ROG Cellphone 9 Professional vs iPhone 16 Professional Max: 3 nm in the suitable route

Intro

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

Design and Dimension

Tech powerhouses, all dressed up

The ROG Cellphone 9 Professional now tries to look a bit extra refined than its predecessors, with extra subdued accents and fewer overbearing parts. Nonetheless, with a LED matrix on the again, you possibly can nonetheless have flashy animations to showcase how particular that telephone is.

Therwise, it is a glass sandwich machine, 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 sort of skinny and uniform, so it does really feel like you’re holding an all-screen telephone.

The iPhone 16 Professional Max has additionally gotten a bezel remedy this 12 months, as its body shrunk furhter and the display screen grew to six.9 inches. The body round it’s lined 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 prime of the everyday 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 could be personalized to open a particular app or do a process, and the brand new Digital camera Management button that opens up the Digital camera app and in addition controls it by way of faucets, slides, and presses on the button.

For coloration choices, you may 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 choice of tame and muted colours — pure titanium, desert, white, and black. So, a bit extra alternative there, however in addition they aren’t flashy.

Show Variations

We’ve got glorious 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 might do it! It has a couple of 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 screen with its personal glorious 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 leads to 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 in regards to the ROG Telephones that we have now is that they do not go low sufficient on minimal brightness, so they aren’t tremendous comfy for bedside viewing.

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

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? Properly, no, 3 nm is definitely fairly small. On a extra severe notice, it merely implies that there’s much less hole between the parts contained in the chip. That means, it might stack extra transistors for extra energy, all whereas being extra vitality environment friendly.

And sure, in actual life, the Asus telephone is unbelievably quick and snappy. It downloads and runs something from the Play Retailer with out lacking a beat, it handles process switching and scrolling round nearly prefer it’s transferring a pair frames into the long run.

The iPhone is, after all, extremely easy and quick in its personal proper. And, look, you’ll 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 outdated shabby “ports”, which have been low-grade remakes of the video games. However the precise, precise video games — Murderer’s Creed, Resident Evil, Dying Stranding. Apple’s push into the gaming house has us considering that different partnerships can also be on the horizon.

The ROG Cellphone 9 Professional, whereas extremely {powerful} and handy to recreation on, is tied all the way down to what the Android Play Retailer may give you. Fortunately, we have now some main titles like Trendy Warfare, Area Breakout, Genshin, even the great outdated PUBG. However builders nonetheless appear to be cautious with experimenting within the cell house.

However hey, perhaps these titles are sufficient for you, perhaps you additionally like to fireplace upp the odd emulator every so often. The ROG Cellphone 9 Professional gives 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 to your voice recorder, transcribing and summarizing conferences. The opposite is a stay translator for bi-lingual telephone calls, which is a bit clunky however fairly uncommon — the one different telephones that give us that function are Samsung’s Galaxies for now. The third extra common AI function of the ROG Cellphone 9 is semantic search — whether or not within the telephone’s picture album or within the settings, you could 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 sort of handy.

The remainder of the ROG AI options must do with video games — it might auto-record killstreaks, it may give you tips about 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 machine’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 unhealthy 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 identified to get at the very least 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 stated something but.

Digital camera

ROG falls behind

The ROG Cellphone 9 Professional comes with an upgraded principal 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 principal 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 primary 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 offers 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 are usually not too unhealthy. The truth is, 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 undoubtedly not consuming popcorn or rubbing a zipper in opposition to the telephones whereas recording.

Audio High quality and Haptics

The iPhone 16 Professional Max stereo audio system sound glorious. Surprisingly glorious. 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’re feeling like they’re louder).

However, one other win for Asus right here — the ROG Cellphone 9 Professional nonetheless retains a headphone jack. Sort 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 a large battery, however with Asus’ software program optimizations on prime, we have been assured it will final for fairly some time.

Conversely, the iPhone 16 Professional Max has a 4,685 mAh battery — the largest battery an iPhone has had so far. And hey, iOS can be glorious at freezing processes and preserving battery life. This is how they did on our checks:

Each of those telephones will comfortably final you north of 10 hours on a single cost. For mundane, common net duties — nearly 20 hours. For sure, once we every day drive any certainly one of them, battery fears aren’t a problem.

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 gotten 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? In all probability not… it is a area of interest machine, an fanatic telephone — it’s essential to be a gamer, be prepared to spend fairly a bit of money on a telephone, and it’s essential to be feeling adventurous to step away from the Apple, Samsung, and Google manufacturers.

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

Properly, there you’ve gotten it — it does not budge an inch. OK, the Asus digital camera continues to be not superb, but it surely’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 implausible gaming telephone that you should use as a every day driver? Sure.