If there’s one company that manages to make gaming smartphones so compelling, it’s ASUS. Its ROG Phones are always a delight to see. With them, I see so much effort to provide a great mobile gaming experience for those who value that a lot. Now, they’re taking it to an even greater level with the ROG Phone 5! We even get three variants this year: the regular one, the 5 Pro, and the 5 Ultimate! With that in mind, here are my top 5 reasons to get one!
The Gamer Aesthetic Matured.
When we first said hello to the ROG Phone, it was unabashedly a gaming phone. It really looked like a tank and the size felt really intimidating. Three years later, we basically have gaming phones left and right. To ASUS’ credit, they really owned the gamer aesthetic and made it look modern and mature.
If that didn’t really hit you well, then you probably would love this next one.
Now Comes in White!
All prior ROG Phones came in black. I’m loving the fact that the ROG Phone 5 now comes in Storm White! This detail is so prominent that the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate comes in that very color. If that wasn’t enough for you, there’s even a small black and white display called ROG Vision.
That 18GB of RAM Though.
Another aspect of this phone that’s so ridiculous is the specs that it has! The biggest one has to be the 18GB of LPDDR5 RAM on the Ultimate edition! Don’t worry if you find that too much since the regular models come with 8GB, 12GB, or 16GB. (The 5 Pro only has 16GB RAM.)
The rest of the specs are NUTS including:
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor
- 128GB / 256GB (ROG Phone 5), 512GB (5 Pro and 5 Ultimate) UFS 3.1 storage
- 6.78-inch Samsung AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate and a 300Hz touch sampling rate
- Triple rear camera: 64MP main camera, 13MP ultrawide camera, 5MP macro camera
- 24MP front camera
- LTE / 5G / Wi-Fi 6E / Bluetooth 5.2
- 6000 mAh battery (dual 3000 mAh battery cells)
- 65W HyperCharge fast charging technology
- Dual USB-C ports (side and bottom)
There’s one spec that actually went away in the ROG Phone 3 and has now come back!
Bringing Back the Headphone Jack!
YES! ASUS did the one thing other phone makers didn’t do: the headphone jack is BACK!
Not only did the company bring it back, but it also added an ESS ES9280AC Pro Quad DAC to the ROG Phone 5! That alone gives you hi-res audio. This is great for those who really value audio whether in games or otherwise.
SO. MUCH. CUSTOMIZATION.
Another aspect that ROG manages to bring to gaming phones is the plethora of customization options that it has! From this ROG Vision rear display to the performance customizations in the Armoury Crate to the various gaming-centric optimizations with Game Genie to even the optional accessories you can get to augment your gaming experience, the possibilities are endless!
Pricing and Availability
The ROG Phone 5 comes in many variants:
- ROG Phone 5 (comes in Storm White and Phantom Black)
- 8GB RAM / 128GB storage – €799
- 12GB RAM / 256GB storage – €899
- 16GB RAM / 256GB storage – €999
- ROG Phone 5 Pro (comes in Phantom Black)
- 16GB RAM / 512GB storage – €1199
- ROG Phone 5 Ultimate (comes in Storm White)
- 18GB RAM / 512GB storage – €1299
The Pro and Ultimate models will arrive in April and May respectively while the base models arrive this month depending on your location.
What do you think of ASUS ROG’s latest gaming phone? Is it as ridiculous as you thought it would be? Sound off in the comments!
