ASUS ROG Phone 3 Review (2021): Now a Budget Gaming Phone? By TechSpaceCowboy

Okay so the years 2021, this is a review of the kg phone 3. So I know what a lot of you might be. Thinking uh. Why are you reviewing a year-old phone? This phone came out in july 2020 um and the ROG phone five is right around the corners. So why would you review the ROG phone three and if you're wondering what happened to four is just like an unlucky number in China. I think so.

There's no four! There was never a four. The five might as well be the four but the ROG phone five costs like 1200 bucks. So I guess the question a lot of people might have is you know I want a more budget-friendly gaming phone, and I was able to get this one on Amazon for less than six hundred dollars. That's less than half the price, and this was the cream of the crop, the premium best phone in 2020. So, let's find out if it's still good huh, all right, starting with the specs.

It's got a snapdragon 865 plus 5g processor. In it. So you got 5g. You got the 865 plus which, before the snapdragon 888 was the thing you were looking for. You got 8, 12 or 16 gigabytes of ram.

This one specifically has 12 gigs of ram for 600, not bad at all and then got anywhere from 128 gigabytes to 512, gigabytes of internal storage. So with those specs begs the question, how is the performance uh amazing? I honestly I've used snapdragon 88 phones. I don't notice the difference now in gaming, if really high-end gaming, maybe I'm not a super high-end gamer. Furthermore, I did play some games on this, and it performed amazingly. So I really don't think you're missing out a lot.

If you get a snapdragon, 865 plus phone versus a snapdragon 888 performance on this thing is absolutely incredible. So now, speaking about the display uh, you got a 1080p ultra-wide display. It looks real nice with a 144 hertz refresh rate, there's no hole punch, no notch in it. They just put all the cameras and the speakers up in the bezels, so you have one uninterrupted display which for gaming, specifically real nice, that does give it a more dated. Looking design, which I'll talk about in a little you know later, later on, but damn this display is a big old 6.59 gorgeous looking display. Now, as far as the the high refresh rate, the 144 hertz kind of seems, uh overkill to me, I do think it's just kind of one of those spec war, specs um, 120 hertz, looks the exact same.

I don't know if anyone would notice the difference I feel like we could just all say: 120 is good enough. Now I haven't seen 240 on a phone yet so give me that 240, and maybe I'll change my mind but 144 over 120. No, no difference now the crazy high sample rate pretty important for gaming. Specifically, you want it to really be fast at responding to your touch, which this does super well, but yeah, the 144. I think it's its just a number on a sheet at this point now this has two front facing front fire front.

Facing firing has two front speakers, oh my god, they're loud they are so loud. They're really loud, really crisp best speakers. I've ever heard in a phone better than iPhone speakers, if you all, are looking for a frame of reference, perfect, sound um. Now this is in 2021, so there may have been software updates. That came out since this initially came out where there were some weird speaker kind of volume, curve issues.

I noticed none of that. I thought they were incredible. Now you can't talk about this phone without talking about the battery. This is a 6 000 William hour battery 6 000 for a frame of reference. For that this is an iPhone 12 and 12 pro has the same battery 2 815 William hour battery 6 000 William hour battery 2815 6000, it lasts forever.

You can leave it on the 120 hertz high brightness, full 1080p res, and it's still going to last all day. That's awesome! Any other phone. That's had a crazy high refresh rate. I have like felt that little of anxiety of leaving it on a high refresh rate because I am like well, I don't. I want to make sure it's going to last the whole day.

This one will absolutely now there isn't wireless charging, but it has fast USB charging. So if you are on that wireless charging life just be aware of that before getting a phone like this, that's something that you know doesn't always show up if they're, not advertising it. Also, when you plug it in there is a tiny, little green indicator, light that shows up right above the display. Oh, it's orange. When it's charging green when it's fully charged, I love that I love being able to see you know how is it still charging whatever from a distance or just to have that confirmation that, yes, it's receiving power right now something this phone does not do well in which I don't think they're they're trying super hard in this area, but the biometrics, the thumbprint reader, the optical thumbprint, the fingerprint reader.

It's its a beneath the display optical fingerprint reader, it's fine and by fine I mean below average, it's not great uh. It's the slowest thumbprint reader. I've used. Yet it's not a huge deal by slow, it's still faster than typing a code. It's still, you know you get in your phone with one solid tap, but it's not great, honestly.

