Asus ROG Phone 5 review: The ultimate gamer’s phone | Laptop Mag

Our Verdict

The Asus ROG Phone v isn't trying to compete with traditional flagships, it'due south playing a different game —and winning.

For

• Unmatched performance on Android
• Excellent battery life
• Beautiful responsive 144Hz display
• Headphone jack with Quad DAC
• Extensive software optimization

Against

• No wireless charging
• Weak camera performance
• Poor software back up rail record

Laptop Mag Verdict

The Asus ROG Phone 5 isn't trying to compete with traditional flagships, information technology's playing a different game —and winning.

Pros

• +

  Unmatched operation on Android

• +

  Excellent battery life

• +

  Beautiful responsive 144Hz display

• +

  Headphone jack with Quad DAC

• +

  All-encompassing software optimization

Cons

• -

  No wireless charging

• -

  Weak camera operation

• -

  Poor software support track record

• -

Asus ROG Phone 5 specs

Price:  ~$1,188
Bone:  Android 11 / ZenUI
Display:  vi.78-inch FHD+ AMOLED (2,448x1,080)
CPU:  Qualcomm Snapdragon 888
RAM: 16GB
Rear cameras:  64MP wide (ƒ/ane.viii); 13MP ultrawide (ƒ/ii.four); 5MP macro (ƒ/2.0)
Front camera:  24MP (f/2.5)
Storage:  256GB
Battery:  12:23 (60Hz); ten:53 (120Hz); 10:27 (144Hz)
Size:  6.8 x 3.ane x 0.36 inches
Weight:  8.4 ounces

Asus called the ROG Phone 5 "The ultimate gaming smartphone" and it's difficult to argue with that claim.

From the hardware, which includes the latest Snapdragon 888 processor, 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, a 144Hz Samsung AMOLED brandish and a 6,000mAh bombardment, to the software that gives you almost endless options for tweaking the operation of the phone, the ROG Phone 5 feels more than like a gaming laptop in your hands than a phone.

The question with the ROG Phone v, as it always has been for gaming phones, is whether that'southward enough to convince someone against ownership a more than balanced traditional flagship like the Galaxy S21 Ultra. While it won't appeal to as wide an audition, ROG Phone v showcases how a phone built with gaming at its core tin can evangelize an excellent overall feel while beingness the pinnacle of mobile gaming on Android.

  Asus ROG Phone five: Price and configurations

The Asus ROG Phone 5 is the base model with the ROG Telephone five Pro and ROG Phone 5 Ultimate above information technology. There are three configurations for the base ROG Phone v: ane with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, one with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and the most powerful with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

The ROG Phone five Pro and ROG Phone five Ultimate simplify things with but a single configuration available for each: 16GB of RAM with 512GB of storage and 18GB of RAM with 512GB of storage, respectively. It's also worth noting that these two include the Aero Active Libation fan in the box, which adds a couple of extra buttons and allows y'all to overclock the phone; this accessory is available as a separate purchase with the ROG Phone 5.

U.S. pricing isn't official all the same, but here's a look at the Euro pricing with the conversion rate applied for the U.Southward. and the U.Thousand.

•  8GB RAM/128GB Storage - €799 (~$950 / £684)
•  12GB RAM/256GB Storage - €899 (~$ane,069 / £769)
•  16GB RAM/256GB Storage - €999 (~$1,188 / £855)
•  ROG Telephone v Pro - €i,199 (~$1,426 / £1,027)
•  ROG Phone 5 Ultimate - €1,299 (~$i,545 / £1,112)

I reviewed the Tempest White model of the ROG Telephone v with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, the telephone is also available in Phantom Black.

(Image credit: Laptop Mag)

 Asus ROG Telephone five: Design

The briefest glimpse at the dorsum of the ROG Telephone 5, even without the branding, would give it away equally an ROG device to anyone who has used ane of the company's recent gaming laptops. It carries some of the angular blueprint over from the likes of the ROG Zephyrus G14, especially in the Storm White of my ROG Phone 5 review unit and the Matte White of the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate.

