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hey um yeah can i call you back i'm just shooting a video right now

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yeah it's the uh it's the rog phone 2. it's like

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kind of a phone but then it's also kind of like a gaming console

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yeah it's got like really powerful massive battery a bunch

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of cool accessories uh yeah no it's it's

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pretty neat um i mean i'm not sure that i would buy it or

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anything but there's definitely gonna be people who are going to go like absolutely ape this thing

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um anyway yeah i gotta go um yeah yeah

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see you later love you yeah okay bye

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uh editor's note can you cut that part out

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but what you shouldn't cut out is our sponsor for today's video ifixit

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ifixit's protect toolkit gives you the tools you need to tackle any electronics

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repair challenge visit ifixit.com forward slash Linus at the link below

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and get yours today now whether you've experienced a 120 hertz display on a

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mobile device or not the 6.6 inch HDR

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OLED panel on the rg phone 2 is going to

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turn your head this combination can be legitimately described as a visual treat

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in every scenario we tried with the surprisingly blob free interface feeling

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just buttery smooth and thanks to the doubled 240 hertz

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touch pulling rate nearly instantaneously responsive

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but then you hit an lte dead zone or something not that i'm blaming the phone

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and like i don't think i have felt like my mobile

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connection has been such a bottleneck on my phone since 3g i guess ASUS thought

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that might be jarring too because the out of the box refresh rate is just 60

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hertz that's good for battery life too i guess but honestly it doesn't really

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need the help despite the rg phone 2's impressive specs including the binned

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snapdragon 855 plus and up to 12 gigs of

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RAM thanks to its 6 000 milliamp hour

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battery this thing got me through two work days comfortably on a single charge

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it lasted for 13 straight hours in geekbench 4's battery life test and even

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if it did run low at a critical juncture its quick charge 4.0 compatible and even

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features two charging ports if you want to charge while you get your game on and

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you can really get into your game on this thing because man

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these speakers they're truly something special and i'm not just talking like

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yama and they get like real dark and loud brah

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because yeah they do get real duck and loud but

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somehow ASUS managed to provide a shockingly wide and detailed soundstage

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with just two on-board speakers you'll run into a little distortion as you

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crank them up to full volume but they are

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surprisingly good and combined with the beautiful 10-bit display this thing is

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fantastic for watching movies which isn't to say that the experience

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is perfect nothing is the camera like on every gaming phone

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we've tried is just not that great

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it's clearly based on high-end hardware i mean you can tell thanks to the detail

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captured in this comparison shot against my daily driver note 9 and the natural

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bokeh in this shot of Yvonne for instance absolutely enhances the look of

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the image so no the problem just boils down to the typical ASUS things great

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hardware bass ackward software now to their credit ASUS avoided the over

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sharpening pitfall that traps so many other still learning phone makers but

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they fell victim to rookie mistakes in their color science look how unnatural

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the green in these trees is my wife's skin tone is very unnatural

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here and even in HDR capture mode the

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dynamic range in this image is so so at

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best and i feel like i have to mention this the quick launch shortcut i mean

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yes it has one but whoever decided that

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double clicking the volume down key

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should launch the camera should be sent back to user interfaces 101 not only is

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it clunky it doesn't even work if the phone is unlocked or when you're

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listening to music so there is no excuse

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for not having a quick launch these days that makes sense

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apple by the way guys get subscribed and stay tuned for our review of their new

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phone as well for now let's keep going with the other things that aren't perfect about this one the underscreen

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fingerprint sensor still a step forward compared to it being on the back but it

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just isn't as reliable as the ones from oneplus or samsung the OLED screen while

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very bright can't go as dim as a note or

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an iphone which can be fatiguing late at night

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there's a gap where the screen meets the body that junk can get stuck in the back

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is so slippery that if your hands are dry you run the risk of it literally

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sliding off of your hand the port cover on the secondary type c connector isn't

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captive so it'll probably get lost the first time you use it the background

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during phone calls is such cringe wow

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the headphone jack thank you for including one though is placed where the

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right-handed population will find it gets in the way in both vertical and

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horizontal orientations and despite ASUS

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claims of 20 millisecond haptic feedback response time just

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tapping the calculator was noticeably slower than other phones that i've used

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but at the end of the day this isn't just a

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phone is it this is a gaming phone for

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gamers so what is it like then for gaming well i don't know because i ran

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out of angry bird bucks or whatever so i'm gonna kick this one over to Anthony

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actually it's pretty great i'm not much of a mobile gamer myself but it was a

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pretty enjoyable experience without any attachments the air triggers

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gave me what felt like actual buttons the configurable pressure sensitivity

