Today we're taking apart the ROG Phone 2. Probably one of the feature rich smartphones
of 2019. We're going to look under that crazy metal protrusion on the back panel and see
if it actually does anything besides just look cool. And we'll see how the glowy LED
lights on the back panel work. It should be pretty interesting. This video is sponsored
by Turo.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
So last year when I took apart the ROG 1, this metal contraption felt more like decoration
than anything else. This year my razor blade slide underneath the growth so we know that
it's not a built in part of the frame. But it's also still connected underneath the back
glass. So I'll have to break out my trusted heat gun to remove the glass before getting
to the metal chunk.
The adhesive holding down the rear glass panel with its colorful accent lines can be warmed
up and cut away with my suction cup and razor blade. Working my way around the hard angles
of the metal vent is fairly complicated. Glued shut phones are never the easiest to take
apart. Finally though, with enough heat and persuasion, we can rotate the back cover off
revealing an absolutely massive internal battery and a self lit LED reflective back panel.
The lights inside the ROG 2 aren't deflected from separate LEDs. The LEDs are actually
built into the reflector itself. Much better design than last year's ROG 1 that had the
LEDs off to the side shooting into a white piece of plastic. This new method is much
more efficient and more secure, and since it has it's own gold contact pads, these can
basically be added anywhere inside the back panel on future phones. And can just shine
through wherever the glass is clear. So let's cross our fingers for even more lights in
the future.
It's nice to see that the ROG lighting on gaming smartphones is improving. ASUS is really
shaking things up. Speaking of brands that are shaking things up, huge thanks to Turo
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To get deeper inside the ROG Phone 2 we got to remove the 8 screws holding on the bottom
plastics, and the 5 screws holding down the top plastics. You would think at this point
when those screws are off that the back panel could come away from the phone. But it turns
out that there are 2 more screws hidden underneath the metal vent. And since the glass is now
off, I can slice underneath that metal vent and remove it from the frame. This guy is
it's own little unit stuck to the phone with adhesive, and it is hollow inside. The underside
of the hump is made from plastic with only a very thin outer metal shell, about as thick
as a pop can. The metal hump itself definitely does not provide any active thermal cooling.
The tiny copper grill however does have a direct opening to inside the phone, which
from a water resistance perspective, is a nightmare. But once again, there is no direct
contact with anything on the motherboard. The tiny vent just allows passive heat dissipation
for any heat that happens to radiate through the air off the motherboard itself. Let's
just say this thing looks more impressive from the outside than the inside – at least
this time around. We'll see if there's any more copper cooling on the underside of the
motherboard in just a second.
Let's go deeper. The massive battery is plugged into the center of the motherboard. I'll unsnap
that like a little Lego and then I'll make my way down to the three small ribbon cables
at the bottom of the motherboard. This phone does not have any wireless charging or water
resistance might be deal breakers to some, but it does have a headphone jack, which are
getting pretty rare these days.
This tiny little daughterboard also comes soldered together with the lower vibration
motor. There are 2 vibrators in this phone. We'll find the other one in just a second.
I'll remove the dual SIM card tray. And then lucky for us, ASUS has added a magical pull
tab underneath the battery. It's a narrow little guy, and eerily silent compared to
Apple's pull tabs. But it gets the job done in a safe manner and doesn't break. There
is a bit of gentle adhesive on the far side of the battery, but nothing that's super dangerous.
This is a 6,000 milliamp hour lithium polymer pack which is the largest we've seen inside
of a cell phone all year.
Check out what's underneath the battery – a solid wall of copper. Now we're talking. This
is where the real cooling happens. This is an underscreen vapor chamber. We've run into
a few of these in the past. We'll have to pull it out to see how big it really is in
just a second.
First I'll remove the rubber plug out of the side dual USB-C accessory and display ports,
and unclip the dual real facing camera and pull it away from the phone. It's got a 48
megapixel main sensor on the left, and a 13 megapixel wide-angle camera on the right.
Neither of which are advertising optical image stabilization. The front 24 megapixel camera
also does not have OIS, but does come with a gray rubber ring around the lens. Kind of
random.
I can finally pull the motherboard out from inside the phone frame. It's got a long thin
design that basically wraps around the whole phone. The design of the ROG 2 seems like
things were added kind of at random. It's not quite as organized as other flagships
we've been inside. It does have thermal paste between the processor and the massive internal
heat sink. The little copper square that touches the processor is located up near the top small
circle vibrator. I imagine there are two vibrators inside to give better haptic feedback on either
side of the phone while gaming, just like we would see inside of a normal video game
controller. The top and bottom stereo speakers are also a bit different. The top speaker
is much smaller, and the bottom speaker doesn't appear to have any balls inside like we saw
inside the Galaxy Fold.
The underscreen fingerprint scanner is also down here at the bottom of the phone near
the loudspeaker. It's a little camera that shines up through the thin AMOLED screen to
read your fingerprint.
Now normally, we do try to keep these phones in working condition. I like putting them
back together. But this particular design puts the copper vapor chamber between the
frame of the phone and the screen because that AMOLED panel is so thin, the ROG uses
that to it's advantage to allow heat to escape out the front of the phone. Which is pretty
smart except that the only way for us to see it is by removing the screen and removing
the screen breaks the screen. Screen removals are usually only performed when the screen
is already broken. The ROG Phone 2 has a large 6.6 inch 1080p display, but the thing that
makes it special is the 120 Hertz refresh rate. It shows images twice as fast as normal
phones do. And yeah, cracking a 120 Hertz display hurts me a little bit on the inside.
But at least now we get to see what we came here for.
Look at the size of this copper layer. We might have a new vapor chamber world champ
right here. This looks larger than even the Razer Phone 2 vapor chamber. Normally vapor
chambers have, you know, vapor inside. Vapor wicks along the little copper capillaries
to keep things cool. And usually this vapor is visible when we slice it open, at least
for a second. But, in my particular ROG Phone 2, no vapor is visible inside. It's bone dry
in here. But even without liquid, it's still a substantially large heat sink, and copper
does a good job of dissipating heat all on it's own. I think it was definitely worth
taking off the screen. Even if the phone didn't quite survive.
On paper, the ROG 2 is one of the best phones of 2019 with it's impressive screen and large
battery. But with that open rear ventilation system that's more for looks than anything
else. It's also very much the least water resistant phone we've seen in a very long
time. Would that major lack of water resistance in a phone this powerful make you nervous?
Let me know down in the comments.
Don't forget to check out Turo next time you need to borrow a car. You can use that “RIG15”
code to get $15 off. Come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter. And thanks a ton
for watching. I'll see your around.