The ROG Phone 5 Review - TOP 5 Amazing Features! By Hardware Canucks

So, so this is the ROG phone five, the successor to the ROG phone three, which, in my opinion, was the unique android smartphone that I've ever come across. You can check out my full review if you're interested in that right over here, but here we are in 2021 with the ROG phone five, not the row phone four, because four is an unlucky number in China, but either way this phone just goes to show how far ASUS can push innovation in a completely different direction. Basically, they were like you know what we're going to make a smartphone with the fastest CPU ram capacity, that's larger than most people's laptops the fastest screen, a unique design with a mind-blowing audio experience and some cool accessories that will sort of enrich the gaming experience. Now this year they came out with three models: the ROG phone, five, the five pro and the five ultimate, which is a limited edition. Now all these phones or all these models share ninety percent of the features except for the design, IDs storage, configs and some accessories that are emitted out of the box. So what I'm going to do is walk you through the top five features that make this phone stand out from the competition.

So, let's get started after this. Don't have the time to wait for parts and build your own gaming. PC next build. Has your back navigate through their simple UI choose the games. You want to play pick a budget that works, and the configurator will do its magic by offering some options built just for you or choose from one of their awesome.

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Now, if you switch gears to the limited edition, ASUS just took things to a whole new level, guys the entire back comes in the satin white finish along with these embedded black railings that give the phone a cutting edge vibe. I also like the subtle teal accents. It looks unique. In my opinion, they've also implemented a monochrome pm OLED display, and they call it ROG vision. Basically, it allows the user to customize an image or text to their liking with different effects, and it turns on depending on what you do with your device.

So if you get an incoming phone call, it will show you this cool animation and if you're charging it'll show the battery percentage and the progress or if you connect an external accessory it'll show its respective image, which is pretty cool. You see, ASUS, isn't trying to stick to the basics like every other smartphone. This is certainly going to spark a conversation with people around you just because of how cool it looks. But that being said from a usability standpoint, it does get a little challenging because if you look at it, it's really massive, I mean here's a comparison to the galaxy s21 which, in my opinion, is the perfect size to handle, but with the kg phone five. Even if you have big hands like myself, you will struggle to use it one-handed, and it's also an eyesore when you have this thing in your pocket, especially if you're wearing jeans.

Now, if you're using this phone in landscape mode, you wouldn't have to worry too much about handling, because you have both hands supporting the device and there are some bezels at the top and bottom that'll. Give you something to hold on to plus you do get the air trigger 5 features, which is basically two sensors on the edge, and they are fine-tuned compared to the ROG phone three for folks with smaller hands and the settings can sort of be tweaked through game genie which is built into the armory grade software. So it's nothing really new compared to the kg phone 3 they've, just sort of refined some features with that functionality. The side mounted ports have been redesigned so, instead of a proprietary dual USB c layout, you now get a single USB-C, port and recessed pins for external accessories to clip onto, and I'll go over them shortly. The next big feature is the display you're getting a 6.78-inch full HD screen that supports a refresh rate of 144 hertz. But on top of that, you also get an insanely fast 300hz touch sampling rate for fast response times.

When you're, interacting with the content, I was instantly able to see the difference, especially compared to the s21. So this is definitely a bonus if you're a hardcore mobile gamer, which this phone is clearly tailored towards they've, also improved the brightness levels from the ROG phone 3 from 650 nets to 800 nits, which I'm sure will come in clutch during outdoor sessions. It's also color accurate, since every phone comes factory calibrated, and it covers more than a hundred percent DC ip3 color gamut, and when you pair that with an AMOLED display, the visuals are simply put beautiful. Now, just like the kg phone three, you are still getting an in-display fingerprint sensor on the kg phone five, but unfortunately I did not have the greatest experience with it. Uh.

It just fails to register my fingerprint most of the time, and it's pretty slow as well. So yeah, that's unfortunate next up is the audio experience with the ROG phone. Five they've actually decided to bring back the 3.5 mm headphone jack, which I'm sure a lot of people would appreciate, especially esports gamers, considering that the phone 3 lacked one, but they've also taken the extra step to implement high-res audio output with a built-in ESS saber DAC that can easily power headphones with an impedance of up to 600 ohms, which is just bonkers. On top of that, they've actually added custom EQS within the software, where you can fine-tune your audio levels depending on your preference, and you can switch between different genres. It's honestly customization taken to a whole new level, and it's something that I still wish some smartphone manufacturers would implement, but I think ASUS just delivers.

