ROG Phone 5 review: Still king of the hill! By Android Authority

Last year ASUS released the fantastic ROG phone 3, which we called a gaming powerhouse for everyone, thanks to its ability to function both as a superb regular smartphone, but also as a great gaming device. Asus skips the 4 due to an east Asian superstition and went straight for the rig phone 5. Can ASUS one up itself with this next generation. Is it worth buying over the ROG phone 3, let's find out in android authority's ROG phone 5 review right off the bat looking at the specs, the ROG phone 5 is an absolute powerhouse of a smartphone. It comes with a snapdragon 888, with 8 to 18 gigabytes of ram, depending on the version and from 128 to 512 gigabytes of non-expandable storage. There are two 3 000 William hour batteries for a 6 000 William hour cell overall, with 65 watt hypercharge, charging the device features a 6.78 inch, full HD, plus 144hz OLED screen with a 300 hertz touch sampling rate and one millisecond display response time. There are four total cameras on the device, including a Sony, mix 686, 64 megapixel sensor, a 13 megapixel 125 degree, ultra-wide, a 5 megapixel macro camera and a 24 megapixel selfie camera.

The device is very similar to the ROG 3 from last year, but ASUS is kind of 20 21. If I had it, the display specs are rather similar, though this is a bit larger. The battery is the same size, though this has faster charging. The ram and storage variants are almost identical. The camera setup is the same on paper.

You know. Even the pricing is close. The ROG phone 5 is essentially just an updated ROG phone 3. One of the standout changes is the processor. It's the best of the best snapdragon 888 chips from Qualcomm this, along with the 16 gigabytes of ram.

I can't believe I'm saying that in our review unit has resulted in buttery smooth performance across the board, from loading up large apps to playing heavy 3d games to processing multiple portrait mode photos. The ROG phone 5 is a beast. I played a decent amount of one of my favorites real racing three, and I found the phone got really hot around the middle. It's not going to be uncomfortable for most people, although my fingers, they get a little clammy after a long gaming session. This is something that can be rectified with the proactive cooler from ASUS that clips on the back and allows the fan to kind of cool the phone down, but this is also not included in the box.

This is something you're going to have to pay for after the fact, so I'm not really sure if that lets ASUS off the hook. To be honest, we found that in synthetic benchmarks, the ROG phone 5 falls a little behind the me11, even with x mode on. However, after some internal testing we found this is very likely due to the pre-release software. That's on the ROG phone five. This is typically a trait that we've seen with previous ROG phones, where, until the final software build comes out, we don't get the full performance out of the chip in synthetic benchmarks, but even if this isn't the case and the kg phone five does perform this way, it's still a top shelf performer, and it's going to be really, really great for gamers.

So don't discount this performance just because it gets beaten by the me11. The display definitely adds to the super smooth experience too. It's a 6.78 inch, full HD, plus 144 hertz OLED display in the 20.4 by 9 aspect ratio with a 300hz touch sampling rate numbers aside. This is the most responsive screen in a smartphone, at least from what I've tested. It's not going to be the sharpest around its full HD, plus, not quad, HD plus, but I actually think that that's a good thing, because one it allows the chip to produce more frames, because each frame is less intensive, which means you can make more use of that 144hz display and two it's a cost saving measure.

It allows the other things to come into the build, and you know this model with 16gb of ram and 256 gigabytes of storage is still only 999 euros, which, in the grand scheme of things these days for a flagship, smartphone, is about right. The display looks perfect. It gets really bright. There's a selection of color modes and refresh rate options within ASUS software, so there's plenty to choose from, and it'll allow you to tailor it the way you want. If you don't care about that, there are auto modes that you can select and just let ASUS do all the work.

The uninterrupted display with the top and bottom bezels is the best way to lay out a gaming phone for a couple of reasons. One it gives you somewhere to place your thumbs when holding the phone in landscape and two it creates space for stereo front firing. Speakers these stereo front firing. Speakers in particular, are fantastic. They're, really well-balanced, there's plenty of low end, especially for speakers that are this small.

It works really well, they get plenty loud. It's a really nice experience and if you don't really care about using speakers, it's got a quad DAC inside with a 3.5 millimeter, headphone port. So you can use that and if you switch to wireless headphones, there's plenty of Bluetooth, codec options. Moving on to the design now not much has really changed from the previous iteration of kg phone. However, there have been some improvements.

The rear placed RGB ROG logo is now made up of little dots, which creates a really cool effect. You can change the color with the included armory crate app, and it's also used to display notification LEDs and if you don't like it, you can just switch off in the settings if you're, not a fan of LEDs, which brings us to the software, so gaming branded anything can often be over the top. With a lot of options, selections a lot of lights, a lot of RGB, the design itself tends to be over the top as well, but ASUS kind of gives you the option. With this one ASUS lets users pick between a gamer, ROG UI and the classic renew looking theme. I've described ennui as stock plus before because it's spotless and close to stock android but sprinkles in some useful features.

