Asus ROG Phone 5 Review: A gaming-centric smartphone that is fit for the gamers but lacks flagship-like features!!

The ROG Phone 5 is the perfect choice for gamers at Rs.50000!!

When you purchase a flagship smartphone in the market, there are many brands like the Pixel, Apple, Samsung, OnePlus, etc that provide all the flagship features needed like an excellent set of cameras, powerful hardware, and good software also. But if you are a person who considers performance above all, then these flagships are the ones to go for.

But when you look for a flagship smartphone only for gaming keeping all other things to the side, the first manufacturer that comes to mind is Asus, Nubia, or even Xiaomi with the Black Shark series. The ROG Phone series, the Nubia Red Magic, and recently Lenovo's Legion series is one of the best gaming smartphones on Earth that money can buy. 

It has been not been a year since Asus has now come up with the ROG Phone 5 lineup that includes the ROG Phone 5, ROG Phone 5 Pro, and the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate. The Asus ROG Phone 3 (Review) launched last year brings in a powerful Snapdragon 865 chipset, a 6000mAh battery, the bold ROG logo at the back, and had an average set of cameras.

The Asus ROG Phone 5 almost provides all the similar specifications as the ROG Phone 3 but comes in a newer design, has some extra components for the better gaming experience, there is the powerful Snapdragon 888 chipset while the battery remaining the same at 6000mAh? Do these figures translate to make it a worth buy only for gaming while keeping all aspects aside?

Asus ROG Phone 5 Design:

Compared to last year's ROG Phone 3, the design is slightly different on the ROG Phone 5. At the back, there is almost a similar rectangular strip that houses the triple cameras with a LED flash. There are some flashy designs to make it look like a gaming smartphone. On the back, the huge ROG RGB logo is placed slightly below the center and just like the ROG Phone 3 it also lights up.

Alongside the ROG logo, is also an LED strip that lights up the Republic of Gamers and the tiny ROG strip and can be customized with different colors and now there is no copper sink cooling system included here. The lower half where the ROG logo sits has a dot matrix design with 8 colors which is inspired by the Asus Zephyrus G14 laptop. 

Unlike the ROG Phone 5, the ROG Phone 5 Pro, and the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate, there is an OLED panel where you can have the ROG logo displayed with different colors on the ROG Phone 5 Pro and in black and white on the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate. The other aspects of the ROG Phone 3 remain unchanged. To the sides, there is an aluminum frame that has all the controls.

On the right side, there is a power button with the volume buttons and like the ROG Phone 3, there is the capacitive touch button on the top and bottom edge of the right side which can be called shoulder buttons and provide good controls while gaming. These are now placed slightly towards the edges for better reach. 

The left side has a USB Type-C port which is seen from the day of the ROG Phone and provides fast charging while holding the smartphone while gaming. Now Asus has also added a rubber port where you can attach various accessories instead of any deeper port as seen on the ROG Phone 3. The rubber port keeps away the dust and any particle on it. 

The cover protects both of them but it does come out many times. The AeroActive Cooler 5sits on top of the cooling system which lowers the CPU temperature thus improving the cooling efficiency while gaming. There is a dual SIM card slot at the bottom left and to the bottom, there is the main USB Type-C port with a 3.5mm headphone jack which makes a return since the ROG Phone 3 missed it.

There are four microphones present on the smartphone that includes - one at the top, second at the bottom, third at the right side, and the fourth one is placed next to the camera all allowing for better noise cancellation and suppression of wind while playing games. The two accessories like the Mobile Desktop Dock and the TwinView Dock 2 lose compatibility as the back is now less wide and thinner.

The ROG Phone 5 has three Wi-Fi antennas where each can switch between them for a better gaming experience regardless of what position you are holding the smartphone. On the front, there is a larger 6.78 inches display with slightly smaller bezels both at the top as well as on the bottom compared to the ROG Phone 3 which allows it to increase the screen size and the dual front-firing speakers are as present as always. 

The back of the Asus ROG Phone 5 is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 which is not the best but the front display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus which is the best smartphone protection as seen on the Galaxy S21 Ultra. It misses out on the IP68 rating and does not support wireless charging either which is a sort of a miss in a flagship smartphone. 

The weight is 244 grams which is slightly on the heavier side as it packs a massive 6000mAh battery but overall gives the smartphone a good solid feel while holding it in hand. Overall, the design is impressive and like always, the ROG Phones are stuffed with controls for better gameplay but lack of IP rating and wireless charging is a big miss.

