With last year’s ROG Phone 6, ASUS caught our eye with the world’s first “wireless” clip-on Peltier cooler, in the sense that it didn’t require plugging into a power bank. That, along with a handful of dedicated gaming features – in particular the customizable ultrasonic “AirTriggers” – already made this a seemingly solid gaming phone. While some competitors struggled to keep up, ASUS is trying to keep mobile gamers interested with its brand new ROG Phone 7 series which, for the first time, integrates AI for automatic game capture. The company has also managed to pull off a surprise for the new clip-on cooler: it now doubles as a subwoofer to take full advantage of the ROG Phone’s excellent stereo speakers.

The aforementioned AI feature can be found in the phone’s “Game Genie” dashboard. Dubbed “X Capture”, this tool is based on ASUS’ own AI pattern recognition system, and it’s supposed to be able to detect key events such as a “moment of death, death, victory , etc.”. in supported games. Another new tool, “X Sense”, uses the same algorithm and pop-up notifications to help the player make in-game decisions. The catch is that the two AI features only support Arena of Valor for now, and only in “Tier 1” markets like Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. That said, the product team is apparently already working on supporting more titles, which will no doubt come in handy for gamers who like to show off.

You’ll also find two other new gaming features: “vibration mapping” lets you add tactile feedback to desired virtual buttons, and “background mode” – although already introduced on recent models via an update. day last year – allows games to run in the background when you need to perform some automatic annoying tasks.

Naturally, the base specs here offer the latest and greatest the market has to offer right now. The ROG Phone 7 series packs Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and up to 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage – a more efficient offering than the older UFS 3.1, with at least twice speed. You still get a generous 6,000mAh dual-cell battery with 65W fast charging, which now offers a slightly shorter 42-minute charge time. The 6.78-inch Samsung AMOLED display features the same 2448 x 1080 resolution, 165Hz refresh rate, and 720Hz touch sampling rate as before, but its maximum brightness has increased from 1 200 nits to 1500 nits for better viewing.

As with previous generations, the ASUS ROG Phone 7 series features an improved thermal design. This time it’s the larger design of the fast-cycle vapor chamber, and it has two nerdy features: Special trident-shaped wick columns on the long edges dramatically increase surface area for better vapor dissipation. heat, and the six liquid return channels act as highways for cooled water to flow back to the processor. ASUS claims that this design increases heat dissipation efficiency “up to 168%”. This is complemented by the boron nitride thermal compound on the other side of the processor, as well as larger sheets of graphite covering the motherboard and RF board.

Then there’s the new AeroActive Cooler 7 which continues to offer thermoelectric Peltier cooling, and without the need for an external power supply. Similar to its predecessor, this accessory can apparently lower the surface temperature by up to 25 degrees Celsius, as well as the touchscreen temperature by up to eight degrees Celsius. As with last year’s Ultimate variant, the more premium ROG Phone 7 Ultimate comes with the “AeroActive Portal” which, when used with the AeroActive Cooler 7, allows cool air to be blown directly into the body of the phone. As a bonus, the regular and Ultimate models are now IP54 certified (therefore resistant to dust and splashes), despite the ventilation grille of the latter.

According to ASUS’ own one-hour testing using Genshin Impact, the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate (in “X Mode+” performance) equipped with the accessory (in “frosty” cooling mode) was at least 6.4 degrees Celsius cooler than the competition – namely the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra – in back. Keeping the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate cool allowed the game to maintain an impressive frame rate of around 60fps, which should avoid interruptions in an intense fight.

The AeroActive Cooler 7 also comes with a set of four additional mappable buttons and, for the first time, a subwoofer as well. So yes, with the ROG Phone 7’s enlarged speakers, you get a Dirac-tuned 2.1-channel audio system. You can also stick to your 3.5mm headphones and take advantage of the “Dirac Virtuo For Headphone” spatial sound feature, or go wireless with Snapdragon Sound’s ultra-low latency Bluetooth.

There’s nothing too exciting on the photography side. The rear cameras remain unchanged: you get a 50-megapixel main camera (Sony’s IMX766 sensor), a 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle (125-degree) camera, and a not-so-useful 5-megapixel macro camera. That said, ASUS says the cameras here will get an improved light trail mode for artistic captures. The selfie camera on the other side, however, has been upgraded with a new 32-megapixel OmniVision OV32C sensor.

For those in Taiwan and Europe, select ROG Phone 7 series models will be available for pre-order starting today. The standard model starts from €999, but if you opt for the Ultimate version for its AeroActive portal and customizable ROG Vision display on the back, it starts from €1,399 – you’ll get an AeroActive Cooler 7 at 110 € for free. (All prices in euros include VAT.)

As for the rest of us, ASUS has confirmed that the ROG Phone 7 series will eventually launch in the US, but we’ll have to wait a bit longer for a date and price, so stay tuned.