DO NOT BUY ROG Phone 8 Pro

Hello, welcome back to a new video. So

today we have to talk about the brand new

ROG Phone Pro 8,

the newest gaming phone from ASUS, or

ASUS. And I just don't understand why this

phone exists. So it's a really expensive

phone, it's like $1,200 US, which is

insanely expensive for a phone like this.

And it has some really powerful hardware

specs like the latest Snapdragon Gen 3,

which is the most powerful mobile chip out

right now, and 24GB of RAM. So it's

extremely extremely capable of playing

games and being a good handheld gaming

device. But the biggest problem isn't the

hardware, it's the software. So obviously

it's running Android, a mobile operating

system, and I don't know about you, but

the Android App Store has absolutely

rubbish games. They're all just rubbish

games like Raid Shadow Legends, Clash of

Clans, Candy Crush, Call of Duty Mobile,

or it's got like a bunch of old games that

came out like 10 years ago that have been

ported to mobile. You won't be able to do

any good gaming on it. The only big game

that's kind of modern is, I guess,

Genshin Impact, which is very popular with

people who are into Japanese kind of

JRPGs. And yeah, you can get like Final

Fantasy 9 or 10. Some really old games are

on it that used to be on PlayStation 3 or

2, but the games on it are just very

lacking in luster. And as someone who

likes gaming, I would never want to spend

so much money on a really cool piece of

hardware that has such a limited amount of

games on it. So there's a few big

differences that the ROG Phone Pro 8 has

over the previous generation of ROG gaming

phones. So the ROG Gaming Phone 7 had a

very in-your-face kind of gamer design

with a little screen on the back and all

these different shapes that ASUS really

like to use, these kind of geometric

shapes here and there. But the ROG Phone

8— but the ROG Gaming Phone Pro 8

is trying to take a step away from that

and look more like a normal phone with a

much more mature and adult kind of theme

and design. And this is kind of boring.

If we wanted a normal looking phone, we'd

just get a Samsung or an iPhone. The whole

appeal of an ROG gaming phone is that it

looks like a gaming phone, but now it

doesn't look like a gaming phone anymore,

and they've just wasted their time and

resources on things like a 50-megapixel

camera. Again, if we wanted a decent

camera, we'd get an iPhone or Samsung.

You want to get this phone because you

want to game, not really take photos. So

no one really cares that much about the

photos or the video capability. And then

the other thing they're boasting about is

its water proof ability. So before it's

just splash resistant, but now it's fully

waterproof, which I don't see the point

of. Or who cares? When do you ever really

get your phone completely submerged in

water? I guess one cool thing about it

being completely waterproof is if the

phone gets really hot from all the gaming,

you can just submerge it into like a tub

of water and then use a wireless

controller, and then you could just have

it in the tub of water being liquid

cooled. That could be a good way to keep

the thing cool. So when it comes to mobile

gaming, there's quite a few big problems.

Number one, the games on the Android store

really suck. Well, you can play Stardew

Valley on your brand new $1,200, 24GB RAM

gaming phone, or you're gonna play some,

I don't know, Pokémon Go, like some stupid

mobile game. All these mobile games suck.

So if they had good games, like actual

Steam games on it, like you get on

Windows, then maybe it would be an

interesting idea. But then even if it had

good games on it, there's 2 other

problems. Number one, there's no buttons.

You've got a play touchscreen and there's

like some trigger buttons, but they're not

actually buttons, they're just like haptic

feedback capacitive buttons that don't

actually move. And then you've got the

cooling problem. So to fix these 2

problems, number one, you can get like a

Sony Backbone and add physical controls to

your phone. So now it's got controllers.

And then for the cooling problem, you can

add this ASUS cooling fan onto the back of

the phone that attaches using a spring

mechanism. And on that, it's also got some

back trigger buttons. Okay, so you've you

fixed the control button problem and you

fixed the cooling problem, but now you've

got this big ugly chunky device that

basically looks like a handheld gaming

device, like a little Steam Deck or an ROG

Ally. And it just makes you think, why

would you spend $1,200 on this

gimped gaming handheld device which is

also a phone, when for $500 or $600

you can get a Steam Deck, an ROG Ally, a

Legion Go, which is— come on, let's face

it, those are actual handheld gaming

devices that destroy the ROG Gaming Phone

Pro 8 out of the water when it comes to

any kind of gaming. It just doesn't make

any sense to me why would you spend

$1,200, which is more than double the

price of any of these really capable

Windows-based handheld devices or the

Steam Deck, if you're really that into

mobile gaming. Why don't you just get an

actual handheld gaming device which will

cost half the amount has fans built into

it, has controllers and triggers and

thumbsticks built into the device as one

device, has a bigger screen. Most of these

Steam Deck kind of handheld gaming devices

have like a 7 or 8-inch screen display

with OLED graphics, which is going to be

better than anything this ROG Phone 8 has.

So I don't understand who's gonna buy

this. The whole thing is aimed at gamers

because it's a gaming phone, but if you

actually are into any kind of gaming that

isn't, I don't know, Candy Crush, and you

want to play Steam games and play actual

computer games like GTA 5, Cyberpunk,

Witcher, Starfield, Baldur's Gate 3,

Diablo 4. You can't play those games on

mobile. You need a proper Windows or Linux

SteamOS kind of operating system, and to

be able to get that, you won't be able to

get it on the phone. Now, if they made a

phone that ran on SteamOS, or like a Steam

phone, or a Windows 11 phone, that— it

would be so cool if Windows just made a

Windows phone. I mean, they did have a

Windows phone, but it didn't have proper

Windows on it. It had like some stupid

mobile Windows. Why don't they just put a

full-blown Windows operating system, or at

least Linux like SteamOS, onto a phone

that can be a phone, but then when you

need it to be, you can also download

actual games onto it? Like, imagine

Cyberpunk on your phone. And I think the

hardware for these new phones, like the

Snapdragon Gen 3, and the amount of RAM

that phones have nowadays is getting so

good and so powerful. Why don't they just

slap like an Intel Ultra Core 7 into a

phone and give it Windows 11, and then

you've got a phone that's the form factor

of a phone but you could play actual PC

games on it, then that would be a true

gaming phone. But unfortunately, this ROG

Gaming Phone series, they're not really

gaming phones. They're just— they've got

the hardware of gaming stuff, but they've

got the stupid OS of a phone, like mobile

phone, like Android mobile OS, which is

just not good for gaming. It doesn't have

any good games on it. So I don't know why

you spend so much money. I mean, $1,200

You could buy an actual proper gaming

laptop for that amount of money with RTX

4060 graphics card and actually do some

proper gaming, and it's still kind of

light, light and compact and mobile as a

small compact laptop. So I was kind of

tempted to buy this because 24GB of RAM

would make things extra snappy when doing

multitasking, and it would be cool to have

just one phone instead of a phone and a

gaming handheld device. You could just

shrink that into one device. But I don't

know what games I would play on Android.

Like I said before, I'm not really into

mobile games. I like PC games, and for

that reason, I wouldn't buy a gaming phone

or spend so much money on a phone that's

specifically designed for gaming when it's

basically just a gimped gaming device. So

unfortunately, for those reasons, I can't

recommend the ROG Phone 8 or

the ROG Phone Pro 8 or whatever they're

calling it. And all these gimmicky gaming

phones with the big cooling heater thing

on the back with the fan. It's just so

silly. Just get an ROG Ally. It has

everything you need built into the device,

like fans, cooling, thumbsticks and

triggers and buttons, and actual PC

gaming, and for half the price.