ASUS ROG Phone 5 hands-on: Quality audio for mobile gamers By Engadget

It's been a little over seven months since ASUS brought us the ROG phone 3, which was already an impressive piece of kit. Today, the company is back with yet another gaming phone, the ROG phone 5, which claims to deliver even better audio cooling and button input, along with some surprises from two additional models. Let's check them out from afar, it's easy to confuse the ROG phone 5 with the kg phone 3, but this new model is actually a little taller. The rear cameras are actually slightly higher as well, though they are exactly the same set as before. The screen is now slightly taller at 6.78 inches, and it uses the latest Samsung AMOLED panel, which still runs at 144 hertz in full HD plus for some slick graphics, but the touch sampling rate has been bumped up to 300 hertz, giving you an edge over the other gamers in terms of responsiveness and accuracy. This panel is also 23 brighter than before, and it's able to go all the way down to 5 knit with minimal distortion.

The difference is quite significant when I compared the screen side by side, especially with dark scenes in some videos. You'll find a few familiar external features on the ROG phone 5, such as the signature, air triggers and front-facing stereo speakers, though these have all received significant upgrades. The air triggers now pack even more ultrasonic sensors in the same area, and they are located closer to the edges to accommodate smaller hands. And if you need more button mapping options, you can apply swipe gestures, slide gestures and dual partitioning to the air triggers, though, for me, I find that the default mode is already sufficient for my first-person shooters, as for audio ace, has managed to squeeze out even more space for the speakers, so they each have the same. Massive 1.2 cc chamber space combined with the new speaker, amps and improved tuning methods from Swedish audio specialist Dirac, the kg phone 5 is louder and, to my surprise, sounds richer with an even wider, sound stage. Making videos and games even more immersive and don't worry.

The headphone jack is here to stay. In fact, ASUS has added a powerful quad DAC here to drive a wider range of headphones, including its new ROG setter, 2 core earbuds, which are also launching today. It may not be obvious from the outside, but aces completely redesigned the internals so that they could fit the new snapdragon 888 processors, bang, in the middle of the phone, far away from your fingers for better heat dissipation. This is made possible using a new logic board layout, as well as a new split battery design that allows for 65 watt quick charging without sacrificing the massive six thousand William hour capacity. As a bonus, this provides better weight distribution as well in addition to the kg phone.

Five there's also a kg from five pro and a limited edition kg from five ultimate, which is this sweet looking device here, both the pro and ultimate feature, a small ROG vision screen on the back, which can be customized to indicate incoming calls game loading charging status and more. Interestingly. The ultimate edition only has a monochrome screen here to match its matte white finish, which is quite a bold, yet sensible, move by ASUS. Another bonus feature on these two models. Is the two capacitive touch areas on the rear panel, so you get two more tappable buttons for gaming.

One thing: that's truly exclusive to the ultimate edition is the 18 gigabytes of ram. So far, the only other smartphone showing such privilege is Nubia's red, magic, 6, Dow edition, which is likely limited to China. The ROG phone 5 ultimate also includes a box full of fan, collection, gives like towel baseball cap, badges playing cards and more, as always, ASUS is offering a handful of accessories for the ROG phone 5 series, with the most notable one being the new proactive cooler 5, which not only doubles as a kickstand, but also adds two physical buttons. Sadly, this is only bundled with the pro and ultimate editions. The kg phone 5 series is also compatible with the lunar free game pad, which works a bit like the Nintendo Switch controllers.

You can pop the controller sticks to both sides of the phone, or you can put them together into a standalone controller. But if you already have an earlier lunar free game pad you'll still need to get a new bumper. In order to fit this slightly longer phone for now, there's no word on us availability or pricing, but the rg5 series will be launching in Europe first with the pro edition to follow in April, and then the ultimate edition in May for more details, check out our article on endgadget. com and as always, do hit subscribe. If you enjoyed our video, you.

Source : Engadget