Technologies

Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro: $1,300 Phone Maxes Out Everything but the Camera

This high-priced gaming phone puts power and style at the front, with plenty of ideas I’d love to see in mainstream phones.

The Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro is a $1,300 gaming phone behemoth. Released last summer, the phone justifies its high price with more premium specifications that offer more power and style than the average phone. This includes the phone’s 6.78-inch OLED display with a 165Hz refresh rate, a 6,000mAh battery and a colorful second LED display on the back that adds a dynamic look to the rear of the phone.

I’ve been using the Phone 6 Pro for the last few months — testing it both as a gaming device and as an everyday phone. While I largely enjoy using the Phone 6 Pro, some of the choices Asus made for gamers do not necessarily benefit a mainstream phone user. There are some design quirks, and the camera isn’t as impressive as it should be for such an expensive device. It’s also missing wireless charging, which may not be a necessity but is considered common on most phones.

But if you can cast aside these shortcomings, the Phone 6 Pro has a number of features that could end up on a future iPhone or Galaxy device. Asus also succeeds at catering to those who want to get the most out of their phone as a gaming device.

Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro with LED display on — The Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro has a rear LED display that lights up with various animations and notification icons.

Mike Sorrentino/CNET

A futuristic design highlighted by a rear LED display

The Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro’s design makes a statement. My review unit is a satellite-like white color that’s adorned with blue accents and a black line that diagonally traces around its LED display.

That rear display reminds me of the notification LED that I used to see on BlackBerry phones, but evolved into something more like the cover screen on a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4. The display shows icons for notifications, a Game Start animation (for when you start a game of course), a battery indicator and other animations that you customize within the phone’s settings.

A static LED that outlines the words «Ready to Play» is also on the back of the device to really emphasize that this is a gaming phone. The color of that text can be customized from within the menus.

I would love to see other phones experiment with more artistic colors and designs like Asus. The midrange Nothing Phone 1 is already doing something similar with its Glyph LED design. For now, the closest most mainstream phones get to customization is when you throw on a skin or case.

Yet another design choice to place the phone’s front-facing camera in a bezel above the phone’s display makes sense in order to provide an uninterrupted screen, but that choice is a rather dated idea for a phone this expensive. This makes the phone a little bit taller than the display, which harks back to older designs like 2018’s Samsung Galaxy S9. Gaming phone rival RedMagic now uses an under-display front-facing camera, starting with its 7S Pro, but image quality is still a work in progress on phones giving that a try.

Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro with Marvel Snap — The Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro has a 6.78-inch screen, and chooses to put the front-facing camera within a bezel above the display.

Mike Sorrentino/CNET

Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro’s screen animates and reacts fast

As one would expect with an expensive phone, the Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro’s 6.78-inch OLED looked great no matter what type of content I was viewing. By default, it uses an automatic refresh rate that changes depending on what you’re using. After turning on the setting that keeps it at 165Hz at all times, I was able to enjoy extremely smooth scrolling, gaming animations and reading. While Marvel Snap maxes at 60 frames per second, the card game seemed to animate especially well with all of its graphics settings turned on. The same goes for quickly jumping in and out of Gameloft’s Modern Combat 5 and Warner Bros.’ Mortal Kombat — the latter of which natively supports the 165Hz refresh rate.

The screen also has a 720Hz touch sampling rate, or how quickly the screen reacts to taps and scrolls for games. In my experience, that’s particularly useful for first-person shooters and fighting games.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a 165Hz refresh rate or a 720Hz touch sampling rate; last year’s $629 RedMagic 7 phone also includes those features. But features like these are starting to make their way into more mainstream devices at lower prices. Motorola’s $500 Edge phone from last summer, for instance, has a display with a 144Hz refresh rate. I’m expecting these higher frame rates to continue reaching mainstream phones and perhaps pushing even higher on gaming phones, a trend that we’re also seeing on some televisions and computer monitors.

The 720Hz rate is still largely found on gaming phones, but the Samsung Galaxy S23 does have a 240Hz touch sampling rate that is more than adequate outside the competitive gaming space.

