The mobile gamers have been waiting for the next gaming smartphone in the ROG series for a while. Fortunately, ASUS didn’t change the launch date and announced the ROG Gaming Phone 5 on time. The new gaming phone comes in three models — the standard variants, the Pro model, and the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate (Limited). However, they all support a 144Hz Samsung AMOLED display. But it is 23% brighter than the ROG Gaming Phone 3. Under the hood, it carries a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip. So what are the main differences between these three? The standard version comes in 8GB + 12GB RAM option, the Pro comes with 16GB of RAM and the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate comes with 18GB of RAM.
Price
The ASUS ROG Gaming Phone 5 was announced in India first. The 8GB + 128GB variants costs Rs. 49,999 ($686) and the 12GB + 256GB model is Rs. 57,999 ($796). The Pro carries a price tag of Rs. 69,999 ($961) for the sole 16GB + 512GB storage configuration and the Ultimate variant comes at Rs. 79,999 ($1098) for the 18GB + 512GB storage combination.
As for color options, the Asus ROG Phone 5 offers Phantom Black and Storm White colors in glossy finish, while the ROG Phone 5 Pro has a Phantom Black shade and the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate will be available in Storm White in matte finish.
Asus ROG Phone 5 Gaming Accessories
Besides the phone itself, the manufacturer also announced a number of accessories such as the optional ROG Kunai 3 Gamepad, Professional Dock, ROG Clip, and Lighting Armor Case. The phone also comes with AeroActive Cooler 5 that includes two physical AirTrigger buttons, a kickstand, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Asus ROG Gaming Phone 5 Biggest Highlights
The Asus ROG Gaming Phone 5 runs on Android 11 with both ROG UI and ZenUI custom interface.
There is a 6.78-inch FullHD+ (1,080×2,448 pixels) AMOLED display on the front that has a 20.4:9 aspect ratio, a 144Hz refresh rate, and up to 1,200nits of peak brightness. The display also supports DC Dimming and is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus.
As said, the handset sport the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC, which integrates the Adreno 660 GPU and is paired with an up to 18GB of LPDDR5 RAM. The phone also includes an all-new thermal design called GameCool 5. However, the AirTrigger 5 mentioned above is not new. We have seen it on the third generation model. Well, there are two front-firing speakers, multi-antenna Wi-Fi, and quad-mic noise-cancelling array.
Asus ROG Gaming Phone 5 Camera
On the back, our protagonist sports a triple-camera. The latter consists of a 64-megapixel primary Sony IMX686 sensor with an f/1.8 aperture, a 13-megapixel secondary sensor with an f/2.4 ultra-wide-angle lens, and a 5-megapixel macro shooter. On the opposite side, we can find a 24-megapixel selfie camera with an f/2.45 aperture.
What Else We Should Know About The ROG Gaming Phone 5?
We said that the ROG Gaming Phone 5 sports up to 512GB of UFS 3.1 onboard storage. Moreover, you can’t expand it. However, it supports external HDD. Its connectivity options include 5G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS/ A-GPS, NFC, USB Type-C ports (one at the bottom and one at the side), and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There is also a pogo pin connector for external accessories.
Not surprisingly, like the second-gen model, we got an RGB light under the ROG logo at the back of the ROG Gaming Phone 5. The Pro model also comes with a ROG Vision color PMOLED display and the Ultimate model features a ROG Vision monochrome PMOLED display. The latter supports customizable graphics.
At last, under the hood, our hero has a dual-cell 6,000mAh battery that supports 65W fast charging support. The phone measures 172.8×77.2×10.29mm and weighs 238 grams.
Terry Ts 
Rudhra Nandu