Asus ROG Phone 5 has the longest battery life of any Android phone we’ve ever tested

From the entrance, when the cellphone is powered off, there is not a lot to note concerning the new Asus ROG Cellphone 5. However on the again, when its brand lights as much as distinction its black dot-matrix sample end with scorching pink ’80s punk rock highlights, you’ll be able to’t assist however take discover. Significantly, you simply have to play some Blondie or Speaking Heads to finish the impact.

The ROG Cellphone 5 is a fourth-gen gaming cellphone. ROG stands for the Republic of Players. And this 12 months, Asus knocked it out of the park. This is not a serious redesign however reasonably a spherical of great tweaks that make this cellphone one other step nearer to an “excellent” that Asus has been chasing since 2018. Each enchancment from the Gorilla Glass Victus on the display and up to date audio system to relocating cooling components to the center of the cellphone are completed with the purpose of creating the final word gaming cellphone.

Maybe the largest change this 12 months is that there are three new ROG telephones as an alternative of only one. There’s the common ROG Cellphone 5 with the ’80s punk vibe. Then there’s the ROG Cellphone 5 Professional that comes with a removable fan known as the AeroActive Cooler 5. And as an alternative of a brand that lights up, the Professional has the ROG Imaginative and prescient show which is a mini shade show strip on the again to indicate off graphics. It might show alerts and animations for incoming calls, when the battery is charging and extra. Actually, you’ll be able to even make your individual customized graphics for the again show. It is an absolute blast to make use of and my internal 9-year-old approves.

The third mannequin is the ROG Cellphone 5 Final. It has a matte white again embellished with black hairlines and neon blue accents, all of which stole my coronary heart as quickly as I laid eyes on it. Just like the Professional, there is a again show strip, but it surely’s black and white. The Final additionally comes with an AeroActive Cooler 5 however what actually makes it the “final cellphone” is the 18GB of RAM on the within. My new work laptop computer solely has 16. If you add in a 2.84GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, Android 11 and a beefy GPU to all that RAM, you get probably the most highly effective Android cellphone we have ever examined. You’ll be able to see our efficiency check outcomes on the backside of the evaluation.

What do you do in case you have a robust gaming cellphone to evaluation? You sport. I performed driving video games, warfare video games, problem-solving video games, zombie video games, vertical video games and a weird silent movie game. Typically I performed video games with the fan connected and different occasions I used the nifty Kunai Three Gamepad accent, which Asus sells individually.

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Assessment: Asus ranges up with new ROG Cellphone 5

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144Hz display and the longest battery life we examined

Throughout all this gaming a number of issues stood out. The display is wonderful. You’ll be able to set its refresh charge up as 144Hz, however I discovered that the auto refresh charge labored finest because it did not kill the battery as rapidly. Additionally, this evaluation comes out simply weeks forward of the launch of the RedMagic 6 gaming phone with a 165Hz screen.

Battery life on the Asus ROG Cellphone 5 is unbelievable. It has a 6,000-mAh capability and it’s made up of two 3,000-mAh batteries. This design means you’ll be able to quick cost it with a 65-watt charger. After a day of regular use, I normally had about 40% of the battery left.

Battery checks on the ROG Cellphone 5 for steady video playback on Airplane mode clocked a median of 20 hours, 15 minutes and that was with the display locked in at 120Hz. With the display refresh charge set to auto, it averaged a time of 28 hours, four minutes. The longest time for any cellphone we examined this 12 months and the second longest time for any cellphone up to now few years (simply behind the LG V60).

The ROG Cellphone 5 brilliantly allows you to management the battery and handful of various methods. You’ll be able to set limits for a way a lot of the battery prices, select sluggish charging speeds and even schedule when it prices. One of many cooler options is one thing we additionally noticed final 12 months on the Sony Xperia 5 II. When you’re gaming and plugged into energy, the ROG Cellphone 5 will run on energy from the cable as an alternative of charging the battery. This prevents the cellphone from getting hotter which may have an effect on gaming efficiency. 

ROG Cellphone 5 has much more contact sport controls

There are such a lot of methods to regulate and work together with the video games you play. AirTriggers, that are contact sensors positioned on the perimeters of the cellphone, are even simpler to make use of this 12 months as a result of they’re bigger and go edge-to-edge. When you’re utilizing the Professional or Final model, there’s an additional sensor on the again for enter. Add the AeroActive Cooler 5 to the cellphone, and also you get the addition of two mini paddle buttons. That stated, I seen a variety of cell video games have simplistic controls. However I think about having extra choices for sport management mapping will enchantment to people who find themselves into esports.

The ROG Cellphone 5 is heavy and cameras are mediocre

However it is not all enjoyable and video games with the Asus ROG Cellphone 5. There are some drawbacks. The ROG cellphone 5 is heavy. It weighs greater than the iPhone 12 Professional Max, Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely and final 12 months’s ROG Cellphone 3. The ROG Cellphone 5 is the heaviest cellphone I’ve ever examined. And after a protracted bout of gaming, you’re feeling that weight. Much more so once you add a case or a fan or the gamepad accent.

I do know this can be a gaming cellphone however I do want the cameras had been higher. On the again, there is a essential 64-megapixel digicam that makes use of pixel binning to enhance picture brightness and scale back noise. There is a 13-megapixel ultrawide digicam and a 5-megapixel macro digicam. The primary digicam takes some respectable pictures in shiny mild. However once you get into dimmer conditions like indoors the picture high quality suffers. If it is darkish, the cellphone routinely goes into an evening mode that produces mediocre outcomes. Beneath are three of the higher pictures I took with the ROG Cellphone 5.

The ROG is able to taking pictures as much as 8K decision at 30 frames per second, however the story was the identical as pictures. Check out the video under of video I shot with the ROG Cellphone 5. I want Asus took benefit of all the ability it has from the processor, RAM and GPU to assist the ROG telephones take higher pictures.

There is not a US worth for the ROG Cellphone 5 but

One other draw back is there’s no water- or dust-resistance. For the value, it looks like there needs to be. And in the event you’re questioning about that worth, that makes two of us. Presently, US pricing hasn’t been introduced. If we go by European pricing and convert to US {dollars}, a baseline ROG Cellphone 5 can be $950 and the ROG Cellphone Final would value $1,540. (See the chart under for the complete breakdown of worldwide conversions.) 

Watch out with these conversions, although. They most likely aren’t the precise US costs — European costs embody tax — so it is arduous to place a price on these telephones. If the baseline ROG Cellphone 5 was $700 and even $800, it will be a superb worth. And if the Final was $1,200, I might haven’t any drawback recommending it to somebody in search of a gaming cellphone. However till these costs are introduced, who is aware of. For that motive, I am holding off on scoring this evaluation till US costs are introduced.