ASUS ROG Phone 3 Teardown Has Some Good News For Gamers

Razer may have started the whole gaming smartphone trend but it seems that ASUS is the one that's taking it to the extreme. Of course, ASUS' ROG Phones have also been the most expensive among its peers so buyers will want to know they're getting they're money's worth. That will partly depend on how well the phone performs which, in turn, depends on how cool it can stay under pressure. Fortunately, JerryRigEverything's Zack Nelson was willing to sacrifice the ROG Phone 3's screen to find the answer.

If the ROG Phone 3 underwent an iFixit teardown, it would probably score low on its repairability index. The only easy part of the teardown was removing the glass back, which wasn't stuck too strongly to the frame. Everything else, however, was held down by a large number of screws, with fragile cables strewn all over the place.

For Nelson, however, the discovery was well worth the work. After three generations, ASUS finally decided to make its copper heat vent actually useful, using metal to facilitate in attracting and dissipating heat and actually connecting it to one of the phone's heat pipes. In other words, it's actually a functional component rather than an ornamental piece only.

ASUS also uses a lot of copper-based cooling solutions, including one gigantic vapor cooling chamber. And, of course, there's that still ridiculous mini fan that provides active cooling you only see in computers. All in all, it should give mobile gamers the confidence they need to play intense games like Fortnite.

It's not all good news though, particularly when it comes to dust and waterproofing. ASUS, of course, doesn't advertise any rating but the phone does have a lot of waterproof rubber gaskets and shields inside to keep water out. Ironically, the USB-C charging port doesn't have one, which almost makes all of that moot, as if the tiny fan and its vent weren't enough to do that.