Asus ROG Phone 5 Display:

The ROG Phone 5 has a 6.78-inches Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) E4 Super AMOLED display which as said is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus. This AMOLED panel is much improved and better compared to the one on the ROG Phone 3 which had black crush issues and the colors were not so accurate. As this is an AMOLED display, the color reproduction and the viewing angles are excellent.

All the contents look sharper and have punchier colors and since it is an AMOLED panel it covers 111 percent of the DCI-P3 scale and 150 percent of the sRGB scale. There is support for HDR10+ and Widevine L1 which means streaming HD contents on OTT platforms is easier. This display also has a peak brightness of 800nits under normal lighting conditions but under direct sunlight, it can go as high as 1200nits.

Even in dark, there would not be a problem to view the display as there is the Reading Mode and Bedtime Mode also. You can set the color temperature of the display using the custom slider in settings and there are four different color profiles that include Standard, Natural, Cinema, and Default. The display is set to Natural by default and if you want more realistic colors, the Cinema Mode works well.

The one outstanding feature of the ROG Phone 5's display is the 144Hz refresh rate which is the highest ever seen and this is the dynamic refresh rate which means the refresh rates scale according to the application in usage in the background. Combined with the 144Hz refresh rate is the 300Hz touch response which means the touch response is really good while playing games or scrolling through web pages.

This display houses an in-display fingerprint scanner which is accurate and fast but it is not an ultrasonic one like on the Galaxy S21 Ultra (Review) but an optical one and since this display is AMOLED, there is an Always-On display that shows different information and can be customized with different designs. Overall, the minimum bezels with a better AMOLED display, the ROG Phone 5 is a treat to use.

Asus ROG Phone 5 Performance:

The ROG Phone 5 like most of the flagships is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset which is an octa-core chipset that has a 1x2.84 GHz Kryo 680 Cortex-X1 core with 1x2.42 GHz Kryo 680 Cortex-A78 core and another 4x1.8 GHz Kryo 680 Cortex-A55 cores built on a 5nm process and has the powerful Adreno 660 GPU. This is the same chipset that powers the OnePlus 9 Pro (Review).

Since it packs a flagship chipset, all tasks like scrolling through webpages, multitasking between applications, and playing games felt smooth. All heavy games like Call of Duty Mobile, Asphalt 9 Legends, etc. ran smoothly without any problems at the maximum and the very high graphics settings. There were no stutters and switching between games was a lot easier.

Asus has bundled the ROG Phone 5 with an efficient cooling system with a large copper sink that will dissipate a larger amount of heat while gaming. The Cooling chamber is made up of two large graphite cooling pads that house the larger 6000mAh batteries which are split into two 3000mAh batteries and the copper 3D chamber maintains the peak performance while gaming.

As a result, the ROG Phone 5 does not heat much like other Snapdragon 888 chipset-powered smartphones as seen on the OnePlus 9 Pro where users were complaining that when using the camera for more than 15-20 minutes, the upper part felt slightly warmer but thanks to OnePlus software update which fixed this issue but still there is some overheating and this is found on other smartphones like Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra also. 

In terms of benchmarks, the ROG Phone 5 scored 810447 on Antutu v8 which was quite higher compared to 678122 on the OnePlus 9 Pro, and these scores were achieved due to the much better cooling system implemented on the ROG Phone 5. However, the back does heat up quite a bit which is common on Snapdragon 888 powered smartphones.

The ROG Phone 5 is available in three variants - 8/12/GB LPDDR5 RAM and 128/256GB storage of UFS 3.1 speeds. The ROG Ultimate sports a whopping 16GB RAM which is insane and is just overkill. There is no microSD card slot for storage expansion but the 128GB storage is ample and if you are heavy on games get the 256GB storage variant.

Overall, the performance and gaming that the ROG Phone series is known for delivering it absolutely well.

Asus ROG Phone 5 Software:

The ROG Phone 5 runs on the ZenUI which is almost close to Stock Android and has Android 11 out of the box. This means you are getting a cleaner software experience with no ads in the user interface and there is no bloatware present also. However, if you do want that Stock Android look, there is also the ROG UI which when switched has a more gaming theme as it changes the whole look of the UI.

