Asus’s insane gaming phone to launch on Oct. 18 for $899

Asus’ ROG Phone, a gaming-oriented smartphone with some pretty crazy specs, will be available for purchase in U.S. stores on October 18, with the starting price of $899. 

Customers will be able to pre-order it online at the ASUS Store, Amazon, and Microsoft, as well as in Microsoft Store on Fifth Avenue in New York City, where the launch will officially take place. 

The ROG Phone is powered by a 2.96GHz Snapdragon 845 chip as well as “gaming-optimized” Adreno 630 graphics chip. It has a 6-inch, 2,160×1,080 AMOLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate, 8GB of RAM, 128/512GB of storage, a 12/8-megapixel rear camera, an 8-megapixel selfie camera and a 4,000mAh battery.

The phone also sports Asus’ vapor-chamber cooling system, and a detachable AeroActive Cooler, which connects via a USB-C port on the phone’s side (yes, the phone has another USB-C port, alongside a headphone jack, on the bottom).

Those specs, while impressive, don’t tell the whole story, though. In Q4 2018, Asus will also launch a range of gaming-oriented accessories, including the $229.99 Mobile Desktop Dock, which lets you connect the phone to an external 4K monitor as well as mouse and keyboard. Other accessories include the $399.99 TwinView Dock, which adds an additional, 6-inch screen to the phone and the $329.99 WiGig dock which lets you wirelessly stream the image from the phone to a TV with an under-20ms latency. You’ll also be able to get a $59.99 protective case as well as a $89.99 controller with dual analog joysticks and a bunch of additional buttons and triggers. 

The 512GB version of the ROG Phone will cost $1,099, and if you opt to buy some of the accessories listed above, you can quickly reach the price of a decent gaming PC. It appears Asus is quite serious about turning the smartphone into a serious gaming machine, though, as there’s nothing quite like this phone on the market. 

This announcement definitely cements this year’s October as the month of phones. LG and Google have already launched their flagships, and — besides Asus — Razer, Samsung, Huawei, and OnePlus are scheduled to launch new phones this month as well.