Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro Review – PS5 in Your Pocket

I’ve been using the new Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro, and it’s been an amazing experience. I’m not generally one of those individuals who buy into the buzz of new technology because of the minor changes that occur every year, but this caught me off guard. This phone is designed especially for gamers, for those who are unfamiliar with the brand. Everything about it is aimed to provide the best possible experience for individuals who love mobile gaming like me.

If you’re looking for a smartphone with a bunch of top-notch specs and features, this meaty smartphone surely fills the bill. You’re not sacrificing anything in terms of specs or performance, but there are certain downsides to carrying this much power inside your pockets. Since the smartphone is bigger than you might think, some people may not prefer to keep it in their jeans. I believe that’s enough of an introduction; let’s go check out the Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro now.

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The Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro costs Rs 79,999 in India for the single option with 18GB RAM and 512GB internal storage. Flipkart will begin selling the Asus gaming smartphone from February 18. The ROG Phone 5s Pro comes in two colour options: Phantom Black and Storm White.

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The unboxing experience of Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro is amazing itself. Here’s what the box includes inside:

• Handset
• USB Power Adapter (30W)
• Type C to Type C Cable
• Documentation (User Guide, Warranty Card)
• Sim Ejector Pin
• Aeroactive Cooler 5
• Hard case

Before we talk in detail about the Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.78 inches AMOLED
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 888+
• RAM & ROM: 18GB RAM 512GB Storage
• Software: Android v11
• Rear camera: 64MP + 13MP + 5MP
• Selfie camera: 24 MP
• Battery: 6000 mAh
• Weight: 238 grams
• Dimensions: 172.8 x 77.2 x 9.8 mm

It has a design that is fairly similar to its older version, Asus ROG Phone 5, with a combination of aggressively geometric lines and a camera module that is indistinguishable. The Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro features the ROG Vision back matrix colour OLED display, which is a tiny display that can show different animations that can be modified for particular notifications. You can also make your own customized animations. It has no practical purpose aside from displaying a phone animation for an incoming call and indicator while the device is charging. It might be handy if you leave your smartphone face-down usually, but in the end, it’s just a gimmick that increases the price.

It’s a one-of-a-kind feature of the phone that looks very good in terms of design. The display for ROG Vision is visible through the phone’s included case, allowing you to proudly display your cool smartphone. On the front, the smartphone boasts the Gorilla Glass Victus, and on the back, it has Gorilla Glass 3. The top and bottom bezels on the front remain quite substantial to reduce accidental touch while gaming and to make the phone simpler to use in landscape mode.

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With a weight of 238g and a thickness of roughly 10mm, ROG 5s Pro is a heftier phone than Apple’s flagship. However, it seems sturdy and well-built, and the large, unobstructed display makes it even better.

Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro, however, lacks IP-rated water and dust resistance, making it less rugged than today’s flagships. It compensates for its lack of water resistance with ports, which include two USB-C connections and a solid headphone jack. You can charge it whether you’re using it in portrait or landscape mode.

The Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro boasts a 6.78in FHD+ AMOLED display, which is basically the same as the smartphone before it. It displays everything from interface gestures to exploding enemies beautifully, thanks to HDR and outstanding colour accuracy. Because it’s AMOLED, it has a lot of punch and pop, as well as wonderfully deep blacks and support for the always-on display.

To jog your memory, the ROG 5s Pro features a 10-bit panel with HDR10+ support and the best-in-class Widevine L1 certification, making it ideal for streaming and viewing HDR content. The immersive experience is further enhanced by the powerful stereo front-facing speakers.

The 10-bit panel can display one billion colours and has a peak auto-brightness of 1200 nits when viewing HDR10+ material. During the rest of the time, you can have 800 nits of max manual brightness. I have to say, the colour accuracy is exceptional.

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The Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro features a 144Hz refresh rate. Unlike many other phones, you may manually alter the refresh rate to 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz, and 144Hz. There’s also an Auto option, which appears to act as a battery saver. One of the small differences between the ROG Phone 5s Pro and the vanilla version is the touch sampling rate on the display, which has been increased from 300Hz to 360Hz. According to Asus, this reduces touch latency from 24.3ms down to 24ms.

We were confident before we tested the Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro that it offers the best performance under the Android ecosystem, not only because of the better 888 Plus chipset but also due to its incredible 18GB LPDDR5 RAM. To be honest, almost no application on the Android device requires such a high level of configuration. However, that is not something that the ROG brand would consider. After all, it’s one of the very few companies that is constantly aiming for the highest level of performance.

