What you need to know
- ASUS posted a teaser for the ROG Phone 8 stating it's "coming soon," alongside a glimpse at its rear panel change.
- The Phone 8 series sports a new square-ish triple lens camera housing, diverting from the previous series' horizontal array.
- ASUS teased the Phone 8 will contain the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for increased boosts in performance, efficiency, and graphical potential.
ASUS has started teasing its upcoming flagship phone with a subtle change over its predecessor.
The Taiwanese company posted a photo on X of the ROG Phone 8 with the tagline "Coming soon." This is enough for excitement, but the accompanying picture of the device in the background shows a change to its camera housing. It looks like the ROG Phone 8 will swap from the horizontal camera array on the ROG Phone 7 and 7 Ultimate in favor of a more condensed, square-ish housing.
The photo displays the device's larger primary sensor and two other lenses nestled vertically on the right-most side of the rather thick-looking housing. Beneath the assumed primary lens is the LED flash, as well.
Beyond Gaming.#ROG#ROGPhone8 pic.twitter.com/4TuAbIIZYODecember 8, 2023
Moreover, the rear panel of this particular phone is quite plain, with the words "Republic of Gamers" written cleanly in its center. ASUS is likely treating us to an early view of the base ROG Phone 8, as it's likely there will be two variants. Furthering this is Android Authority's keen eye for the ROG Phone 8 and Phone 8 Pro passing through the Bluetooth SIG certification.
It looks like both devices will arrive with Bluetooth 5.4 support.
In terms of power, the company teased Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC will power its upcoming gaming-focused phone. ASUS may look to utilize the chip's 30% additional performance, 20% improved efficiency, and 25% graphical boost to further its ROG Phone 8 series.
There's no hiding Qualcomm's efforts at packing as much AI prowess into the SD 8 Gen 3 this year. Software like this would (ideally) boost ASUS' next series, as the Phone 7 series contained quite a bit of AI for capturing a user's gaming highlights to post on social media and the like.
For when we can expect it, that's still unclear. Seeing as the company's teaser surfaced quite early, it spurred speculation that it could arrive earlier in 2024. For context, the ROG Phone 7 series launched around mid-April 2023. With that, we'll have to keep a close eye on ASUS to see just how soon "soon" is.
