ROG Cellphone 9 Professional vs iPhone 16 Professional Max: 3 nm in the precise path

Intro

And look, the ROG Cellphone 9 Professional nonetheless lacks a bit within the digital camera division. Nevertheless it greater than makes up for that with wonderful optimizations and lightning-fast {hardware}. Here is the way it compares to the massive, imply iPhone:

Design and Dimension

Tech powerhouses, all dressed up

The ROG Cellphone 9 Professional now tries to look a bit extra delicate than its predecessors, with extra subdued accents and fewer overbearing components. Nevertheless, with a LED matrix on the again, you may nonetheless have flashy animations to showcase how particular that cellphone is.

In any other case, it is a glass sandwich system, with an aluminum body and a matte end over the again, which feels grainy and good to the contact. The bezel across the show is kind of skinny and uniform, so it does really feel like you’re holding an all-screen cellphone.

The iPhone 16 Professional Max has additionally gotten a bezel therapy this 12 months, as its body shrunk furhter and the display grew to six.9 inches. The body round it’s coated in titanium for an additional premium really feel, and the glass again is a easy, high quality matte.

Each these telephones have particular buttons on high of the standard energy and quantity. The ROG Cellphone 9 Professional has the ultrasonic shoulder pads for gaming — emulating the triggers on a standard controller or handheld console. The iPhone 16 Professional Max has the Motion Button, which may be personalized to open a particular app or do a job, and the brand new Digital camera Management button that opens up the Digital camera app and likewise controls it by way of faucets, slides, and presses on the button.

For coloration choices, you will get the ROG Cellphone 9 Professional in any coloration you need — so long as it’s black. The non-Professional variant additionally is available in white, however that about does it. The iPhone 16 Professional Max is available in a number of tame and muted colours — pure titanium, desert, white, and black. So, a bit extra alternative there, however additionally they aren’t flashy.

Show Variations

We’ve got wonderful OLED panels on each. The ROG Cellphone 9 Professional now goes as much as 185 Hz refresh price, which is actually excessive. Scratch that, 165 Hz was already excessive, however hey — it may do it! It has just a few coloration calibrations to select from, whether or not you want heat and pure tones, or extra punchy and contrasty screens.

The iPhone 16 Professional Max comes with a 120 Hz ProMotion display with its personal wonderful coloration calbration. And each telephones supply blue mild filtering when the solar units, for much less eye pressure, too.

They’re fairly sharp, the ROG Cellphone 9 Professional has an FHD+ decision for 388 pixels-per-inch, Apple has a bizarre unfold of 2868 x 1320 pixels, which ends up in 458 PPI. And each are HDR succesful, the ROG Cellphone 9 Professional has a peak brightness of two,500 nits, the iPhone hits 2,000.

One grievance concerning the ROG Telephones that we’ve is that they do not go low sufficient on minimal brightness, so they don’t seem to be tremendous comfy for bedside viewing.

For unlocking the cellphone, Asus employs an optical fingerprint scanner below the show. It is the optical type and whereas it is fast and principally correct, it may also be choosy in case you press too laborious or mild, in case your finger or display has a smudge. The Face ID on iPhones works rapidly and flawlessly and solely requires you to take a look at the cellphone.

Efficiency and Software program

The Elite versus the Professional

The time for the Android processor to evolve has come. Apple switched to a 3 nm construct course of with final 12 months’s A17 Professional, and Qualcomm now has its 3 nm reply — the brand new Snapdragon 8 Elite.

Is it a giant deal? Nicely, no, 3 nm is definitely fairly small. On a extra critical notice, it merely implies that there’s much less hole between the elements contained in the chip. Which means, it may stack extra transistors for extra energy, all whereas being extra power environment friendly.

And sure, in actual life, the Asus cellphone is unbelievably quick and snappy. It downloads and runs something from the Play Retailer with out lacking a beat, it handles job switching and scrolling round nearly prefer it’s shifting a pair frames into the longer term.

The iPhone is, in fact, extremely easy and quick in its personal proper. And, look, you might have the super-powerful {hardware}, however on the finish of the day, we are going to ask “OK, what does it run?”. And that is the place Apple nonetheless has the higher hand — the App Retailer has really began getting precise console titles, ported to the iPhones and iPads. No, not the previous shabby “ports”, which have been low-grade remakes of the video games. However the precise, precise video games — Murderer’s Creed, Resident Evil, Loss of life Stranding. Apple’s push into the gaming house has us considering that different partnerships might also be on the horizon.

The ROG Cellphone 9 Professional, whereas extremely {powerful} and handy to sport on, is tied all the way down to what the Android Play Retailer may give you. Fortunately, we’ve some main titles like Fashionable Warfare, Area Breakout, Genshin, even the nice previous PUBG. However builders nonetheless appear to be cautious with experimenting within the cellular house.

However hey, possibly these titles are sufficient for you, possibly you additionally like to fireside upp the odd emulator infrequently. The ROG Cellphone 9 Professional offers that energy.

These would not be 2024 telephones if we did not mentioin AI, proper? The ROG Cellphone 9 Professional comes with a few AI methods. One is a abstract perform on your voice recorder, transcribing and summarizing conferences. The opposite is a stay translator for bi-lingual cellphone calls, which is a bit clunky however fairly uncommon — the one different telephones that give us that characteristic are Samsung’s Galaxies for now. The third extra basic AI characteristic of the ROG Cellphone 9 is semantic search — whether or not within the cellphone’s photograph album or within the settings, you may be extra liberal with the seach phrases, and the AI will try to work out precisely what you’re on the lookout for, which is kind of handy.

