Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro Review
I’ve spent the last two weeks with the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro, and it’s one of the fastest Android gaming phones I’ve tested. As the Pro variant, it ships with generous RAM and storage, and everything runs on Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite—claimed to be the fastest mobile chipset out there. In my benchmarks and gaming emulation tests, it consistently sits at the top.
Up front, you get a Samsung-made 6.7-inch E6 AMOLED display running at 185Hz with a 2400×1080 resolution and peak brightness up to 2500 nits. Flip it over and you’ll see the AniMe Vision mini-LED matrix on the back—648 programmable dots on this Pro model, powered by AniMe Play software to run simple retro games right on the rear panel.
Included in the Pro package is a 65W USB-PD fast charger, a sturdy braided USB-C cable, and Asus’s Aero Active Cooler. This clip-on thermoelectric cooler draws power from the battery or wall supply, adds extra physical triggers, and offers multiple cooling modes via Armory Crate. With it attached, thermal throttling disappears—and it even comes with a custom carrying case.
Overview
After extensive testing, the display remains my favourite feature. Though it’s a flexible Samsung E6 panel, it sits flat on the phone and delivers exceptionally smooth, bright visuals. The rear AniMe Vision display is surprisingly useful: you can show notifications, battery percentage, caller ID, or even use it as a camera timer.
The standout is AniMe Play—four built-in mini-games you can play on the rear LED dots, with the promise of an SDK for community creations down the line. It may sound gimmicky, but integrating gaming into the rear display feels innovative, and you can still customize it with logos or animations when you’re not playing.
Port and control layout covers every angle:
- Bottom edge: SIM tray, 3.5 mm headphone jack, USB-C port
- Right side: power button, volume rocker, two ultrasonic Air Triggers
- Left side: second USB-C port (overrides the bottom port, supports display-out up to 1440p at 120Hz, and powers the Aero Cooler)
Underneath, the Snapdragon 8 Elite brings CPU and GPU improvements that keep the ROG Phone 9 Pro at the forefront of mobile gaming performance.
Specifications
The Snapdragon 8 Elite at the heart of the ROG Phone 9 Pro ditches small efficiency cores in favor of two “prime” cores clocked up to 4.32 GHz and six performance cores up to 3.53 GHz. Its upgraded Adreno GPU runs three slices at up to 1.1 GHz, delivering 40 percent faster rendering, 40 percent better power efficiency, and a 35 percent boost to ray-tracing tasks.
On the Pro model, you get 24GB of LPDDR5X RAM (9 600 MT/s) paired with a full terabyte of UFS 4.0 storage. The 6.78-inch Samsung E6 AMOLED display refreshes at up to 185 Hz, pushes a 2400 × 1080 resolution, and peaks at 2500 nits for daylight-crushing brightness.
A 5800 mAh battery keeps the lights on, and Asus includes a 65W HyperCharge brick in the box. Photography duties fall to a 50 MP Sony main sensor on the back, while 32 MP selfie camera handles front-facing shots.
Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro
₹119,999.00- Display: 6.78″ AMOLED (FHD+)
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite
- Memory: 24GB RAM, 1TB Storage
- OS: …
| GENERAL | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| BODY | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| DISPLAY | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| PERFORMANCE | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| MEMORY | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| SOFTWARE | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| REAR CAMERA | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| FRONT CAMERA | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| BATTERY | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| NETWORK | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| CONNECTIVITY | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| MULTIMEDIA | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| SENSORS | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| AnTuTu Scores | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| Geekbench Scores | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Software
Armory Crate is your control hub, organizing your game library and letting you assign per-title profiles that tweak CPU/GPU performance, touch zones, and other system behaviours. In X Mode you unlock the highest throughput, while Dynamic and Ultra Durable modes favour balance or battery life.
AirTriggers offer two-player-style shoulder buttons you can fine-tune with pre-set mappings, macros, and even full mouse/keyboard/controller remapping via the Key Mapper tool. For overclockers, Advanced Game Tuning exposes raw CPU and GPU clock ceilings (with heat-warning at Level 3), and there’s an X Mode Plus that only fires up when the clip-on Aero Active Cooler X Pro is attached.
The AniMe Vision rear mini-LED matrix goes beyond static logos—use it for call or charging alerts, camera-shot countdowns, or play one of four built-in dot-matrix mini-games. You can swap in custom animations or unlock new ones via friends who also own ROG phones.
Support for the Aero Active Cooler X Pro adds four cooling presets—Smart, Cool, Frosty, and Frozen—plus extra triggers on the cooler itself. Meanwhile, Game Genie floats an in-game overlay for monitoring and tweaks, and the Featured Games list helps you find titles that run at 120 Hz, 165 Hz, or the full 185 Hz this screen can deliver.
Aero Active Cooler
Asus’s clip-on Aero Active Cooler is a Peltier-style thermoelectric module that clamps onto the phone’s back and draws power through the side USB-C port. One face of the cooler heats up while the other chills, and it automatically powers on once connected.
Through Armory Crate, you can program the RGB ring on the cooler and cycle through four presets. One of those modes—Frozen—only activates when the cooler is plugged into mains or using pass-through charging.
The available cooling profiles are:
- Smart: automatic fan speed and cooling duty based on temperature
- Cool: moderate, steady cooling
- Frosty: aggressive cooling for sustained performance
- Frozen: maximum chill, requires external power
Attaching the cooler also unlocks X Mode Plus, a boosted performance preset. Even in standard Smart mode, thermal throttling disappears, so both CPU and GPU clocks stay high for longer gaming or benchmark sessions.
