What you need to know about the ASUS ROG Phone 5

ASUS ROG Phone 5 Ultimate & Pro (Source: ASUS)

ASUS ROG has taken the gaming phone concept and ran with it. The ROG Phone 5 pushes the specs boundaries further in ways that will appear overkill. Let's get to know the new phones, shall we? (Yes, phones. There are three new options to choose from.)

Pared-down looks

While you still won't mistake the ROG Phone for anything else, ASUS seems to have pared it down a bit. But it also somehow added a bit more flash at the same time.

The ROG Phone 5 Ultimate and Pro get a new ROG Vision OLED screen at the back of the phone, which you can customize with text or graphics. The ROG Phone 5 Ultimate has a monochrome version, while the ROG Phone 5 Pro has a coloured display. As for the Standard ROG Phone 5, it gets a simple backlit ROG logo.

ASUS ROG also introduces a new Storm White colour with blue accents for the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate and ROG Phone 5. The latter also gets a Phantom Black option. And the Pro gets a Glossy Black colourway.

The more premium ROG Phone 5 Pro and Ultimate get the addition of two touch sensors on the back of the phone and two more buttons with the included AeroActive Cooler 5 fan. (The standard ROG Phone 5 doesn't get the AeroActive Cooler 5.) That's on top of the gaming triggers available on one side of all three phones. ASUS ROG wants to give its users a console-like gaming experience on these devices.

ASUS ROG Phone 5 (Source: ASUS)

All that power

The design makes these handsets appealing, but what's more important is under the hood. ASUS ROG delivers to excessive degrees. The new phones run on the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G chipset and pairs that with up to 18GB of RAM.

These are the configurations for each option:

• ROG Phone 5 Ultimate: 18GB + 512GB
• ROG Phone 5 Pro: 16GB + 512GB
• ROG Phone 5: 8GB + 128GB, 12GB + 256GB, 16GB + 256GB

Better display and audio

All three phones carry the same 6.78-inch FHD+ Samsung Super AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate, 300Hz touch sampling rate, and ultra-low 24.3ms touch latency. These get protected from scratches with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus.

ASUS ROG backtracks and doubles down with audio by bringing back the 3.5mm headphone jack. It adds Quad DAC support for Hi-Res Audio and includes dual-front facing speakers for great audio with or without earphones.

ASUS ROG Phone 5 Pro (Source: ASUS)

Game all-day

With a big 6,000mAh battery, the ROG Phone 5 series can handle your long gaming sessions. The company plans to supply a 65W charger to speed up the charging process. But according to GizmoChina, some regions might get 30W in the box. 

If the long-term battery health is something you're worried about, ASUS includes different charging modes that can slow down the charging speed.

Let's talk cameras

The cameras aren't the most exciting things to talk about on phones like these. But, in case you're wondering, ASUS ROG equips the three devices with a 64-megapixel primary lens, 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle sensor, and a 5-megapixel macro lens. Its selfie camera has a 24-megapixel sensor.

ASUS ROG Phone 5 Ultimate (Source: ASUS)

Connectivity and all that

The ROG Phone 5 has all the critical connectivity options you'll expect from flagship handsets: 5G, LTE, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, and NFC. These dual SIM devices also come with two USB-C ports, so it lets you charge even when you're gaming in landscape more comfortably. The fingerprint reader on these devices is under the display to avoid interrupting the other design elements.

How much is it?

The pricing currently available is in Euros and Indian Rupee. We're sharing the Euro pricing here with estimates in Canadian dollars. Taxes and other dues might affect pricing if ASUS plans to bring the phone here.

ASUS ROG Phone 5

• 8GB + 128GB – €799 / Aprox. CA$1,202
• 12GB + 256GB – €899 / CA$1,352
• 16GB + 512GB – €999 / CA$1,503

ASUS ROG Phone 5 Pro

• 16GB + 512GB – €1,199 / CA$1,804

ASUS ROG Phone 5 Ultimate

• 18GB + 512GB – €1,299 / CA$1,954

Source: ASUS