Asus ROG Phone 9 delivers elite gaming performance, but audio and software support lag rivals

The Asus ROG Phone 9 arrives in January as a $1,000 machine built for one purpose: making mobile games run faster and smoother than anything else on the market. It succeeds at that mission with impressive single-mindedness. The Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, overclocked through Asus's proprietary X Mode, delivers benchmark scores that leave the iPhone 16 Pro behind by over 200 points in single-core tests and 1,200 points in multi-core performance. In actual gameplay—Call of Duty Warzone at maximum settings, Diablo Immortal at 60 frames per second—the phone never stutters, never throttles, never breaks a sweat, even without the optional external cooler strapped to its back.

But a gaming phone that costs as much as a laptop reveals something uncomfortable about Asus's priorities. The speakers sound like they belong on a device half the price. Tinny, thin, easily blocked by your palm, they force you toward headphones the moment you want to hear anything. Side by side with an iPhone 16 Pro or Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, the audio gap is not subtle. It's the kind of shortcoming that shouldn't exist at this price point, yet here it is, a persistent reminder that Asus chose to spend engineering resources elsewhere.

The display tells a similar story. The 6.78-inch AMOLED panel is bright enough to play Genshin Impact in direct sunlight without squinting, and it can refresh at up to 185 Hz if a game supports it. But the resolution is FHD—2400 by 1080 pixels—while the Galaxy S24 Ultra pushes 1440 by 3120. For a thousand dollars, the screen feels like a compromise, a place where Asus decided good enough was good enough.

What Asus did commit to is battery life and gaming-specific features. The 5,800 mAh battery easily lasts a full day of mixed use, and after an hour of continuous gaming in the morning, the phone still had 70 percent charge remaining. The AeroActive Cooler X, a $120 accessory that magnetically attaches to the phone's middle, houses additional trigger buttons that work alongside the touch-sensitive Air Triggers built into the frame. Through the Armoury Crate software, you can map these triggers to specific in-game actions—picking up items in Diablo Immortal, bringing up maps, executing combos. The system works, offers haptic feedback, and feels responsive enough that you forget you're using a phone.

The software layer is where Asus's gaming obsession becomes most visible. Game Genie, accessed by swiping from the top left corner, lets you adjust performance settings, monitor frame rates and temperatures, and activate triggers without leaving your game. It's fast and intuitive. Armoury Crate handles the deeper customization—performance profiles, trigger presets, LED lighting on the back. These tools work well for what they are. Less successful are the AI features, which currently only automate tasks in Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. For anyone playing other games, they're invisible.

Then there's the software support question, which Asus has not addressed despite user complaints about the previous generation. The ROG Phone 9 receives two years of operating system updates and five years of security patches. The Google Pixel 9 offers seven years of both. For a device at this price, positioned as a premium product, two years feels short—a signal that Asus expects you to upgrade sooner rather than keep the phone alive longer.

The camera is competent but unremarkable. The 50-megapixel main sensor produces detailed shots in good light, but in direct sunlight you'll notice haloing around bright edges, and night photography looks especially poor. The new 6-axis gimbal stabilization system is a nice addition on paper, though testing it only while walking around didn't reveal anything the iPhone 16 Pro couldn't match. Portrait Video and AI Panning are clever distractions, but they don't elevate the camera to flagship status.

What emerges is a phone that knows exactly who it's for and builds everything around that person. If you want the fastest Android phone available, if you play demanding games regularly, if you're willing to use external accessories and headphones to fill in the gaps, the ROG Phone 9 makes sense. But that's a narrow audience. For everyone else—the person who wants a complete, balanced premium phone that doesn't require workarounds—Asus is asking too much for too many compromises.