First Impressions of the ASUS ROG Phone 7 Ultimate: Unboxing and Review

The well-known gaming line of ROG products by ASUS is considered by many to be the benchmark in the field. Its latest addition is the expected ASUS ROG Phone 7 series, whose best-equipped representative, the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate, we are currently testing. What are our first impressions?

ASUS ROG 7 Ultimate unboxing

Look for innovation mainly within

The ROG Phone 7 Ultimate, which can be distinguished from the “regular” ROG Phone 7 by the fact that it has the ROG Vision matrix display on the back and also the GameCool 7 cooling system using the AeroActive Portal, remains faithful to the design of the previous ROG Phones. It is still a massive smartphone with a weight of 239 grams and dimensions of 173 x 77 x 10.4 mm. However, it is precisely for a gaming smartphone that larger dimensions are completely understandable, as they allow for a more comfortable hold, more efficient cooling, a larger battery and, last but not least, a larger display. As already mentioned, the Ultimate version also has a smaller display on the back, which serves as a notification center, but can also cheer up with various very nicely processed animations. For example, a flying rocket that appears here after connecting the smartphone to the charger. In this regard, the ROG Phone 7 series will offer a large 6,000mAh battery with support for 65W wired charging, but a wireless alternative is also missing this time.

The adapter is then located directly in the package, including a USB-C/USB-C braided cable, a case or perhaps a stylized tool for pulling out the SIM slot. There is also an external fan in the environmental paper box, which again this year resembles a spaceship and contains a special (also paper) cradle for launching a mini-game used to welcome new owners to the world of ROG. In addition to effective temperature reduction thanks to the connection with the ventilation shaft, i.e. the AeroActive Portal, it has one more brand new gadget

A sound that captivates

ROG Phones have long been ranked among the best-playing smartphones on the market, one could perhaps say that they are even the best-playing at all, as they have excellent quality even at the highest volume and unprecedentedly dense bass. However, with the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate, the manufacturer has raised this advantage to a new level. The speaker volume is 50% higher than the previous generation and, as always, the sound has been tuned by Dirac specialists, but the phone can now provide 2.1-channel sound. This is possible thanks to the additional cooling of the AeroActive Cooler 7, which includes a powerful subwoofer. The ROG Phone 7 Ultimate can already be described as the best playing smartphone, the sound output of which has no competition at the moment. In addition, there is support for Qualcomm aptX and aptX Lossless codecs, as well as a 3.5mm jack.

Brutal performance of Snapdragon 8 Gen

Performance is provided by the Snapdragon 8 Gen2, which is a high-performance but also energy-efficient chipset. In addition, in the case of the ROG Phone 7 series, there is no need to worry about artificially limiting performance due to heating, as there are three different cooling methods available. During short gaming sessions, the phone relies on efficient cooling mainly with the help of boron nitride, during longer gaming sessions, the evaporation chamber with graphite plates comes into play, and during marathon gaming sessions, the active cooling of the AeroActive Cooler 7 comes in handy.

The equipment also includes up to 16 GB of the fastest operating memory type LPDDR5X with a clock rate of 8,533 MHz or up to 512 GB of UFS 4.0 storage. Of the other equipment, it is definitely worth mentioning the 6.78″ AMOLED Display with a 165Hz refresh rate from Samsung with a maximum brightness of up to 1,500 nits and Gorilla Glass Victus or increased resistance according to the IP54 standard.

The cheapest for 26 thousand crowns

The new ROG Phone 7 Ultimate tested by us (only in 512 + 16 GB configuration) will go on sale at a price of CZK 34,990. The ROG Phone 7 with the same size of RAM and storage, available not only in white, but also in black, will then be offered at a price of CZK 29,990. The cheapest is the ROG Phone 7 with 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage (also available in white and black) for CZK 25,990. The news will arrive with Android 13, while the manufacturer guarantees two major system updates (that is, to Android 15) and 4 years of security patches. They will go on sale as early as May 8.