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responds with a haptic tap on both the downstroke and the upstroke and you can

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assign them to any on-screen button with a swipe from the left and a tap of the

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air trigger button it's seriously so good that i could be

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fooled into thinking they're tack switches and through a combination of

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the touchscreen and triggers at least in shooters i found that i was

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actually more accurate with this setup than i would have been with a real

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gamepad let that sink in for a moment furthermore the screen and the

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positionality of the audio are so good that i often forgot that i was looking

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at a phone while playing pubg until i noticed my neck was cramping up from

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looking down at it for so long and i could spend a long time looking down at

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it depending on what i'm playing 60fps games like pubg gave me roughly a 10

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drain per hour while high refresh rate games like minecraft with the visuals

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cranked lasted me about 4 hours and 20 minutes at full bore and what's nice

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about that is that you can choose your bore ASUS armory crate app lets you set

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up each game on your phone to use as much or as little CPU speed as you want

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with preset thermal limits to taste remember most of a CPU's peak energy

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draw and heat output will be in that last push to reach its maximum speed so

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setting a cap will mean that even the most demanding games can last quite a

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while if you're willing to put up with a lower frame rate if you want to go the

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other way the phone is capable of achieving peak performance on its own in

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spite of its passive internal cooling but the included aeroactive cooler 2

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accessory allows it to maintain those speeds at lower temperatures which means

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it's less likely to ever thermal throttle and it goes fast i can max out pubg and

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get a solid 60 FPS while minecraft's support for high refresh rates lends it

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to getting to around 90 plus with typical minimums of 70 and that's with

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the settings cranked on 24 chunks it does over 100 all day on 16 chunks

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it's quite an experience if you've never had the pleasure of actually getting

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good frame rates on a phone for me though touch screens only get me so far

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i need something a little extra to enjoy mobile gaming and that's where the kunai

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comes in the controller works on both Android and pc via bluetooth direct usb

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connection or its neatly integrated 2.4 gigahertz rf dongle and if your game

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doesn't support a physical controller you can set up your own button mappings

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to on-screen touch controls just like you can with the air triggers and when i

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first saw this thing that it comes with i thought it was just a separate bumper

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case but no under these rubber covers are two rails and

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the controller just happens to have this joy-con thing going on

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slide them up off the rails slide them on

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to these and now you've got a kind of awkward but

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still perfectly usable nintendo switch style setup it gets even more ridiculous

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if you then slot it into the twin view dock 2 accessory like

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can you imagine taking a phone call with this thing i'll let Linus finish up with

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his thoughts on the rest of the ecosystem hello

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thanks so yeah

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therein lies the problem as cool as all this stuff is i mean you've got

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two screens on a phone with a battery integrated into the thing and a cooling

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fan for good measure but like who is this bulky attachment for really

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people don't just buy phones specifically to play games

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do they i mean i don't in a given day i might play a

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game or two but i talk to people on the phone

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text take pictures edit videos for Linus cat

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tips pull up references and do research when i'm not at my desk and of course i

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read on the toilet oh don't look at me like that you do it

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too yeah so

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sorry my watch went off hey siri mute my

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notifications to see your notifications swipe down from the top of your apple

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watch face how's this basic so they're five generations into this thing

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oh god hey siri mute my watch media volume set to 0

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thanks but don't lie you do it too

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and the thing is shut the [ __ ] up i can do all of that stuff and game on

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any flagship phone and i can do it without all these fancy attachments so

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with that in mind there are some usability compromises that ASUS had to

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make in spite of their no compromises claim

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honestly the vibe i kind of get is that ASUS set out to build a game console

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first and a phone second which might not

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be a terrible idea like guys hit me up if you're into the idea of a

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secondary Android device that you use for just gaming i mean

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in principle it's not that much crazier than having a phone and a nintendo

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switch in your bag is it yeah it is cause i heard a lot of the young kids

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today play Android games so if you're one of those i guess the rog phone 2

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looks pretty spec fabulous whether you're talking using it as your daily

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driver phone slash game console or even as a secondary device just for gaming

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this is hands down the best mobile Android gaming experience that we have

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seen yet but that recommendation needs to come with an asterisk because if you

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take a lot of pictures or videos like i

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had users in our comments just on youtube stories specifically call out

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the potato video quality when i uploaded things with this

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you might want to consider just buying a galaxy or a pixel and water

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cooling it instead seriously that's a thing we did a video on phone water

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cooling go check it out but now before you check out our sponsor for today's video

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you enjoyed this video and we will see you in our next mobile phone review our

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next video probably won't be a phone but it is like september october there's

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a lot of phone stuff happening right now hmm