ASUS ROG Phone teardown reveals curious design

ASUS first and so far only gaming phone is truly a unique one even among the extremely few gaming smartphones in the market. From the accessories to the design, the ASUS ROG Phone definitely stands out from the outside. But is it all just smoke and mirrors are the differences even deeper? JerryRigEverything takes a dive inside the smartphone to see if everything checks out, especially the thermal management features.

One of the first oddities of the ROG Phone immediately comes to light, no pun intended, when the irregularly shaped glass back is removed. Instead of a regular LED backlit logo as you'd expect, the ROG Phone uses a piece of reflective plastic to bring the colors from the side-mounted LEDs to the back. While it does potentially make the back thinner, it also makes the effect look dimmer.

With a phone as powerful as this, heat management is a critical feature. And in terms of that, the ROG Phone's heat sinks are all over the place. They're not exactly where you'd expect them to be, and some of them are even disguised. There's also supposedly a cooling chamber inside, but it's sandwiched between the frame and the display, making it impossible to check without breaking the phone.

The phone's mainboard itself is also not so ordinary. It wraps around almost the entire frame of the phone, making it a tad difficult to get out and even trickier to put back in. The phone has a few odd features as well, like a magnet-based OIS for the main camera.

All in all, while the ASUS ROG Phone is an interesting nut to crack, it might not be the most straightforward. Plus the unique parts used inside will make it even harder to repair this one of a kind phone.