After about a month, this is our review of the ROG Phone 7. I delay this review for so long is because I finally got to know the local price, and I also want to spend more time with it to get a complete feel of it.
As usual, we’ll be going through our usual 8 points – but I’ll be adding one more to talk about the gaming experience with all those special features. Let’s begin.
I want to highlight the difference between the ROG Phone 7 and the Ultimate variants first. Truthfully speaking, there is no major difference. You’ll get the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset with the same LPDDR5X RAM at 8533MHz frequency and UFS 4.0 storage. I’m not sure if you’ll only get 16GB on the Ultimate variant, but that truly doesn’t matter. Watch our video here to know why.
However, there are a few exclusives on the Ultimate – namely the ROG Vision at the back, AeroPortal, and obviously the design.
Design
Personally speaking, I do like the design of the ROG Phone 7 in white color more than the Ultimate. I mean, just look at the differences here. The base version in white just looks so clean and stylish as compared to the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate.
The ROG Vision – I really don’t care about it, honestly. Yeah, it’s cool that we have another display at the back here to show off custom animations and whatnot – but the novelty wears off really quickly. I still prefer the ROG Phone 7 in white color.
The size and shape of the ROG Phone 6 and 7 are also 100% identical. However, as shown in our other video – most of the accessories are not cross-compatible. Watch that video at the top right corner – that’s an important video. In short, most accessories won’t work because of this extra piece at the bottom of the camera bump.
Cameras
So, how’s the camera of the ROG Phone 7? In terms of hardware, I think they’re the same as the ROG Phone 6. However, there are some software processing differences here and there that make them both different. I’m just going to show you a bunch of pictures on the screen here and their comparisons so you can get a feel of how different they are.
Overall, I think the ROG Phone 7’s cameras are pretty okay. They’re good enough to use and nothing specifically great to shout about. I mean, it’s a gaming phone after all.
To have a look at all the pictures taken, watch our video at the top of this review.
Display
Now, the display is also pretty much the same as last year but there are a few things upgraded. We still have a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen with 2448×1080 pixel resolution and 165Hz refresh rate maximum.
The bezels are still the same, and this is the only phone that has real stereo front-facing speakers. I absolutely love this speaker, honestly.
What’s new here is the maximum brightness. Under high brightness mode which is activated by having auto brightness and under bright lights – the phone can reach all the way to 1000 nits brightness. That is superbly amazing.
As for the color accuracy, we can get virtually 100% sRGB and 98% DCI-P3 – which is to be expected, honestly. I’m just really happy that the display is still gorgeous and at a super refresh rate even though most games will never take advantage of it.
Software
As for the software, again ROG didn’t really do anything here. That’s actually good, I think. I mean, the ROG Phones are always clean and very close to stock Android with a few ROG magic sprinkled on top.
If you want it to be even closer to stock Android, you can head into the settings menu, scroll down to System Preferences and change all of the UI elements to become stock Android.
Performance
For the performance, it is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 but the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate does indeed have 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage, including the AeroPortal. But, the AeroPortal will not activate unless the AeroActive Cooler 7 is attached.
That too doesn’t matter. I played Genshin Impact at the highest graphical settings at 60fps with X Mode turned on and the ROG Phone 7 can already sustain the performance without any additional coolers. This phone is able to maintain 60fps for the entire duration and I’m just impressed, honestly.
If you’re wondering how much better it is compared to the ROG Phone 6, then here are some benchmark comparisons for you to see. I’d say overall, the ROG Phone 7 isn’t as hot and can maintain the frame rate consistently.
Gaming experience
But that’ll lead us to the gaming experience offered by this phone. Unfortunately, this is where ROG literally did nothing for a few generations already. The AirTriggers remain the same and you can do a few customizations like changing it to a press and hold to repeat, splitting it into two virtual buttons, and a few more options. Honestly, I still prefer the physical triggers on the Black Shark phones.
Now, you can attach the AeroActive Cooler 7 to get more buttons to press – and you can watch our other video where we review that cooler specifically. In short, the cooling aspect is pretty much unnecessary, but the AeroActive Cooler 7 does provide 4 more buttons and a subwoofer for better audio quality too.
