of 2019. We're going to look under that crazy metal protrusion on the back panel and see

if it actually does anything besides just look cool. And we'll see how the glowy LED

lights on the back panel work. It should be pretty interesting. This video is sponsored

by Turo.

Let's get started.

[Intro]

So last year when I took apart the ROG 1, this metal contraption felt more like decoration

than anything else. This year my razor blade slide underneath the growth so we know that

it's not a built in part of the frame. But it's also still connected underneath the back

glass. So I'll have to break out my trusted heat gun to remove the glass before getting

to the metal chunk.

The adhesive holding down the rear glass panel with its colorful accent lines can be warmed

up and cut away with my suction cup and razor blade. Working my way around the hard angles

of the metal vent is fairly complicated. Glued shut phones are never the easiest to take

apart. Finally though, with enough heat and persuasion, we can rotate the back cover off

revealing an absolutely massive internal battery and a self lit LED reflective back panel.

The lights inside the ROG 2 aren't deflected from separate LEDs. The LEDs are actually

built into the reflector itself. Much better design than last year's ROG 1 that had the

LEDs off to the side shooting into a white piece of plastic. This new method is much

more efficient and more secure, and since it has it's own gold contact pads, these can

basically be added anywhere inside the back panel on future phones. And can just shine

through wherever the glass is clear. So let's cross our fingers for even more lights in

the future.

It's nice to see that the ROG lighting on gaming smartphones is improving. ASUS is really

shaking things up. Speaking of brands that are shaking things up, huge thanks to Turo

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To get deeper inside the ROG Phone 2 we got to remove the 8 screws holding on the bottom

plastics, and the 5 screws holding down the top plastics. You would think at this point

when those screws are off that the back panel could come away from the phone. But it turns

out that there are 2 more screws hidden underneath the metal vent. And since the glass is now

off, I can slice underneath that metal vent and remove it from the frame. This guy is

it's own little unit stuck to the phone with adhesive, and it is hollow inside. The underside

of the hump is made from plastic with only a very thin outer metal shell, about as thick

as a pop can. The metal hump itself definitely does not provide any active thermal cooling.

The tiny copper grill however does have a direct opening to inside the phone, which

from a water resistance perspective, is a nightmare. But once again, there is no direct

contact with anything on the motherboard. The tiny vent just allows passive heat dissipation

for any heat that happens to radiate through the air off the motherboard itself. Let's

just say this thing looks more impressive from the outside than the inside – at least

this time around. We'll see if there's any more copper cooling on the underside of the

motherboard in just a second.

Let's go deeper. The massive battery is plugged into the center of the motherboard. I'll unsnap

that like a little Lego and then I'll make my way down to the three small ribbon cables

at the bottom of the motherboard. This phone does not have any wireless charging or water

resistance might be deal breakers to some, but it does have a headphone jack, which are

getting pretty rare these days.

This tiny little daughterboard also comes soldered together with the lower vibration

motor. There are 2 vibrators in this phone. We'll find the other one in just a second.

I'll remove the dual SIM card tray. And then lucky for us, ASUS has added a magical pull

tab underneath the battery. It's a narrow little guy, and eerily silent compared to

Apple's pull tabs. But it gets the job done in a safe manner and doesn't break. There

is a bit of gentle adhesive on the far side of the battery, but nothing that's super dangerous.

This is a 6,000 milliamp hour lithium polymer pack which is the largest we've seen inside

of a cell phone all year.

Check out what's underneath the battery – a solid wall of copper. Now we're talking. This

is where the real cooling happens. This is an underscreen vapor chamber. We've run into

a few of these in the past. We'll have to pull it out to see how big it really is in

just a second.

First I'll remove the rubber plug out of the side dual USB-C accessory and display ports,

and unclip the dual real facing camera and pull it away from the phone. It's got a 48

megapixel main sensor on the left, and a 13 megapixel wide-angle camera on the right.

Neither of which are advertising optical image stabilization. The front 24 megapixel camera

also does not have OIS, but does come with a gray rubber ring around the lens. Kind of

random.

I can finally pull the motherboard out from inside the phone frame. It's got a long thin

design that basically wraps around the whole phone. The design of the ROG 2 seems like

things were added kind of at random. It's not quite as organized as other flagships

we've been inside. It does have thermal paste between the processor and the massive internal

heat sink. The little copper square that touches the processor is located up near the top small

circle vibrator. I imagine there are two vibrators inside to give better haptic feedback on either

side of the phone while gaming, just like we would see inside of a normal video game

controller. The top and bottom stereo speakers are also a bit different. The top speaker

is much smaller, and the bottom speaker doesn't appear to have any balls inside like we saw

inside the Galaxy Fold.

The underscreen fingerprint scanner is also down here at the bottom of the phone near

the loudspeaker. It's a little camera that shines up through the thin AMOLED screen to

read your fingerprint.

Now normally, we do try to keep these phones in working condition. I like putting them

back together. But this particular design puts the copper vapor chamber between the

frame of the phone and the screen because that AMOLED panel is so thin, the ROG uses

that to it's advantage to allow heat to escape out the front of the phone. Which is pretty

smart except that the only way for us to see it is by removing the screen and removing

the screen breaks the screen. Screen removals are usually only performed when the screen

is already broken. The ROG Phone 2 has a large 6.6 inch 1080p display, but the thing that

makes it special is the 120 Hertz refresh rate. It shows images twice as fast as normal

phones do. And yeah, cracking a 120 Hertz display hurts me a little bit on the inside.

But at least now we get to see what we came here for.

Look at the size of this copper layer. We might have a new vapor chamber world champ

right here. This looks larger than even the Razer Phone 2 vapor chamber. Normally vapor

chambers have, you know, vapor inside. Vapor wicks along the little copper capillaries

to keep things cool. And usually this vapor is visible when we slice it open, at least

for a second. But, in my particular ROG Phone 2, no vapor is visible inside. It's bone dry

in here. But even without liquid, it's still a substantially large heat sink, and copper

does a good job of dissipating heat all on it's own. I think it was definitely worth

taking off the screen. Even if the phone didn't quite survive.

On paper, the ROG 2 is one of the best phones of 2019 with it's impressive screen and large

battery. But with that open rear ventilation system that's more for looks than anything

else. It's also very much the least water resistant phone we've seen in a very long

time. Would that major lack of water resistance in a phone this powerful make you nervous?

Let me know down in the comments.

Don't forget to check out Turo next time you need to borrow a car. You can use that “RIG15”

code to get $15 off. Come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter. And thanks a ton

for watching. I'll see your around.