ROG Phone 9 Series In-Depth Review: Performance, Cooling, and AI Features Get a Major Upgrade Embodying "Super AI Play"

ROG Phone 9 Series In-Depth Review: Performance, Cooling, and AI Features Get a Major Upgrade Embodying "Super AI Play"ASUS's ROG Phone 9 series has arrived, inheriting the ROG family's consistently powerful performance and innovative design. Under the slogan "Super AI Play," the series boasts significant upgrades in gaming experience, cooling system, and AI functionalities

ROG Phone 9 Series In-Depth Review: Performance, Cooling, and AI Features Get a Major Upgrade Embodying "Super AI Play"

ASUS's ROG Phone 9 series has arrived, inheriting the ROG family's consistently powerful performance and innovative design. Under the slogan "Super AI Play," the series boasts significant upgrades in gaming experience, cooling system, and AI functionalities. Maintaining the iconic ROG design language, the fearless eye and slanted lines remain classic elements. The phone maintains a thickness of 8.9mm and weighs only 227g, a mere 2g heavier than its predecessor. The back is crafted from a single piece of glass, precisely etched for a matte finish and coated with ice crystal nano-texture, resulting in a smooth touch and fingerprint resistance. The standard version comes in Shadow Black and Phantom colors, while the Pro version is only available in Shadow Black.

The ROG Phone 9 series retains the 6.78-inch Samsung E6 AMOLED display from its predecessor, boasting a 2400x1800 resolution, 1600 nits typical brightness, and a peak brightness of 2500 nits. However, the biggest upgrade is the refresh rate jump from 165Hz to 185Hz, currently supported by games like CrossFire, and continues to support LTOP adaptive refresh rate technology, ensuring a smooth experience while effectively reducing power consumption.

Notably, the ROG Phone 9 standard version features the AniMe Vision matrix display for the first time. While it only has 85 Mini LED lights, it still offers considerable playability and supports custom patterns. The ROG Phone 9 Pro, however, ups the ante with 648 Mini LED lightsnearly double that of the previous generationand offers richer functionalities, including displaying Chinese text and uploading custom GIF animations (266x247 resolution). The Pro version uniquely supports AniMePlay, allowing players to control classic pixel games like pinball, airplane combat, Snake, and runner games via the shoulder buttons on the matrix display. Furthermore, ROG has included an Easter egg for ROG Phone 8 Pro, ROG Phone 9, and ROG Phone 9 Pro owners with matrix displays: touching the tops of two phones together allows for NFC pairing and unlocks a unique animation.

Performance-wise, the ROG Phone 9 series is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor. The standard version offers up to 16GB of LPDDR5X-9600 RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage, while the Pro version boasts a maximum configuration of 24GB RAM and 1TB of storage. A benchmark for gaming phones, X Mode further boosts CPU and GPU frequencies, achieving Antutu scores easily exceeding 3.14 million, and GeekBench scores surpassing 3200+ (single-core) and 10100+ (multi-core), resulting in a more stable game frame rate curve.

The series also introduces intelligent game performance monitoring, providing real-time monitoring of the entire system and game status to ensure stability and optimize each game individually, maximizing energy efficiency. Official data shows a power consumption reduction of up to 30% compared to the ROG Phone 8.

In terms of cooling, the ROG Phone 9 series upgrades to the Matrix Liquid Cooling System 9.0, retaining the centrally located CPU architecture, five-stage design, heat-conductive copper columns, and side Type-C port. This upgrade focuses on increasing the volume of graphene material and offering different cooling solutions for varying game durations. For short games (1-15 minutes), boron nitride (BN) material and heat-conductive copper columns provide rapid cooling; for medium-length games (15-30 minutes), the graphene volume is increased by 57%, improving cooling capacity by 12%; and for games lasting 30 minutes or more, the AeroActive Cooler X Pro is recommended. Its fan diameter is increased by 12.5%, and the composite cooling material extends to the fan base. This cooler also integrates a low-frequency speaker, forming a 2.1-channel sound system with the phone's built-in dual speakers, improving bass by 123.9%, and includes two physical buttons that simulate screen taps with haptic feedback. Officially, the Matrix Liquid Cooling System 9.0 keeps the back cover temperature around 45 during gaming, a 2-5 decrease compared to the previous generation. Additionally, ROG offers the ROG Glacial Cooling Case as an accessory, incorporating a VC vacuum chamber heat plate that can reduce temperature by up to 17%, and uses non-metallic composite materials to avoid signal interference.

While not its core selling point, the ROG Phone 9 series's camera system still meets daily shooting needs. The main camera is upgraded to a Sony IMX766, with a 1/1.56-inch sensor and 50MP effective pixels, supporting 2x optical zoom, optical image stabilization, and a 12MP mode. A key upgrade is the six-axis hybrid gimbal, enhanced from version 3.0 to 5.0, increasing the motion compensation range from 3 degrees to 5 degrees, resulting in a 66% improvement in stability. The ultrawide lens remains a 13MP free-form lens with a maximum 0.7x zoom. The standard version features a 5MP macro lens, while the Pro version has a 32MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom and optical image stabilization. The front camera remains a 32MP sensor.

AI functionalities are a major highlight of the ROG Phone 9 series, perfectly reflected in its "Super AI Play" slogan. In gaming, AI features include buff detection, kill effects, automatic item pickup, unlock control (freezing, etc.), accelerated dialogue, running lock, X automatic screen recording (highlights and gacha pulls), AI screen recognition (copying/searching text/automatic translation), and AI noise reduction for voice calls. For photography, AI features include four color styles, AirTrigger shoulder button simulated shutter, quick photography, AI focus tracking shutter, AI image segmentation algorithm, and AI portrait photography. Daily applications include AI real-time translation for calls and AI recording summarization.

The ROG Phone 9 series' battery capacity is increased from 5500mAh to 5800mAh, improving energy density by 3.5% and extending lifespan by 25%. Charging remains at 65W wired fast charging and 15W wireless fast charging. Audio continues its collaboration with Dirac Virtuo, receiving a small gold award certification, and retains the advanced 3.5mm headphone jack. The included protective case supports Audio Redirection technology, guiding sound from the bottom to the front and providing optimized sound effects.

In conclusion, the ROG Phone 9 series has undergone comprehensive upgrades in performance, cooling, AI features, and imaging, offering gamers an unparalleled gaming experience and rich feature choices, truly deserving its title as a leader in the gaming phone market. Its "Super AI Play" slogan perfectly encapsulates the essence of this phone.