Asus ROG Phone 5s Review: Smartphone Gaming Just Got Better

Asus ROG Phone 5s Design: Practical Yet Unique Looking Smartphone

The Asus ROG Phone 5s look identical to the ROG Phone 5, which is not a bad thing, at least for me. The back panel of the smartphone has a lot of details that one might not find on most smartphones, which screams that this is indeed a gaming smartphone.

In the typical ROG Phone style, the ROG Phone 5s has two USB Type-C ports, one on the bottom and one on the side. While you can charge the phone using either of the ports, the company recommends you to use the port on the bottom. The phone has two capacitive shoulder buttons, which will take the gaming experience to the next level.

It takes some time to adjust to the capacitive shoulder buttons instead of on-screen controls. Once you become familiar with the shoulder buttons, it just elevates the gaming experience, especially on titles like COD: Mobile which involves panning, aiming, and shooting.

The side charging port is designed to connect accessories and it is also useful especially while playing horizontal games like COD: Mobile, Asphalt 9, or even the Genshin Impact. The side ports are covered using a rubber seal, which is also quite easy to lose; hence Asus has included a spare in the retail package.

Although the ROG Phone 5s has a 6.78-inch display, it feels like a much bigger smartphone when compared to most modern smartphones with a display of similar size. This is due to the fact that the phone has thick, identically sized bezels on the top and the bottom portion, which houses a stereo speaker setup, more on that in the latter part of the review.

Overall, the Asus ROG Phone 5s is a big-sized smartphone that brings a better gaming experience. If you have small hands, then you might have to think twice, as this is really a massive phone and even in terms of weight, the device is a bit heavy as it weighs 238 grams.

The Asus ROG Phone 5s, as mentioned before has a big 6.78-inch OLED display with a native resolution of 2448 x 1080p resolution with up to 144Hz refresh rate, 1ms response time, and is protected by the Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. The display has a delta value of less than 1, which makes it a color-accurate panel.

The one difference between the display on the ROG Phone 5s and the ROG Phone 5 is the touch sampling rate. The ROG Phone 5s has a touch sampling rate of 360Hz with 24ms touch latency while the ROG Phone 5 has a touch sampling of 300Hz with 24.6ms touch latency.

With 111 percent DCI-P3 color-gamut coverage along with HDR10+ support. There is no support for Dolby Vision, which is a bummer as most OTT platforms now support Dolby Vision HDR standards instead of regular HDR10+. However, you can still watch HDR videos on platforms like YouTube and Prime Video.

The smartphone also has an in-display fingerprint sensor, which is an optical sensor. During my usage, the sensor felt a bit sluggish when compared to other upper mid-range smartphones like the Realme X7 Max 5G. While it has an accuracy of 80 percent, it could have been a tad faster and more accurate, especially considering the price of the smartphone.

The ROG Phone 5s is a gaming phone and the 6.78-inch panel does make it feel like a complete gaming smartphone in terms of color accuracy, touch response, and even in terms of brightness, which makes the content look colorful and vivid. The same also applies to content consumption as well, especially with the built-in speakers.

The ROG Phone 5s easily has the loudest set of stereo speaker setup that I have tested on any phone. Again, there isn't much of an upgrade when compared to the ROG Phone 5. At higher volume levels, the speakers on the ROG Phone 5s can even put most of the speakers on laptops to shame, it is that loud.

These are front-firing speakers, which throw the sound directly towards the user. The display and the speakers complement each other on the ROG Phone 5s, making this device one of the best for gaming and content consumption. Do note that, there are phones with QHD resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate. However, the 1080p panel on the ROG Phone 5s looks plenty sharp and feels pretty premium.

Asus ROG Phone 5s Cameras: Needs Some Work

The Asus ROG Phone 5s has a triple camera setup at the back with a 64MP primary camera, which is a Sony IMX686 sensor with a 13MP ultra-wide angle lens, and a 2MP macro lens. While the primary camera takes excellent photos, I felt that the ultra-wide angle lens is not as good as other similarly priced smartphones.

At the front, there is a 24MP selfie camera with support for 1080p video recording. The main camera can shoot up to 8K resolution videos at 30fps or 4K resolution videos at 60fps, there is also support for 120fps slow-motion video recording at 4K resolution and 480fps slow-motion video recording at 720p resolution. Similarly, there is also support for slow-motion recording at 4K UHD resolution.

I captured multiple photos on the ROG Phone 5s in challenging lighting conditions, and most of the photos have come out great, especially considering most of these shots have been taken in low-light situations. This very first photo showcases the dynamic-range capability of the ROG Phone 5s and how the large aperture creates a natural-looking bokeh around the flowers.

This is another great low-light shot of a single flower, which just pops out, again creating a natural-looking bokeh. This photo was also taken using the primary 64MP camera which uses pixel binning technology to capture 16MP images.

This picture of Buddha's head again shot on the primary camera has captured a lot of details. Even when we zoom into the picture, the image does not lose clarity or get blurry. This picture proves that the ROG Phone 5s has an excellent primary camera and the support for OIS will help to take stable photos even in low-light situations.

