Asus ROG Phone 5 series launched in India - Price, specifications and features - Android

The  Asus ROG Phone 5 series has officially launched in India with top-of-the-line specifications and features that one would come to expect from gaming phones in 2021. Asus has announced the ROG Phone 5, ROG Phone 5 Pro and ROG Phone 5 Ultimate as the successors to the ROG Phone 3 with more or less similar features. However, this is the first time we are getting three variants in the ROG Phone line-up which means that Asus is out there trying to grab more eyeballs across different price segments.

When we said we have maximized every aspect for the best gaming experience, we meant it. The # ROGPhone5 comes with a premium ROG Aero case cover for better protection, along with a 30 watt Hyper-charge Charger with a USB-C to USB-C cable, all in the box! #RuleThemAll pic.twitter.com/S8Tacux9s7

- ASUS ROG IN (@ASUS_ROG_IN) March 10, 2021

With the ROG Phone 5 series, Asus has not made a lot of cosmetic changes but gone are the days of circuit-like imprints on the rear panel. This time, there's an actual smaller display on the rear panel that shows alerts for calls, charging, game mode and can be personalized by users as well. Here's a brief look at the specifications and pricing of the ROG Phone 5 series in India.

Asus ROG Phone 5 series pricing and availability

Asus ROG Phone 5 starts at Rs 49,999 for the base variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage and Rs 57,999 for the 12GB+256GB storage option. The ROG Phone 5 Pro with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage is priced at Rs 69,999 while the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate is priced at Rs 79,999 for the maxed-out 18GB+512GB variant.

Asus ROG Phone 5 series goes on sale from April 15 on Flipkart in India.

The company has also launched some accessories for the ROG Phone 5 series such as the ROG Phone 5 Lighting Armor case priced at Rs 2,999, ROG Kunai 3 Gamepad priced at Rs 9,999, AeroActive Cooler 5 at Rs 2,999 and ROG Cetra II Core headset at Rs 4,599.

Asus ROG Phone 5 series specifications

The ROG Phone 5 series has minimal bezels on the top and bottom and is slightly longer than the previous generation. The ROG Phone 5 has a metal-glass construction measuring 10.29 millimetres in thickness and weighs 238 grams. The rear panel is topped with a layer of Gorilla Glass 3 for added protection against drops. The standard ROG Phone 5 and ROG Phone 5 Pro are being offered in Phantom Black and Storm White glossy finishes while the limited edition ROG Phone 5 Ultimate has a Storm White matte finish on the back.

What’s more, there is a secondary 8-bit pixel dot design on the rear panel that Asus is calling the ROG Vision screen. This secondary small display is featured on the ROG Phone 5 Pro and the Ultimate variant while the standard variant has a ROG logo that supports RGB lighting. The ROG Phone 5 Pro gas a colour PMOLED display while the Ultimate variant gets a monochrome 8-bit display.

Asus ROG Phone 5 series features 6.78-inch Full HD+ (2448 x 1080 pixels) resolution display that uses an AMOLED panel sourced from Samsung. The screen supports upto 144Hz refresh rate, 300Hz touch sampling rate and offers upto 1200nits brightness. The display is also HDR10+ certified and is topped with a layer of 2.5D Gorilla Glass Victus for protection from scratches. Moreover, the screen also has an AS coating to reduce friction from sweaty hands. The display is also home to an in-screen fingerprint reader.

The display on the ROG Phone 5 is also backed by Pixelworks i6 processor which helps in optimizing the visuals on the screen including HDR tone mapping, advanced colour calibration, SDR to HDR upscaling, dedicated picture quality engine, noise reduction and more. This should translate into much improved real-world gaming performance, but we will hold on to our thoughts till we actually get to see and play around with the phone. This is not the first time a Pixelworks display processor has been used by a smartphone-maker as the company has previously worked on a range of devices including the OnePlus 8 series, Oppo Find X2 series and more.

The Asus ROG Phone 5 series is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor with an octa-core CPU running at upto 2.84GHz with Adreno 660 GPU. It runs on Android 11 based ROG UI out-of-the-box. This is paired with upto 18GB LPDDR5 RAM and upto 512GB UFS 3.1 storage options to choose from. Sadly, users do not have an option to expand the storage further via microSD card, but the phone does support NTFS external HDD.

The ROG Phone 5 series has triple cameras on the back headlined by a 64MP primary camera based on an IMX686 sensor with an f/1.8 aperture, a 13MP ultra-wide-angle camera with 125-degree field-of-view and a 5MP macro camera. For selfies, the phone has a 24MP camera on the front. The rear cameras can record in 8K UHD at 30FPS and 4K UHD at upto 60FPS with support for EIS.

There are dual front-firing speakers which are bigger than the previous generation with features like GameFX, AudioWizard with EQ profiles tuned by Dirac. Keeping in mind the needs of budding streamers, the phone is also equipped with four microphones with OZO noise reduction technology.

The ROG Phone 5 has a Type-C connector on the side with Pogo pin connectors, another Type-C port on the bottom and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Asus has equipped the ROG Phone 5 series with a dual 3,000mAh battery which makes up its 6,000mAh capacity with support for upto 65W fast charging. However, Asus bundles a 30W fast charging adapter in-the-box.