The ROG Phone 5 has a Problem - Durability Test Fail! By JerryRigEverything

The ROG Phone 5 is basically the most powerful gaming phone on the market right now, and could be argued that it's the most powerful smartphone of all time. I kind of sliced my finger open removing the massive heat pipe on the Xperia Pro, so I apologize for that. But it will be relevant a little later in this video. Inside the box our ROG Phone, the Republic of Gamers, comes with an external cooling fan. This time around it's got the RGB lights on the bottom with two extra clicky buttons on either side of the fan. Moving two gaming buttons to the back saves screen real estate for your eyes.

It's kind of smart now the display is not covered up by fingers. This guy costs about 1,000 euros, which is $1,200, so it should be an interesting durability test. Let's get started. Right off the bat this phone is pretty dark, black everywhere, with some futuristic text and LED designs on the back. If you remember, ROG has always been kind of loud with their designs.

The ROG 1 and 2 both had big metal buttons on the back with builtin vents that were supposed to help dissipate the heat from inside the phone. Then the ROG 3 came along with its more subtle design, but still had that massive metal aerodynamic cooling system inside for the heat dissipation, which was also visible from outside the phone with a little transparent window. I was a big fan of this one. All of these phones have been pretty rock solid so far. ROG did skip the number 4, which is common because in China the number 4 is an unlucky number... just like 13 is unlucky here in the USA.

Their number 4 sounds very similar to the word “death”, so it's just better to skip it since nobody wants an ROG phone called Death. The ROG 5 design is much more subtle, almost falling into that normal boring glass rectangle thing that every other phone brand is doing, so it's a little disappointing. I still prefer the loud aesthetic of the previous versions. Also inside the box we get some stickers and a very thin plastic case. We also get a large 60 watt fast charger since there are 2 batteries inside the ROG Phone 5.

It can charge twice as fast. There's also a braided cable. If you do want a backup, or travel charger that's about one fourth the size of this brick, you can always grab a 20 watt charger from my channel's sponsor Anker. It's just $16 on Amazon. I'll leave a link in the description.

It's time for the scratch test. I've been systematically durability testing smartphones for the past 6 years. It's a strange hobby, I know. But performing the same tests over and over again let's us compare all of the popular phones to each other over the years, and luckily the vast majority of the phones that I test survive. It's pretty rare when a phone fails.

The ROG 5 is using Gorilla Glass Victus, and we start seeing scratches at a level 6, with deeper grooves at a level 7. Everything's pretty normal so far. There is a thin earpiece slot up at the top of the phone for the top stereo speaker. And then there's the front facing 24 megapixel camera that's also tucked up here into the bezel. The bezels aren't crazy big, and for a gaming phone it's actually kind of nice since the phone is normally in the horizontal position, and the bezels give your hand a little bit more real estate to hold onto without covering the screen.

Speaking of real estate, there are additional capacitive buttons on the side corners of the phone, along with the metal power button, and the metal volume rocker. These capacitive triggers can be programmed to different actions while gaming. The top of the phone is pretty bare. And over here on the left side of the phone we get more metal, along with the rubber stopper that is most definitely going to get lost. There's a zero percent chance this thing lasts longer than a week.

We'll come back to these ports in a second. The second SIM card tray is also metal, and funny enough, a normal size SIM card removal tool isn't long enough to open it up. You'll need an extra long tool to get the job done. Also, strangely, there is no rubber ring around the SIM card tray opening which is usually like the bare minimum of water resistance. The ROG Phone 5 has no official IP rating, which means even ROG doesn't trust their rubber plug.

The bottom of the phone has another USB-C port, as well as a headphone jack. I'm glad it's back since it disappeared on last year's model. Now, it's pretty cool of Asus to include a fan in the box. I'm still skeptical that blowing air on the surface of the phone on the outside of the glass has any meaningful impact on the internal temperatures, but Asus says that the fan, which also has a kickstand, increases the surface temperature by 15 degrees, and the internal processor by 10. I'll have to test that out later, you know, if the phone survives.

