ROG Phone 9 Pro In-Depth Review: A Flagship Experience Ushering in the "High Frame Rate Era"

ROG Phone 9 Pro In-Depth Review: A Flagship Experience Ushering in the "High Frame Rate Era"In the gaming phone arena, ROG Phones have consistently held a leading position thanks to their exceptional performance and ultimate gaming experience. With the release of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, Android flagships entered the era of full-fledged large cores, significantly improving performance and energy efficiency

ROG Phone 9 Pro In-Depth Review: A Flagship Experience Ushering in the "High Frame Rate Era"

In the gaming phone arena, ROG Phones have consistently held a leading position thanks to their exceptional performance and ultimate gaming experience. With the release of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, Android flagships entered the era of full-fledged large cores, significantly improving performance and energy efficiency. ROG quickly followed suit, launching the new ROG Phone 9 series powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. This phone not only boasts a massive AniMe Matrix display capable of showing time, battery level, music playback status, and even playing pixel games, but its unique visual presentation is truly stunning. The ROG Phone 9 Pro also features numerous innovations in game detail design, striving to provide players with an unprecedented gaming experience. This article will delve into the features and performance of the ROG Phone 9 Pro, showcasing its unique appeal as a flagship gaming phone.

I. Striking Flagship Appearance: A King's Presence, Inside and Out

The continued popularity of mobile gaming has narrowed the gap between flagship phones and gaming phones in terms of performance release and heat dissipation hardware. However, relying solely on a cool appearance is insufficient for gaming phones to break through the niche enthusiast circle and reach a wider market. Therefore, establishing a "Flagship Phone Gaming Plus" first impression is crucial.

The ROG Phone 9 series includes standard and Pro versions, both adopting a minimalist designa "suit-wearing thug," subtly powerful. The ROG Phone 9 Pro features a Shadow Black color scheme (the standard ROG Phone 9 offers Phantom White and Shadow Black), with a more refined appearance than the standard version. It inherits the classic design of its predecessor and innovates and improves upon the AniMe Matrix display.

In everyday use, with the AniMe Matrix display off, the ROG Phone 9 Pro boasts a clean, all-black aesthetic, accented only by a touch of red below the camera module. Gaming aesthetic elements and color use are very restrained; only at specific angles can you see the subtly etched, glossy mid-section lines and ROG logo, discreetly showcasing its appeal as a top-tier gaming flagship.

The back of the ROG Phone 9 Pro features a unibody crystal nano-textured frosted glass, providing a smooth, non-slip, and wear-resistant surface that effectively prevents fingerprint smudges. The phone is lightweight, weighing approximately the same as a typical flagship phone at only 227g. All four corners are curved, and the shoulder buttons feature an etched logo for blind-touch feedback, ensuring comfortable single-handed or dual-handed shoulder button operation. A flat display, centered weight, IP68 protection, and an ultra-fast screen wake-up further highlight its differences from traditional flagship phones, allowing gaming enthusiasts to quickly perceive its unique quality.

II. The Evolved AniMe Matrix Display: Redefining Audio-Visual Spectacles

If the above design isn't enough to showcase its gaming pedigree, then the AniMe Matrix display and sound effects design will comprehensively enhance the audio-visual experience, demonstrating the unique charm of a gaming phone.

The AniMe Matrix display first appeared on the ROG Phone 8 Pro and received widespread acclaim. The ROG Phone 9 Pro's AniMe Matrix display is composed of over 648 Mini-LEDsnearly double the number! This significantly improves animation completion and detail, delivering stunning cyberpunk dynamic lighting effects in over ten daily scenarios, including music playback, photography, gaming, and information alerts.

Two scenarios were particularly impressive: firstly, using it as a technologically advanced bedside clock; and secondly, using AniMe Play mini-games to alleviate boredom while waiting in line.

The AniMe Matrix display includes many homages to classic game elements; many dynamic elements originate from classic NES games, and the games also display cute ROG joystick icons. Music playback and information alerts are also presented in animated form. During photography, the display provides a smiling face prompt for the subject, and during video recording, it displays a time animation, which is very user-friendly for phones lacking a secondary monitor.

• AniMe Play currently includes four classic mini-games: Dino Run, Snake, Plane War, and Pinball, offering a fun gaming experience. When two phones equipped with the AniMe Matrix display are brought close together via NFC, a new matrix animation is unlocked, with an animation Easter egg similar to the power-up sequence in Contra during the unlocking process.