Two front-facing speakers are located around the display, which is especially useful as it’s less likely that your hands will cover them while playing games. Plus, the phone has a wired headphone jack, making it one of the very few phones to still include the port. Having the option makes a lot of sense, since it allows for hardwiring into the phone for audio while using the USB-C port for charging. A second USB-C port on the phone is also available for accessories.

Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro has one of the biggest batteries I’ve seen

The Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro packs one of the largest batteries I’ve seen on a phone, with a 6,000mAh capacity. The closest we’ve otherwise seen in readily available phones like the Galaxy S23 Ultra is 5,000mAh. Even when I cranked up the refresh rate to 165Hz and turned on the phone’s always-on display, I made it through an entire day or two with a single charge fairly easily. I did not run all of CNET’s battery benchmarks on the Phone 6 Pro, but between the large capacity and support for 65W fast charging, getting the phone through a day isn’t an issue.

Additional battery life is very likely to make its way into more mainstream phones eventually, but currently faster charging already is available in phones like the OnePlus 11 5G. That phone offers 100W charging in the UK and 80W charging in the US.

Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro’s 18GB of RAM is overkill

The phone also includes 512GB of space alongside a ludicrous 18GB of LPDDR5 RAM. Multitasking is a breeze, as it’s able to handle several apps at the same time without lagging at all if I swapped quickly between them.

Games themselves load quickly too, thanks in part to the now previous-gen Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor. Hopping into a game, texting, and then launching a website before returning to the game is simple and fast. Whenever I use a gaming phone like the Phone 6 Pro, having this much RAM alongside a fast processor allows me to go into a game’s settings menu and crank up every graphics setting possible, with little worry that it’s going to hurt the performance of the title.

It’s worth noting that 2023 mainstream phones like the Galaxy S23 and gaming phones like the RedMagic 8 Pro are including the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, both of which arrived after the ROG Phone 6 Pro.

The large amount of RAM is also one of the areas where the phone’s high price is quite obvious. It is common for phones like the iPhone 14 Pro or the Galaxy S23 Plus to include a 512GB storage tier at the $1,300 price range, but incorporating 18GB of RAM is very unusual. By comparison, this is more RAM than most computers at a similar price range include.

That said, the sheer amount of RAM included in the phone does show that while the Phone 6 Pro spares no expense on specs that help it run fast. It instead cuts corners on photography, which runs quite counter to what we typically see on the mainstream side of the phone industry.

Gaming focus comes at the expense of the cameras

When it comes to the phone’s cameras, photos are generally a weak point despite the inclusion of a 50-megapixel main camera, a 13-megapixel ultrawide camera and a 5-megapixel macro camera.

Beef pho noodle bowl photo captured on the Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro.

Mike Sorrentino/CNET

I took photos in several indoor settings, including during a tour of Samsung’s recently reopened 837 store in New York and during a nighttime ice skating session.

Ice skating photo taken on the Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro.

Sean Keane/CNET

The photos are nice, but they aren’t $1,300 phone nice.

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I know this is a «gaming phone» and not a «camera phone,» but I still expected more from such a pricey device. Most phones in this price range support more colors and detail, using a combination of a high-quality camera and software to bring out the most of a photo in a variety of situations. Yet the lack of focus in this area is understandable when considering how a rear camera rarely ever becomes a part of most mobile phone games. If camera quality is your concern, consider a Galaxy S23 Ultra, Pixel 7 Pro or iPhone 14 Pro Max.

Asus customizations don’t overwhelm Android

The Phone 6 Pro, which received the update to Android 13 during my time with it, has the right amount of software customization options. The tweaks made by Asus were noticeable, but didn’t get in my way when using the device.

The phone defaults to dark mode, which better compliments some of the Asus settings found in the company’s Armoury Crate app. This app lets you make adjustments to the LED display and game performance.