The remainder of the ROG AI options must do with video games — it may auto-record killstreaks, it may give you recommendations on when a booster has spawned (MOBA video games), auto-running, auto merchandise pickup, and different small assistive options whereas gaming. To be honest, most “hardcore” players (a.ok.a. this system’s goal demographic) would in all probability view it beneath them to make use of such assistive options, however hey — who is aware of.

Now for the dangerous information — the ROG Cellphone 9 nonetheless solely comes with a 2 Android construct replace dedication, and 4 years of safety updates publish launch. Apple’s iPhones are recognized to get not less than 5 years of iOS updates. That quantity may go up, now that Samsung and Google are each committing to 7 years of Android updates, however Apple hasn’t mentioned something but.

Digital camera

ROG falls behind

The ROG Cellphone 9 Professional comes with an upgraded fundamental digital camera sensor — nonetheless 50 MP,  however now a Sony Lytia 700. It rocks a hybrid gimbal stabilizer for a 5-degree wobble compensation, it does work fairly properly. Aside from that, there is a 32 MP 3x telephoto digital camera, 13 MP ultra-wide, and a 32 MP selfie digital camera.

Spectacular numbers, however placing them toe to toe versus the iPhone 16 Professional Max‘s cameras — 48 MP fundamental digital camera with sensor shift stabilization, 12 MP 5x telephoto, and 48 MP ultra-wide — the iPhone produces better-looking pictures. We did complain about Apple leaning into oversharpening its photos a bit, ever because it began utilizing a 48 MP sensor. However the Asus does extra of it. The dynamic vary and colours on the iPhone pictures are additionally higher, with extra pop to them, and nearer to actuality:

Simply as with the principle cameras, the variations within the ultra-wide cameras present a wider dynamic vary and extra vivid colours from the iPhone photographs.

Selfies

For selfies, the iPhone provides my face extra livelier colours and the small print and marks of time on my pores and skin are extra seen. I look fairly pale in these ROG Cellphone 9 photographs, thought the small print should not too dangerous. Actually, nighttime selfies with the ROG Cellphone are a bit sharper.

Video High quality

We lastly received to it, and also you would not imagine it, however video recording is the place the ROG Cellphone 9 Professional actually shines. We get extra vibrant colours, a lot wider dynamics, good particulars, and that stabilization is doing nice work! In comparison with the iPhone — it’s the Apple digital camera that’s now a bit pale and overexposed by comparability. Although, we did get some bizarre clicking within the ROG Cellphone audio on this explicit clip. Was that wind noise discount gone unsuitable? I used to be positively not consuming popcorn or rubbing a zipper towards the telephones whereas recording.

Audio High quality and Haptics

The iPhone 16 Professional Max stereo audio system sound wonderful. Surprisingly wonderful. Deep bass, cleaned up low mids, loads of musical element, and actually candy presence. And they’re nearly as loud because the ROG Cellphone 9 audio system (could also be simply as loud, however the mids of the ROG 9 would make you are feeling like they’re louder).

However, one other win for Asus right here — the ROG Cellphone 9 Professional nonetheless retains a headphone jack. Form of wild that there is room for it nonetheless, proper?

For haptics, each of those telephones are a pleasure to make use of. They click on and clack with exact suggestions, which is particularly good on the ROG Cellphone, the place you get a reassuring vibration everytime you press one of many gaming triggers.

Battery Life and Charging

These simply outlasted the Duracell bunny

The ROG Cellphone 9 Professional comes with an upgraded 5,800 mAh battery. That is already an enormous battery, however with Asus’ software program optimizations on high, we have been assured it might final for fairly some time.

Conversely, the iPhone 16 Professional Max has a 4,685 mAh battery — the most important battery an iPhone has had up to now. And hey, iOS can also be wonderful at freezing processes and preserving battery life. Here is how they did on our assessments:

Each of those telephones will comfortably final you north of 10 hours on a single cost. For mundane, common internet duties — nearly 20 hours. For sure, after we day by day drive any one among them, battery fears aren’t a difficulty.

In case you find yourself draining them to 0%, the Asus has the benefit right here — the ROG Cellphone 9 Professional does ship with its personal 65 W charger, which provides you 74% of energy in half an hour on the wire. The iPhone is notirously refusing to undertake any type of quick charging for now…

Specs Comparability

And there you’ve got it — the numbers look spectacular. However actually, the efficiency meets the expectations!

Abstract

Will the ROG Cellphone 9 Professional pull folks away from the iPhone 16 Professional Max? Most likely not… it is a area of interest system, an fanatic cellphone — it’s worthwhile to be a gamer, be keen to spend fairly a bit of money on a cellphone, and it’s worthwhile to be feeling adventurous to step away from the Apple, Samsung, and Google manufacturers.

So, in some methods, the folks that will purchase a ROG Cellphone 9 Professional have already in all probability set their minds to it. Nevertheless, it is at all times good to know the way it compares to the opposite heavy-hitters on the market, proper?

Nicely, there you’ve got it — it does not budge an inch. OK, the Asus digital camera remains to be not wonderful, nevertheless it’s above common for positive. And its video capabilities are surprisingly excessive. Is it a greater all-rounder than the iPhone 16 Professional Max? No… Is it a incredible gaming cellphone that you should utilize as a day by day driver? Sure.