From there, the ROGness intensifies, with text reading "ROG" and "Republic of Gamers" while the capper is the ROG logo or ROG Vision on the back of the phone, which varies slightly between models. The standard ROG Phone 5 I reviewed features an RGB color-changing light on the back. The ROG Telephone 5 Pro and Ultimate add together an bodily PMOLED (Passive Matrix OLED) brandish that Asus is calling ROG Vision, which can display notifications, animations and more than. On the Pro, this is full color while the Ultimate uses a monochrome display.

At half dozen.viii 10 3.1 x 0.36 inches and 8.4 ounces, the ROG Phone 5 is one of the largest and thickest phones released in recent retention. Simply that was a deliberate choice by Asus to let for improve airflow and a large battery. Fifty-fifty the fairly massive Galaxy S21 Ultra (6.five x 3 x 0.35-inches, eight.01 ounces) and iPhone 12 Pro Max (six.3 x 3.07 10 0.29-inches, 8.04 ounces) are shorter, thinner and lighter.

I don't notice the weight or thickness to be a business, but the height definitely eliminates any take chances of i-handed employ. That's, in big part, due to the top and bottom bezels — Asus didn't want a notch or pigsty-dial camera interfering with your view of the display.

(Image credit: Laptop Mag)

Now we get to a few of the truly unique features of the Asus ROG Phone 5 design. You accept USB Type-C ports on both the side and the lesser of the phone, ensuring that you can stay charged up without having a cablevision go far your mode. The side port is a more powerful USB Type-C 3.1 input equally opposed to the USB Blazon-C ii.0 at the bottom of the phone.

The side port has a rubberized embrace that also goes over the accessory connector. I will be astounded if anyone manages to not lose the cover within the first calendar month of owning the phone. Equally the phone itself doesn't bear an IP water resistance rating, y'all'll need to be careful with it around h2o.

The 3.5mm headphone jack also makes a return and while many of us have moved on to wireless headphones, those who still adopt wired volition want to stick effectually for the audio section because Asus did this right.

Finally, the AirTrigger arrangement, for those who are unfamiliar, gives gamers sensors on the exterior of the phone that remap to buttons on the screen. This allows yous to game without blocking your view even if you don't take a detached controller. With AirTrigger 5, there are now nine sensors on the exterior of the ROG Telephone 5 that can exist mapped to up to 14 touchpoints. The Ultimate bumps this up even further with two more capacitive sensors. Employ the AeroActive Cooler five fan that comes with the Pro and Ultimate models and you likewise gain two extra physical buttons for up to 18 bear upon inputs.

Asus ROG Telephone five: Brandish

The Asus ROG Phone 5 features a custom 6.8-inch, FHD+ (ii,448 ten i,080) Samsung AMOLED display with HDR10+ support and a blistering-fast 144Hz refresh charge per unit. Users can cull between 60Hz, 120Hz, 144Hz or Auto to balance operation needs with battery life. Touch sampling is also off-the-charts fast at 300Hz to ensure the phone never slows you lot down.

Obviously, gaming is the principal intent here, but with its large brandish and support for HDR10+ content, the ROG Phone 5 is a pleasance to watch videos on. I loaded upwardly "The High Seas" episode of Our Planet on Netflix, which is available in HDR10, and watched the phytoplankton migrate their manner across the screen. The translucent green of the plants moving across the deep blue of the bounding main as the rays of the sun stream in from above was absolutely exquisite on the ROG Phone 5.

(Image credit: Laptop Magazine)

With its more natural settings turned on, the ROG Phone v reproduced a solid 112.8% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. That'south just above the Milky way S21 Ultra (110.9%) and well ahead of the iPhone 12 Pro Max (84.8%). Switching the display settings to more vivid colors takes you all the way up to 127.6% coverage.

