Meet ROG Phone 7 Ultimate - Still the best gaming phone?

We share our thoughts and experience with the recently released ROG Phone 7 Ultimate after four weeks of intensive use.

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate with secondary display

Meet ROG Phone 7 Ultimate!

ASUS introduced the ROG Phone 7 series back in April 2023 and was officially unveiled in the Philippines just recently. 

To recap, the new gaming phone features a large 6.8-inch 165Hz E4 AMOLED screen, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, LPDDR5X RAM, UFS 3.1 storage, and a 6,000mAh battery with 65W fast charging.

At the back are the 50MP main camera, 13MP ultra-wide, and a 5MP macro camera with an LED flash while in front is a 32MP selfie camera.

In the Philippines, the vanilla ROG Phone 7 starts at PHP 50,995 while the top-end ROG Phone 7 Ultimate is priced at PHP 69,995.

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate unique packaging

Let's unbox it first.

It comes in unique polygon packaging with an industrial aesthetic with ROG branding.

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate Box inclusions

Inside the box are the phone, SIM ejector tool, cooling fan, cooling fan carrying case, braided USB-C cable, 65W charger, bumper case, and documentation.

At first glance, the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate looks very similar to the previous ROG Phone 6 Ultimate.

It is made of premium materials and you can feel it when you first hold it in your hand with its heft and weight.

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate screen

As mentioned above, the 6.78-inch Samsung E4 AMOLED screen with a 2448 x 1080 resolution, and a 165Hz refresh rate.

Around the panel are the thick top and chin bezels with slimmer side bezels. On the top bezel are the front-facing camera, earpiece and the first speaker while on the chin bezel is the second speaker.

Images produced by the panel are what we expect from a Samsung E4 AMOLED Panel with crisp text with bright and vibrant colors. 

The Phone's body is IP54 but has a special AeroActive Portal that opens up only when the included cooling fan is attached.

Top and bottom sides

On top are antenna lines with one having a microphone port while at the bottom are more antenna lines, a USB-C port, regulatory information, a microphone, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate left side

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate right side

On the left side of the phone are the SIM tray, second USB-C port, and antenna lines while on the right side are the Air Triggers, metal volume rocker, metal power button and a microphone port.

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate Rear Cameras

At the back are the 50MP f/1.9 primary camera with a Sony IMX766 sensor, 13MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera, and a 5MP f/2.0 macro camera with an LED flash. While in front is a 32MP selfie camera.

The stock camera app includes the following modes: Photo, Video, Portrait, Night, and more.

First Camera Samples

Rear camera 1x daylight

Rear camera ultra-wide daylight

In daylight, the rear cameras produced images that are not the best we've seen in its price segment. The color, detail, sharpness and contrast could be tweaked.

Rear camera 1x lowlight

Rear camera ultra-wide lowlight

While in low light, the images are seemingly better than in daylight. The color is more vibrant when compared to daylight. What is even more impressive is the low amount of noise in both 1x and ultra-wide cameras.

Overall, the rear cameras' images produced mixed results. We preferred the low-light images over the daylight images.

The 32MP front-facing camera features the following mode: Photo, Video, Night, and Portrait.

Daylight Selfie

The daylight selfies have decent sharpness and contrast but the colors could use some tweaking.

However, the indoor and low-light selfies suffered from noise build-up. These images lost sharpness, detail and color accuracy.

Overall, the camera's performance is a hit or miss and the camera app is bare bones.

Performance

AnTuTu and GeekBench

We ran some benchmarks including Antutu where we got a score of 1,319,623. While on Geekbench we got 2,014 points on the single core and 5,550 on the multi-core tests.

3DMark and CPDT

In 3DMark Wild Life Extreme the phone managed to score 3,759 overall with an average of 22.5 fps. While si CPDT scored 1.5GB/s in sequential read speeds and it scored 1.08 GB/s in sequential write speeds.

In real-life use, the phone runs super smooth. We have yet to experience stuttering or slowdowns in the one month we had with the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate.

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate Genshin Impact

The phone unlocked Medium graphics as the default for Genshin Impact. As expected, the phone runs the game smoothly. What surprised us is the phone ran relatively cool longer than we expected it to.

Honkai Star rail High graphics at 30fps

When pushing the graphics of Honkai Star Rail, the phone does warm up after 30 minutes of playing the game.

Armory Crate after running Honkai Star Rail on High

As you can see, the phone's CPU reached 54 degrees while the GPU reached 51 degrees after pushing Honkai Star Rail for more than 30 minutes. When pushing the graphics, we recommend using the included cooling fan attachment.

Battery benchmark and usage

The 5,000mAh battery managed to last for 15 hours and 5 minutes in our usual PCMark Battery benchmark. This is consistent with the phone running YouTube for more than 9 hours which yielded a total of 7 hours and 34 minutes of on-screen time.

The stereo front-firing speakers produce some of the loudest and fullest sounds we've had yet on a smartphone. The left and right add directionality and adds a large sound stage which helps in the immersion of the games we are playing on the phone. This also makes it great for consuming content from YouTube or other streaming services.

The fingerprint reader and Face Unlock are easy and quick to set up. Once set up, both detect our face and our fingerprint immediately unlock the phone. The camera struggles when the environment is dark or when we are wearing a mask. The screen brightens up to compensate for dark situations

For connectivity, 5G, VoLTE, WiFi, Bluetooth, and NFC work consistently and as expected.

It is using a custom skin on top of Android 13 that lets users pick between ROG UI or Zen UI at the initial set-up of the phone.

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate web surfing

ROG Phone 7 Ultimate Specs

Display: 6.8-inch Samsung E4 AMOLED screen w/ 165Hz refresh rate, FHD+ 2448 x 1080 resolution at 394 ppi
CPU: 3.19GHz 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 octa-core processor
GPU: New-Adreno
RAM: 12GB/16GB LPDDR5X
ROM: 128GB/256GB/512GB UFS 3.1
Back Camera: 50MP f/1.9 Sony IMX766 + 13MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle + 5MP f/2.0 macro + LED flash
Selfie Camera: 32MP
Battery: 6,000mAh w/ 65W fast charging
OS: Android 13 w/ ROG UI, Zen UI
Connectivity: WiFi 7 (2.4GHz/5Ghz), 5G, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.3, OTG, GPS, NFC, dual SIM (nano)
Sensors: Accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic
Others: In-Display fingerprint sensor, stereo speakers, IP54, AeroActive Portal, cooling system, USB-C, Colors: White
Dimensions: 173 x 77 x 10.3 mm
Weight: 239 g
Price: PHP 69,995 (16GB/512GB)

Quick thoughts

The ROG Phone 7 Ultimate offers one of the most bleeding-edge raw performances on a smartphone for 2023.

It managed to smoke other flagships in CPU, GPU, memory, cooling and battery. It may not have the fastest charging but the endurance is one of the best.

One other feature we love is the front-facing stereo speakers and the inclusion of the cooling fan inside the box.

When pushed, the phone can still run games like Honkai Star Rail for an extended period. However, it will still heat up and may need an external cooling fan.

Our only gripe are the camera performance, but given that this is a gaming phone first and foremost, we can forgive it.

If you want the best performing gaming phone on the Philippine market today, then we highly recommend the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate.

What do you guys think?