This gaming powerhouse isn’t available in Canada

The Asus ROG Phone 9 is not coming to Canada, which I should get out of the way immediately because I will say many nice things about this device that you can’t purchase unless you travel to the U.S.

First and foremost, this is the first device I’ve used that features Qualcomm’s incredibly quick and powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite. It also has a 5,800mAh battery, the largest battery I’ve ever used on any smartphone, and boy, was it helpful. It also has 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage and up to a 185Hz refresh rate.

This handset is a spec-beast, and as someone who’s reviewed plenty of phones, wielding something with such high-level specs and power has been entertaining mainly because I played many games.

There are nicer-looking and feeling phones design-wise. The ROG Phone 9 is heavy, weighing 227g, which is heavier than any other handset on the market—that doesn’t fold. However, the device sports a matte finish with a crystalized nano-texture that provides a silky touch that feels great. The phone’s texture is fingerprint-free, but it’s not smudge-free if you have a bit of grease on your fingers. The back also has the iconic ‘Fearless Eye’ ROG logo and a slash pattern, which is pretty stylish. I don’t think this would be great for everyone, but it’s not bad, especially for geeky gamers like myself.

The ROG Phone 9 also has AniMe Vision, first available on the ROG Phone 8 Pro. I didn’t play with that phone, so trying this out has been pretty fun. The ROG Phone 9 has 85 LEDs integrated into the back. There are many pre-loaded animations; one shows the time, and another looks like a horizontal Space Invader for when you’re playing games. AniMe also showcases the weather when you’re getting a notification, and you can even make it say a word – mine says “Slay.” It’s a gimmick, I know, but I’ll say this repeatedly: I love fun gimmicks. The ROG Phone 9 Pro has 648 LEDs and can do even more, like play games, and I wanted to get my hands on that too, but maybe another day.

Oh, and the handset has a headphone jack. I have to be honest, and I didn’t use it once. I don’t own any headphones with wires anymore, but they are excellent, and I wish more devices had them. It’s not strictly for me, but I love that it gives people an extra option.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite is incredibly powerful. I haven’t had any issues with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 devices, A18 Pro or Tensor G4 processors this year, but everything is moving incredibly fast. I’ve been running everything, multiple apps at once, in the background, ROG’s X Mode, which pushes everything to the brink, I even have a 720Hz touch sampling rate turned on, which is insane for a smartphone.

Touch-sensing refers to the frequency at which a phone tracks the movement of your finger. Typical smartphones have a 60Hz touch sample rate, which tracks the screen every 16.6ms. A touch sampling rate of 720Hz is 12 times faster than most other handsets, which is incredibly impressive. Combined with up to an 185Hz refresh rate, plus running other games in the background and refusing to close apps simply for fun, the 8 Elite has been able to run these all without any faults. And I’m not shocked that the ROG Phone 9 could do this, as it sports the best benchmarks I’ve ever seen.

Benchmarks don’t necessarily equate to real-life experience, but it makes sense. The ROG Phone 9 featured a single-core score of 3156 and a multi-core score of 10,002, which is insane, and even the iPhone 16 Pro series doesn’t match these scores.

This all explains why gaming was so great on the device. I’ve played Pokémon TCG Pocket, Dead Cells, Grimvalor, Haak, Marvel Snap, Scourgebringer, and lastly Wild Rift. While playing Riot Games’ MOBA, I even turned up the resolution, graphics quality, and effects quality to their highest possible settings. And while I couldn’t have all these settings set to their max when I had the frame rates up to 120Hz, I still had the settings high. No matter what, the game ran smoothly, and there weren’t any problems. I’ve been using the X Mode, which uses the CPU and GPU to push its clock speeds and boost performance. It also limits thermals, which makes the device never warm after an hour of playing.

Unfortunately, I missed a lot of the AI gaming features.

There are features for games like Genshin Impact that can automatically pick up objects, automatically run, or quickly escape from tricky enemies. Some MOBAs have an auto skill upgrade, which works for Wild Rift, but I mostly played ARAM, a mode this feature doesn’t work with – I don’t think.

The device also has a cool AirTrigger system, which works like a gamepad’s L and R buttons. You can control what these do as well, and it was pretty cool to play around with, but it wasn’t anything I needed to use when gaming. The device also sports a 5,800mAh battery that can survive up to two days. On days when I’m gaming a bit more, the handset can easily make it a day. The handset probably has the best battery I’ve tried out in a while.

This phone seems perfect, but its camera needs to be improved. A lot of the images looked muted and undersaturated. Strangely, the sky seemed pretty blue despite everything else looking muted. I even thought some sort of scene optimizer was turned on, but there wasn’t. I’m complaining about the camera experience; it’s not horrible. I’m comparing the devices on the market, like the iPhone 16 Pro Max, Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, and Galaxy S24 Ultra, but if you’re not buying this phone for its camera, the pictures are pretty solid.

The ROG Phone 9 has been incredibly fun to use and play games with. It’s been fun bumping all the specs to their max and playing Wild Rift without the device getting warm. There were a lot of AI features, but most were game-related, and I didn’t use them for the game I was playing. The handset doesn’t take the best pictures, but if you’re not someone who takes a lot of shots, you probably won’t mind, especially if you’re a geek who just wants to play.

The ROG Phone 9 is a solid phone, and I’m happy I got the chance to play around with the handset.