A new challenger approaches: ASUS is now teasing a gaming phone

The ASUS Zenfone AR was the first with a ridiculous 8GB of RAM.

TL;DR

• Asus’ Global CEO has appeared to confirm that the company is working on a gaming smartphone.
• ASUS has experience in the gaming industry through its Strix and Republic of Gamers brands.
• If released, the phone will follow in the footsteps of other recent gaming phones such as the Razer Phone and the Xiaomi Black Shark.

Hot on the heels of the launch of Xiaomi’s Black Shark gaming smartphone, ASUS has appeared to confirm that it is working on a gaming phone of its own.

In an interview at the opening of ASUS Philippines’ 100th store (reported by astig.ph), ASUS’ Global CEO Jerry Shen said that it can be “expected” that the company will release a phone designed for gaming. Unfortunately, there’s no word regarding a potential release date for this hypothetical device.

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It perhaps isn’t surprising that ASUS would want to release a gaming phone. After all, the company already has experience in the PC gaming industry due to its Strix and Republic of Gamers brands.

However, gaming phones are yet to fully take off in the smartphone world. The freemium revenue model favored by many game developers means that they can have the most success by making games that the highest number of people can play. This essentially means that pretty much all mid-to-high-end smartphones can play most of the Android games out there.

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In fact, the ZenFone 5Z, which ASUS released earlier in the year, comes with 6GB RAM, a Full HD+ 6.2-inch display, and a Snapdragon 845 chipset, essentially making it an excellent phone for gaming in its own right.

Other recently released gaming phones have tried to differentiate themselves in various ways. The Razer Phone had some success due to its 120hz screen refresh rate which makes playing games a very fluid experience. Meanwhile, the aforementioned Xiaomi Black Shark is hedging its bets on a plug and play gamepad and a huge 4000mAh battery for longer play sessions on the go.

It will certainly be interesting to see what ASUS can come up with to keep up with the growing competition.

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