Asus ROG Phone 5 Pro review: A gaming phone with little compromise By Pocket-lint

Gaming phones have become something of a fixture in the android space and, while some of them push their gaming prowess for a select little gaming is their entire reason for existing the ASUS ROG 5 phones is one of those I'm km button from pocket lint, and in this review, I'm going to tell you why the ASUS, ROG phone 5 isn't just a great gaming phone. It's a great phone full stop while you're here, if you could trigger that, like button smash, subscribe and obliterate the notification button, that would be just killer now, because this is a gaming phone. Asus has opted to make it an event, and that starts with the unboxing it's unlike any other smartphone on the market and is tremendously cool from the comic book graphics inside the box. That flow through into the startup process in AR form for the phone there's a real sense of theater. You also get more in the box. There's a 65 watt charger that'll deliver fast charge the case that brings some grip to what is, admittedly, a slippery phone given its massive size and the clip on aero active cooler, 5 fans, which integrates a kickstand two physical buttons and another RGB logo.

Now gaming phones often show their colors when it comes to the design. Aside from being large, which the ROG phone 5 definitely is, you'll often find more overt graphics and emotive finishes, rather than just being safe, black or gray, but the rogue phone 5 doesn't go to an extreme from the front. It looks like a normal phone flip it over, and you're treated to subtle design touches etched into the rear glass. The thing that gives the game away is the rogue vision display on the rear of the phone. This is the pro model, so has a small, quite sophisticated dot display this blows: the subtlety out of the water allowing you to have RGB illumination on the back of the phone, offering a wide range of graphics and animations, all of which are controlled through the armory crate app on the phone.

That control also includes turning the vision display off. If you don't want it, but you will soon forget it's there until people mention it because it's on the back of the phone. After all, there are a couple of other quirks around the body like the USB on the base of the phone is offset to one side rather than being central, while there's a secondary USB on the side. This secondary USB sits alongside the contact point to power, the aero active cooler, the clip-on fan and both have a rubber seal that presses into the side to keep out dust. Now this cover is probably the worst piece of design implementation on the entire phone and the fact that it comes with spares in the box.

Tells you exactly why these things go missing onto display and there's a huge 6.78 inch OLED display on the ROG phone 5. , it's big by any standard with a Zeus hanging onto the bezels top and bottom, the top bezel integrates the front-facing camera, so there's no need for a notch or a punch hole. It's also a flat display ensuring that you get as much visual space as possible, given how problematic we've sometimes found curved displays at times we're just fine with the rock phone 5 going flat. Now all ROG 5 models stick to the full HD resolution screen and while devices like the s21 ultra can technically produce finer detail, generally speaking, that makes little difference. We can't really fault the rogue phone's display for detail not without looking really closely.

It also offers refresh rates up to 144 hertz. If you have any games that support that, but there's a full list of those on the ROG website. The display also has options for 60 or 120hz or auto, which will pick the refresh rate based on the content. Hdr10 is supported to bring pop to the visuals for high dynamic range content, while that AMOLED panel provides rich colors with the option to tune that to your preferences, it's a great display and about the only thing that makes a real difference. Comparing to the top tier display is the peak brightness.

This tops out at 800 nits, which is still bright enough for most, but Samsung's top-end offerings will outshine this model, as will OnePlus and Oppo now. Flanking the display top and bottom are dual stereo speakers. While there's also a three and a half millimeter headphone socket for those who want to go wired, the speaker performance is stellar among the best you'll find on any smartphone, it's rich and immersive, and loud the substantial bass and volume and means you don't need headphones to get the most from your content. Now the fact that the ROG phone 5 comes with the snapdragon 8 processors means it's really being outstanding value for money, because you're getting the latest flagship hardware, and it will embarrass a lot of other phones. The performance is exemplary.

There are a number of elements to this. It's got that great hardware and, as a result, we found the gaming performance to be outstanding. This is a phone that eats hours of Call of Duty, mobile or PUBG, giving solid gameplay combined with those design elements and some software enhancements that feel like they give you the edge, or at least give you the opportunity to establish new preferences. Thanks to the bespoke gaming options offered, we also didn't find the ROG phone to get excessively hot under load despite the option of the clip-on fan. But the important point about performance is that the ROG phone 5 also runs fast and smooth outside of gaming.

The phone is stable, and that makes for a great all-round experience, there's a huge 6000 William hour battery, which is fitting for a phone of this size again with a Zeus splitting the battery and enabling 65 watt wire charging. That makes really fast charging with the option to bypass charging. If you want and just have the power used for system rather than recharging the battery again, this is an option for gamers, so you're not charging and loading the system potentially leading to a drop in performance. Now, a big battery means big battery life in regular use. The ROG phone 5 will easily see you through the day and into the next.

It's not a charge. Every night type of phone, even with a couple of hours gaming thrown in at top brightness and max settings battery life, isn't a worry, that's a great position to be in for any phone regardless. If you're a gaming phone or not, as we've said previously, the software on the ROG phone runs smooth and fast, and the custom elements are there for a reason. We've mentioned armory crates already, which lets you control things like the vision display on the back of the phone and also acts as a launch pad for your games within each game. You can see how long you've spent playing the game, but more usefully have a record of profiles for that game.

You can, for example, restrict background, CPU usage when playing a particular title. Furthermore, you can change the touch performance or turn off background network syncing, all designed to ensure you have optimal gaming experience, but it's the air triggers that are the biggest differentiator from other phones, giving you a range of touch zones around the body of the phone that you can customize. That also includes two physical buttons on the cooler accessory, which might convince some people to use it as those buttons feel more positive than the touch areas of the phone's casing. There's even motion support which you can assign to controls in the game like forward tilt to reload or whatever you like. The real challenge here, though, is that you have to learn how to incorporate all these tools to make things easier for you, rather than more complicated.

Now the camera on any big gaming phone is often something of an afterthought, despite that, ASUS is pushing the wrong phone 5 as having a triple camera system, the main camera and the performance is reasonable, producing naturally balanced pictures, although perhaps not getting the most out of scenes and not showing as much pop as other cameras we've seen can offer. There's a portrait mode for blurring the background that works well enough, although it seems to soften the background with overexposure, which makes results. Look a little clumsy, there's no optical zoom on offer here, but you can pinch the zoom to get digital zoom up to eight times. It's not an especially elegant system and the results are typical of digital zoom, which means quality drops as you increase the magnification overall. The thing that hits home about the rock phone five is that it's not just a great gaming phone.

It's a great phone full stop! Yes, you can't avoid the fact that the majority of phones are now based around the camera experience and that's one area. The rock phone five doesn't really go to town on, but with huge battery and display. This is a great media phone. In addition to a gaming delight, I've been cam and Matt cam Bunsen from pocket lens. If you want to read the full more in-depth review, you can do I'll leave a link in the description box.

If you did like this video, please do hit that like button subscribe and tap the notification bell to make sure you don't miss anymore I'll, see you again in the next one bye for now.

Source : Pocket-lint