Asus ROG Phone 5 review: specs, battery & used prices

Summary

The Asus ROG Phone 5 is the 2021 gaming flagship of the ROG line, running the Snapdragon 888 in a 6.78-inch 144 Hz OLED with a 6000 mAh battery and a 239-gram body. Our catalog scores it 74 on everyday use, 69 on screen and 60 on battery — the endurance trio of a dedicated gaming phone. A 64-megapixel main camera records 8K30 video, and the 8/128 GB trim was tracked at about $1000 new. The ROG Phone 6 is the next generation, and the ROG Phone 7 the one after that.

Display and design

The 6.78-inch OLED refreshes at 144 Hz and scores 69 on our screen axis, with an 800-nit figure and motion clarity that ordinary flagships did not match until years later. No ingress rating is documented. At 239 grams the body earns the compactness score of 58 — the 6000 mAh cell and the gaming cooling have real mass, and the design never hides it.

Performance

The Snapdragon 888 posts an everyday axis of 74 and a gaming axis of 22: flagship silicon of its season with the cooling and battery to sustain it, which is the entire ROG argument. Tracked trims run from 8 to 16 GB of RAM, and no software-window figure is documented for this model.

Camera

The camera axis of 40 rests on a 64-megapixel main sensor with an ultrawide and a third companion, recording up to 8K30. The main sensor is genuinely capable in daylight — unusual honesty for a gaming phone — while the supporting pair is framing-only. Camera hardware was never the purchase reason here.

Battery and charging

The 6000 mAh battery scores 60 on our battery axis — long sessions are the design brief, and two full days of ordinary use come standard — while 65 W charging scores 46, refilling the giant cell at a practical pace. Endurance plus refill speed is the combination ordinary 2021 flagships could not offer.

Verdict

At about $1000 new for 8/128 GB, the ROG Phone 5 is the purest expression of the 2021 gaming-phone formula: 144 Hz, 6000 mAh, 8K video and mass to match. Used market data is sparse. The ROG Phone 6 carried the formula to a new chip generation, and the ROG Phone 7 refined it further.