The results of the Delta-East color accuracy exam (lower is improve) were impressive too. Once again, using the more natural setting, the ROG Phone v accomplished a 0.29, which was alee of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra (0.35) and only behind the iPhone 12 Pro (0.28).

Effulgence is non a problem for the ROG Phone five, which hit a peak of 748 nits. This dramatically outperformed the Galaxy S21 Ultra (380 nits) and was solidly ahead of the iPhone 12 Pro Max (655 nits).

(Image credit: Laptop Mag)

Asus ROG Phone 5: Audio

The Asus ROG Telephone 5 features front-facing symmetrical speakers that are easily the loudest and best sounding of any smartphoneI can retrieve. There'southward no distortion at whatsoever book and while there are, of form, some limits, there is actually a perceptible depression end present which is basically unheard of on a smartphone.

I listened to Dua Lipa's "Levitating," and the Asus ROG Phone 5'southward stereo speakers predictably delivered with no problem, overwhelming my 12 10 18-foot listening infinite. The disco-like track managed to keep the punchy vocals separate from the pounding background bass and was enough to convince me that a Bluetooth speaker would be uncalled for in most circumstances with this telephone.

At present, with excellent Bluetooth 5.2 support, a expert pair of wireless headphones is yet going to be better than the admittedly capable speakers on the Asus ROG Phone 5, just this telephone too brings back the headphone jack. Not only that, simply it features a built-in HyperStream II Quad DAC to evangelize pinnacle wired audio performance for those who want the accented best.

(Image credit: Laptop Magazine)

Asus ROG Phone 5: Performance

Equally you would hope from a phone singularly focused on its gaming prowess, the ROG Phone five is  unthinkably quick at everyday Android tasks. Swiping between screens, launching apps, multitasking — it all happens without the slightest hesitation. Some of this goes dorsum to that high refresh rate and touch sampling rate, but information technology's the Snapdragon 888 and up to 16GB of RAM that make it possible to motility those pixels around that fast.

In that location's no game available on Android at present that tin bog down the Asus ROG Phone 5. Yous tin can max out all of the settings on every game and the phone volition handle information technology without outcome. While the number of games that support the full 144Hz is vanishingly small correct at present, the 120Hz collection is growing and with more 144Hz phones likely coming side by side twelvemonth, I imagine we'll see more motion to faster refresh rates as the yr goes on.

Despite using the aforementioned processor as the Milky way S21 Ultra, the Asus ROG Phone five has now claimed the summit spot among all Android phones with a Geekbench 5 multi-core score of three,672. That honour was briefly held by the same Galaxy S21 Ultra (3,440) though, of course, the iPhone 12 Pro Max (4,111) buries them both.

(Image credit: Laptop Mag)

Graphics testing proved less decisive for the ROG Telephone v, but it did manage a narrow lead in the Wild Life Unlimited 3DMark exam at 35 fps, ahead of the Galaxy S21 Ultra (34 fps), merely again distantly behind the iPhone 12 Pro Max (54 fps).

Our Adobe Premiere Rush testing went similarly; this video transcoding test requires the telephone to convert a 4K video to 1080p and the ROG Phone 5 completed it in ane minute precisely. The Samsung Milky way S21 Ultra (1:03) was simply a chip behind the Asus while the iPhone 12 Pro Max (0:29) was impossibly far ahead.

None of this should come equally a surprise; the ROG Telephone 5 is purpose-built to evangelize the all-time performance possible out of these components. The re-engineered vapor sleeping accommodation allows it to stay libation for longer and that'south earlier incorporating the snap-on AeroActive Libation five fan that volition offering dramatically more than cooling and enable overclocking.

(Image credit: Laptop Mag)

Asus ROG Telephone 5: Battery life and charging

Given the incredible ability of the Asus ROG Phone 5, you'd hope that it doesn't skimp on bombardment. Don't worry, y'all will not exist disappointed. The ROG Phone 5'south 6,000mAh bombardment is ane of the largest we've seen in a mainstream smartphone.