I appreciate the separation, as sometimes a phone’s settings menu can become overwhelming with options from both Android 13 and the device maker’s specific offerings. I would, however, appreciate some shortcuts from the device settings menu that bring you to the Asus app. There were some occasions when I wasn’t sure how to make certain changes. It wasn’t clear, for instance, how to adjust the rear LED.

As far as actual gaming goes, Asus includes a Game Genie hub that you can access while playing a game by tracing diagonally from the corners of the screen. This brings up a space-themed dashboard with settings for adjusting the device’s refresh rate, allowing or blocking phone calls, screen recording or adjusting the AirTriggers. These are the shoulder button-like sensors on the phone that can be customized for different commands. Gaming mode options like these are great for gaming phones or other high-end phones, but I don’t expect wider adoption: When I reviewed the $228 OnePlus N300, seeing a similar gaming mode on that cheaper phone seemed to give away that it didn’t have as much power to run games at higher graphics settings.

Asphalt Xtreme on the Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro.

Mike Sorrentino/CNET

Asus offers a lot, but for a specific gamer audience

The Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro brings a lot of personality to an otherwise niche and expensive device. I appreciate its flourishes — especially the rear LED — and how the phone prioritizes gaming and media consumption over all else. Features like the high-quality display, the rear LED, fast charging, the front-facing speakers and a headphone jack would likely be appreciated by a lot of regular phone users, too.

But Asus makes compromises in other areas, particularly when it comes to the cameras and the lack of wireless charging. While the high touch sampling rate is useful for gamers, it’s not significant enough to make me want it in a standard, non-gaming phone. This is ultimately still a very expensive phone — even for a niche audience. It’s also worth remembering that many of the specs can be found in cheaper options like the RedMagic, even if it’s at the expense of the user experience. But if you really want to have 18GB of RAM and a fancy second screen in your smartphone, be prepared to pay the $1,300.

Technologies

The Fastest Way to Open Any App Is Hiding on the Back of Your iPhone

Your iPhone’s Back Tap feature can be customized to open any app.

Tapping the screen on an iPhone opens an app. What does tapping on the back of your phone do? A number of things, it turns out. It’s a super useful hack that you’ve likely been missing out on. In fact, it’s the fastest way to launch the camera or open specific apps without hunting through folders. In 2026, it’s the ultimate hack for making your hardware work harder for you without touching the display.

The feature is part of the Back Tap tool in your iPhone’s accessibility settings. Once enabled, it can trigger almost anything your phone can do, from turning on the flashlight to opening Shazam before a song ends. You can even set it to open the Control Center, take a screenshot or run a custom Shortcut with two or three quick taps. It’s fast, discreet and surprisingly powerful once you set it up.

The feature is called Back Tap and, like the Action Button on newer iPhones, it gives you one more way to use your device without touching the screen. You can activate it by tapping anywhere on the back of your phone, including on the camera module. The best part is that it works even if you have a fairly thick case on your iPhone.

Back Tap is available on iPhones as old as the iPhone 8, as long as they’re running iOS 14 or later. We’ll show you how to enable it and how to use it with your Shortcuts app for nearly endless possibilities.

Read more: All the Ways the iPhone 16’s Camera Control Button Will Change Your iPhone Photography

What is the iPhone Back Tap feature?

Back Tap is an iPhone feature introduced in iOS 14. It lets you perform shortcuts on your iPhone by double- or triple-tapping on the back of the device.

You can customize Back Tap on your iPhone to easily perform common actions like pulling up the Control Center or Notification Center, especially useful if you have a larger phone and can’t swipe down from the top of the screen without some complex finger gymnastics. You can even have two separate functions enabled at the same time: Back Tap can distinguish between a Double Tap and a Triple Tap.

Depending on the number of times you touch the back of your iPhone, you can set Double Tap to open your Notification Center and Triple Tap to take a screenshot. Or, you can make Double Tap open the Control Center and Triple Tap launch the Magnifier app. Experiment with Back Tap to find the right combinations of taps and functions that best fit your needs.

