Asus ROG Phone 3 Has a Hidden 160Hz Refresh Rate Option: Report

Asus ROG Phone 3 has a secret 160Hz refresh rate that can be unlocked using the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) command-line tool. Launched in India last week, the flagship gaming phone comes with a refresh rate of 144Hz on paper. The Taiwanese tech giant has also confirmed the existence of the advanced refresh rate option, which it says is only meant for internal testing and not for end-users. The phone's display, however, has not been calibrated to suit a refresh rate of 160Hz.

XDA Developers found the hidden 160Hz refresh option, sharing steps on how to unlock it. It says that the mode can only be activated by using the ADB PC app. Once there, the user needs to you run a command from a prompt or terminal window, “adb shell setprop debug.vendor.asus.fps.eng 1.” Following this, when the phone is rebooted, the 160Hz refresh rate option should start appearing in the display settings.

The report also highlighted that this mode is unfinished, and the display hasn't been calibrated to suit. It essentially means that you can use the display at 160Hz but you may not get the smoothness you wish to achieve.

Asus confirmed the development, and told Engadget, “The 160Hz refresh rate is only for our internal testing and ASUS has not made this part of the official specifications of the device.” The phone will be available for purchase from August 6 in India.

Asus ROG Phone 3 Specifications

The Asus ROG Phone 3 sports a 6.59-inch full-HD+ AMOLED display with 1,080x2,340 pixels resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 144Hz refresh rate, and HDR10+ support. The display is protected by a 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 6, and it has a TUV Low Blue Light solution to protect the eyes. The phone has an in-display fingerprint sensor, and ultrasonic sensors for the AirTrigger 3 and grip press features. The phone runs on Android 10 with ROG UI on top.

The smartphone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ mobile platform, and is coupled with Adreno 650 GPU, up to 12GB LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of onboard UFS 3.1 storage. The ROG Phone 3 has three rear cameras which include a 64-megapixel primary sensor, a 13-megapixel sensor with ultra-wide-angle lens, and a third 5-megapixel macro camera. Customers get a 24-megapixel selfie camera. Further, the phone features two speakers powered by ROG GameFX and Dirac HD Sound technologies. It houses a 6,000mAh battery with 30W fast charging support.

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