This picture of the foot-path is again shot on the primary camera, has captured plenty of details especially even when we look at the trees at the end of the picture.

We also took the same photo using the ultrawide angle lens, where, despite being a 13MP sensor, it lacks details, and the details in the background look washed out.

The 24MP selfie camera also uses pixel binning technology and captures 6MP images. This selfie was also taken in the low-light situation and it has done a good job of capturing the right skin tone and has also preserved the skin texture while blurring the second person in the picture.

The lack of a telephoto or a periscope zoom lens makes this camera setup slightly incomplete, especially when compared to other smartphones in this price range. Hope Asus makes a note of this and fixes it in the upcoming ROG Phone 6 series of smartphones.

Asus ROG Phone 5s Software Experience

Google recently released the first developer preview version of Android 13 OS, which will be the successor to the Android 12 OS. Coming back to the ROG Phone 5s, the device ships with Android 11 OS, which is definitely a drawback for a phone that costs over Rs. 50,000. The company has confirmed that the Android 12 OS is currently in the works and the phone will also receive Android 13 OS, maybe next year.

Keeping the Android version aside, the phone offers a stable user experience and the stock Android-like theme is also something I personally like. This is also one of the few Android smartphones available in India with no bloatware whatsoever.

Although the device does include apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Netflix, all of those apps can be uninstalled with a single click. Despite being a stock Android smartphone, Asus has baked in some pretty interesting features, which further elevates the overall user experience.

Asus ROG Phone 5s Benchmarks

The upgrade in processor clearly shows on the benchmark numbers. On Geekbench 5, the ROG Phone 5s outperformed the ROG Phone 5 in both single-core and multi-core CPU benchmarks. Similarly, 3D Mark Wild Life test, the device scored 5855 points with an average FPS of 35.10.

On storage benchmark, the ROG Phone 5s scored a peak write speed of 732MB/s and a max read speed of 1599.6MB/s. On PCMark Work 3.0 Performance test, the device scored 16514 points. Lastly, on Antutu, the ROG Phone 5s posted 810543 points.

Asus ROG Phone 5s Gaming Performance

The Asus ROG Phone 5s is built-to-game and we tested multiple games like COD: Mobile, Genshin Impact, Asphalt 9, and even Candy Crush Saga. In Asphalt 9, the ROG Phone 5s supports 60fps gaming and even on Genshin Impact, you get smooth gameplay for an extended period.

The Asus ROG Phone 5s has two ultrasonic sensors, which act as shoulder buttons. One can customize these sensors to each game and the phone will actually remember the profile set to each game. At first, I felt these are hard to use. However, once I got used to it, they helped me get more kills on COD: Mobile.

Playing COD: Mobile for an hour consumes around 20 percent of battery life; hence you should be able to get around four and a half hours to five hours of game playback on a single charge. While gaming, the temperature of the phone went up from 37 degrees to 42 degrees. Check out our videos to get a glimpse of the actual gaming performance of the ROG Phone 5s.

The Asus ROG Phone 5s is one of the best gaming smartphones that one can get in India. However, if you already have a device like the ROG Phone 5, the ROG Phone 5s might not seem like much of an upgrade. However, if you have a ROG Phone 3 or an older version, this is a great device that will feel like an upgrade in every possible way.

Asus ROG Phone 5s Connectivity

The Asus ROG Phone 5s comes with dual nano-SIM card slots with support for a 5G network on both slots. Similarly, the smartphone also supports Wi-Fi 6E along with Bluetooth 5.2 with support for Qualcomm aptX, which supports high-res audio delivery via wireless headphones.

I took multiple calls, some of them lasted for hours and I had no issue with the cellular reception or call quality. I also enjoyed some of these calls via the loudspeaker and the overall microphone and speakerphone experience is on par with other smartphones of this class.

Asus ROG Phone 5s Battery Life

The Asus ROG Phone 5s comes with a 6,000 mAh battery with support for up to 65W of fast charging via USB PD and Qualcomm QuickCharge 5.0 standards. The phone takes over an hour to fully charge the 6,000 mAh battery and the battery can be charged using either of the USB Type-C port.

I preferred charging the ROG Phone 5s using the side-mounted port while gaming, which does not interrupt the gaming. The phone gets a bit warm while charging, especially the metal frame. For normal usage, which might involve tasks like browsing social media apps, watching videos, the phone can easily last around six to seven hours of screen-on-time without any issue.

Verdict: Worthy Mid-Year Refresh

The Asus ROG Phone 5s is not a successor to the ROG Phone 5. Instead, it is a mid-year refresh with a slightly improved display and a new overclocked chip. The benchmark numbers clearly indicate that the ROG Phone 5s has a slight edge over the ROG Phone 5. However, this might not translate much to real-world usage.

Most demanding games such as COD: Mobile are expected to offer a similar experience on both the ROG Phone 5s and the ROG Phone 5s. If you own the ROG Phone 5, you can skin the ROG Phone 5s and you won't miss anything. However, if you are considering getting your first gaming smartphone, there is nothing better than the ROG Phone 5s in India.