Today ASUS officially unveiled its new ROG Phone 6 device. While the announcement would normally not pique our interest, it is highly relevant to those in South Africa as ASUS has confirmed that the device is earmarked to land locally.

This would make it the first ROG Phone to be made available in our shores, which is something we picked up on at the beginning of June.

At the time of writing, there is no specific date, nor is there any recommended local pricing for the new smartphone series, but we can expect them in September, according to a statement from ASUS South Africa.

“We’re happy to announce that the ROG Phone 6 will be the first in the range to launch in South Africa. The current ETA is September, but that is subject to change depending on regulator approval. Local pricing will be shared closer to the launch date. There is no plan to bring in the accessories alongside devices at this point,” the company clarified.

So what is on offer here?

First and foremost there are two models – the ROG Phone 6 and 6 Pro. It is the former that is earmarked for SA at this stage.

As such, we are focusing on the specifications of that device. To that end a 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor is present, across both models, the silicon company adding an improved Adreno GPU to 50 percent performance improvements compared to the Snapdragon 888.

Added to this is an upgraded GameCool 6 cooling system that includes a 30 percent larger vapour chamber and 85 percent larger graphite sheets, along with a centred CPU design to increase heat dissipation from the core, the Taiwanese outfit points out. Other internal elements include up to 16GB RAM and 512GB storage, with a massive 6 000mAh battery on offer.

Shifting to the display, a 6.78″ AMOLED screen is present with a 165Hz refresh rate and 720Hz touch-sampling rate, along with 23ms ultra-low touch latency.

Although photography is not the key selling point here, the ROG Phone 6 is not under equipped in this department. On this front a Sony IMX766 50MP wide-angle lens will serve as the primary camera. This is paired with an ultra-wide 13MP lens and a macro option, with a 12MP selfie lens up front.

Lastly, the ROG Phone 6 will come in Phantom Black and Storm White and equipped with Aura RGB lighting on the back. The 6 Pro will only be available in Storm White, has up to 18GB RAM and a ROG Vision mini-display on the back as some of its differentiating elements.