We do have a full review of just the AeroActive Cooler 7 alone, so watch the video here to know more about it. I highly recommend you to do so if you’re interested to get the most out of the ROG Phone 7.
There are a few new software additions, though. We have something called background mode now with it, we can lock a game in the background and prevent it from getting suspended. We can only do that for one game at a time.
However, specifically for the ROG Phone 7, we execute macros while in background mode. We did a video about this so watch that for more details too. Mr. John is very excited about this feature actually, and we’ll talk more about this in the future – so subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Battery life
The battery life is a rather weird one. This phone is still using the same massive 6,000mAh as it had for the past few generations, but since this phone is using the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, we expect it to last a lot longer – and it does.
Clocking in at 20 hours, this is the absolute longest-lasting battery that I’ve seen in any phone so far. Remember, we’re running PCMark battery life test locked it to 100 nits brightness at 165Hz with X Mode disabled and it still managed to get 20 hours.
Charging time
The charging time is rather finicky. It does come with a 65W charger just like the previous generations too.
The logging app that we’re using gets constantly suspended which resulted in incomplete data. I did a total of 6 charging tests, but only 4 of them are actually usable data. But it generally takes about an hour to charge from 15% to completion using either the side port or the bottom port, with or without the cooler attached.
Of course, I tried with the Ugreen 100W GaN charger as well, and it took about the same time too.
Few more things to mention
A few more things to mention here. This phone still has two USB-C ports – one USB 3.0 at the side and another USB 2.0 at the bottom. If you want to transfer files at a high speed or use HDMI output over USB-C, then you’ll have to connect the side port.
However, if we attach the AeroActive Cooler 7, then that side port essentially gets downgraded and can be used for charging only. This is the same problem as the ROG Phone 6 with the AeroActive Cooler 6.
We do have an audio jack on the phone itself, or on the AeroActive Cooler 7.
The phone itself also got an upgrade to IP54. Even with the AeroPortal, ROG managed to add ingress protection. Hmmm….
Conclusion
So, conclusion time then. Even at RM4,999 for the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate, the entire ROG Phone 7 series is currently the best phone for gaming that we’re tried for this year. I mean, it kinda won by default since Black Shark seems to be in boiling hot water (1) (2) (3) for the past 6 months and I’m not sure if the Black Shark 6 will ever be produced. I don’t want to even think about buying it yet.
Maybe we’ll do a comparison with Red Magic if we can get our hands on it.
Back to the ROG Phone 7 then. You can buy the non-Ultimate version and you’ll have to purchase the AeroActive Cooler 7 separately if you want to use it – and the prices are as listed below. Again, I’m not sure if there’s any performance or temperature difference between the base and Ultimate versions since we don’t have the base version to test, but I don’t think there will be any significant difference.
The only bonuses you’ll be getting for the Ultimate version are the ROG Vision screen that I skipped entirely during the earlier parts because I just don’t bother about features like this.
You’ll also get the Aero Portal on the Ultimate – but it’s only usable if you attach the cooler to it. As shown in our gaming test, the phone can maintain about 40°C even without the cooler. I don’t think the Portal will do anything significant enough to impact the performance.
Overall, while I think the ROG Phone 7 series is currently the best gaming phone, I do think this is a very boring phone. There are only incremental upgrades here and there when compared to the ROG Phone 6. If you are upgrading from the ROG Phone 5 though, then that is a completely different story as you’re escaping the dreadful Snapdragon 888 chipset.
But other than the chipset, I’m disappointed by the AirTriggers. Seriously, It’s time to move away from them and start using physical triggers. Black Shark used magnetic popup triggers for years. They just feel so much better with its tactile feedback.
Also, I think I need to say this again – ROG, please stop doing things like adding a little piece at the camera cutout just to make the previous generation’s accessories incompatible with the new one. It felt like a betrayal towards your loyal customers.
And let’s not forget – there is no Kunai Gamepad for the ROG Phone 7 series. Yes, I think ROG discontinued it entirely and we don’t know why. Still, you can use the Kunai Gamepad 3 for the ROG Phone 6 but you’ll have to deal with the stupid case not fitting right thanks to that extra piece of camera hump.
Hah, I should stop ranting now. Okay, so the ROG Phone 7 is still the best gaming phone despite the minimal upgrades and the removal of the Kunai Gamepad.
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