ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate review – you just want to play

The smartphone market for gamers is relatively small. There are not many fans of this solution here, although new offers continue to appear on our home market. Review of ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate, the latest model of the Taiwanese company. How is it different from its predecessor? What features does it offer for gamers? Is it worth buying it? These questions and much more will be answered by this ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate review.

Set and price

Together with the ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate smartphone, we get a pretty big set. However, I will start with the packaging, which is wonderful. We do not have a situation here as in the case of, for example, the Samsung S22 Ultra, where the packaging is reduced and the elements are scarce. 

ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate is delivered in a very large cardboard box, in the shape of a hexagonal cylinder . To open it, slide the upper part out and fold it back. Then we can take individual elements out of the middle one by one. Usually I am not one of those people who would put the cartons of equipment on the shelf, but in this case, I would like to do it. 

As I mentioned, with ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate comes a large set of accessories . The first element is a charger with the ROG logo with a power of 65 watts, as well as a USB-A to USB-C cable with a fabric braid. Going further, we find here a specific, plastic case. I really didn’t like it because it’s incredibly stiff and reveals a large part of the phone, which comes in handy when we often use AeroCooler 6, which is also included. However, if we use it less often, due to the average fit and a significant weakening of ergonomics, I would advise you to use the phone without the case, or just buy another one. 

We can find three versions of the smartphone. 

• ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate 16/512 GB for USD $1,369
• ASUS ROG Phone 6D 12/256 GB for USD $910
• ASUS ROG Phone 6D Batman Edition 12/256 GB for USD $1,249

The smartphone is therefore very expensive by standards, especially since we pay over four hundred for the basic version. Is it worth paying so much for an additional screen on the back, different cooling and AeroCooler 6? This is a very personal issue, which I will discuss further later. 

ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate – specification

• Display: AMOLED, 6.78 inch diagonal, resolution 2448 × 1080 pixels, refresh up to 165 Hz, touch sampling 720 Hz, HDR10 +, brightness up to 1200 nits
• Processor: MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ with MALI G710 GPU
• RAM memory: 12/16 GB in LPDDR5X technology
• Flash memory: 256/512 GB in UFS 3.1 technology
• Front camera: 12 Mpix (Sony IMX663)
• Rear cameras: 50 Mpix (Sony IMX766), 13 Mpix (ultra wide angle), 2 Mpix (macro)
• Battery: 6000mAh with 65W fast charge
• System: Android 12, ROG UI & Zen UI
• Announcing two major system updates and two years of security updates
• Stereo speakers with dedicated Cirrus Logic amplifiers
• Color OLED display on the back
• AeroActive Cooler 6
• Additionally: NFC, 3.5 mm jack connector, stereo speakers, in-screen fingerprint reader, 5G, GPS navigation, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS, NavIC, IPX4 immunity standard
• Dimensions: 173 x 77 x 10.3 mm
• Weight: 247 grams (ROG Phone 6D Ultimate)

Build quality and build

ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate, which this review is about, is definitely a smartphone with an unusual design. It is large, thick and heavy . And yet I used it quite well, although it’s still a bit lacking perfection. I will start with the element where the most is happening, i.e. the backs. They were made of frosted Gorilla Glass 3 in Space Gray. In it, the inscriptions “Join the Republic” were engraved, as well as cutouts under the element supporting cooling, which from the outside looks a bit like an additional button.

Holding the phone vertically, on the right side we find a PMOLED screen that displays additional elements. Compared to last year’s model, we find here as much as 60 more display options. The screen can display information about starting the game, launching X mode, or simply indicating which applications we received the notification from. 

The camera island is quite large and its content is average . But I will talk about the cameras and their operation later. The main eye of the camera has a nice, blue border, and below the camera line we find an inscription informing us about the possibility of recording 8K and the size of the matrix. On the right side of the three eyelets we find a lighting diode, the rim of which tries to imitate a Fresnel lens. 