The same is true for the ROG phone 5's android 11 based classic UI interface. You can pick between plenty of battery performance balance. Settings armor crate allows you to tailor the experience just the way you like it and game genie is accessible via swiping from the left in games to set up the phone. How you want it? You can use the built-in air triggers, which are these touch sensitive, shoulder buttons on the top to use the on-screen items without having to actually touch the screen. You can even adjust fps caps and screen refresh rate modes from this game, genie app, it's rather powerful and if you don't want all that ASUS gives you the option to set everything to auto and just play the games, although I'm not sure why you'd buy a rogue phone.

If you didn't want to set up and calibrate your phone for your gaming needs, what gamers might not be too fussed about? Is camera performance and ASUS told us that the cameras weren't the focus of the ROG phone 5, which makes sense? However, like last year, the camera setup really impressed us now it's got a four camera setup, 64 megapixel main 13, megapixel, ultrawide, 24, megapixel, selfie, camera and 5 megapixel macro camera, which is a bit gimmicky. But if you want if it's there. However, it's quality, not quantity. That ASUS has gone for this time and that's worked out in their favor. Just like the ROG phone 3, the ROG phone 5 does an excellent job of capturing dynamic range, colors detail.

The quality disparity between the ultrawide and the main camera is noticeable, but not awful. There does seem to be plenty of sharpness. Also, I found the images to look quite natural, and they didn't really sway towards like overly processed or overly sharpened. There is definitely some digital sharpening going on as with most cameras, but it's not overly pronounced, which is nice. The selfie camera isn't bad as long as you keep the portrait mode off.

It did struggle a little with my lockdown mop in these selfie portrait shots but weirdly enough. Switching the cameras around and using the rear shooter for portraits, resulted in surprisingly accurate edge detection. It even managed to take a photo of Archie the ROG with some decent focus, roll off. It wasn't bad whatsoever. I thought it looked quite natural here.

This thing can also shoot 8k video at 30fps and ultra HD 4k video at 60fps, and the video looks pretty good as an overall package, the camera on the ROG phone 5, not bad, probably the best in a gaming phone right now the ROG phone 5 utilizes, two 3000mah batteries to create a six thousand million power battery and what we think this is for is so that it's able to charge faster. Some smartphones from Realme have had this in the past, where to be able to push 65 watts, which is what the ASUS has to the batteries. You split them in two, and then you charge them in parallel to get that speed and in our testing that inbox charger, that's right, you don't have to pay extra for it. With the braided nice, USB, cable and everything managed to get our device from zero to 100 in 55 minutes, which isn't earth-shattering by any means, but it's still pretty impressive for a six thousand million power battery and the fact that you get the charger in the box. The ROG phone five's battery life is pretty great for the first two three days I actually had concerns, but a factory reset and a software update almost transformed the device.

The phone provided, superb battery life when harshly testing the phone and did even better when I was using it more moderately during my busy work day, if you're a heavy user, you should be able to achieve a full day. However, if you're a lighter user, you can expect two days of usage out of this thing. It might not be the best we've ever seen from a six thousand William hour cell, but given the power hungry components, it's pretty impressive, which brings us to the price. The RNG phone five goes for between 799 euros and 1299 euros, or between 950 dollars and 1550, depending on the ram and storage options. There's also a limited edition, and all that kind of thing in there too, it's competing with the black shark and the red magic devices, the former of which doesn't have a snapdragon 888 powered devices.

Yet, however, the latter has announced its 888 powered red magic 6, which looks very competitive compared to the galaxy s21 plus, it's not as well-rounded, and the camera doesn't perform as well, and the design isn't going to please, as many also ASUS has been notoriously slow at rolling out. Software updates and platform upgrades for its devices. The kg phone 3 doesn't even have android 11. Yet, however, the added value for gamers is definitely there. Asus has a suite of first party accessories, including a Nintendo, joycon style controller and a cooling fan, both of which need to be purchased separately for the standard, ROG phone variant.

The air triggers provide a fantastic way to play with mobile games the front firing speakers are absolutely top shelf, as is the 144hz hyper, responsive, OLED display gamers will also enjoy the handy extra USB port on the side, and some will love the rear, RGB logo. Then there's, of course, the ROG software package too. These are all things that you don't get on your standard, your normal flagship smartphones and that's where ASUS has really given the ROG phone value that you can't find anywhere else for the mid-tier 999 euro variant that we have here you're, getting a big, fast gaming phone with lots of fantastic features. The ROG phone 5 feels a lot like the ROG phone 3 with updated internals and that's not a bad thing. We love last year's phone and that feeling hasn't been shaken with the ROG phone 5.

It might not be groundbreaking, but this is still one of the best, if not the best gaming smartphone to get in 2021, and that concludes our review of the kg phone 5. If you want to check out the full written article, please do check the link in the video description. We've also got a mystery unboxing of some ROG phone gear, so stay subscribed to the YouTube channel to not miss that one anyway. I've been Ryan Thomas with android authority, and I'll catch. You later.

Source : Android Authority