Asus has released the first official images of the upcoming Asus ROG Phone 8. For those who don't know, this is the Taiwanese company's line of gaming-focused Android handsets. And a new post on Chinese social media site Weibo shows exactly what we can expect from the phone's new design.

In the Weibo post, Asus poses the rhetorical question of whether viewers want a smaller bezel. In the attached video, a model dancing on the screen of the Asus ROG Phone 7 is shown before the design was changed to show both the new device's smaller bezels and punch-hole front camera.

Asus announced that it will reveal the phone in full at CES 2024 on X in Las Vegas on January 8. The aforementioned Weibo post also indicated that the phone will go on sale in China on January 16, with no release date in other regions yet.

In our review of the Asus ROG Phone 7, we noted that the 6.8-inch AMOLED screen is bright and colorful. However, we found that the bezels took away from the phone use experience.

Asus' reduced bezel (and punch-hole camera) clearly mitigates this problem; the video in the Weibo post shows that particular attention has been paid to the top and bottom of the display. Naturally, if you're going to use your phone for a Call of Duty session on the go, you'll want as much screen real estate as possible.

Asus also recently hinted in X that the Asus ROG Phone 8 will feature a new camera system. While the company did not mention specifics of what this new setup will look like (that will no doubt be saved for January 8), it did post a photo of the obvious camera layout: how it will improve on the ROG Phone 7's primary, ultra-wide, and macro cameras, and how it will improve on the ROG Phone 8's primary, ultra-wide, and macro cameras. improve on the ROG Phone 7's primary, ultra-wide, and macro cameras remains to be seen, but it appears that three new camera setups will be offered.

The Asus ROG Phone 7 had a 50MP (megapixel) main camera, a 13MP wide-angle lens, and an 8MP macro lens. The camera is adequate, but not enough compared to other smartphones of the time. The lack of a telephoto lens is the strangest shortcoming for a smartphone in this price range, but hopefully this will be corrected in the new ROG Phone 8.

One area where the new model needs to improve is battery life; battery tests on the Asus ROG Phone 7 recorded over 18 hours. This is a clear improvement over the previous Asus ROG Phone 6. We expect this improvement to continue, improving overall battery life and power consumption at higher refresh rates.

We will know more during the CES event in January, including when this phone will be available for our review.