III. Flagship Hardware Upgrades: The Perfect Balance of Performance and Efficiency

Beyond the upgraded appearance and AniMe Matrix display, the ROG Phone 9 Pro also boasts significant hardware improvements. Its pentagonal camera module houses three cameras: a 50-megapixel main camera (top left), upgraded with a 5 motion compensation six-axis anti-shake Hybrid Gimbal 4.0 system and a new Sony IMX766 sensor; two secondary cameras on the right, a 32-megapixel 3x telephoto lens and a 0.7x free-form ultra-wide-angle lens; and a 32-megapixel wide-angle front-facing camera. This upgraded camera module further enhances dynamic video recording performance.

The ROG Phone 9 series features a 6.78-inch Samsung E6 AMOLED flexible screen with a 24001080 resolution, 1600 nits full-screen brightness, and a peak brightness of 2500 nits. The screen refresh rate has been upgraded from 165Hz to 185Hz, exceeding the dynamic performance of current mainstream esports displays, and supports LTPO adaptive refresh rate adjustment to effectively reduce power consumption. Battery capacity has also been increased to 5800mAh, excellent for a phone of its thickness, enhancing practicality.

Gaming features retain the AirTrigger shoulder buttons and side-mounted full-function Type-C port design. The side port's priority over the central port aligns with landscape gaming habits, allowing for fast charging even with low battery levels, preventing game interruptions. 65W HyperCharge fast charging and 15W Qi 1.3 wireless charging are also retained. The etched AirTrigger shoulder buttons avoid accidental touches while providing sufficient blind-touch feedback.

The ROG Phone 9 Pro's SoC core configuration has been upgraded again. As the core of a gaming flagship, the SoC's performance directly determines the gaming experience. The ROG Phone 9 series is equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, based on a second-generation 4nm process, featuring a 2+6 full large-core Oryon CPU mobile platform with a super core clock speed of up to 3.2GHz. The new Qualcomm Adreno GPU and enhanced Qualcomm Hexagon NPU result in a 45% increase in CPU performance, a 40% increase in GPU performance, and a 40% reduction in power consumption, achieving a dual evolution in performance and energy efficiency. The enhanced NPU performance has also improved by 40%, offering more efficient support for terminal-side multimodal generative AI assistants and applications. The ROG Phone 9 Pro adds many practical AI-related features.

In terms of cooling, the ROG Phone 9 Pro employs a centered SoC and dual-cell battery design, optimizing the overall cooling architecture. The Matrix Cooling System 9.0 consists of an inner layer of direct heat-conductive copper pillars from the SoC, a middle layer of graphene and stainless steel plates, and an outer layer of boron nitride filling, intelligently adjusting the cooling strategy depending on game duration: short-term gaming relies on efficient copper pillar + boron nitride cooling; medium-to-long-term gaming uses graphene heat conduction; and long-term gaming activates the AeroActive Cooler X Pro.

IV. The "High Frame Rate Era": Smooth Gaming Experience

The ROG Phone 9 Pro's hardware upgrades significantly enhance the actual gaming experience. Antutu scores easily break 3.1 million, GeekBench 6 single-core scores reach 3190, and multi-core scores reach 10122. The 3DMark Wild Life stress test stability reaches 95.8%, Wild Life Extreme stress test stability reaches 99.5%, and Solar Bay stress test stability reaches 99.7%.

• In Genshin Impact at the highest graphics settings/60fps, the average frame rate is 60.1fps, with a 100% success rate above 25fps. The game's AI smart prompting feature provides useful functions such as run locking, auto-pickup, and intelligent dialogue acceleration, significantly improving the gaming experience.

• In Tower of Fantasy at the highest graphics settings/60fps, the average frame rate over a 10-minute session is 59.5fps, with a 98.7% completion rate above 25fps.

• In Delta Force at 120Hz/second-highest graphics settings, the average frame rate is 117.5fps, with frame rate fluctuations between 115fps and 122fps during combat.

• All the above tests were conducted in X mode + AeroActive Cooler X Pro extreme cooling mode. After 30 minutes of free roaming in Tower of Fantasy, the surface temperature of the phone with the AeroActive Cooler X Pro was only 31.4C, while the surface temperature without the fan was