The ASUS ROG Phone II Review: Mobile Gaming First, Phone Second
by Dr. Ian Cutress on September 30, 2019 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Asus
- Qualcomm
- Smartphones
- ROG
- RGB
- Snapdragon 855 Plus
- ROG Phone II
GPU Performance
As always with the GPU testing we do here, how a device ends up in the results is pretty much equally impacted by the SoC microarchitecture and GPU itself as it is by other factors such as software thermal throttling configurations as well as the hardware design of the phone – whether it can properly dissipate the heat from the SoC to the body of the phone.
We’re testing the ROG Phone II both in the default mode as well as the X Mode to determine any differences.
In the Physics test of 3DMark we see a difference in the reported peak performance of the RP2 depending on whether X Mode is on or off. Oddly enough, this has zero impact on the sustained performance scores as they end up nigh identical, pointing out that the X Mode doesn’t look to have any large impact on the thermal throttling of the phone, at least on the side of the CPU.
In the graphics tests, the ROG Phone II is dominating and is clearly posting the highest performance among any smartphone out there when it comes to its sustained performance. The device is able to distinguish itself from the rest thanks to the increased GPU frequency of the Snapdragon 855+ SoC.
Furthermore, the phone doesn’t look like it throttles much at all on the GPU side of things, and the behaviour is similar to that of the OPPO Reno 10x and the OnePlus 7 Pro. Of course, this also comes at a cost of extremely high device temperatures again – the phone’s internal temperature sensor in ASUS’s own monitoring tools showcased temps of in excess of 55°C, and the phone would burn through one’s finger if held at the hottest spots.
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mrochester - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
*buy.PeachNCream - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
Anything Google touches basically turns into a platform for data collection that exploits the user and yest the phone is ugly. What sorts of alternatives did you have in mind?AdhesiveTeflon - Wednesday, October 2, 2019 - link
You want us to get a Blackberry instead?Azurael - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
A phone with a large battery, no notch and a screen which isn't wrapped around the edges of the phone. Perfect but for the fact it looks like it was designed for a 12 year old (with rich parents?) and the camera suckss.yu - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
1. 3rd party cases look serious enough. Also consider removing the back panel and the whole paint job inside like how some people made Samsungs transparent.2. Port Gcam.
abufrejoval - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
These devices are simply the new [very] personal computers. The fact, that they evolved from phones is about as meaningful as to say that humans are a special type of single-cell organism, that stopped separating completely after cell division.And when you look at the typical daily usage pattern of these VPCs, you'll find that many, especially younger users, will go days without using the phone functionality at all: That's Mom & Pop stuff, ancient history and typically only used to remind them of chores left undone and thus silenced!
The phone moniker only serves to justify why these devices you're supposedly buying to own, are kept tethered to vendors and telcos, who have no business whatsoever on your very personal computers, after they habe become your property and digital brain extension or Internet of Bodies limb.
Please help ending this abuse if only by calling them by what they are instead of whence they originated eons ago.
PeachNCream - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
It's not just a kid thing. I could easily get by without any sort of more conventional PC by relying exclusively on my phone. In a roundabout way, I've already done that by neglecting to boot up a PC for several days and more often than not, I'm only turning them on to fetch updates or do something that benefits from a keyboard (less often now since I have a bluetooth keyboard paired up with my phone). The reverse situation where I would have to resort to only a PC and omit the phone would be more troublesome because of a lack of effective communications mechanisms and a lack of portability.abufrejoval - Wednesday, October 2, 2019 - link
Absolutely, and with this dock, I am seriosly considering to buy this as a mobile workstation: I do have some usable notebooks, quite a bit slower than this device (e.g. ChuWi 12.3).Of course, there is yet some other elements missing: The clamshell dock, which allows me to use this device as a notebook and the ability to run Linux desktop apps with the proper GPU acceleration: The current hacks running a Linux userland in a chroot() and an X-Server on the Android end eat too much 'snappyness' to.
I'd keep a dock in every major office location I work in, with either a nice 4k screen or dual monitor setup, keyboard and mouse and then use the clamshell on planes and trains if the ride is long enough to make it worthwhile and otherwise just use it handheld or with WiDi for presentations. A serious conference room could have a WGig dock.
It's not a hardware issue any longer, just "opposing software empires".
29a - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
Is there anyway to get uBlock to block these advertisement articles?zeeBomb - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
Is this the first real superphone???