It turns out that I didn’t need to wait very long to test out my first Snapdragon 8 Elite phone. I went hands-on with the Asus ROG Phone 9 when Qua

Asus ROG Phone 9 hands-on: the first gaming phone with Snapdragon 8 Elite

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2024-10-26 07:30:04

It turns out that I didn’t need to wait very long to test out my first Snapdragon 8 Elite phone. I went hands-on with the Asus ROG Phone 9 when Qualcomm hosted The Shortcut and a few other media outlets at its annual Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii. The official launch date is November 19, but I have some early impressions now.

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The newly announced chipset is the real highlight of this gaming-focused Android phone. Qualcomm’s 8-core Oryon CPU and Adreno 830 GPU actually outclass some of today’s best laptops, making it a perfect fit for Asus’ latest gaming phone.

In fact, I was able to benchmark the new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip in a reference phone provided by Qualcomm (not directly inside the Asus ROG Phone 9 – yet), and it beats my iPhone 16 Pro Max, especially in the multi-core score (more benchmark numbers coming early next week).

For gamers, that’s going to translate into a 40% gaming performance improvement and a 35% ray-tracing uptick over current Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones, according to Qualcomm. And while the same 8 Elite chip is likely to power the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and OnePlus 13, Asus has the distinction of having its launch event in 2024.