Asus ROG Phone 5 Ultimate Edition – Best Gaming Phone

If you know anything about Asus, they are heavily invested on gaming. From their industry leading motherboards to their ROG lineup of phones and laptops. This year, they released the Asus ROG Phone 5 in three variants; the ROG Phone 5, the ROG Phone 5 Pro and the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate Edition.

I know some may be wondering why they skipped the ROG Phone 4 and went straight ahead with ROG Phone 5. Well, the number 4 is considered unlucky in some Asian countries. It is for the same reason that there is no Oneplus 4. So, there you have it.

This year, they basically took the ROG Phone 3 and cranked up its internals with the latest chip, added the most amount of RAM in any phone and slightly changed its design aesthetic. In fact, the Asus ROG phone 5 Ultimate edition has the craziest specs in any phone but fails tremendously in its camera systems, especially at that price point. In this article, we are going to dive deep into the specs of this phone, camera quality, battery life, the design language and finally its performance.

Specs

• 6.78-inch AMOLED display (1080 X 2448 pixels)
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G (5nm)
• Android 11 with ROG UI
• Pressure sensitive zones (Gaming triggers)
• 18GB RAM
• 512GB Storage
• No SD Card slot
• Fingerprint sensor (under display optical)
• 6000mAh battery which supports up to 65W fast charging
• 10W reverse charging
• Triple camera setup; 64MP Wide lens, 13MP Ultra-wide lens, 5MP Macro lens
• Video; 8K@30FPS, 4K@30/60/120FPS, 1080p@30/60/120/240FPS, 720p@480FPS
• 24MP wide selfie camera capable of shooting 1080p@30FPS
• Dual Sim
• 144Hz refresh rate
• 800 nits typical brightness 1200 nits max brightness
• ROG Vision PMOLED display on the back
• Glass Front (Gorilla Glass Victus)
• Glass Back (Gorilla Glass 3)
• 3.5mm Jack
• Bluetooth 5.2
• USB-C 3.1 on the side, USB-C 2.0 at the bottom
• Comes in matte white
• It is priced at €1299 (approximately $1600)

Design Language.

You can tell that Asus really took their time to design this phone. At the front, we have a 144Hz, AMOLED display enforced with Gorilla Glass Victus which is currently the strongest screen there is from Corning. We also have a 24MP wide camera at the front, capable of shooting 1080p videos at 30FPS.

At the back of the phone, is where you can tell the effort and time Asus designers took to craft it down to the tiniest of details. The back is covered in Gorilla Glass three. This year, they added a PMOLED, ROG Vision display which can be customized to display various texts.

At the back, there is a triple camera setup; 64MP Wide lens, 13MP Ultra-wide lens, 5MP Macro lens Capable of shooting 8K@30FPS, 4K@30/60/120FPS, 1080p@30/60/120/240FPS, 720p@480FPS.

This phone comes with two USB-C ports. One is for charging and data transfer (the one located at the bottom) while the other one is for Bypass charging. Bypass charging is one of the various precautions that Asus has taken to preserve the phone’s battery health.

As the name suggests, it simply works by powering the phone without actually charging the battery. This is really handy especially when you want to game and the phone battery is down. This feature reduces the amount of heat which would have otherwise been produced if the battery was charging.

On the top side of the phone, we have two touch sensitive triggers., known as Air triggers. They can be used in games which mostly rely on tapping the screen like PUBG mobile. The Air Triggers have a vibrating motor which gives you feedback from the game being played.

It only comes in one color; Matte white. This was a very interesting color to choose for their high-end phone. One of the reasons is to distinguish it from the rest of the lineup which is mostly presented in black.

ROG Vision

The ROG Vision is one the features that they added in the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate Edition. ROG Vision is simply the tiny screen at the back of the phone. It is capable of displaying animations and texts. The user can choose preinstalled animations or use the built-in editor to create different ones. According to the Asus website, the ROG Vision can be activated in the following scenarios;

• When entering games
• Enabling X Mode
• When screen is on
• When plugging in charger
• When plugging in ROG Phone’s accessories
• Incoming call

Battery Life

The Asus ROG Phone 5 comes with one of the largest battery capacities in any phone; 6000mAh. This is more than enough, for any type of continuous gaming. Asus has also enabled 65W of fast charging which should be able to charge from 0-75% in about 30 minutes.

To make such a huge battery charge in such a short while, they used two 3000mAh batteries which charge in parallel. Dual charging in parallel is better than single charging the whole 6000mAh battery. This method has proved to be extremely efficient and fast but there are still minor issues which can occur such as the battery overheating and faster deterioration of battery health.

Asus took some precautions in order to maximize on the battery life. One of the ways is through Bypass charging. As I explained earlier, Bypass charging lets you play games while connected to your charger. The battery does not charge. Instead, the charger provides power to the phone without tampering with the battery.

Another method that Asus has implemented is known as Scheduled Charging. This works by setting a time period when you would like the phone to be fully charged. For example, when going to bed at night. You can plug in your phone overnight and set the time that you will wake up. The phone will slow charge according to the time period that you have set and by morning it will be fully charged.

The third option is by limiting a percentage of the battery when charging. For example, you can set it at 80% or 90%. This means that, when charging, the battery will not be fully charged at 100%, instead it will reach the percentage which you had set earlier. This method is not new by any means. Companies like HP also have this option for some of their laptops.

Finally, Asus has implemented a feature known as steady charging. This simply means that the phone will charge at a slower and steadier pace regardless of whether you plug in a fast charger or not. It is a very efficient method that should be used once in a while to ensure longevity of your battery life.

Performance

No one delivers gaming performance like ROG phones do. The ROG Phone 5 Ultimate Edition is no different. It comes with the latest Snapdragon 888 chip from Qualcomm. This chip provides the best performance and efficiency all in a 5nm process.

In addition to that, this phone comes with the most RAM in any phone out there; 18GB. With this amount of RAM, processes will be silky smooth. This phone also comes with 512GB storage which is more than enough to store your favorite apps and games.

It comes with an AMOLED display which refreshes at 144Hz. This simply means that the screen refreshes 144 times per second. This provides a smooth and faster gameplay. If you have never used a screen which refreshes over 60Hz, then this one will definitely wow you.

All these individual features combine to give you the ultimate game experience. In addition to these features, Asus also offers AeroActive Cooler 5. It is an external cooling fan, which drives away excessive heat leaving the surface temperature cooler. (Up to 15°C surface temperature)

Camera quality

This being a gaming phone, there was very little effort put on the camera side. This is one of the areas that Asus should up their game. It is definitely usable but needs a bit of a refresh. At the back, there is a triple camera setup; 64MP Wide lens, 13MP Ultra-wide lens, 5MP Macro lens Capable of shooting 8K@30FPS, 4K@30/60/120FPS, 1080p@30/60/120/240FPS, 720p@480FPS. We also have a 24MP wide camera at the front, capable of shooting 1080p videos at 30FPS.

Final thoughts

The three phones in the ROG Phone 5 lineup are almost similar with only some few changes. For instance, the ROG Phone 5 does not have the ROG Vision at the back while the Ultimate and Pro versions have. It is worth noting that the camera systems are exactly the same in each one of them.

Here are some key differences between the three phones.