With last year’sROG Phone 8, Asus pushed its smartphone line towards a more consumer-friendly design while retaining its powerful hardware and gaming focus. The ROG Phone 9 and ROG Phone 9 Pro continue that trend and, for the moment, give Asus the best gaming smartphones on the market.
ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro Design
Asushas kept the ROG Phone 9 Pro’s design in line with the company’s current products. It features an etched glass back with a nice texture to ensure a strong grip. It has the signature square-with-one-corner-missing raised notch for its camera array. And it wouldn’t be an Asus device without a little extra flair, which comes in the form of AniMe Vision.
Similar to last year’s model, the ROG Phone 9 Pro’s AniMe Vision implementation features a series of 648 LEDs (more than double last year’s 341) that create a “display” on the back of the phone. With AniMe Vision, you’re able to give the back of your phone a little more personality and surface information like the time and battery level, or program in a custom GIF. The Pro version of the phone also lets you play a couple of games on AniMe Vision as well.
The screen on the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro is the same as last year’s Pro model, with one small caveat. It’s still a 6.8-inch AMOLED display with LTPO capable of 2,500 nit peak brightness and 165Hz. The one slight difference is that toggling on a Game Sense feature in the 9 Pro’s software lets you bump the refresh rate up to 185Hz. Still, it’s an impressive, vibrant screen with performance that matches the phone’s gaming capabilities.
While the stylized elements of the ROG Phone 9 Pro will help set it apart, Asus has kept the IP68 dust and water resistance rating from last year. It was a big leap towards giving its phones a wider appeal, and it’s great to see that Asus is sticking to that.
AirTriggers are also back this year, which is Asus’ version of shoulder buttons. On the edge of the phone (the top when in landscape gaming mode), are two buttons, one on the left and one on the right. They are easy to press and find thanks to an added texture, and Asus has given themhaptic feedback for added immersion. Gaming is still where Asus’ smartphones set themselves apart, and AirTriggers is one of the most unique ways that they do so.
Overall, the Asus ROG Phone 9 feels great in the hands; it’s a sleek looking phone, and it has some added flair for those who want it. And yes, you can turn off AniMe Vision and have it look more like a regular smartphone.
Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro is a Powerhouse
Looks are great but it’s what’s under the hood that makes a difference in the ROG Phone 9 Pro. As one would expect of a flagship 2025 smartphone, the Asus ROG Phone 9 boasts the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip for top-of-the-line performance. The Pro version also includes a whopping 24GB of 9600 MbpsLPDDR5x RAM. Needless to say, this is a beast of a smartphone that can zip through any task.
In my testing of the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro, every action was snappy and responsive. The camera app loads instantly, switching apps is obscenely fast, and there was never any noticeable slowdown. As a daily driver, the ROG Phone 9 Pro is a bit overkill, but having that horsepower to perform tasks is a huge benefit all the same.
On the gaming side, you aren’t going to get a smartphone more powerful than the ROG Phone 9 Pro at this point. There aren’t a ton of taxing games to throw at a device like this, but console-on-mobile titles likeGenshin ImpactandFortnitecan exceed 90 FPS on the device at high settings. This is simply the best gaming phone available (or it will be when it releases), and the performance across the board is such that you can enjoy console-level frame rates and graphics without any major concessions.
Asus also gives gamers some software love as well, with Armoury Crate and X Sense. Armoury Crate is the built-in app on the ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro (and theROG Ally X) that allows you to customize performance and settings. You can take the training wheels off and let the full power of the device loose for gaming, or you can dial things back to preserve battery life. It’s all completely optional and only there for those who like to tinker, but if you’re picking up the 9 Pro, you likely fall into that category.
While gaming, the X Sense dashboard offers its own set of tweaks and customizations including the ability to bump the refresh rate up to 185Hz, lock certain areas of the screen from touch, or set the performance mode. Because many mobile titles don’t offer in-game customization, X Sense allows you to get the best performance out of your titles.
