Yesterday (10 October 2018), we were given a sneak peak of the ROG Phone in ASUS Malaysia HQ and while there is no official price yet, the official launch date will be on 22 October 2018 and we also got a bunch of hands-on pictures including the phone, the gaming accessories, even to the internal parts of the phone and others.

Finally, after a long time of announcing the ROG Phone back in June, ASUS has posted an official news that the gaming smartphone will make its debut on 18 October 2018. However, that will take place all the way in New York City but at least that really gives us a good idea that the device is ready.

While routinely going through the Sirim database (which is used to list devices coming into Malaysia), we spotted the ZS600KL which is the code name for the ASUS ROG Phone. Announced earlier in June, our hands-on with it revealed it to be probably the best gaming phone yet not just because it features a 3D vapour-chamber cooling system, ultrasonic AirTriggers, a Snapdragon 845 processor clocking in at 2.96GHz and an AMOLED display running at a 90Hz refresh rate  but also due to the various gaming accessories it comes with. Since it is listed in the Sirim database, this means we could see the ROG Phone coming to Malaysia sometime in October of 2018.

Recently the ASUS ROG Phone was listed on a Finnish telco website for €999(~RM4710) or €759(~RM3584) excluding VAT for the 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage variant. We are not sure whether this is the confirmed price but based on the fact that the e-commerce website is taking pre-orders for the listed price, we might see pricing close to or even below RM3000 as reported by Mr.Anonymous a few days back.

It seems that Samsung might join the gaming smartphone race with their own gaming smartphone device based on a statement made by @MMDDJ_ on Twitter. If my predictions are correct, the smartphone will follow the footsteps of other gaming smartphones such as the Razer Phone, Xiaomi Black Shark, and even the ASUS ROG Phone in that it might feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset, high ram capacity, probably a high refresh-rate infinity display and equally large battery capacity.

Based on an interview conducted by gadgetmatch.com, Huawei Consumer Business President Jim Xu has confirmed that chinese smartphone manufacturer plans to release a gaming focused smartphone in H2 2018 as well as a foldable smart device by 2019. But the concept of having a gaming centric phone is not new though as several other manufacturers such as Razer Phone, Xiaomi Black shark, and the Asus ROG Phone has been known to be around for quite a while now.

So they actually did it, in response to Razer and Xiaomi, ASUS Republic of Gamers is now the latest game player introducing the world their first ROG Phone. This is not just your typical gaming smartphone but it's packing some serious features and tech-specs, such as having a 3D vapour-chamber cooling system, an ultrasonic AirTriggers feature, a Snapdragon 845 processor clocking in at 2.96GHz, an AMOLED display running at 90Hz refresh rate and many more.