Asus’ much-anticipated ROG Phone 5 has made an official entry. The gaming phone now brings improved performance and ergonomics as well as has beefy specs maxing out the RAM to a whopping 18GB.
Asus has divided the vanilla ROG Phone 5 into three main configurations, and Asus calls them A, B, and C. The difference among them is in terms of memory configuration.
The ‘A’ has 12GB or 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, while the ‘B’ offers a basic 8GB/128GB setup and the ‘C’ brings 8GB/128GB and 12GB/256GB configurations. Asus, again, confusingly breaks down the phone’s specs sheet — except for the ‘C’ version phones and the 128GB variant of the ‘B’ model, all of the models have UFS 3.1 storage.
For the first time, the ROG Phone gets two new models. The Asus ROG Phone 5 Pro has a single 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of UFS storage. Then there’s the ultimate of all — of course, the Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate which has a whopping 18GB of RAM, though the storage sits at 512GB, and there’s no microSD slot.
One of the distinct features of the phone is at the back. While the vanilla model has a backlit RGB ROG logo, the remaining two have a small touch-sensitive display known as ROG Vision.
The one on the Pro model is a PM-OLED display, while the Ultimate model carries a monochrome PM-OLED panel. The display is not there to just display the logo but rather it can show customizable icons for incoming calls, charging, or when the game is loading. Of course, if you feel special and want to customize the display, you can put anything you want in it.
Talking about the back, right above that fancy display is not so fancy camera. The main shooter is a 64MP Quad Bayer Sony IMX686 sensor with 2×1 OCL autofocus. It has an aperture of f/1.8 to help you with low-light shots to some extent. Next to that is a 13MP ultra-wide camera with 125-degree FoV without any autofocus. Then there’s a 5MP macro lens.
We all know cameras are not the strong suit of gaming phones, and the Asus ROG Phone 5 is no different. But to compensate for that, Asus has put more emphasis on the audiovisual experience of the phone. The phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack with an ESS Sabre ES9280AC Pro Quad DAC.
There are also front-firing stereo speakers powered by two Cirrus Logic CS35L45 amps. Asus says both can offer 21% more power to the speaker than its prior phones.
All three phones get the Snapdragon 888 chipset, which is to be expected. And it has a 6,000mAh battery, split between two cells. Splitting the battery into two cells allows the phone to charge at a maximum charging rate of 65W. Asus is also offering case and clip-on AeroActive Cooler 5 fan attachment alongside the purchase of a Pro or Ultimate model.
The ROG Phone 5 (all three) sports a bigger 6.78-inch AMOLED panel. The panel is HDR10+ certified and has 111% DCI-P3 color gamut and 151% sRGB. The display’s brightness peaks at 800 nits.
Even though the phone gets Pro and Ultimate version this time, the resolution is limited to just 1080p+, while the refresh rate sits at 144Hz. However, there’s an increase of touch sampling rate to 300 Hz, up from 270Hz.
As for the price, the vanilla Asus ROG Phone 5 has a starting price of €800, which is around NPR 111,000 in Nepal. For the ROG Phone 5 Pro, you’ll have to shell out €1,200 (~NPR 166,000), and finally, the Ultimate model will go for a price of €1,300. That’s about NPR 180,000 in Nepal.
The vanilla model will go on sale later this March followed by the Pro model in April and the Ultimate edition in May.