A lot is happening on the phone’s frame, and this is mainly due to the two USB-C connectors for charging the smartphone. And both of them are placed atypically for users of standard smartphones. The first is on the lower bezel, but on the left side of it. There is a microphone right next to it, and on the right side there is a 3.5mm jack socket. 

On the right side of the reviewed ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate there is a lock button, a microphone, and buttons for adjusting the volume. At the top you will find only a microphone, and on the left side there is a second USB Type-C connector for charging the phone, but also for connecting the AeroCooler 6 module and the SIM tray, which is marked in blue. 

The front is simple but with rather large bezels at the top and bottom. At first, I didn’t like it, but it was enough to start a game with the phone held horizontally for me to understand this procedure. Thanks to this, we can be sure that we will not accidentally touch the screen, and we will not cover the screen when our thumb is up. It also eliminates the presence of a notch , which would be very irritating when playing games. Instead, the front camera is tucked into the top beam. 

Everyday use – haptics, microphones, balance, speakers

The elements that definitely impressed me in everyday use of the reviewed ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate are mainly the haptics and speakers. For a long time I have not had a smartphone with such pleasant vibrations in my hands, and I have probably never held one that would use these vibrations so well not only for notifications. The vibration itself is strong, fast and well balanced in terms of hardness. 

The speakers, on the other hand, are real stereo. Both the lower and upper speakers are the same , and they have separate amplifiers from Cirrus Logic , which is one of the biggest players in the audio field. The final effect is more than satisfactory. These are the speakers that easily pierce most of today’s smartphones, as well as a large part of tablets. The sound that comes out of them is quite warm and dense, but it provides a phenomenal experience both with music and multimedia. 

Microphones are another strong point on the list of advantages of the reviewed ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate smartphone . The three pieces on the phone’s frames collect our voice well and cut it off from the surrounding constant noises. The interlocutors had no problems understanding my speech even once, even when the phone was in the car, on the holder, and I was talking in the hands-free mode. 

Balancing, in turn, is a specific issue, because the manufacturer in the press release directly informs that the phone has been balanced for use horizontally . And in this position, the ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate works great, because the center of gravity of the phone is almost perfectly in the center. This makes it great for gaming, but holding such a large and heavy smartphone in one hand does not feel very confident . Nevertheless, I still prefer the balance of the reviewed smartphone a bit more than the Xiaomi 12 Pro , which, due to its much thinner design, has a different center of gravity. 

The work culture is a positive surprise

ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate, which is the subject of this review, is equipped with a MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ processor, which performs much better than the Snapdragon 8 Gen1. Many smartphones with the latest Snapdragon, such as Xiaomi 12 , Sony Xperia 1 IV , were warm or even hot. Under normal use, ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate was virtually never warm . The maximum is the summer temperature, which made the phone a great use.

In the case of playing popular games such as PUBG Mobile, Diablo Immortal or the Asphalt series, the smartphone was warm, although I did not have to worry about great discomfort, which can always be improved with the help of AeroActive Cooler 6. The smartphone was unpleasant to hold in your hands only and exclusively during the toughest benchmarks.

AeroActive Cooler 6 – a dedicated cooling with gaming buttons

From series to series, the manufacturer decides to slightly change the cooling attached to the smartphones. We have had access to the version with buttons for some time, but this time they have been accentuated in a different way. The cooling with the pad included with the ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate is in my opinion average, and certainly not fully thought out. 

The white buttons have the texture of an Xbox pad that is relatively easy to get dirty . A ventilation channel made of transparent plastic is another element that gets dirty easily from your fingers, and all scratches will be quickly visible on it. There is one element at the bottom of the Cooler that the manufacturer did not take care of. It is a foot that should ensure the stability of the smartphone, e.g. for watching a movie. He does it, but badly. It is made of thin plastic and can be broken with one move. Apart from these elements, the rest of the device is neatly constructed and its assembly is simple. 

The AeroActive Cooler 6 , which is included in the reviewed ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate smartphone , makes the phone much cooler when playing. And by a lot, I mean a very big difference. We have a choice of three modes of cooling power, where I personally do not see the point of going above the first of them. The tiny fan is quite noisy anyway and the phone is much cooler even at the lowest level.

