 240 grams. It also packs in a 6,000mAh battery which is also responsible for that heft to a certain extent.

The ROG Phone 2 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus chipset which is an advanced version of the regular SD 855 SoC. It has been built for extreme gaming performance with 15% improvement in graphics rendering handled by Adreno 640 and upto 2.96GHz clock speeds. This is paired with 8GB/12GB RAM and 128GB/512GB UFS 3.0 storage.

It runs on ROG UI which is based on Android 9.0 Pie.

Asus doesn't miss out on equipping the ROG Phone 2 with a flagship-level camera system. It has a dual-camera setup on the back which is similar to the one on the Asus 6Z (a.k.a Zenfone 6). This consists of a primary 48MP Sony IMX586 primary sensor with an f/1.7 and a 13MP ultra-wide camera with 123-degree field of view.

On the front, there's a 24MP, f/2.0 aperture camera for selfies.

As the phone has a 19.5:9 aspect ratio, it gives way to dual front-firing speakers assisted by two NXP smart amplifiers for enhancing the audio performance. It also supports DTS:X ultra surround sound and has a 3.5mm audio jack which supports Hi-Res audio playback.

There's a USB Type-C port on the bottom which supports Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging solution. In addition, there is a 48-pin dual Type-C port on the side which doubles up as the Display Port for the Twin View Dock II. Asus provides a 30W fast charging adapter in-the-box.