If someone asks me about a gaming smartphone, the first brand/OEM that comes to my mind is Asus’s ROG lineup. In case you are not familiar with the ROG lineup, Asus owns a gaming sub-brand called Republic of Gamers aka ROG. The sub-brand produces almost every gaming component or product, from gaming laptop to gaming smartphone (called ROG Phone), or from gaming motherboard to gaming mice. ROG has been producing gaming smartphones named ROG Phone for a couple of years, we have already seen three smartphones from the lineup, not Asus launched the next-generation of ROG Phone 3, i.e., the ROG Phone 5 series.
Asus on 10th March 2021 launched the ROG Phone 5 series globally, with three smartphones, the standard ROG Phone 5, a Pro edition, and finally a limited Ultimate edition that features a whooping 18 LPDDR5 RAM and 512 GB of UFS 3.1 onboard storage. The only difference you will notice in these smartphones is the design and look, a few under hood hardware differences.
ROG Phone 5 Design
If you remember the first-ever ROG Phone, Asus implemented an aggressive design via the addition of lines and curves at the rear panel of the smartphone, which actually gave a gaming look, but frankly, it was just a gimmick. And Asus continued the design with the next-generation ROG Phone II and ROG Phone 3, whereas this time Asus came with a simple yet ‘gamery’ look, overall it has a cleaner and aesthetic design, you will feel a premium design and smartphone when kept in the hands.
Like the other flagship smartphones, it doesn’t have a water-drop/tear-drop notch or small and sleeky punch-hole cutout, instead, Asus is sticking with the old bezels but thin and small chin, that contain powerful stereo speakers, selfie camera, and primary mic. The ROG Phone 5 features an RGB panel at the rear that shows the multi-color ROG logo, with a two-color gradient logo and up to eight customizable color options. Another good thing that we noticed over the last-gen ROG Phone 3 is the comeback of the 3.5mm headphone jack. Asus removed it in the last-gen ROG Phone, but it doesn’t make sense to remove the headphone jack from a gaming smartphone. So, we think, Asus learned the lesson and added the 3.5 mm headphone jack to the ROG Phone 5.
Since it is a gaming smartphone, we can expect the shoulder buttons at the right side of the smartphone, which Asus calls the AirTrigger. It isn’t a tactical button but a grip-pressed sensitive area that can detect our soft pressure and can work as the extra set of buttons while playing games. You can manually customize the AirTriggers for a specific action in any particular game.
ROG Phone 5 Specs
Speaking of specifications, Asus didn’t compromise or hesitate to include anything. Every hardware used in the smartphone is top-notch. Starting with the display, Asus is using a 6.8-inch Samsung AMOLED display with a refresh rate of 144 Hz and a response time of 1 ms. The display has a screen resolution of 2448 x 1080 (Full-HD+) and an aspect ratio of 20.4:9. Other display features include HDR10+ support, 800 nits outdoor brightness with up to 1200 nits peak brightness, sRGB color gamut coverage, and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. Other than that the front panel also houses a thin bezel that features the selfie camera, mic, and one of the stereo speakers.
Under the hood, the smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC, paired with up to 12 GB
LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256 GB of onboard storage with UFS 3.1 technology. The Snapdragon 888 is a 2.84 GHz octa-core (1×2.84 GHz Kryo 680 & 3×2.42 GHz Kryo 680 & 4×1.80 GHz Kryo 680) SoC with Adreno 660 GPU for better graphical performance. The smartphone has a new cooling system consisting of a 3D vapor chamber and graphite sheet to deliver flawless performance while gaming. There is also a cooling accessory called the AeroActive 5 cooler to give more cooling to the phone.
In the camera department, the ROG Phone 5 has packed with a set of great cameras. Although it is purely a gaming smartphone, still the camera specifications are top-notch, the smartphone is packed with a triple rear camera and a single 32-megapixel selfie camera at the front for selfies. The triple rear camera setup includes a primary 64-megapixel Sony IMX686 sensor with an aperture of f/1.7 and Quad Bayer technology, a secondary 13-megapixel ultrawide sensor with an aperture of f/2.4, and a viewing angle of 125-degrees, and finally a 5-megapixel macro shooter with an aperture of f/2.0.
The smartphone is being fueled by two 3000 mAh batteries (6000 mAh) that can be charged using the 65-watt fast charger included in the box. Other than that it has all the basic and necessary connectivity options and sensors, like 5G, Wifi 6E, Bluetooth 5.0, two Type-C USB ports, Under display optical fingerprint sensor, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, etc.
ROG Phone 5 Pro and 5 Ultimate
There isn’t much difference between the base ROG Phone 5 and the higher 5 Pro & 5 Ultimate. There is a simple RGB panel on the back of the ROG Phone 5, whereas the 5 Pro and 5 Ultimate features a ROG Vision color and ROG Vision monochrome PMOLED display on the back, respectively.
The base ROG Phone 5 two RAM/ROM variants (8GB+128GB, 12GB+256GB), whereas the ROG Phone 5 Pro and 5 Ultimate have a single 16GB+512GB and 18GB+512GB variant, respectively. The ROG Phone 5 comes in two Phantom Black, and Storm White colors, whereas the 5 Pro and 5 Ultimate come in Glossy Black and Matte White color, respectively.
ROG Phone 5, 5 Pro, and 5 Ultimate Price and Availability
The standard edition of ROG Phone 5 will be available on the 15th of March at 12 PM on the Flipkart Site and then in all Asus authorized offline stores. The availability of the other two models is still in the dark, we will update the article, as soon as Asus announces it. The price of the standard ROG Phone 5 starts at 49,999 INR for the base 8GB RAM and 128 GB Storage variant, whereas the top 12 GB and 256 Storage variant will cost 57,999 INR. The ROG Phone 5 Pro will come in a price tag of 69,999 INR, whereas the limited-edition ROG Phone 5 Ultimate will be available at a premium pricing of 79,999 INR.