When the ROG UI is revamped, there is an X-Mode that comes up within the notification toggle which when chosen results in some gamer-centric animations in the display, some nice wallpapers come into effect, and also the icons have a glowing border around them. The Armoury Crate is present where you can customize the gameplay by adding different profiles. 

The design is little bit vanilla this time on the Armoury Crate as you get different screens where the first screen has the Touch behavior and the second is the Display Tab that has shows the refresh rate of each application and also provides two Graphics quality that includes the Balanced and the High Quality. The third is a Performance Tab where you can select Level L1, L2, L3 for performance.

This Performance Tab also consists of controls to tweak the Temperature Control, CPU, GPU, and RAM performance. The fourth is a Networks Tab where it disables all background sync activities for smoother gameplay and there is also automatically switches to Wi-Fi or data connection depending on signal strength for uninterrupted gameplay.

The Air Triggers, Key Mapping, and Macros have different tabs which fetch macros, triggers, and mappings for most of the popular games from a repository online. There is also an X-Mode + which allows you to adjust the fan speed whenever the AeroActive Cooler 5 is attached. This is quite different from the regular X-Mode. 

Like the ROG Phone 3, there is the Game Genie which that understands the mapping interface while gaming, and also Esports notification disables any notification or calls and also does not allow the downloading of software for uninterrupted gameplay. The Connect Tab lets you connect to Asus ROG forums and their community.

The ROG Phone 5 has support for the Kunai Gamepad accessory which can be attached to the phone where you can map any button to the on-screen controls which makes the gameplay much better and like the ROG Phone 3 you can attach the ROG Phone 5 with the mouse and keyboard and map it to on-screen controls for the gameplay.

However, in terms of software updates, Asus says the ROG Phone 5 will get another two years of Android updates and security updates for three years on a quarterly basis. The ROG UI with the Game Genie and the Armoury Crate makes it unique and if you want to switch to the normal Stock Android look, the software experience is much better on the ROG Phone 5.

Asus ROG Phone 5 Cameras:

The cameras are not so much changed from the ROG Phone 3 to the ROG Phone 5. The primary camera is still the 64MP f/1.8 Sony IMX686 sensor coupled with a 13MP f/2.4 ultrawide camera and a 5MP f/2.0 macro camera. The cameras have not been much of a need in gaming smartphones and Asus has not changed anything much. You still get the Stock look of the camera app with all the controls.

On the front, there is a 24MP f/2.0 camera. The images from the main camera come out with good details with punchier colors. The subjects look sharp with good contrast but there is a fair bit of noise present and the colors are slightly inconsistent in many areas. The dynamic range is very good and there is no scene of overexposure.

You can also take the images in full 64MP resolution which results in images with a good amount of details but does cropping heavily to prevent noise. When you zoom into the images there is quite a bit of noise present but the images look sharper. With HDR mode turned on, the images have more realistic colors with good dynamic range though.

The images shot at night have good details and the dynamic range is above average. There is a large amount of noise present when compared to some other 48MP or 108MP cameras. This camera also lacks OIS which results in images with slight distortion but still, these images are well-lit and the highlights in shadows are good.

With the dedicated Night Mode, the images do improve in terms of dynamic range and details. The noise gets reduced to quite some extent. 

The 13MP ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of details and the dynamic range is above average. There is not much noise but if you look around the edges there is some softness which results in edge distortion and the colors look slightly oversharpened. The ultrawide images are not the best when you compare them with other smartphones like the OnePlus 9.

At night, the ultrawide camera does a decent job in terms of colors but the dynamic range is just average. There is a lot of noise present and like I said, the edge distortion continues, and turning on the Night Mode does improve the dynamic range and reduces the noise by maintaining the exposure well in low-light shots and it is always recommended to use the Night Mode for better images.

The 5MP macro camera does a decent job in terms of close-up images with good details and dynamic range. There is some amount of noise but the color reproduction is excellent here. However, there is no autofocus which is a miss at this price segment and when you zoom in, there is quite some noise present. 

The portraits from the main camera have good details with proper edge detection and you can adjust the background blur according to your needs with different depth of field effects. When you zoom into the portraits, there is some amount of noise present and the dynamic range is also good. However, the images do get cropped for better portraits and it is just on par with other smartphone portraits.

