EVERY SMARTPHONE NEEDS ONE OF THESE...

The ROG series of gaming phones has failed in two of the last six launches. A 60% survival rate might be good for Fortnite, but it's downright bad for a $1,500

smartphone

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Now let's see what kind of resistance you can get for $1,500. ROG has been using the same pyramid-shaped box for some time, and perhaps the experience of opening the box is what accounts for a big part of the $1,500 price tag. I'm not sure. Inside the coffin we have a canvas bag. I assume it is for the AeroActive cooling system. If you remember last year, the ROG 7 Ultimate had an external fan that blows air into the phone through a motorized vent to cool it down. This year it has the same external fan device, but instead of blowing air into the phone, it thermoelectrically cools the surface, which then cools the interior with a rapid cooling guide under the rear glass.

We'll see in a moment if the ROG 8 Pro breaks in half. Historically, there is a high probability of this happening. The 8 Pro has a temporary screen protector. When it comes to scratch resistance, we've seen the entire spectrum. Plastic screens, like the Apple Vision Pro, scratch at level three, and sapphire screens like the DuraForce Ultra scratch at level eight or nine. Regular

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s like this one with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 start to scratch at level six, with deeper grooves at level seven. The 32MP front camera is located under the front glass, so it has the same scratch protection.

That camera sits beneath a very slim earpiece notch, which houses the top stereo surround speaker. The right side has capacitive gaming buttons on each corner... Metal volume rocker and metal power button. It seems that, like on Samsung, the buttons are removable. However, unlike the Samsung, these buttons cannot be snapped back into place. Once the buttons come off, they won't go back into place no matter how much you press and adjust them. I don't think a $1,500 phone should do that, but this is the first time ROG has tried to add water resistance to a gaming phone, so it might have some kinks to work out.

Or the problem is with me, I don't know. Self-awareness is not my strong point. The top is metal. The right side of the phone has an additional USB-C slot for the cooling system, it's also a good place for a charger while gaming horizontally. Below is a second USB-C slot for charging. This one has a power of 65W. There is also a SIM card slot, a second stereo speaker and a headphone jack. If you know what it is, make sure you exercise at night to protect your back. One of the reasons the ROG 8 Pro seems less interesting than last year is that it is finally waterproof.

It has IP68 water resistance. Yes, I know, protection is a good thing and all, but I'll miss the excitement that comes with seeing something visually interesting

every

year of the ROG line. Water resistance, while important, makes all phones the same. Except for this hidden trick... Completely invisible under glass and programmable, LED matrix with 341 diodes. It looks like it's a single color this time, not RGB as is usual on gaming phones. This matrix can display the time, status, or ROG logo, among other things. I can't wait to see how it works inside. But unfortunately we have not yet studied the outside enough.

ROG has a 50MP main camera on the 8 Pro. This time with gimbal-style optical image stabilization. I hope we see that in a moment. If you haven't discovered it, I can't wait to open it. It has a 13MP ultra-wide-angle camera and a 32MP 3X telephoto camera. It also has an optical fingerprint reader under the screen... The power button tries to escape! Even when the fingerprint reader is facing seven slots deep, you can still view and unlock the phone at all times. The pixels above that reader form a 6.7-inch LTPO AMOLED display with 1 billion colors, 2500 nits, and a 165Hz refresh rate.

And it lasts about 20 seconds under the heat of my lighter. Speaking of heat, my ROG 8 Pro came with AeroActive cooling system. A device that normally costs around 100 dollars. This device can reduce the temperature of the back cover by almost 36°C. The fan is not here for the phone, but for the back of the Peltier cooler. Peltier coolers are fascinating because they blow air and freeze electronically. Please note that if you stop this heat sink too many times with tweezers, you will dislodge the fan blades on top of the Peltier heat sink, which could reduce its efficiency.

