Asus has launched the successors to last year’s ROG Phone 5 series, which are called the Asus ROG Phone 5s and the ROG Phone 5s Pro. They are incremental upgrades to last year’s ROG Phone 5 series with main upgrades in two areas – display and processor. Both the phones are powered by the Snapdragon 888 Plus SoC. Apart from that, here are other things which you should know about the new ROG Phone 5s series in India:
Price & Variants
Asus ROG Phone 5s comes in Phantom Black and Storm White colours and is priced at Rs 49,999 for the base model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB storage. The 12GB RAM and 256GB storage variant is priced at Rs 57,999. The ROG Phone 5s Pro in a single Phantom Black colour with 18GB of RAM and 512GB storage that costs Rs 79,999.
Availability
The ROG Phone 5s series will go on sale in India via Flipkart, as the first sale begins on 18th February 2022, at 12 noon.
Display
The Asus ROG Phone 5s series comes with 6.78 inches full-HD+ Samsung AMOLED E4 screen with 1080 x 2448 pixels resolution. There’s an aspect ratio of 20.4:9, 144Hz refresh rate, up to 360Hz touch-sampling rate, 1ms response rate, Gorilla Glass Victus protection and HDR10+. Furthermore, there’s 82.0% screen-to-body ratio and 395 pixels per inch.
Processor, RAM & Storage
Both the phones come with Snapdragon 888 Plus SoC where the ROG Phone 5s has up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage, the 5s Pro has up to 18GB RAM and 512GB storage.
Cameras
The ROG Phone 5s series gaming phones sport a triple rear camera setup, comprising a 64-megapixel primary sensor, a 13-megapixel ultra-wide lens, and a 5-megapixel macro camera. Further on the front, there is a 24-megapixel selfie snapper. This is the exact same camera setup as its predecessors, the ROG Phone 5 series.
Battery
The ROG Phone 5s series is backed by a massive 6000mAh battery that supports up to 65W fast charging. However, you get a 30W charging brick inside the box. The phone also supports reverse charging at 10W, PD 3.0 and Qualcomm Quick Charge 5. There are two USB-C ports via which you can charge the smartphone including one on the left and one at the bottom.
Software, Additional Features
The ROG Phone 5s series comes with an in-screen optical fingerprint scanner. For the software, the phones run Android 11 operating system with ROG UI out-of-the-box. Connectivity options include 5G, Dual-SIM 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ax, 3.5mm headphone jack, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC and USB Type-C port. The device measures 173 x 77 x 9.90mm and weight is 238grams. Additional features include dual front facing 7-magnet stereo speakers and ultrasonic sensors for AirTrigger 5 and grip press.
The Differentiator
While the ROG Phone 5s series smartphones are identical in terms of specifications, they differentiate from each other in hardware. The ROG Phone 5s Pro gets a secondary PAMOLED ROG Vision display while this is replaced with the ROG logo with just an LED on the vanilla model that lights up for notifications. This display on the back of the 5s Pro can show you notifications for incoming calls, battery charging, etc.
This display on the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate was monochrome while the 5s Pro’s rear display is a colour panel. There are also two touch sensors on the back of the 5s Pro which act as additional triggers apart from the ones on the right spine. This feature isn’t present on the ROG Phone 5s. Moreover, the Pro model comes with the AeroActive Cooler 5 in the box. This accessory straps on the back of the phone as a cooling fan to dissipate heat, along with two additional buttons acting as Air Triggers.