Asus ROG Phone 9 official with a blazing fast display, Snapdragon 8 Elite and up to 1 TB of on-board storage

Asus has officially unveiled its newest flagship gaming smartphone: the ROG Phone 9. Like last year, it also comes with a 'Pro' version that doesn't offer anything in the way of spec upgrades. Instead, the ROG Phone 9 Pro gives you programmable LEDs at the back, 16 GB RAM and 512 GB storage. The top-spec ROG Phone 9 Pro model offers up to 1 TB of storage and 24 GB of RAM, as predicted by an earlier leak. Additionally, you get a free AeroActive X cooler with your purchase.

Under the hood, the Asus ROG Phone 9 comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC. The base variant features 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage. The latter maxes out at 512 GB with no corresponding increase in RAM. It comes with Asus' in-house ROG GameCool 9 cooling system, adaptive triggers and support for a wide range of gaming accessories from Asus.

Asus offers the ROG Phone 9 in two colour variants: Phantom Black and Storm White. Only the latter is available for the Pro variant. It comes with a Matte body with a 'crystallized nano structure' to repel fingerprints. Then there are some AI-powered features such as X Sense 3 that "uses AI image recognition to simplify gaming tasks such as recognizing important events and automatically collecting items." It even upgrades skills for you. This will likely require support from developers and only work with a handful of titles.

Then there's X Capture 2.0 that uses AI to recognize important events and automatically record winning moments, team battles and the likes. Lastly, the ROG Phone 9 also comes with AI-powered text recognition and noise cancellation.

Asus has, once again, upped the ante with the ROG Phone 9. It comes withy a 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED display with a refresh rate of 185 Hz and 2,500 nits peak brightness. However, dynamic refresh rate only works between 1 and 120 Hz. Realistically speaking, most games won't come anywhere close to 185 Hz on a smartphone SoC, but a handful might be able to pull it off with AI-powered upscaling and frame generation tech.

The Asus ROG Phone 9 draws power from a 5,800 mAh battery that supports 65 W fast charging over a cable and 15 Watts wirelessly. At the back, there's a 50 MP wide-angle lens with OIS, a 13 MP ultra-wide-angle-lens and a 32 MP telephoto lens (OIS, 3x optical zoom) and a 32 MP selfie camera. Other specs include, two USB-C ports, Wi-Fi 7, 5G, Bluetooth 5.4, under-display fingerprint sensor and a 3.5 mm audio jack.

You can pre-order the Asus ROG Phone 9 now from all major online channels. However, you won't be able to get your hands on it until January 2. However, orders placed on Asus' website will be delivered before Christmas. Prices start at $1,099 for the ROG Phone 9, $1,299 for the ROG Phone 9 Pro and $1,499 for the ROG Phone 9 Pro variant with 24 GB RAM/1 TB storage.