The CPU temperature during extended gaming sessions was close to the temperature under normal use . However, if we play in ANC headphones and we want the lowest possible temperature of the device, we must connect the charger via AeroActive Cooler 6. Only in this configuration is the third, most powerful mode of this accessory available. 

The manufacturer also took care of a suitable place for heat dissipation. For most phones, the PCB with the processor and all modules is at the top of the device and the battery is at the bottom, up to say 3/5 of the length of the smartphone. ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate has it solved differently. The cell with a capacity of 6000 mAh has been divided into two parts of 3000 mAh, and between them, in the middle part, there is a SoC system. The whole thing was created to facilitate cooling and also to improve the weight balance. 

The device has four additional buttons that work like a pad. In the dedicated Armory Crate application we will find a detailed list of games that support them as well as AirTrigger 6 switches. Personally, I was not able to convince myself of them. It is very difficult for me to comfortably hold the smartphone and at the same time press the additional keys that are at the bottom of the accessory. In the case of the buttons above, I did not experience any problems when trying to use it. 

AeroActive Portal – real smartphone cooling

AeroActive Cooler 6 wouldn’t make that much sense if it wasn’t for the AeroActive Portal. It is a mechanism that automatically opens when we connect external cooling. It allows cold air from the fan to fly directly to the heat sink, which is connected to the steam chamber, which carries heat away from the processor and battery. 

According to the manufacturer, the mechanism should withstand 40,000 opening and closing cycles , which in my opinion should be enough for even the most demanding users. Thanks to the use of a steam chamber, the processor quickly transfers heat to it, and then the fan cools the heat sink. It’s fair to say that the ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate is the first phone to feature an air-cooled processor like computers. 

AirTrigger 6 – sometimes a useful and sometimes annoying accessory

AirTrigger 6 buttons are hard to even call buttons. The ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate smartphone has invisible buttons in four places . We can choose the force at which they actually work, change their applications (I set the flashlight myself for a short squeeze and turning the camera on for long), and also launch Armory Crate. However, detecting squeezes is quite specific.

In the settings, the phone suggested to me to set a value below the standard, where I wanted it to be detected quite late. After some time, however, I happened to turn on the flashlight many times while taking the phone out of my pocket. Increasing the squeeze power required made this problem go away, but again there were occasions when I had to try repeatedly trying to turn on the flashlight when I actually wanted to do it. 

Nevertheless, this option in games is very handy. AirTriggers 6 in the ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate have as many as fourteen mechanisms of operation. You can treat two buttons as four, slide your finger over them, or just press them. Combined with great haptics, it greatly increases immersion in mobile games. The whole thing, of course, is controlled by the Armory Crate application, where we also choose the force that we have to use for this function, as well as which options are to be active. 

A great gyroscope that will also come in handy in games

If the fourteen functions of the AirTrigger 6 buttons and four more on the AeroActive Cooler 6 are not enough for you, then there is nothing to worry about. ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate also has as many as ten options for operating games with the help of a gyroscope . Personally, I find it too complicated and inconvenient, because you have to swing the phone in every direction, but maybe it’s just a problem with my skills, which of course I do not exclude. 

ASUS suggests that the phone can be rotated in both axes, make quick movements in specific directions, or simply shake it . For fans of a particular game, this option will definitely be useful, and additionally, it forces a bit of movement, which is easy to forget when you fall over the ears in the game. 

One of the fastest screens

The reviewed ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate is equipped with an AMOLED screen with refreshing up to 165 Hz, a diagonal of almost 6.8 inches and FullHD + resolution. It is a very good screen from many angles, including in terms of color. The manufacturer informs that it displays over 110% of the colors from the DCI-P3 space, 150% from the sRGB space and has an average deltaE error below 1 . 

