ASUS announces its latest gaming flagship Smartphone with a major improvement on its performance and redesigned – ROG Phone 5 and it is powered by Qualcomm’s premium chipset, the Snapdragon 888 processor.
The company launched the ROG Phone 5 Smartphone in three variants, there is ROG Phone 5, ROG Phone 5 PRO, and ROG Phone 5 Ultimate, and are all differentiated by their memory configuration.
ROG Phone 5 comes in A, B and C as the company calls them, the A is available in 12GB or 16GB of RAM and 256GB storage, B in 8GB / 128GB model, C comes in 8GB / 128GB and 12GB / 256GB configurations.
Where the ROG Phone 5 Pro comes in a single 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of UFS storage, and the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate in 18GB RAM and 512GB storage option and does not come with support for microSD slot.
On the top front is the Samsung E4 6.78-inch Full HD+ AMOLED panel display, HDR10+ certified, 111% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, 151% of sRGB, 20.4:9 aspect ratio display, 24.3 ms touch latency, 144Hz refresh rate, and 300Hz touch sampling rate.
The screen comes with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus protection with a special coating that keeps your fingers gliding effortlessly even when sweaty and can run at 60, 120, and 144 Hz but it does not support any adaptive refresh rate.
The ROG Phone 5 predecessor comes with a 6.59” screen size with 500nits brightness, but the company still managed to remove 25% off the bezels, making the ROG Phone 5 a couple of millimeters taller and narrower than its predecessor.
It weighs 238g, comes with an in-display fingerprint scanner, and available in Phantom Black and Storm White colors with a glossy back. While the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate limited edition comes in Storm White color with a matte finish.
To understand more of the differences, the ROG Phone 5 has an RGB backlit Republic of Gamers logo, ROG Phone 5 Pro comes with ROG Vision Color PM-OLED display, and the Ultimate version comes with ROG Vision monochrome PM-OLED display.
ROG Vision is a small touch-enabled display, which shows customizable graphics for incoming calls, during charging, or while a game is loading.
It packs a Sony IMX686 64-megapixels Quad Bayer sensor with 2×1 OCL autofocus, f/1.8 lens, secondary 13-megapixels 125º ultra-wide camera, and then an additional 5-megapixels macro lens.
On the front is a 24-megapixels selfie shooter with Quad Bayer, and a dimmer fixed-focus f/2.45 lens. The phone camera can record 8K/30 fps video or 4K at 60 fps and 120 fps for slow motion, with electronic video stabilization.
It packs a gigantic 6000mAh battery capacity that is split between two cells with 65W HyperCharge fast charging technology. You can double charge the battery from two USB Type-Cs, either from the bottom or from the side.
The 65W HyperCharge fast charging technology that can charge up to 4200mAh (70%) in 30 minutes and 100% in 52 minutes and is also up to 7°C cooler during charging compared to the ROG Phone.
When charging from the side, it becomes much easier to play and charges comfortably. As usual, the side charging USB-C port can also be used to hang an external monitor over HDMI, to connect headphones, or to power the AeroActive Cooler 5.
The split-design makes it easier for Asus to position the motherboard closer to the center of the phone, which keeps the produced heat away from the user’s fingers. Another major reason is it makes the AeroActive Cooler 5 get closer to the chipset as possible.
Both ROG Phone 5 Pro and Ultimate are bundled with the AeroActive Cooler 5, which makes the fan reduces surface temperature by 15ºC and chipset temperature by 10ºC, as tested and boasted by the company, ASUS. But the vanilla model gets only the Aero case and HyperCharger.
However, the cooler also carries two physical shoulder buttons, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and a kickstand. Although, you still get the buttons without the cooler – the AirTrigger 5 ultrasonic buttons with improved sensors.
The AirTrigger 5 control system now has 9 sensors, which is up from 7 on the predecessors. The improvement will affect higher accuracy, sensitivity, better positioning (closer to the edge for smaller hands), more buttons, and plenty of new motion-sensing inputs.
Other accessories include the ROG Clip, which makes it easier to use a PS4, Xbox, or Stadia controller, ROG Kunai 3 Gamepad compatible with the ROG Phone 5, Professional Dock with an HDMI port and two USB ports but lack support for TwinView Dock 3.
ASUS really invested in its audiovisual experience, the ROG Phone 5 comes with a 3.5 mm headphone jack with an ESS Sabre ES9280AC Pro Quad DAC. The Class G amp automatically detects the impedance of your headphones and switches to the appropriate mode between 8 Ohm and 1,000 Ohm.
It still has quad noise-canceling microphones, Cirrus Logic CS35L45 amps to power up the front-firing stereo speakers, each can deliver 21% more power to its speaker than on the previous generation. The following Bluetooth speaker or headsets are supported – aptX Adaptive, LDAC, and AAC codecs.
These run on Android 11 OS out of the box but leaves you with a choice to choose between using the gaming-inspired ROG UI or the stock-like Zen UI. It supports Dual SIM, nano + nano, NFC, 5G SA/NSA, Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, and GPS/GLONASS/Beidou.
ASUS ROG Phone 5
The Asus ROG Phone 5 8GB / 128GB costs €800, the 12GB / 256GB costs €900, the 16GB / 256GB option goes for €1,000 and will be available later this month.
On the other hand, the ROG Phone 5 Pro 16GB / 512GB is priced at €1,200 and will be available in April, and the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate 18GB / 512GB goes for €1,300 and start selling in May.