I don't think they put a lot of effort into making the thumbprint or fingerprint reader great. I think they put a lot more effort elsewhere. Now the camera has a 64 megapixel main shooter camera, but you would never know it because the real fuzzy pictures like I don't know why they're 64 megapixels, I almost feel like having a lower megapixel count, would have done better to have more sensor area per pixel, because the pictures ain't great it shoots up to 8k video again, that is the fuzziest grainiest sitting in a cigarette filled room 8k, video I've ever seen. It's got an ultra-wide camera. It has a macro camera meh! That's all I don't.

If you've watched my channel before I don't spend a lot of time on cameras uh this one's definitely not worth spending a lot of time on. It will take pictures moving on now. As far as the OS like the skin whatnot uh, you can choose when booting it up whether to do like the gaming half of the OS or the like, more android, just normal stock. Looking OS, I being that, I don't care for the gaming aesthetic that much I chose android, I chose just the basic like it looks like a pixel kind of in the OS, I'm glad they have that. I know a lot of people out there that buy a phone like this really want that gamer aesthetic they want that gaming skin on there.

I don't, and I think a lot of people might buy this phone just for the spec sheet alone, and those people may want to use it primarily as a phone and then do a little of gaming. Those people can choose android, like I did. That kind of just leads me into the overall design uh. This is still a very gaming phone uh, the back of it. Has these like lines and things on it to make it look more like it's still just one smooth piece of plastic.

Now one thing I thought was really cool. Is this RGB light right here the the glowing color backlight is cool. It's a cool thing. It can easily be toggled right from the notification shade. You can just turn it off and on right there.

So now it's off, and now it's on. I thought that was cool um. If you really like, if you're a huge ROG fan- and you want that logo blaring to show the world that bam, I do have a gaming phone, then yeah, there you go, they have these programmable air triggers built into the chassis as well. I mean you have to be really into the gaming. For that honestly, I tried out their triggers.

I tried out gaming on the phone for me. Touch, touchscreen controls in any capacity are awful, and they suck. So, if I were to, you, know, actually seriously get into gaming mobile with this phone, I'm getting a controller attachment or just a Bluetooth controller or something I couldn't do it. I really don't think I could do gaming with the screen. Even the air triggers improve it, but not by enough- and I guess that actually beckons the question: should you game on your phone? I know there's.

Actually millions of people that like are in the competitive mobile gaming industry playing, you know, pub, go pub g, go and like fortnight mobile and like a bunch of other games that somebody will mention in my comments. But for me, I have a Nintendo Switch when I'm on the go. I want my phone to be independent. Of that I want to be able to like pause. My game do something on the phone if my game thing dies, which again this probably won't, but if it dies, I want my phone to keep, you know, keep going and being a phone cause.

I need the phone. I really want the game, something that I thought of I'm sure that doesn't apply to everybody and not everybody has the pocket space for two devices and not everybody has the budget for two devices, and that's actually leading me into my last point, which is value uh. Who is this for? Is this a good value when this came out at 1200 or whatever the price was, that would have been a harder conversation uh? But now this is a one generation old phone. I got the 10 cent version on Amazon for less than 600. This won't work on Verizon uh.

It works on aunt or any other GSM carrier, but the CDMA carriers nope it's not working on those but uh. For me, this is again six hundred dollars which puts it right in that just sweet value category. This is a great value for six hundred for six hundred dollars. You can get this or for double that you can get the ROG phone five with the snapdragon 888 and a slew of other slightly, slightly improved specs. Would you notice the difference? I don't think so.

In my opinion, probably no. I recommend, if you're on a budget, but you want a gaming phone. This is the one I would get the 600 ROG phone. Three ASUS doesn't make a budget gaming phone, but if you can pick up a ROG phone three for like 600 bucks like I did, consider it right. It's something that you know if you're, really strapped for cash half as much for almost the exact same thing, makes a huge difference.

Anyway. That's all I got um. This was not meant to be like uh. Let me tell you about every single detail about the ROG phone 3 review uh. So, if you're about to go in the comments and say well, you didn't even mention XYZ feature it's because it wasn't something I noticed or used all right.

This was just my take on a more budget-friendly gaming phone in 2021. So that's what I got that's! This is the end of the video I'm tech space. Cowboy thanks for sticking around.

Source : TechSpaceCowboy