Key Takeaways
- Asus will select users for the Android 15 Preview Program for the ROG Phone 8.
- Android 15 was released today for Google Pixel phones.
- Gaming phones are a niche market, but there are some standouts.
Months of anticipation finally came to a head today in the Android world. Android 15, the newest mainline mobile operating system from Google, was finally released after numerous delays and setbacks. It has started making its way to the Google Pixel 9, Pixel 8, Pixel 7 and Pixel 6 series of phones today, and it is starting to crawl onto other manufacturers’ devices, too. For mobile gamers, this is good news.
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Asus, a titan in PC gaming, releases and sells the ROG Phone line of gaming smartphones, and the ROG Phone 8 and ROG Phone 8 Pro are both fantastic buys. In the Asus ZenTalk forum, an Asus Community Manager unveiled the Android 15 Preview Program, giving some users of the latest Asus smartphone a chance to test out the new OS (via Android Authority). Selected users will sign an NDA and be prevented from discussing anything about the preview program with people who aren’t in the program. To sign up for the program, users can go to the System Update menu within their phone’s settings, click the gear icon in the top-right corner, and click “Enroll in Android preview Program.” After agreeing to certain notices and creating an Asus account, chosen users will be emailed if they are selected.
The niche mobile gamer market
(Source: Asus)
Together, both the ROG Phone 8 and ROG Phone 8 Pro share the same core specs as the other, but with the latest Pro version of the ROG series, users get higher RAM and storage options as well as unique customizable LEDs. We’re not so sure that the ROG Phone 8 Pro is a gaming phone, either; it has homogenized its design with other phone brands’ flagship devices. It’s still great, but for our favorite gaming phone, we can’t say anything other than the Redmagic 9S Pro. It’s purely made for gaming, which won’t make everyone jump to buy it, but that’s the point: it’s for gamers on the go. The next ROG Phone is rumored to get some modest upgrades.
While we have our picks for the best gaming phones in 2024, including the OnePlus 12R and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max, not all will get pure Android 15 magic. If you’ve got a newer Google Pixel phone and have already downloaded the latest software update, you need to try out these nine essential Android 15 features immediately. Android Police writer Taylor Kerns calls Android 15 the “most mature release” of Android yet, and that’s because while it’s not the flashiest update, that’s more than ok; subtle improvements refine the already-sublime experience of using the latest Android smartphones.