The 24MP camera on the front does a good job in terms of selfies when it comes to dynamic range and color reproduction as the contrast is good with a lower amount of noise and the skin tones also look natural. The selfie portraits have good background blur with proper edge detection but there is slight softness around the edges. However, this is a very good front camera considering this as a gaming smartphone.

The videos from the rear camera can be captured in 8K at 30fps. The video has the right balance in terms of exposure, contrast, and also white balance. While there is no OIS, the videos look well stabilized and there is very little noise present also. The dynamic range is not so good though when you compare it with the 108MP cameras but does the job fine.

The 4K videos from both the main and the ultrawide camera do a good job in terms of color reproduction with sharper details and the noise is also considerably low. The only area of improvement needs to be in terms of dynamic range which is not so wide and there are scenes of oversharpening. The lack of autofocus could be an issue while locking focus on a particular subject on the ultrawide camera.

On the front, the camera can record 1080p videos at 30fps which is good but it lacks 4K video recording which is a sort of a big miss as a smartphone having Snapdragon 888 and priced at Rs.50000 should have this feature. The videos have good color reproduction and the dynamic range is quite wide. The noise is slightly prominent and it does a good job in terms of portrait selfies also.

Overall, the cameras on the ROG Phone 5 are good not we can say really good as this is a gaming smartphone but does the job fine and Asus if could provide timely software updates then they could achieve much better cameras as we saw with the ROG Phone 3.

For camera review samples check out the Asus ROG Phone 5 Review by GSMArena.

Asus ROG Phone 5 Battery Life:

The ROG Phone 5 has a larger 6000mAh battery which is divided into two 3000mAh batteries as the batteries are situated between the CPU and the vapor cooling chambers on either side. This is the same battery capacity as on the ROG Phone 3 though. With the display set to 144Hz, the battery life can easily last for one working day with some charge left when used heavily.

With normal usage, you can easily use the smartphone for two continuous days and the battery temperature is not affected here though packing a Snapdragon 888 chipset as we have seen that due to some overheating issues the battery life is not so good on other smartphones having this chipset but Asus have seemed to work on the battery life.

There is the scheduled charge which means before bedtime if you want to plug in the ROG Phone 5 for charging you can set the battery level for example till 80 or 90 percent and accordingly to let it efficiently charge without any heating or temperature issues. This allows for a healthy battery life thus cutting down the necessary charging cycles. Combined with this is also the Ultra-durable battery mode.

This Ultra-Durable battery mode lowers the screen brightness, the CPU and GPU clock speeds are lowered, the display switches to the standard 60Hz, and necessary applications in memory are removed thus ensuring better battery life. Combined with ZenUI battery optimizations, this one of the best battery life in a gaming smartphone.

There is a 30W fast charger bundled inside the box which takes it from 0 to 100 percent in around an hour and half an hour charge takes it from 0 to 70 percent. However, there is still the lack of a 65W fast charger in India which has crazy speeds of charging. But still, the overall battery life is really good but the lacks the fast charging speeds in today's standards.

Asus ROG Phone 5 Audio Quality:

The ROG Phone 5 comes with a front-firing stereo speakers one located at the top and another at the bottom which are very loud and clear and this is one of the best sounding smartphones with excellent loudness levels and is much better compared to other smartphones. There is a High-Res audio using which you can hear good music through the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Yes, Asus has listened to all of its users and finally the 3.5mm headphone jack makes a return which was missing on the ROG Phone 3. The sound quality is excellent and the presence of Dolby Atmos further enhances the sound effect while listening to music, playing games and also watching movies.

Verdict:

Overall, the Asus ROG Phone 5 is a great flagship smartphone which has most of the things right as it gets a powerful Snapdragon 888 chipset with a great AMOLED display and a massive 6000mAh battery making it a complete gaming smartphone. The audio output is the segment first also. On top of it, the software experience is great with the ZenUI that provides a Stock Android experience with no bloatware and ads.

However, the smartphone weighs much more than the competition and the lack of wireless charging is a miss here as the similarly priced Galaxy S20 FE (Review) has it. The cameras are good but still it lacks a dedicated telephoto camera and the main camera lacks OIS. Overall, the camera performance is good but not the flagship level as it is a gaming smartphone.

There is no IP68 rating which is not found mostly on smartphones at this price segment but the design is very eye-catchy. So if you can live with those cameras and just want a flagship performance with excellent gaming capabilities, at Rs.50000, the Asus ROG Phone 5 is a great buy creating a huge adrenaline rush for gaming.