That's not even the best news; while the previous model likewise features a 6,000mAh battery. This time effectually, the phone is using the same dual-bombardment strategy beginning seen with the OnePlus 8T last yr. Then the six,000mAh is, in reality, two iii,000mAh batteries, allowing for incredible 65W fast charging, and yep, that charger is included in the box. In our benchmarks, information technology reached 44% in but fifteen minutes and 70% in 30 minutes.

Battery life was quite good as well, holding on for 10 hours and 27 minutes fifty-fifty at its full 144Hz setting in our test, which involves abiding web browsing over cellular at 150 nits. Turning the refresh rate downward to 120Hz bumped this to ten hours and 53 minutes while dropping all the way to 60Hz pushed it to 12 hours and 23 minutes. That was almost an hour ahead of the Galaxy S21 Ultra at 60Hz (xi:25) and an 60 minutes and half longer than the iPhone 12 Pro Max (ten:53).

(Image credit: Laptop Mag)

Those tests were all performed on AT&T, just the ROG Phone five performed even ameliorate on T-Mobile where it managed an amazing 13 hours and 38 minutes at 60Hz. That dropped to 10:59 for 120Hz and somewhat oddly popped back up to xi:17 for 144Hz.

I didn't follow my normal review usage pattern with this telephone because, as Asus would desire, I spent quite a bit more fourth dimension gaming on it. Playing intensive games for long periods will burn through the bombardment in less than a day, merely information technology would take a good 5 to half-dozen hours of something like COD Mobile, PUBG or Genshin Impact to knock information technology out.

A more than counterbalanced 24-hour interval of usage with some Netflix and/or YouTube streaming, forth with web browsing, social media and the like is not going to come close to killing the ROG Telephone five battery before y'all need to put information technology on the charger at dark.

If you practice manage to use upward most of your battery in a day, the incredible fast charging volition top you support in no fourth dimension. Asus also added a number of software tools to protect the battery, including a bypass mode that will evangelize the power needed to the phone without really charging the battery. It'south a clever improver to proceed the phone fully powered without damaging the battery by constantly charging it.

(Image credit: Laptop Mag)

Asus ROG Phone 5: Cameras

1 surface area the Asus ROG Phone 5 cedes to other flagships is photographic camera quality. The triple photographic camera array establish on the back is akin to what you would notice on an upper-midrange phone.

The main camera is the Sony IMX686, which is a 64MP f/ane.8 wide-angle. The secondary is a 13MP f/2.4 ultrawide and finally, in classic mid-range fashion, in that location is a 5MP f/two.0 macro.

While the cameras on the ROG Telephone 5 remain an afterthought when compared to a traditional flagship, they are at least competent this fourth dimension effectually.

Wide-bending camera

 Surprisingly, I was the least impressed with the functioning from the chief wide-angle lens, which is unquestionably the best of the three sensors. As you lot tin run across in the samples below, the colour is lacking in the shots and, while Wisconsin is admittedly, not at its finest in mid-March, the sky was a much richer blue than what you see hither.

Image 1 of 3

(Prototype credit: Laptop Mag)

Asus ROG Phone five wide-angle

Paradigm ii of 3

(Paradigm credit: Laptop Mag)

Asus ROG Phone 5 wide-angle photographic camera sample

Epitome 3 of 3

(Image credit: Laptop Magazine)

Asus ROG Phone 5 wide-angle camera sample

Ultra-wide camera

The ultra-wide lens did a far better job with colour reproduction and gave me some very satisfying mural shots. I can definitely see some warping at the edges, but it's just apparent when you place a directly edge near the exterior of the shot, which is often avoidable.

Paradigm 1 of 3

(Image credit: Laptop Magazine)

Asus ROG Phone 5 ultra-wide camera sample

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(Image credit: Laptop Magazine)

Asus ROG Phone 5 ultra-wide camera sample

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(Image credit: Laptop Mag)

Asus ROG Phone 5 ultra-wide camera sample

Macro camera

The macro camera is as ever pretty limited in utility, but information technology can be fun. You need to be within four-6cm of an object to use information technology, but if y'all've got something pretty tiny to snap a photograph information technology can turn out much meliorate results than relying on a traditional lens.

