After much anticipation, the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro is finally here, equipped with its best-in-class Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, its benchmarking scores are making a mockery of some of 2024’s best-selling Android phones. If you’re thinking about picking up a new phone for the express purpose of mobile gaming, this is the one to look at.
For those who don’t know, Asus’ ROG Phones are all about gaming, while the brand’s Zenfone line are all-rounders akin to other Androids like the Google Pixel 9 series and Xiaomi 14 series. This year’s ROG Phone 8 Pro Edition took pride of place at the top of our list of the best gaming phones, beating out stiff competition from the likes of the RedMagic 9S Pro and OnePlus 12R, but the new model is even more impressive.
In benchmark testing for our Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro review, we found that the new Android outperforms the stellar Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s single-core score by 30% and annihilates it even further when it comes to its multi-core score, beating out the Samsung flagship by 44.5%. If you’re not down with the benchmarking kids, those numbers essentially mean that the ROG Phone 9 is a much more powerful performer. We can attest to this as the device had no issues running games like Genshin Impact and Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile at maximum settings during our testing.
In terms of testing the ROG Phone 9 against one of the best gaming iPhones at the time of writing, the iPhone 16 Pro Max, it’s a little more complicated. Its multi-core score of 9,649 is significantly higher than the iPhone’s 8,380, but the Apple device’s single-core score of 3,401 easily beats out the ROG Phone’s 2,775. In reality, both phones are ideal choices for gamers, but the iPhone 16 Pro might be slightly more reliable, while the ROG Phone handles multitasking a little better.
Unfortunately, there is a caveat. Despite the big launch, the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro isn’t coming to the US until January 2025. However, pre-orders should go live much earlier than that, so keep an eye on the official Asus website for further details. If you can’t wait that long, our guide to the best Android phones has plenty of other options, including picks to suit every budget, you can check out in the meantime.