Asus ROG Phone 2 announced and it's the first phone with Snapdragon 855 Plus

The world of smartphones for gaming is a closely competitive one, with phones like the Black Shark 2, Razer Phone 2 and the original Asus ROG Phone all vying to be the smartphone you play Fortnite, PUBG Mobile or any other Android game, and now Asus has announced the ROG Phone 2 to add to the competition.

The new gaming phone has a never-before-seen chipset, one of the biggest batteries we've seen in a phone, and an incredible refresh rate. There's also a price tag to match its premium gaming phone status.

The Asus ROG Phone 2 has a Snapdragon 855 Plus chipset, and it's the first phone to have it. It's a processor that's based on the Snapdragon 855, which we've seen in quite a few modern smartphones, but tweaked to be better for gaming and virtual reality, with increased processor and graphics speeds. 

Talking of high-speed: the handset's display also has a 120Hz refresh rate, meaning the screen shows images twice as fast as the 60Hz of a normal smartphone. This makes it great for edge-of-your-seat action gameplay, and should give gamers a competitive edge.

Another impressive feature in the ROG Phone 2 is its massive 6,000mAh battery, which is among the biggest we've seen in a widely released smartphone. It's nothing like the 18,000mAh power pack in the Energizer Power Max P18K Pop, but that phone wasn't actually on sale in the end, so the ROG Phone 2 could be the new champion.

The rest of the phone looks almost identical to the original Asus ROG Phone, but with a 6.59-inch AMOLED screen instead of 6-inches, a 48MP camera instead of 12MP, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and two USB-C ports.

You're paying a lot for the privilege of gaming on the phone though – we don't know exactly how much it'll cost you yet, but the original started at $899 / £799, and we'd expect the successor to cost even more.

So is the Asus ROG Phone 2, with all its new features, worth its high price tag? We'll find out when we review it, so check back then for all our thoughts on the device.