Mobile games are going from strength to strength, so it’s only natural that you want the best possible platform from which to compete for prizes or just for pride. Both of these handsets from Asus made their way onto our best gaming phone shortlist, but which one is the champion of the two? Read our detailed comparison below in order to find out.
Design and Screen
When we’re talking about the design and screen, as with many attributes between these phones, there are shedloads of similarities. The two devices share a strongly gaming-centric focused aesthetic, which is likely to be right up your street if you enjoy mobile gaming enough to consider purchasing one of these handsets. There is a difference in colour however, with the 6 Pro being only available in Storm White while the more recent 6D is exclusively in Space Grey. The dimensions are also highly comparable, with the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate only being 0.1mm thicker and 8g heavier than its predecessor, so there’s not much at all to separate them on this score. Both are IPX4 rated for water resistance and have Gorilla Glass Victus, plus they both have a neat little OLED screen on the reverse. The screen quality is frankly indistinguishable among these two, and that’s a good thing considering it’s such a star feature. This AMOLED panel measures 6.78-inches, offers over one billion colours and HDR10+, has a maximum refresh rate of 165Hz, and a resolution 1080×2448. These specs really did tell when we used the display for gaming, with our Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro reviewer writing that it is “easy to just get lost in games… I was entranced by online multiplayer sessions.”
Camera
Camera performance is never the key feature of a gaming phone, and if that’s your top priority then you should take a look at our best camera phones list. However, it can be a great boon to a device such as this if it does in fact have a half-decent snapper. So how do they compare? In hardware terms at least, there seem to be no differences on paper. Both have a 50-megapixel main camera, a 13-megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 5-megapixel macro camera, along with a 12-megapixel selfie snapper. But in reviews, we actually tried all these lenses out to see just how well they really performed. Below are some shots taken with the Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro: We described the pictures taken with rear camera as being “decent”, noting that they “retain a decent amount of detail and pack in some punchy colours too”, though we found results from the ultrawide and macro to be “underwhelming”. Below are some pictures that we took with the Asus ROG Phone 6D Ultimate: Based on these results, we named the main camera “a decent performer” but once again noted that the ultrawide was “a big drop-off in quality” and that the “macro sensor is pretty pointless”. Overall, the camera is far from the highest recommendation factor for buying either of these, and performance is very similar between the two; but you should find that the main sensor is at least usable for taking satisfactory images.
Performance
The performance, along with the screen quality, is surely a top priority for those of you looking for the best possible mobile gaming experience. There is a different chipset in each of these devices, with the 6 Pro having a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 on board and the 6D Ultimate having a MediaTek Dimensity 9000+, but is there one that really comes out on top? Ultimately, as you can see in the table above, the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate slightly edges out the 6 Pro when it comes to the CPU scores (judged by Geekbench 5), while the 6 Pro actually comes out on top with a very slim advantage when we come to the GPU scores (measured by 3D Mark.) We really enjoyed using these phones for gaming sessions, with the ROG Phone 6 Pro reviewer writing, “With racing games and first person shooters especially, the phone felt fast and responsive and delivered an immersive and addictive experience. I felt my performance was improved in multiplayer thanks to the handset’s hardware edge, and that in turn encouraged me to play more and more.”
Battery Life
If you like gaming on the go, then that’s where battery life will come in valuable to you. Both of these handsets have a very generous 6000mAh battery capacity, but that doesn’t always translate to great real-world results. Fortunately though, these batteries did seem to hold up. We found that an hour’s gaming on the 6 Pro would take 6% juice, and the same on the 6D Ultimate took 8%, so our findings here revealed performance that’s in the same ballpark. 65W wired fast-charging is another shared highlight, and will see you top up your handset in just 42 minutes. However, there’s no wireless charging available here.
Verdict
All told, there are very few attributes that differ between the two phones, so you’ll get a similar experience whichever one you choose to buy. The good news is that we had a great time playing mobile games on both of these devices, so either one is likely to please gamers. When it comes to the smallest of margins, our benchmark testing found slightly superior CPU results on the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate, but slightly superior GPU results on the ROG Phone 6 Pro. This shouldn’t be a dealbreaker for either device, as in our experience they both still deliver excellent all-round processing heft.