Jumping into the settings we can change up the exterior lighting since we know that the RGBs improve the FPSs of the ROGs. I'll bump the fan to full blast so you can get a feel for how loud it is. And then I'll drop it down to minimum. Nothing super crazy. My favorite active cooling system that we've ever seen is still the thermoelectric cooler on the Black Shark 3.

That thing drops the temperature to just above freezing, and was pretty impressive. I'll be cool to see how these lights work from the inside during the teardown. Unlike the ROG 1 and the ROG 2, the surface of the ROG 5 is totally flat, made out of one solid slab of glass. The rear camera lens is also pretty low profile. There are 3 cameras underneath, a 64 megapixel main camera that can film in 8K, a 13 megapixel ultra wide camera, and a 5 megapixel macro camera, along with a single colored LED flash, all protected under glass.

Now fingerprint scanners and I don't always have the best luck together. The ROG 5 does have an under display scanner – it's optical. But unfortunately, it doesn't seem to want to read my fingerprint very much. Granted, there are a few level 7 scratches already over the top and my fingers are not pristine. But for 1,000 euros, I was kind of hoping for a little better performance, since, you know, gaming phones are all about performance.

The screen of the ROG 5 is where things start to really shine. We have a 6.7 inch display with 1 billion colors. A 144 hertz refresh rate, and a 300 hertz input touch sensitivity rate, which is a pretty big deal while gaming. It basically means you'll be fired. Actual fire, of course, is probably frowned upon, but it's good to know that the AMOLED display can last for 30 seconds under my flame and still completely recover, minus the oleophobic coating of course.

See, look at this. I've already forgotten about the rubber stopper and it's only been like 7 minutes. And I don't know about you, but when I think of gamer, I think of some pretty aggressive hand movements because emotions are usually high, which means that a gaming phone should be even more durable than a regular phone. And keep in mind, during this bend test that I'm not even using all of my fingers right now. Unfortunately, with the very first bend we see some pretty major cracking along the antenna line near the bottom half of the phone.

And that small crack, for some reason, has catastrophically affected the internal vibrator, which now sounds more like a hissing cat than anything else. With another bend from the front we lose the entire screen at that same weak point – that antenna line. The Victus glass in the front is still intact, it's just the display under the glass that has given up the ghost. One billion colors are gone in an instant. This of course is not an ideal situation.

A phone without a screen is like a car without tires. Finally, we'll flip the phone around to the back and try one more time. And right there next to the center USB-C and accessory port, we find another weak point in the frame. And just like Apple's iPad, it's game over for the ROG Phone 5. May he rest in piece... s.

I've performed this same test on hundreds of phones over the last 6 years and the vast majority of them survive, which makes it even more embarrassing for the phones who don't, especially when they cost this much. The LED lights on the back of the phone still work, but the rest of the phone does not. And it's even more sad since I haven't been to the gym in a year and I'm only using 9 fingers. ROG skipped number 4 because they were superstitious about death, but then number 5 died anyway.... pretty painfully.

It'll be interesting to take this guy apart and see why it failed from the inside. There's a good chance that that dual battery system messed with the structural integrity. This is just the regular ROG 5, of course. There is one more even more expensive ROG 5 called Ultimate, which has the second display on the back. But judging by the fact that it also has dual batteries, side accessory ports, and this very same antenna line on the side, I think it would indeed suffer the exact same fate during the bend test.

But hit that like button if you think we should check. Remember, most smartphones don't hold their value all that well. So if you do want a good gaming phone, last year's ROG 3 still has 5G and almost the same specs, and is now half the price. And, more importantly, it doesn't fold in half. ROG has definitely made some winners in the past, just not this time around.

The ROG Phone 5 officially fails my durability test. As always, let me know what you think down in the comments. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss that teardown. And come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter. Thanks a ton for watching, I'll see you around.

Source : JerryRigEverything