Benchmarks
On Geekbench 6, the ROG Phone 9 Pro’s Snapdragon 8 Elite posts 3290 in single-core and 10259 in multi-core tests. By comparison, the Galaxy S24 Ultra with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 scores 2271 single-core and around 7100 multi-core.
3DMark Wildlife Extreme results show the Pro at 5977, versus 4942 on the S24 Ultra. Switching to the custom “Max” performance profile in Armory Crate, the ROG climbs to 6498.
AnTuTu highlights a dramatic lead: roughly 3233000 on the ROG Phone 9 Pro compared to about 1787000 on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Across CPU, GPU, UX, and memory tests, the new ROG flagship pulls ahead of last year’s top-end Qualcomm device.
Gaming Test
Capture and Display Setup
I hooked the ROG Phone 9 Pro to my capture rig via the side USB-C port and an HDMI adapter, running at 1440p and 120Hz. That output gives a crisp, high-refresh feed—more than enough for showcasing what this Android flagship can do.
Game Genie Overlay
Swiping in-game brings up Game Genie, which splits tools across two panels:
- Left Panel
- Real-time performance monitor (FPS, temps, battery, CPU/GPU load)
- Network mode switch
- Navigation touch blocker, “no alerts” mode
- AI noise cancellation
- Smart bypass (prioritizes either battery charging or device power to extend battery life)
- Clip marking and brightness lock
- Right Panel
- AI Grabber for instant screenshots
- Macro recorder and vibration-mapping tool
- Air Triggers customization
- Edge tools and “Speed Up” background-clear shortcut
- Record toggle, touch lock, on-screen crosshair (color customizable for FPS), quick-control shortcuts
These settings let you tune performance on the fly—perfect for demanding titles.
Real-World Game Tests
- Fortnite: Maxed graphics at 90Hz inside the app (despite the 185Hz panel), with a stable 100 percent resolution scale and only occasional dip.
- Call of Duty: Warzone: Highest presets ran smoothly at a hard-capped 120fps. No noticeable pop-ins or stutters, played via Bluetooth Xbox controller.
- Genshin Impact & PUBG: Genshin hit a locked 60 fps on very high settings—even in Dynamic mode, battery-friendly performance stayed solid. PUBG likewise ran flawlessly at top settings.
With the Snapdragon 8 Elite under the hood, any game on Google Play can be dialed up to maximum settings and still deliver a buttery experience.
Winlator Test
I’ve been experimenting with Winlator, an early alpha emulator that lets you run x86 PC games natively on Android rather than via cloud streaming. Thanks to a custom driver tweak, the Snapdragon 8 Elite handles the build surprisingly well, though stability and compatibility will improve with future updates.
Testing Fallout 4 at 720p on low settings, I consistently hit 60fps, suggesting that this chipset could lead the pack in Android-based PC emulation once Winlator matures.
Emulation Performance
The ROG Phone 9 Pro also shines with classic console emulators. Using Dolphin, GameCube titles ran at 6× internal resolution—effectively 4K—without any special tweaks. Wii games performed just as smoothly at up to 2560×2112 (4× scale).
On PS2 emulation through the new nSX2 port, God of War 2 ran at 4× resolution with only occasional dips below 16 fps, hinting that further optimization for this GPU could unlock even higher settings.
Battery Life
With its 5800 mAh cell and 65W HyperCharge adapter, the ROG Phone 9 Pro refuels from zero to full in just 46 minutes.
- Genshin Impact at 60 fps (max settings): ~4 hours 17 minutes
- Continuous video playback: ~21 hours 6 minutes
- Mixed use including light gaming and streaming: ~25 hours
These figures mean you can comfortably game hard or cruise through a full day of browsing and media without worry.
Thermal Performance
Running Genshin Impact at a locked 60 fps for 30 minutes pushed the back panel to about 44.1 °C; Call of Duty: Warzone peaked at 43.8 °C. While noticeable, it’s not unbearably hot.
Without the Aero Active Cooler attached, the CPU throttled by around 22 percent under Genshin and 18 percent in Warzone—yet frame rates remained steady at 60 fps. Considering the raw power packed into this handset, these temperatures and throttling levels are impressive for on-the-go gaming.
Camera System
The main camera uses a 50 MP Sony LYT-700 sensor with six-axis hybrid gimbal stabilization, delivering sharp, shake-free shots that punch above expectations for a gaming-focused phone.
You also get a 13 MP ultra-wide lens and, exclusive to the Pro model, a 32 MP telephoto shooter with 3× optical zoom. The non-Pro version swaps that zoom lens for a 5 MP macro camera.
Asus even repurposes the right AirTrigger as a physical shutter button—comfortably placed at the edge for easy one-handed shooting. Unlike sliding zoom controls, this feels intuitive and avoids overstretching your thumb.
On the video side, you can capture 8K footage at 30 fps, plus there’s a portrait video mode for background blur and a full Pro mode to manually adjust shutter speed, ISO, aperture, and more.
Up front, a 32 MP selfie camera records up to 1080p video and boasts a clear, noise-free microphone—ideal for live streaming gameplay or video calls.
Final Thoughts
Asus nails the design with the programmable AniMe Vision LEDs on the back, and those built-in mini-games are a blast—here’s hoping they release an SDK so enthusiasts can craft their own animations.
The 6.78-inch Samsung E6 AMOLED screen dazzles with inky blacks, vibrant colours, and up to 2500 nits of peak brightness, making outdoor visibility effortless.
Under the hood, the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s dual 4.32 GHz prime cores and beefed-up Adreno GPU cement this as the fastest Android gaming phone available.
All told, the ROG Phone 9 Pro strikes an excellent balance of cutting-edge hardware, bold design, and gaming-centric software. If there’s anything else you’d like me to test or explore, drop a note in the comments below!
