Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro review
ROG Phone 5 and its ecosystem of accessories, no matter how small, offers arguably the most complete, feature-rich, and most downloaded mobile gaming experience. Maintaining these credentials naturally requires that you have the latest and greatest hardware.
For better or worse, making the best chips possible right now is kind of out of the box. So the ROG Phone 5s and 5s Pro are now coming to the fore with the “skinny” Snapdragon 888 traded in for the Snapdragon 888+, along with a few other changes here and there, which we’ll talk about shortly. But why could such a change be “for the worse”? Well, the Snapdragon 888 already has a bad reputation for running pretty hot and pouring out a lot of power. Snapdragon 888+ takes all of this and, among other things, increases the maximum base frequency of the Prime Kryo 680 processor from 2.84 GHz to 3.0 GHz. With this, it inevitably introduces more heat and more battery drain. And more heat and more battery drain are not exactly ideal in a system that already has a fixed battery capacity and also, importantly, the same closed and passively cooled configuration unchanged.
The main question we have to answer now is how much more performance if any, the Snapdragon 888+ offers compared to its vanilla sibling in this beefed-up Asus design and how much worse the thermal regulation and situation is, if at all. Heat and potentially battery life. Since the ROG Phone 5S also claims some touch input latency improvements, we also need to check if any other display features have changed.
What’s New!
Let’s break this down because things with the current ROG line are a bit confusing. The original ROG Phone 5 range has three models, Vanilla is available in 8 GB / 128 GB, 12 GB / 256 GB and 16 GB / 256 GB configurations depending on the region. And the Pro and Ultimate editions add some design tweaks and even more optimized storage versions.
Enter the new vanilla ROG Phone 5s pair. each device swap the flower 888 for AN 888+ and supply upgraded, industry-leading 360Hz bit sampling rates on their shows. The vanilla ROG Phone 5s is predicated on the vanilla ROG Phone 5, thus it’s an RGB emblem on the rear and skips on the PMOLED ROG vision display and also the further rear touch inputs that the professional and supreme editions want to have.
The specifications of the Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro take a look
- Body: 172.8×77.3×9.9mm, 238g; Glass front (Gorilla Glass Victus), glass back (Gorilla Glass 3), aluminum frame; Pressure sensitive zones (Gaming triggers), Touch sensor; ROG Vision monochrome PMOLED display (on the back).
- Display: 6.78″ AMOLED, 1B colors, 144Hz, 360Hz touch sampling rate, HDR10+, 800 nits (typ), 1200 nits (peak), 1080x2448px resolution, 20.4:9 aspect ratio, 395ppi.
- Chipset: Qualcomm SM8350 Snapdragon 888+ 5G (5 nm): Octa-core (1×2.99 GHz Kryo 680 & 3×2.42 GHz Kryo 680 & 4×1.80 GHz Kryo 680); Adreno 660.
- Memory: 512GB 18GB RAM; UFS 3.1.
- OS/Software: Android 11, ROG UI.
- Rear camera: Wide (main): 64 MP, f/1.8, 26mm, 1/1.73″, 0.8µm, PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 13 MP, f/2.4, 11mm, 125-degree; Macro: 5 MP, f/2.0.
- Front camera: 24 MP, f/2.5, 27mm (wide), 0.9µm.
- Video capture: Rear camera: [email protected], [email protected]/60/120fps, [email protected]/60/120/240fps, [email protected]; gyro-EIS; Front camera: [email protected]
- Battery: 6000mAh; Fast charging 65W, 70% in 30 min, 100% in 52 min (advertised), Reverse charging 10W, Power Delivery 3.0, Quick Charge 5.
- Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); NFC; 3.5mm jack.
See Full specifications Click here
The ROG Phone 5s Pro, which we’re reviewing, comes in the top-of-the-line 18GB / 512GB configuration, and just like its Pro predecessor, it has both the additional color PMOLED panel on the back as well as inputs. rear touchscreen. Pro comes with the AeroActive Cooler 5 accessory in the box, just like its predecessor Pro. Concretely, the ROG Phone 5s Pro replaces the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate in terms of functionality and memory configuration at the current state of the range.
As far as we know, Asus intends to continue selling the available stock of older models and will continue to offer only 5s variants in the future when this is out of stock. To reiterate, there aren’t any real design changes to be noticed with the new ROG Phone 5s pair. You can refer to our full and extensive review for the information on this, as well as the accessories ecosystem.
You can also check out our hands-on review of the ROG Phone 5s Pro, for a look at its familiar packaging and design. As for the ROG Phone 5s Pro that we have in our hands, our work is practically reduced for us a new chipset means new benchmarks, battery life tests and a review of thermal regulation. Additionally, a potentially new or recently updated panel requires a new set of display tests. So, let’s dive in.
This Vanilla ROG Phone 5s also has the same RAM and storage configurations as its predecessor, up to 16GB / 256GB, and oddly enough, it’s only available in Storm White, which was previously exclusive to ROG Phone 5. Ultimate.