Oh, did I mention the headphone jack? This makes it one of the few high-end smartphones with the port if you prefer to plug in. Asus also offers a 65 watt charging brick, going against the competition, which currently does not include a food in the box.

Much of this is the same as previous ROG phones. The latest range includes the Asus ROG Phone 9 ($1,000), ROG Phone 9 Pro ($1,200)And ROG Phone 9 Pro Edition ($1,500). The latter maximizes some of the Pro’s specs (like 24GB of RAM instead of 16GB) and 1TB of storage, and includes the AeroActive Cooler X Pro in the box. THE X Pro Cooler brings back the subwoofer that was on an older model, boosting the bass of music played from the phone.

The 6.78-inch Phone 9 only has 85 mini LEDs on the back, so it doesn’t have the full range of features; you can play animations on it, but upgrade to the ROG Phone 9 Pro and that’s when you’ll be able to use the haptic shoulder triggers to play arcade games. You’ll probably get a lot of stares at the back of your phone in public.

It is powered by the recently announced Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, which is currently the fastest processor in the Android world. Asus claims the processor is 45% faster than the ROG Phone 8, with a 40% faster GPU as well. Improvements have been made to the phone’s natural cooling capabilities, such as the inclusion of a 57% larger graphite sheet, which produces lower temperatures by dissipating heat. Asus claims the most demanding mobile games, like GenshinImpact Or Zero zone without zenshould consistently hit 60fps for smoother gaming, even more if you pair it with the cooler accessory.

Other notable improvements over the ROG Phone 8 are the increase in battery size from 5,500 mAh to 5,800 mAh, and the 50-megapixel main camera now features fourth-generation stabilization technology from Asus. The company claims this provides 66% improved motion compensation, so the six-axis gimbal should produce ultra-smooth footage when recording video. Stabilization has generally been strong in my testing of previous ROG Phones, but overall camera quality is generally lackluster, so I’m interested to see how it fares now.