Currently, the 888+ is the most powerful mobile processor available for Androids. This is a super smooth and snappy device for everyday use. Even when playing the most graphic demanding Android games at max frame rates, such as Genshin Impact, it ran fast and smooth while remaining cool. CoD: Mobile, as well as PUBG New State, ran flawlessly on the maximum graphical settings. Asus has also included a special X Mode that boosts CPU and GPU performance in order to maintain those frame rates as high as possible.

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The Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro has a really cool haptic vibration technology that can recognise certain sound impacts, like gunfire, and convert them to haptic feedback with compatible games like PUBG.

It has a pair of ‘ultrasonic’ touch-sensitive shoulder buttons that can be customized to do any action whenever tapped or pressed. These Triggers are not only highly responsive with no latency, but they also provide haptic feedback when tapped.

The Armory Crate gaming hub on the smartphone also has an Advanced Mode that allows you to modify the CPU and GPU performance, refresh rate, and graphic settings manually. You may also use this to control the back display, manage your games, and accessories, among other things.

A clip-on fan is included in the box, which works in conjunction with the phone’s different cooling systems (including an expanded vapour chamber) to cool things down under stress.

The Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro runs Android 11 with ROG UI, which is a custom skin from Asus. The company has stated that an update to Android 12 will be available in early 2022. The smartphone offers a seamless user experience with no lags and shutters. What I love about this phone is that it comes with absolutely no bloatware at all. This means that you won’t get bothersome notifications from unwanted apps. Apart from all this, the sheer number of customization options in the UI will leave you amazed. You can put in gaming-related themes to enhance your experience further.

There’s also an Esports Mode that disables features that aren’t allowed in mobile competitions, such as Air Triggers, as well as blocking all notifications.

There isn’t much to say here given the Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro has the same triple-camera setup as the Asus ROG Phone 5: a 64MP primary camera, a 13MP ultrawide lens, and a 5MP macro lens. It comes with a 24MP wide front camera with an f/2.4 aperture, which is decent for taking selfie shots and movies.

The photos you’ll take with the ROG Phone 5s Pro aren’t bad at all. You’ll get good detail in bright daylight, for sure.

The primary sensor delivers pretty nice photos, although consistency is not one of its strong points. Optical image stabilisation and laser autofocus are not available. Colour accuracy is also quite good. You don’t get the overly punched-up image that many less expensive camera setups do.

The images in night mode are fairly crisp and clear, but they can still create some rather unnatural effects. In one nighttime photo of a building, for example, the clouds in the sky took on an unexpected yellow glow. There’s also a 13MP ultra-wide camera, which is good, and a 5MP macro lens, which isn’t so good.

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The quality and performance of the 24MP front-facing camera gets a thumbs up, which may be more than enough for many gamers. It captures decent, accurate selfies with natural colours, but no autofocus is available.

The main camera can capture full HD video at 240 fps, 4K video at 120fps, and 8K video at 30fps. The video quality of the Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro appears to be good for vlogging or making short-form content.

The massive 6000mAh battery (divided into two 3000mAh units) provides plenty of juice for long gaming sessions. Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro may easily survive two days when used by a casual user. You can get more battery life out of it by turning on Ultra Durable mode, at the same time you can drain it faster by turning on X Mode, but we found that the default settings provided us with excellent gaming and all-day battery life.

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However, if you really push the device to its limits, it features two USB-C ports for charging, one of which is side-mounted for those who want to charge while gaming. The USB 3.1 port on the side is USB 3.1, whereas the USB 3.0 port on the bottom is USB 3.0. You can fully charge the huge battery of Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro in under an hour thanks to its 65W ‘Hyper Charge’ technology. Slow charging, on the other hand, is healthier for the long-term health of your battery pack, which you can enable in the settings app.

The audio system on the Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro is also excellent, the best I’ve heard on any smartphone this year, with two speakers that offer well-balanced stereo sound with full power. There’s also a 3.5 mm audio jack. The four built-in microphones provide a great voice quality. When I held the smartphone close to my ear during calls, I was very clearly understood.

There are two slots for sim cards, both of which offer 5G connectivity. It supports the following 5G bands: N1, N2, N3, N5, N7, N8, N12, N20, N25, N28, N38, N40, N41, N66, N71, N77, N78, N79. It comes with support for WiFi 6, Bluetooth v5.2 and NFC. There is no microSD card slot and no wireless charging.

Asus ROG Phone 5s Pro comes with an in-display fingerprint scanner. The fingerprint scanner is fast, responsive and accurate.