And you aren’t limited to just the Back Tap options that are available by default. Thanks to the Shortcuts app, you can set up Back Tap to perform specific functions or launch any app. For example, you can create a simple shortcut that opens Shazam or starts a voice recording, then activate it with a quick Double Tap or Triple Tap. You can also use Back Tap to trigger a more elaborate shortcut, such as automatically sending photos and videos to specific photo albums.

How do I set up Back Tap on my iPhone?

To enable Back Tap, go to your Settings app. Then go to Accessibility → Touch → Back Tap. There, you’ll find a list of options for configuring Double Tap and Triple Tap.

Here is the full list of functions that you can map to a Double Tap or Triple Tap:

None
Accessibility Shortcut

System

App Switcher
Camera
Control Center
Flashlight
Home
Lock Rotation
Lock Screen
Mute
Notification Center
Reachability
Screenshot
Shake
Spotlight
Volume Down
Volume Up

Accessibility

AssistiveTouch
Background Sounds
Classic Invert
Color Filters
Control Nearby Devices
Dim Flashing Lights
Live Captions
Live Speech
Magnifier
Smart Invert
Speak Screen
VoiceOver
Zoom
Zoom Controller

Scroll Gestures

Scroll Down
Scroll Up

At the bottom of the menu, you’ll also see a list of Shortcuts. These options will vary depending on what’s available in your Shortcuts app.

The one potential downside to Back Tap is that you don’t get any tactile feedback when you use it, so you might accidentally trigger it at the wrong time and not realize it until later. For instance, you might double-tap without meaning to and set off your flashlight by accident. In that case, you might want to remap your Double Tap to a less conspicuous function. Or, you can leave Double Tap off and only use Triple Tap, which you probably won’t trigger as often.

How do I use Back Tap to take a quick photo?

One way to set up Back Tap is to map Double Tap to the Camera and Triple Tap to Volume Up or Volume Down. Because you can press either of the volume buttons to instantly take a picture, you can get the same effect if your volume buttons are mapped to Back Tap. With this combination, you can capture a photo with five quick taps on the back of your iPhone (though you’ll have to pause briefly between performing the Double Tap and Triple Tap, so that your phone can distinguish between the two actions).

This Back Tap combination even works if your phone is locked. Again, spend some time trying out different combinations of taps and features to find which ones are most useful for you.

Technologies

Social Media and AI Want Your Attention at All Times. This New Documentary Says That’s Bad

Your Attention Please, a documentary premiering this week at SXSW in Austin, Texas, explores how we live in the attention economy.

«Do you remember the world before cellphones?»

The question comes early in Your Attention Please, a documentary premiering this week at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. And it hit me harder than I expected. As a 27-year-old tech reporter, I realized I don’t have too many clear memories of life before smartphones. My adolescence unfolded alongside the rise of smartphones, social media, push notifications and the routine of endless scrolling. Like many people my age, I’ve spent most of my life inside the attention economy — without ever really stepping outside it.

That’s the uneasy territory the documentary explores.

CNET was given exclusive early access to the film’s trailer, embedded below.

Exploring how tech shapes our behavior

Director Sara Robin said she originally set out to make something smaller: a documentary about people trying to reclaim their attention by breaking unhealthy phone habits. In an interview with CNET, Robin described the idea as a personal story about focus and self-control in an age of constant distraction.

As Robin interviewed researchers, technologists and families affected by social media and cyberbullying, the film’s scope widened. What started as a question about individual habits quickly became a larger investigation into how modern technology systems are designed to shape human behavior. The story stretches from the rise of social media to the emerging influence of AI.

Along the way, Robin and her collaborators kept hearing the same observation from different corners of the digital world: Social media didn’t just change how people communicate; it quietly rewired what we value. Experiences that were once private or emotional — friendship, affection, belonging — began to acquire numerical equivalents. Followers, likes, comments, views and shares began to be how we saw our own self-worth. In the architecture of social platforms, those numbers function as a kind of social currency.

