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

Intro

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

Design and Measurement

Tech powerhouses, all dressed up

The ROG Telephone 9 Professional now tries to look a bit extra delicate than its predecessors, with extra subdued accents and fewer overbearing components. Nonetheless, with a LED matrix on the again, you’ll be able to nonetheless have flashy animations to showcase how particular that cellphone 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 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 yr, 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 clean, advantageous matte.

Each these telephones have particular buttons on prime of the standard energy and quantity. The ROG Telephone 9 Professional has the ultrasonic shoulder pads for gaming — emulating the triggers on a traditional controller or handheld console. The iPhone 16 Professional Max has the Motion Button, which will be custom-made to open a selected app or do a job, and the brand new Digicam Management button that opens up the Digicam app and in addition controls it through faucets, slides, and presses on the button.

For coloration choices, you may get the ROG Telephone 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 selection there, however additionally they aren’t flashy.

Show Variations

Now we have wonderful OLED panels on each. The ROG Telephone 9 Professional now goes as much as 185 Hz refresh fee, which is actually excessive. Scratch that, 165 Hz was already excessive, however hey — it may possibly do it! It has just a few coloration calibrations to choose 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 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 Telephone 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 Telephone 9 Professional has a peak brightness of two,500 nits, the iPhone hits 2,000.

One criticism concerning the ROG Telephones that we now have is that they do not go low sufficient on minimal brightness, so they aren’t tremendous comfy for bedside viewing.

For unlocking the cellphone, Asus employs an optical fingerprint scanner beneath the show. It is the optical variety and whereas it is fast and largely correct, it will also be choosy should you press too laborious 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 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 yr’s A17 Professional, and Qualcomm now has its 3 nm reply — the brand new Snapdragon 8 Elite.

Is it an enormous deal? Properly, no, 3 nm is definitely fairly small. On a extra critical notice, it merely signifies that there’s much less hole between the parts contained in the chip. Which means, it may possibly 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 transferring a pair frames into the long run.

The iPhone is, after all, extremely clean and quick in its personal proper. And, look, you’ll have the super-powerful {hardware}, however on the finish of the day, we’ll 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, Demise Stranding. Apple’s push into the gaming house has us considering that different partnerships may be on the horizon.

The ROG Telephone 9 Professional, whereas extremely {powerful} and handy to sport on, is tied right down to what the Android Play Retailer may give you. Fortunately, we now have some main titles like Fashionable Warfare, Area Breakout, Genshin, even the great 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 fireplace upp the odd emulator every now and then. The ROG Telephone 9 Professional supplies that energy.

These would not be 2024 telephones if we did not mentioin AI, proper? The ROG Telephone 9 Professional comes with a few AI tips. One is a abstract operate on your voice recorder, transcribing and summarizing conferences. The opposite is a dwell 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 Telephone 9 is semantic search — whether or not within the cellphone’s picture album or within the settings, you will be extra liberal with the seach phrases, and the AI will attempt to determine precisely what you’re in search of, which is kind of handy.

The remainder of the ROG AI options need to do with video games — it may possibly 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.okay.a. this machine’s goal demographic) would most likely view it beneath them to make use of such assistive options, however hey — who is aware of.

Now for the unhealthy information — the ROG Telephone 9 nonetheless solely comes with a 2 Android construct replace dedication, and 4 years of safety updates submit launch. Apple’s iPhones are identified to get a minimum of 5 years of iOS updates. That quantity would possibly go up, now that Samsung and Google are each committing to 7 years of Android updates, however Apple hasn’t stated something but.

Digicam

ROG falls behind

The ROG Telephone 9 Professional comes with an upgraded predominant 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 predominant digital camera with sensor shift stabilization, 12 MP 5x telephoto, and 48 MP ultra-wide — the iPhone produces better-looking photographs. We did complain about Apple leaning into oversharpening its pictures 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 photographs 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 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 Telephone 9 photographs, thought the small print aren’t too unhealthy. Actually, nighttime selfies with the ROG Telephone are a bit sharper.

Video High quality

We lastly acquired to it, and also you would not imagine it, however video recording is the place the ROG Telephone 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 Telephone audio on this explicit clip. Was that wind noise discount gone unsuitable? I used to be undoubtedly 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 Telephone 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 Telephone 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 Telephone, 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 Telephone 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 up to now. And hey, iOS can be wonderful at freezing processes and preserving battery life. Here 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 internet duties — nearly 20 hours. For sure, after we every day drive any one among 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 Telephone 9 Professional does ship with its personal 65 W charger, which supplies 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 Telephone 9 Professional pull individuals away from the iPhone 16 Professional Max? Most likely not… it is a area of interest machine, an fanatic cellphone — you have to be a gamer, be prepared to spend fairly a bit of money on a cellphone, and you have to be feeling adventurous to step away from the Apple, Samsung, and Google manufacturers.

So, in some methods, the individuals that may purchase a ROG Telephone 9 Professional have already most likely set their minds to it. Nonetheless, it is at all times good to know the way it compares to the opposite heavy-hitters on the market, proper?

Properly, there you’ve got it — it does not budge an inch. OK, the Asus digital camera remains to be not wonderful, however 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 improbable gaming cellphone that you need to use as a every day driver? Sure.