Then there are the dual front-facing speakers. I think it's safe to say that ASUS has set the bar when it comes to delivering the best sound quality for a smartphone. I mean the orientation is just perfect. The base is filling with excellent fidelity in the trebles. I think this is a great setup for a portable home theater experience, especially if you're watching Netflix or YouTube or just gaming in general.

This is honestly man. I just wish if every smartphone had this sort of setup, but you know you do get that drawback of those top and bottom bezels, but I think that's completely. Okay, next cool feature added to the kg phone 5 is the battery configuration now. This phone has two separate 3 000 William batteries for grand total of 6 000 William hours, and it actually charges simultaneously when you plug it in on top of that, they've implemented 65 watt hypercharge. So that means you can juice up the device up to 70 in just 30 minutes, honestly for a battery that size, it's pretty amazing.

Now they did go back to the drawing board, to redo the thermal and battery design, to make it more efficient and safe to use. They've actually done this by using MMT, which stands for middle tab and that essentially charges the battery from the middle instead of the bottom, which lowers temperature rise. When you have this thing plugged in they've, also built in some software optimizations for the battery under the battery care tab, you can enable slow charging, which is limited to 18 watts, and you can set charging limit for less battery wear over time. You can also schedule charging if you want to keep the battery percentage lower overnight, so that you're not putting any wear on the battery by leaving it to 100 for hours, while you're sleeping you see for phone that packs the fastest soc. In this case, the snapdragon 8 12 to 18 gigabytes of ram on the limited edition model and a 144 display having a larger battery is crucial to power all that madness.

So this thing is guaranteed to last you long enough for your intense gaming or content consumption needs. I've been having some trouble trying to kill this thing in a single day with a few hours of gaming and, of course, my usual routine, of smartphone usage, so that definitely says something alright. So the last feature I want to cover are the accessories that complete this whole portable gaming setup and having played around with these for a while. I think I've come to realize that this is the proper way to game check this out guys. This is the kg lunar 3 game pad that comes bundled with a protective case for easier transportation in it.

You've got the controller and the charger base built in along with a grip that attaches to the whole unit itself, for a comfortable experience and a bumper that allows the user to detach the left and right controllers from the charging base and attach it to the phone itself. Transforming this whole thing to handheld mode. Now I'm going to be honest with you guys, I'm not a super hardcore mobile gamer, but I do love racing games, and I've been playing a lot of asphalt 8 during my leisure, and it's just so refreshing to interact with the game using proper joysticks and physical buttons, instead of just using touch screen and, of course, tilting the phone back, you know left and right because you not only have something comfortable to hold on to, but you get these buttons and there's not any distractions happening while you're looking at the display. It just elevates that gaming experience, and it just enables you to focus on what you're doing now. You can also use the controller in Bluetooth mode when you attach it back to the charging base.

But personally I prefer this handheld style and, what's even cool is that you can also attach the aero active cooler by simply clipping it on, and it works flawlessly. You can also adjust the fan speeds through armor, arcade, and they've actually designed this phone in such a way that the processor is right in the center, where it makes direct contact with that air. Active fan cooler to dissipate the heat in a more efficient manner, so I think they've really thought about this really well and there are no limiting factors, because I actually came out with an interesting idea for someone who is super hardcore into mobile gaming, because you know, with this whole crazy setup, you're definitely going to run out of battery at some point. So I thought, maybe you know if you add a portable battery solution, something that supports 65-watt charging. You can simply use the side mounted USB c port, which is still accessible with the aero active cooler attached, and you now have yourself this awesome, portable ultimate gaming setup.

You don't you can call it whatever you want, but I think it's so unique and so cool that this is probably going to be my sort of gaming setup or mobile gaming setup moving forward. Now I do have to mention that not all games support the controller you actually have to go through mapping them manually, which works in some instances and in other cases it just is really difficult to get it working. So that's something to keep note of, but overall you know if you find the games that work natively with this controller. It's such an awesome experience and I just can't go back to using the smartphone itself. That's how spoiled I've become with this setup so that pretty much wraps up my top five features about the ROG phone.

Five. Let me know what you guys think about this phone and if you find any of these features, really cool and unique compared to the competition and if you're a hardcore mobile gamer. I want to know your thoughts about this. Is it something that you would consider as your next purchase or an upgrade yeah? I'm really curious to know. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll talk to you guys in the next one.

Source : Hardware Canucks