When it comes to gaming phones, the ROG Phone series from Asus is definitely the first one that comes to mind. Yes, we know it was Razer that started this trend of gaming-centric devices but in the past three years, it is now pretty clear that Asus is the undisputed king of gaming phones. Last year, we got the ROG Phone 3 with crazy specs including Snapdragon 865+, a 6,000mAh battery, a 144Hz screen, and more. Well, the Asus ROG Phone 5 series is now official and yes, this time, there is more than one gaming phone. In fact, there are three in total named the ROG Phone 5, ROG Phone 5 Pro, and ROG Phone 5 Ultimate. There isn’t much of a difference between the three when it comes to the specifications but there is some difference in terms of the looks.
Let’s start with the cheapest among the three, the ROG Phone 5. When the first ROG Phone launched, it had a super aggressive look, thanks to all the lines and curves. But with every new ROG Phone, Asus has tried to make the overall design aesthetic cleaner instead of giving it a more “gamery” look. This year, the ROG Phone 5 looks cleaner than ever from the back because all the lines are now gone. There is the RGB ROG logo on the back and some extra text such as “ROG”, “05”, “Republic of Gamers” etc.
The ROG Phone 5 comes in Phantom Black and Storm White colors and while the Black color has red accents, the White one has Blue accents.
Asus also brought back the 3.5mm headphone jack with the ROG Phone 5 series which it ditched last year in the ROG Phone 3. Maybe Asus did understand that a phone made specifically for gamers must have a headphone jack because no matter how much better the wireless headphones become when it comes to latency, they still cannot match the wired ones. This time as well, there is a second USB Type-C port & the accessory connector on the left side.
The Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate is like ROG Phone 5 on steroids. It has a unique back design that includes a secondary monochrome PM-OLED panel. The ROG Phone 5 Pro too has this secondary screen on the back but it is a color display. So in terms of the looks, the ROG Phone 5 Pro is more similar to the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate than the vanilla ROG Phone 5. All three phones offer shoulder buttons on the right side which Asus calls the AirTriggers. There is also something called “Grip Press” detection so you can set some actions to perform in games when you press the backside of the device.
All three phones have a 6.78-inch Full-HD+ Samsung’s E4 AMOLED with a 144Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ support. There is Gorilla Glass Victus protection as well. Under the hood, all three phones are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SOC. The ROG Phone 5 has 8GB, 12GB or 16GB LPDDR5 RAM paired with 128GB or 256GB UFS 3.1 storage, while the ROG Phone 5 Pro comes in only 16GB + 512GB variant. Finally, there is the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate that has an insane 18GB LPDDR5 RAM paired with 512GB UFS 3.1 storage.
Speaking of the cameras, there is a triple camera setup on the back that includes a 64 Megapixel Sony IMX686 sensor with Quad Bayer technology, a 13 Megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 5 Megapixel macro shooter. There is a 24 Megapixel camera on the front. The camera setup is the same on all three phones. All three phones feature a massive 6,000mAh battery and support 65W fast charging. Android 11 based ZenUI runs out of the box. The 64MP camera can shoot 8K videos at 30fps and 4K videos at 60fps. There is no OIS.
All three phones have stereo front-firing speakers with Dirac HD Sound and for better audio output via the headphone jack, Asus has also added a DAC. There are Quad Microphones as well.
As always, there is a whole ecosystem of various accessories that you can use with these phones. With the ROG Phone 5 Pro and Ultimate, you will get the AeroActive Cooler 5 which helps to reduce the surface temperature by 15-degrees and chipset temperature by 10-degrees. All three phones come with a 65W Adapter in the box so that’s great.
Finally, speaking of the pricing, here is the price of ROG Phone 5 in various markets –
- 8GB RAM + 128GB ROM – €799 (Rs 49,999 in India)
- 12GB RAM + 256GB ROM – €899 (Rs 57,999 in India)
- 16GB RAM + 256GB ROM – €999 (Not available in India)
The ROG Phone 5 Pro comes in 16GB + 512GB variant only and the price is €1,199 (Rs 69,999 for the Indian market). Finally, the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate with 18GB RAM and 512GB storage is priced at €1,299 (Rs 79,999 in India). In India, the ROG Phone 5 will go on sale on the 15th of April via Flipkart.