(Prototype credit: Laptop Magazine)

Front-facing photographic camera

The forepart-facing camera on the ROG Phone 5 does some fairly ambitious editing when in portrait manner, both in terms of skin smoothing and its endeavour at producing bokeh. It especially had difficulties with my pilus, which I'll concede was getting whipped around a bit in this photo as information technology was a windy mean solar day. Nevertheless, the photographic camera had trouble holding its imaginary plane of focus here.

(Epitome credit: Laptop Mag)

Video

The Asus ROG Phone 5 is capable of 8K up to 30fps and 4K at up to 60fps, simply this isn't a primary focus for the ROG Phone 5.

(Prototype credit: Laptop Mag)

Asus ROG Phone 5: Software

 The Asus ROG Phone 5 ships with Android 11. And while yous accept the option of a basic stock Android wait, it's hard to imagine choosing this maxed-out gaming phone and not leaning fully into that aesthetic with the ROG UI, which adds a lot more animation along with some fun graphics touches throughout.

I'thou not going to try to cover every added software bear upon Asus gave the ROG Telephone five equally it's honestly a fleck overwhelming. If you thought the design and hardware was the only thing making this the ultimate gamer's phone, y'all were wrong; the admittedly improbable level of software tweaking y'all tin can do to optimize the telephone on a per-game level will have gamers salivating.

This is predominantly handled through the Armoury Crate app, which gives you an overall organization settings view that yous can tweak to deliver battery life, networking, refresh rate, bear upon responsiveness and overall system performance. Asus gives y'all some default options to choose from or you can craft your own settings.

(Image credit: Laptop Mag)

While these global settings can apply to everything, the Game Library allows you to create distinct settings for whatsoever game that you lot have installed. Those adjustments go into effect the moment yous launch the game.

Armoury Crate also helpfully has a list of recommended 144Hz and 120Hz games that will take y'all straight to the Play Store. These can be a bit difficult to track down on your own and then it's a nice addition.

The i downside to all of this customization is that (I suspect) it plays a part in the relatively boring Android update schedule from Asus. The ROG Phone 3 is but now receiving an Android 11 beta roughly six months later on the launch of the newest OS version. This likely won't be a dealbreaker for those that are just looking for the best gaming experience possible, just it'south a consideration.

(Prototype credit: Laptop Mag)

Bottom line

The Asus ROG Telephone 5 isn't going to take over the smartphone world, but information technology is a perfect example of a niche device that should flawlessly serve the mobile gamers who it is targeting. With the rise of game streaming services, we are seeing new worlds of games open up up to mobile gamers beyond what's available in Google Play, which is itself improving.

Put merely, this telephone is uniquely suited to giving you a fantastic mobile gaming experience on the go. The relatively weak camera performance and software update schedule are the biggest trade-offs when compared to a more traditional flagship like the Galaxy S21 Ultra or the upcoming OnePlus nine, merely from both a pure performance and gaming standpoint, no other Android phone tin outclass the ROG Phone 5.

Sean Riley has been covering tech professionally for over a decade at present. Near of that time was equally a freelancer covering varied topics including phones, wearables, tablets, smart home devices, laptops, AR, VR, mobile payments, fintech, and more.  Sean is the resident mobile expert at Laptop Magazine, specializing in phones and wearables, you'll observe plenty of news, reviews, how-to, and opinion pieces on these subjects from him here. But Laptop Mag has also proven a perfect fit for that broad range of interests with reviews and news on the latest laptops, VR games, and reckoner accessories along with coverage on everything from NFTs to cybersecurity and more.

Source: https://www.laptopmag.com/news/asus-rog-phone-5-unveiled-an-unmatched-mobile-gaming-experience

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