These are very good results that are definitely admirable. The content you watch on the ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate’s screen looks great, the colors are vivid, accurate, and there’s no smearing to look for here . There is only a slight black crush, but it is still smaller than in many other top smartphones. 

However, I am not entirely satisfied with the automatic brightness. It has a tendency to slightly exaggerate in dark places, which can be irritating at night. During the day, the brightness of 800 nits and 1200 w peak is fully sufficient and the sun must be really strong so that we have problems seeing the content on the screen. 

However, there is nothing to expect to constantly watch the views at 165 Hz with the automatic setting. The system mainly jumps between 60 and 120 Hz, which is also very smooth. My only concern is the fact that some applications, such as Messenger or Outlook, are displayed at 60 Hz, not 120 Hz . Of my set of standard programs, only these two had this problem. Everything else ran natively at 120Hz and the system kept it down to 60Hz for a still image.

It is a pity, however, that the screen does not constantly adjust the lower refresh rate depending on the displayed content. Watching movies at 30 frames per second, the screen continued to display the image at a frequency of 60 Hz, and I did not see 90 Hz even once, except for the moment when I set such refreshment to be rigid. And beyond it , we can permanently set the values ​​of 60, 90, 120, 144 and 165 Hz . I mainly used the automatic mode, because apart from the two applications mentioned above, it worked great.

Does 165Hz make a difference to your phone?

Definitely yes. ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate is the best-performing smartphone I have had in my hands so far , and this feeling is additionally tapped off by the incredibly high screen refresh rate. The difference between 120 Hz and 165 Hz is obviously not as big as between 60 and 120, but you can still feel it. Nevertheless, I preferred to use this option only when I had the charger at hand and could easily charge the phone. Refreshing as much as 165 Hz eats up the battery much too quickly and does not allow you to enjoy the energy until the end of an intense day. 

Armory Crate, the most important application for players

One of the most important pre-installed applications (and not many of them) is Armory Crate, the device and game control center. With its help, we are able to operate the rear PMOLED screen, where we can choose exactly what functions are to be displayed on it, as well as what should be displayed on it when displaying these functions. We can choose from: 

• Connected external accessory
• X mode
• Screen on
• Landing
• Connection
• Game

Each time you can choose a minimum of 3 styles, in a minimum of two sets of colors. Personally, I left them all turned on because in my opinion they just look good and this screen is definitely something that distinguishes this smartphone. 

Of course, the modes in which we run the game are also very important . After all, why run games like simple clickers in top performance mode while keeping everything running in default mode? And on the other hand, why run games like PUBG Mobile in the basic version, when we want to have a clear advantage over the opponent, take advantage of the available 165 frames per second and touch refresh at the level of 720 Hz? For each of these games, we can turn individual functions on and off to adjust everything to your preferences. 

The camera

The camera in the reviewed ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate smartphone can delight and disappoint me. Sometimes it will take very good color photos that will be sharp and pleasant, and then it can significantly exaggerate with saturation and take a highly exaggerated photo. The situation is similar with stabilization. Night shots can look very good, just to blur a contrasting shot with a lot of light. Evaluating as a whole, it is, however, below the price level. The photos have good sharpness, the tonal range is good, but due to the randomness of the algorithms, we will find much better options.

ASUS ROG Phone 6D, which is the hero of this review, also sometimes has problems with the appropriate brightness of the photos. With a cloudy sky, the photos come out much too dark, so this machine often needs to be corrected. For this we have an almost useless macro camera, instead of which I would much rather see a good telephoto lens here, or better and more reliable optical stabilization. On the plus side, however, I can include the front camera, which has good tonality and sharpness of the image, even in relatively poor lighting.

In contrast to bad photos, there are very decent films. The presence of recording in 4K 60 fps, theoretically 8K 24 fps and 4K 30 fps with HDR10 + are just additions to a strong base that allows you to shoot movies in good quality, with fast and accurate autofocus, as well as at a large bitrate, which is up to 60 Mbps. Personally, however, I preferred to use regular HDR or SDR, because HDR10 + exaggerated the other way than ordinary photos. The materials could be far too bright, as in the example below.

