Asus has refreshed its Republic of Gamers (ROG) gaming phone for 2021, and it's a powerhouse. The ROG Phone 5 series offers a super-speedy Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset, a huge 6,000-mAh battery, and up to 18 GB of RAM (more than many laptops).
The impressive specs don't stop there, with 5G on board and the 6.78-inch, 2,448 x 1,080 pixel AMOLED displays they're sporting topping out at an ultra-high refresh rate of 144 Hz. Battery charging races along at 65-W meanwhile, and internal storage options go up to 512 GB.
Around the back of these phones you get a triple-lens 64-MP wide + 13-MP ultrawide + 5-MP macro camera, with a 24-MP selfie camera taking care of photo-taking duties on the front. There are improved front-facing stereo speakers, and the handset also comes with a 3.5-mm audio jack if you want to use wired headphones.
The extra nods to gamers include the AirTrigger shoulder buttons we've seen on previous ROG phones (so your fingers don't have to obscure the action by tapping on on-screen controls), and a customized cooling system to keep temperatures down. There's also a special gaming mode added on top of the Android 11 software the phone comes with, for optimizing performance and minimizing distractions.
With the number 4 largely avoided by Asian tech companies due to tetraphobia, this is the direct successor to the Asus ROG Phone 3 that appeared last year, with improvements in just about every possible department. The camera setup is mostly the same, but otherwise it's upgrades across the board.
There are three models to pick from: the ROG Phone 5, the ROG Phone 5 Pro, and the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate. Besides packing in more RAM and internal storage, the Pro and Ultimate models have customizable LED displays on the back, that can be used to show phone stats or just to personalize the handset. There are also two extra capacitive touch buttons on the back of these models.
Asus is describing the ROG Phone 5 as the "ultimate gaming smartphone" and it's hard to argue – it has the sort of screen, specs and features that are way beyond what the average consumer is going to need.
US pricing has yet to be released ahead of a Q2 2021 launch, but starting prices in Europe have been announced: €799 (about US$950) for the ROG Phone 5 (available in Phantom Black and Storm White), €1,199 (about $1,425) for the ROG Phone 5 Pro (available in Phantom Black), and €1,299 (about $1,545) for the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate (available in Storm White).
Product page: Asus ROG Phone 5