Asus ROG Phone 3: Everything we know so far (Updated: July 16)

Update: July 16, 2020 at 2:16 PM ET: Leaker Evan Blass shared a new image of the Asus ROG Phone 3 on his Patreon account. Check it out in the design section below!

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Original article, April 26, 2020 (3:02 AM ET):  If you’re in the market for a dedicated gaming phone today, your options are limited to only four brands: Razer, Xiaomi Black Shark, ZTE Nubia, and Asus. Lenovo will also jump into the race in July with its Legion phone, but for now, these are your only available choices.

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In 2020, most of these gaming phones are slated to get or have already gotten Snapdragon 865-powered successors. Xiaomi announced the Black Shark 3 in March, ZTE has the Red Magic 5G, and now it’s Asus’ turn to introduce the third-generation ROG Phone.

Asus’ current gaming handset — the ROG Phone 2 — was quite something. It had a massive battery, a smooth 120Hz display, bloat-free software, and powerful performance. The ROG Phone 3 is expected to retain a lot of those qualities, but also add some new hardware and features to the mix.

The Asus ROG Phone 3 has been subject to various leaks that reveal a lot about its design and specs. The phone has even appeared in a hand-on video and promotional posters, so we already have a good sense of what to expect. In this rumor roundup, we’ll break down everything we know so far about the ROG Phone 3. Read on for all the latest.

Asus ROG Phone 3: Name and release date

Asus’ ROG (Republic Of Gamers) branding comes from the company’s highly popular line of gaming PCs and peripherals. When Asus first announced a gaming phone, it was the ROG name that sparked everyone’s interest because of its deep roots in computer gaming. Given this legacy, we highly doubt Asus will change the naming convention of the new ROG Phone. The third-gen device will indeed be called the Asus ROG Phone 3.

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The phone is said to come bearing model number I003DD. An Asus phone with this model number recently got certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance and China’s TENAA. The latter even revealed a number of specs and images for the unreleased model, almost making certain that it is the ROG Phone 3.

Asus launched the first ROG smartphone back in June 2018. The second one came in July 2019. The third installment will also launch in July. Asus has announced that it will launch the ROG Phone 3 on July 22 at 11 AM ET. You can watch the launch event live on Asus’ website.

Asus ROG Phone 3: Design

An apparent real-world image and a hand-on video of the Asus ROG Phone 3 were recently leaked (see below). Both seem to originate from the same source. The phone’s aesthetics are quite similar to last year’s ROG Phone 2. The ROG Phone 3 will pack a triple camera setup, albeit in a longer rectangular housing at the back.

There’s the signature glowing ROG logo in the center of the rear panel, with Tencent Games branding below it. This suggests there could be a special Tencent edition of the ROG Phone 3, just like there was for the ROG Phone 2.

The front of the new phone also resembles the previous ROG Phone, with bezels on all four sides and a selfie camera on the top right corner of the screen. It looks like Asus isn’t changing much on the ROG phone in terms of design.

The company included Air Triggers on the ROG Phone 2. While we were hoping that the new phone would gain physical triggers like the Black Shark 3, the leaked image and video don’t really show anything different.

Images of the phone in the TENAA listing also show the same design as the aforementioned leaks. However, the listing suggests the phone won’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack this time around. You can see the images from TENAA below.

On July 16, leaker Evan Blass shared a high-res image of the Asus ROG Phone 3 on his Patreon account. There aren’t many details we can glean from the image that we don’t already know, but it’s always nice to see a crisp image of an unannounced phone. Check it out below.

Credit: @evleaks (Patreon)

Asus ROG Phone 3: Specs and features

The Asus ROG Phone 3 is certainly shaping up to be a powerful machine. In fact, it could be one of the fastest phones out there when it launches. As per its TENAA listing, the gaming phone packs an overclocked Snapdragon 865 processor with a prime core frequency of 3.091GHz, compared to 2.84GHz on most Snapdragon 865 phones.

We now know that the processor is the new Snapdragon 865 Plus which brings higher clock speeds for the prime core and a 10% GPU improvement over the vanilla Snapdragon 865.

The ROG Phone 3 also appears to be getting a RAM boost this year — the top-of-the-line variant could sport as much as 16GB. With that much RAM, you certainly won’t have to worry about game load times and performance issues (not that 12GB RAM on the ROG Phone 2 was a bother in any way).

Elsewhere, you can expect to see a 6.59-inch FHD+ display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a 6,000mAh battery, and up to 512GB of storage. Asus could also launch another Ultimate Edition variant of the phone with 1TB internal storage, but there’s no evidence of that so  far.

In terms of camera, both the TENAA listing and the leaked image in the design section points at a 64MP main shooter. This would be an upgrade over the 48MP camera on the second ROG Phone. There’s no word on the other two sensors from the supposed triple camera setup on the ROG Phone 3, but we hope that the company adds a telephoto lens in there.

Price and availability

If recent Snapdragon 865 phones from brands like Samsung, OnePlus, Motorola, and others have taught us anything, it’s that they’re not cheap. Given Asus’ last ROG Phone was priced at $899, we expect this one to cost somewhere around $1,000.

The phone might only come to the US by September-October. We’re making this assumption based on the US release date of the ROG Phone 2. However, Asus could very well stray from that timeline depending on supply chain conditions and internal strategy.

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The Asus ROG Phone 3 is also coming to India. According to a new teaser page, the device will be made available on Flipkart when it launches. The Flipkart teaser doesn’t mention a specific sale date but confirms that the phone will launch in India on July 22 at 8:15 PM IST (10:45 AM ET). This date and time also coincide with the reveal of the phone in other parts of the world, including the US, Taipei, and Europe.

For now, that’s all we know about the upcoming Asus ROG Phone 3. We’ll keep updating this rumor hub as and when new information surfaces. Until then, you can check out our list of the best Android phones of 2020 so far.