How much does the battery of the ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate hold?

A 6000mAh battery should last a long time. However, due to powerful components as well as high screen refresh rate, this is not the case. ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate has quite big problems with power management when it is not connected to the wifi network, and we use the mobile network on a regular basis. The battery may not drop in the eyes, but the screen time is definitely shortened, because by leaving the phone loose, it can lose 2-3% of the battery within an hour. Considering competitors’ phones lose so much all night long, that’s an average figure. 

If we want to talk about the battery performance in terms of hours of operation on the screen, I am already informing you about everything. In the case of home use, I was able to get eight hours of screen time on a Wi-Fi network with a wide variety of uses, including benchmarks, but also watching movies and simply browsing the Internet. If I was away from home all day, I was naturally only able to use the cellular network. The screen time was about 5.5 hours, and the phone was used relatively lightly, although it operated at a higher screen brightness. In both cases, I chose the dynamic mode and automatic screen refresh. 

When I set the screen refresh to rigidly 165 Hz, about 20% of the phone’s working time should be subtracted from the above battery times. In each case, the smartphone was used for one day, from morning to late evening, so unfortunately I could dream about two days of work without significantly reducing the comfort of using the ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate smartphone. 

Thanks to the included 65 W charger, the phone can be fully charged in less than an hour, which is a good result. Of course, we could expect more, but that is further faster than most of the smartphones on the market.

How is ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate different from the regular version?

The differences between the top model of the series and the lower one are not the biggest. Well, apart from the price difference, because the premiere price of the Ultimate version is higher by four hundred fifty dollars. For these additional two thousand in the set, we get AeroActive Cooler 6, the value of which is USD $119.00 

Another element is the AeroActive Panel, i.e. a raised panel with heat sinks for cooling the processor. If we decide to take long gaming sessions, it is definitely a very useful option, because it reduces the temperature of the phone, while extending the life of the components. Well, let’s face it, it would be nice to show someone that we open a smartphone. 

The last difference is the additional PMOLED screen on the back of the smartphone . The lower version has an illuminated ROG logo, and in the case of the reviewed ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate, we have much more options for what can be displayed on the back. Personally, I find it a cool element, but definitely less important than the AeroActive Panel. It was most useful for me to display which application I got the notification from. 

Is It Worth Paying So Much For The ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate?

This is a very personal issue and you have to answer it yourself, and I will only present a few scenarios that can help you make your decision. If you do not have a lot of space, spend a lot of time on public transport, or you just like games that are available on mobile phones, the ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate is a very interesting option. After all, it is still a phone that you can take anywhere with you, it has great speakers and a screen, so watching movies is not the slightest problem on it, and it just looks different. 

However, if you are not that avid gamer, I would seriously consider a standard phone and buying a console like Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck. These devices will stay up-to-date longer, have a different set of games, and provide a better experience thanks to larger screens and physical pads, which in the case of ASUS should be purchased. 

ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate review – summary

ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate, which is the hero of this review, is definitely an unusual smartphone . It is a phone that has been aimed directly at gamers and has everything a phone can do for them . Screen refreshing at 165 Hz, touch at 720 Hz, invisible AirTrigger buttons, or dedicated cooling with the AeroActive Cooler 6 pad. From this point of view, it is a complete phone.

However, if we are looking for something a bit more universal, we may be disappointed with the camera or the average battery life. Despite this, the reviewed ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate definitely surprises with technological solutions, including the biggest novelty among smartphones, i.e. real, active cooling. It is definitely a difficult nut to crack, and when you buy it, you will also have to grit your teeth due to its high price. 

About Post Author

Sankesh Verma

Sankkesh Verma is a technical guy who brings a unique combination of strategic, creative, and technical expertise to identify elements that constitute success, propose solutions, and help build them. He is the founder of “Webbpearl” which is a highly-acclaimed web development agency that offers web design and development, mobile app development, and digital marketing. More importantly, he is the admin of Techtiper.

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