Trisha Prabhu, a digital-safety advocate and inventor of the anti-cyberbullying technology ReThink, argues that social platforms did more than create new online spaces. She says they fundamentally reshaped how social validation works. The metrics that define popularity often reward attention-seeking behavior and amplify conflict, while genuine connection is now harder to quantify and, therefore, easier to overlook.

Prabhu warns that the same dynamics already driving problems like cyberbullying could accelerate as automated systems become more capable. AI tools can generate abusive messages at scale, produce convincing impersonations or create deepfakes that spread rapidly online. In some cases, the technology may even blur the line between human interaction and machine-generated communication, which could deepen loneliness or encourage harmful behavior.

«There’s AI exacerbating existing harms [like automating cyberbullying], but then I also think that there’s AI creating completely new harms,» Prabhu told CNET. «There are reports of AI tools encouraging users, including minor users, to commit self-harm… Even for the everyday user who’s not experiencing the extreme outcome, I think we have to ask ourselves how much of our time and connection we want spent with an AI tool as opposed to a fellow human being.»

Bringing attention to attention

What struck Robin during filming the documentary was how universal these anxieties felt. Across conversations with families, educators and advocates around the world, the themes were remarkably consistent: overstimulated attention, declining focus in classrooms, rising anxiety among young people and a persistent sense of dread that comes from always being plugged in.

Those shared concerns have helped spark a coordinated moment around the film’s release.

On March 11, more than 25 organizations focused on digital well-being will simultaneously release the trailer for Your Attention Please as part of an initiative called Stand for Their Attention. What began as a small collaboration among five groups quickly grew as word spread through advocacy networks. The coalition now includes organizations such as Common Sense Media, Protect Young Eyes, Mothers Against Media Addiction, the Center for Humane Technology, Smartphone Free Childhood and Scrolling to Death.

The idea behind the synchronized launch is simple: Use the attention surrounding the documentary to highlight the growing movement that’s already working to reshape digital culture.

Many people feel overwhelmed by the scale of the problem, Robin says, but behind the scenes, a widening ecosystem of advocates is experimenting with ways to build healthier digital environments, from redesigning products to changing norms around screen use.

The campaign also arrives at a moment of growing scrutiny around the attention economy. Lawmakers in the US and abroad are increasingly debating how social platforms affect youth mental health and childhood development. Boycotts around AI use are taking off. Researchers are studying how these algorithms and chatbots influence behavior. Individuals are trying to figure out how much technology belongs in everyday life.

What can we do about it?

Despite the weight of those conversations, Robin says the goal of the film isn’t to leave audiences feeling powerless. In fact, the rapid rise of public awareness around AI has made her more optimistic than she was during the early days of social media. The systems shaping digital life, she argues, are built by people, which means they can also be rebuilt.

«We have more power than we think,» Robin said. «And there are a lot of different ways to get involved in this, from changing individual habits to changing the culture in your own family and in your community, designing technology differently, getting engaged in these conversations, all the way to pushing for legislative change.»

The film intentionally avoids presenting a single solution.

Instead, Your Attention Please asks a broader question: What happens when attention, one of the most human parts of our lives, becomes one of the most valuable commodities in the global economy? And perhaps more importantly, what kind of digital world do we want to build next?

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for March 12, #535

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for March 12, No. 535.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a tough one, with some very unusual categories. The blue one is pretty fun, actually. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: City of Brotherly Love.

Green group hint: NBA star.

Blue group hint: Grr! Meow! Roar!

Purple group hint: Think alphabet.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Philadelphia teams.

Green group: Associated with Larry Bird.

Blue group: Sports figures with animal names.

Purple group: Sports figures whose first names sound like two letters.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is Philadelphia teams. The four answers are 76ers, Flyers, Penn and Temple.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is associated with Larry Bird. The four answers are Celtics, French Lick, Pacers and Sycamores.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is sports figures with animal names. The four answers are Bear Bryant, Cat Osterman, Catfish Hunter and Tiger Woods.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is sports figures whose first names sound like two letters. The four answers are Casey Stengel (KC), CeeDee Lamb (CD), Katie Ledecky (KT) and Vijay Singh (VJ).