Asus ROG Phone 5 review: Snapdragon 888 gaming beast with RGB ROG logo and 18 GB RAM ceiling.
Why the ROG Phone 5 mattered
The ROG Phone 5 was the first phone with an 18 GB RAM option, and the first to ship a Samsung E4 AMOLED at 144Hz with 300Hz touch sampling — making it both a gaming benchmark and a tech showcase that pushed mainstream flagships to chase the same numbers.
01Display
92/10092/100 — right at the average for gaming phones of 2021.
02Camera
76/10076/100 — right at the average for gaming phones of 2021.
03Performance
92/10092/100 — right at the average for gaming phones of 2021.
04Battery
92/10092/100 — right at the average for gaming phones of 2021.
05Build
82/10082/100 — right at the average for gaming phones of 2021.
- 144Hz AMOLED + 300Hz touch — unmatched at launch
- Up to 18 GB RAM
- Best-in-class stereo speakers
- 238 g weight is taxing
- Snapdragon 888 ran hot
- Camera processing lags non-gaming flagships
How this review is built: every section score, spec row and comparison on this page comes from SpecEagle's tracked catalogue — scores weight measured specs against the 3-phone cohort of gaming devices released around the same time. We don't publish invented lab anecdotes. Spot an error? .