“Yo dawg, I heard you like games, so I put games on the back of your phone so you can game in between games.” Asus, probably. No, really. Asus’ new Android smartphone—the ROG Phone 9 Pro—has 648 mini LEDs on the back of the device that can light up to different patterns, or you can use them to play arcade-“inspired” games that may sound familiar: Brick Smasher, Snake Venture, Aero Invaders, Speedy Runners.

It’s hard out there for smartphone manufacturers, OK? It’s always Samsung this, Apple that. Over the years, Asus has carved a niche catering to mobile gamers with its ROG smartphone line, focusing on things you won’t find in phones from the big dogs. That includes a second USB-C charging port for landscape mode so the cable won’t get in the way while gaming. There are also haptic triggers on the shoulders of the phone, giving you extra “buttons” you can map to specific controls in games, so you don’t have to block the screen with your grubby fingers.

The most unique is the AeroActive Cooler—the latest iteration is called the AeroActive Cooler X Pro—which attaches to the back of the handset. (This is a $120 separate purchase.) It’s more or less a fan that rapidly cools the CPU, allowing you to game even longer without running into thermal throttling issues. (Aka stuttering and lag: the more intensely you use your phone, the hotter it gets, and at a certain point, the processor is throttled so it doesn’t overheat, which causes performance problems.)

Oh, did I mention the headphone jack? That makes it one of the very few high-end smartphones with the port if you prefer to jack in. Asus also throws in a 65-watt charging brick, going against the grain of the competition, which nowadays doesn’t include a power supply in the box.

Much of this is the same as prior ROG Phones. The latest lineup includes the Asus ROG Phone 9 ($1,000), ROG Phone 9 Pro ($1,200), and ROG Phone 9 Pro Edition ($1,500). The latter maximizes some specs of the Pro (like 24 GB of RAM instead of 16 GB) and 1 TB of storage, and it includes the AeroActive Cooler X Pro in the box. The Cooler X Pro brings back the subwoofer that used to be on an older model, boosting the bass of music played from the phone.

The 6.78-inch Phone 9 only has 85 mini LEDs on the back, so it doesn’t have the full breadth of features; you can play some animations on it, but upgrade to the ROG Phone 9 Pro and that’s when you can use the haptic shoulder triggers to play arcade games. You’ll probably get a lot of looks staring at the back of your phone in public.

It’s powered by the newly announced Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, which is currently the fastest processor in the Android world. Asus claims the CPU is 45 percent faster than the ROG Phone 8, with a 40 percent faster GPU too. There are improvements to the phone’s natural cooling capabilities, like the inclusion of a 57 percent larger graphite sheet, which produces lower temperatures by dissipating heat. Asus claims the most demanding mobile games, like Genshin Impact or Zenless Zone Zero, should consistently hit 60 frames per second for smoother gameplay, even more so if you pair it with the cooler attachment.

Other notable upgrades over the ROG Phone 8 are the bump in battery size from 5,500 mAh to 5,800 mAh, and the primary 50-megapixel camera now sports Asus’s fourth-generation stabilization technology. The company claims this delivers 66 percent improved motion compensation, so the six-axis gimbal should produce super-smooth footage when you record videos. The stabilization has typically been strong in my testing on prior ROG phones, but the overall camera quality is generally lackluster, so I’m interested to see how it fares now.

Asus has cheekily copied a few iPhone 16 features in its handset. For starters, “Photo Vibes” takes clear inspiration from Apple’s Photography Styles, allowing you to change up the color grading of an image with warmer or cooler tones before snapping the image. Also, you can now configure one of the AirTrigger shoulder buttons to work as a camera shutter button (Camera Control, much?).

Disappointingly, while there’s wireless charging support, it still only supports the Qi standard. There’s no Qi2, which would have enabled MagSafe-like magnetic charging accessories. Also, Asus’ software update policy remains one of the lousiest. These expensive phones will only receive two Android OS updates, though at least Asus promises five years of security updates. Samsung and Google phones receive seven years of software updates.

It wouldn’t be a new smartphone announcement without artificial intelligence sprinkled in. Asus says it employs new machine-learning tricks in its X Sense 3.0 software, the overlay you can call on when playing mobile games. For example, it uses image recognition to support features like automatically picking up nearby loot, locking the run button so you don’t have to press it all the time, and even fast-forwarding dialog. However, much of this is only compatible with a small number of games like Genshin Impact, Arena of Valor, and League of Legends Wild Rift. It can also automatically record notable moments and save the clips, handy for streamers.

Like a lot of other Android phones, Asus is leveraging Google’s Gemini large language models to bring a real-time call translator feature, an auto-transcribing function in its native recorder app, and the ability to use AI to generate wallpapers. Also available is Google’s Circle to Search feature, which lets you circle anywhere on the screen to run a Google Search.

The ROG Phone 9 and ROG Phone 9 Pro are launching in select markets earlier than others, but in the US, they’re expected to arrive in January. We’ll have a review soon.