ASUS ROG Phone 6D Ultimate Gaming Phone Levels Up Cooling And Swaps Out Its Processor
Mobile games are becoming more demanding and competitive with titles like Fortnite and Call of Duty coming to smartphones. That's caused the gaming phone niche to expand in recent years with names like Red Magic and Black Shark appearing on the scene. Leave it to ASUS and its ROG brand to set the benchmark, though. The company's newest ROG Phone 6D Ultimate amps up the cooling system and swaps in a new processor.
This device is not a complete departure from the current ASUS lineup—it has only a few notable differences compared to the ROG Phone 6 Pro. For one, this device is only available in the new Space Gray colorway. The "D" in the name also points to a change in silicon. Rather than a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip, this version of the phone has a MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ processor. That chip is paired with faster LPDDR5x memory, too. The GPU in MediaTek's chip is slightly less powerful than Qualcomm's, but the CPU is roughly 10% faster.
The biggest change is undoubtedly the new "AeroActive Portal" cooling system, which features a little heat vent on the back of the phone. When you attach the AeroActive Cooler 6 accessory, the door opens, forming an air channel that directs some of the fan's capacity—1,000cc per second—through the body of the phone and across the heatsink. ASUS says this helps the phone remain cool and avoid throttling. ASUS has performed internal testing that shows the cooler can lower temperatures by 3.4 degrees Celsius compared to the ROG Phone 6's cooling solution.
The cooling flap is intended to stay shut when the AeroActive isn't attached. However, you can open it temporarily in settings for cleaning purposes. The phone has fall detection similar to the Zenfone 6 with its flip camera—if you drop the phone, it's smart enough to snap the cooling flap shut to prevent damage. The mechanism is reportedly tested for 40,000 flips.
The rest of the phone is a carbon copy of the ROG Phone 6 Pro with a 6.78-inch 165Hz OLED, 512GB of storage, and a 6,000 mAh battery. There are also touch-sensitive shoulder buttons for gaming, and a rear-facing ROG Vision display.
This phone will launch in Europe soon at €1,399 (about $1,400 USD) for the Ultimate bundle that comes with the AeroActive Cooler. The ROG Phone 6D—sans Ultimate—is also launching, starting at €949 (about $945). The ROG Phone 6D mirrors with regular ROG Phone 6 with just an RGB logo instead of the fancy display on the back. There are no immediate plans to bring these devices to the US.