Other Key Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro Features
Asus has done well to make as many cooling accommodations as possible with the ROG Phone 9 Pro with the IP68 rating, but the device is still going to get a little warm to the touch. The “Pro Edition” version of the phone comes with an AeroActive Cooler X Pro accessory to improve the thermals on the device. For short bursts, the 9 Pro can keep temperatures reasonable without any added consideration, but longer sessions where you are pushing performance can heat up the device over time.
Artificial Intelligence is going to be a key featureof most smartphones for the next few generations, and the ROG Phone 9 Pro is no different. However, rather than a ton of implementations that focus on making daily tasks easier (there are some of those), Asus uses it to improve your gaming experience.
Packaged into X Sense, Asus has given players AI features that allow them to perform actions without taking their attention away from the game. For example, X Sense can automatically pick up items or speed up conversations inGenshin Impact. It can allow you to highlight a bit of text on screen and then search for guide info related to that prompt. There is also a feature where X Sense will record gameplay during a Gatcha segment of popular genre titles likeGenshinorHonkai Star Rail, and record key kills inArena of Valor.
Currently, the interactivity with games is quite limited – mostly to Gatcha titles and a few other mobile games – but the potential is there if the games support it. I could see something likePokemon TCG Pockettapping into X Sense to make opening your daily packs an automated process. Again, it’s up to each developer, but the possibilities are exciting.
Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro Camera
The camera system on the ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro includes:
While the differences between a gaming phone and a daily driver will vary from person to person, having a decent quality camera system feels like a necessity these days. I think that Asus’ offering is good but it still struggles in low light situations. The main camera can capture a ton of detail and deliver an accurate and clear picture, but zooming in or going to a darker setting can produce some noise in the image, even with the AI helping to smooth things out. By no means are the cameras bad, but they are not in the same upper echelon as the performance.
Other points of note with the ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro:
The 9 Pro has the same audio system that seeks to mimic sound coming towards you instead of from the underside of the phone. It’s fine, but nothing great. If you are looking for the best presentation, headphones are the way to go.
This year’s model has a slightly larger 5,800 MAh battery. I was able to get a full days worth of moderate use on a single charge. Gaming, on the other hand, will tax the device tremendously, even though power draw has been improved.
There are some non-gaming AI features on the phone like interview transcripts, image optimization, call translator, semantic search in your image library, and AI wallpaper. It’s nothing too revolutionary but the transcript feature was a nice bonus for my interviews.
ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro: Final Thoughts
If you are looking for the best gaming phone on the market, it’s hard to imagine the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro being topped in 2025. The new Snapdragon chip makes it extremely snappy and the tons of RAM allow games to offer console-life graphics and performance. Its design has some flashy elements, but it’s also not a device that screams “gamer phone” if you don’t use AniMe Vision. Camera and audio quality are two weaker points, but they are still solid.
At one point, Asus’ smartphone offerings were focused exclusively on gaming and nothing else. Now, with the ROG Phone 9 Pro, the company makes a strong case for a daily driver that just so happens to be really powerful. It more than justifies the $1,199 price point, even if that is still very steep, and it is sure to be one of the best phones for gamers to have next year.
Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro
The ROG Phone 9 Pro is Asus' latest iteration of one of the most powerful gaming smartphones on the market. This phone comes with extreme levels of performance thanks to its Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, featuring a market-leading mobile CPU and GPU. Gaming is smoother and more vibrant, thanks to the 6.78-inch AMOLED display, delivering 1080 x 2400 pixels and up to 185 Hz refresh rate.In addition to excellent gaming performance, the smartphone features a triple camera setup with up to 50-megapixel sensors. The ROG Phone 9 Pro also has 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of lightning-fast storage.
The ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro is available for $1,199 or $1,499 for the Pro Edition. Game Rant was provided the Pro Edition for this review.