Finally, it's time to see how rugged the $1,500 ROG 8 Pro is. A 60% survival rate is actually little better than flipping a coin. When folded from the front, it bends significantly, but there is no major damage. When folding from the back, just above the LED matrix, there is still no damage. It looks like the ROG 8 Pro survived... I spoke too soon. The ROG 8 Pro broke during a bending test. The rear glass appears to be completely broken and has cracks starting at a central point in the middle of the panel, but that appears to be the only damage. While the aesthetic chaos is probably bad news for the ROG 8 Pro, it's great news for us.

Now we can see what the rapid cooling guide looks like on top of the processor. We'll see if it's as interesting as last year's copper cooler. Historically, ROG divides its phones into five sections, three sections with motherboards and two completely separate batteries. And the back glass appears to have broken at the top connection of the motherboard and battery. Which is right in the middle of the new 15W wireless charging coil. It would be interesting to see a wireless charger in 2012, but something we haven't seen yet is a hidden programmable LED array that, when detached from the back cover, looks very reasonable.

I don't know what I expected, but it looks exactly as I should have expected. These lights can be seen through the rear window on both sides. To be honest, I'd be incredibly excited to see these diodes cover the entire rear next year. The huge matrix would definitely surpass the Nothing Phone. And other phones too. And if that matrix had RGB, it would be the most interesting phone in the world. It definitely gets my approval. Continuing our search for a quick cooling guide, we need to dig deeper. The diodes turn off and the wireless charger comes out.

And then the metal plate is removed from the top of the motherboard. ROG claims that the reason there is a rapid cooling guide is so that heat can pass from the processor through a metal path to the back of the phone when using AeroActive. The only issue we found is that that metal path doesn't extend to the back of the phone. We have air in between, which is not conductive, and two layers of plastic on each side of the wireless charger coil. All of this interferes with the conductive path that the rapid cooling guide must provide.

The copper conductor is coated with boron nitride thermal paste. Boron nitride looks like frosting, but I assure you it doesn't taste like frosting. The quick cooling guide is not the only way to cool down the inside of the phone. If we remove the top and bottom screws and the mess of flexible tapes, each one comes out like a Lego brick. We can then separate the motherboard, revealing more sticky boron nitride thermal paste that connects the processor to the vapor chamber under the screen used by most smartphone manufacturers. From the beginning, ROG has come up with some pretty unique and creative cooling methods.

It's always fun to see what they try next. Although the rapid cooling copper guide has a difficult path to the AeroActive system on the back, I personally don't think this is a problem. With the huge temperature difference that the Peltier heat pump provides, I don't think space is an issue. There's plenty of passive heat dissipation at the front, and with a temperature difference of almost 36°C at the rear, the active heat dissipation is more than enough to close the small gap and allow heat to escape out the back. rear. I think those two cooling methods are enough to get the job done.

The last three things I want to see, besides the permanently fixed batteries, are the bottom and top stereo surround speakers, which have spongy balls dripping all over them. Another thing I want to see is the camera system and its 'gimbal' stabilization. The top 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera does not have OIS. The 3X telephoto lens has OIS, but the 50-megapixel camera has a 6-axis OIS system, meaning it can pan in and out, left and right, and has 3° of tilt compensation to help to stabilize images. Like a handheld gimbal. Very impressive. Apple has sensor shift stabilization, which is pretty cool, but ROG has the next most complex stabilization we've ever seen.

I would love to try it, but my phone is not working right now. Before I let this phone sit, I want to see the vapor chamber. It's hard to compete with this year's OnePlus 12 and its massive dual vapor chamber. When we separate the screen, we can see a small optical fingerprint reader without a lens. And under the graphite sheet we finally find a vapor chamber... Which extends through both the batteries and the main motherboard. The vapor chamber removes heat from all three elements at once and allows heat to escape through a very thin screen. Heat from the processor converts the liquid inside the chamber to vapor and, as the vapor cools, it flows back to the center of the metal mesh to repeat the process in a closed system, effectively removing excess heat.

Smartphones are fascinating little packages of science and ROG always manages to make things interesting. I'm glad you're here with me to see how it all works from the inside. Do you want an LED matrix on your phone? Let me know in the comments. Thanks so much for looking. See you!