Last week, a Chinese retailer jumped the gun by listing an unannounced refresh of the Asus ROG Phone 5 on its site as available for order. Now, Asus has officially confirmed the specs, and there will be two new handsets: the ROG Phone 5S and ROG Phone 5S Pro.
As previously revealed, the main upgrade is a switch to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Plus chipset over the original 888 – a small, but welcome upgrade that helps it stand out from the crowd. After all, even Samsung’s latest foldable flagships don’t have the Plus version of the 888.
Additionally, the 300Hz touch sampling of the original has now been boosted to 360Hz, which could give marginal gains for hardcore gamers, who are, after all, the main target of a gaming smartphone.
These changes apply to both models, so what makes the Pro version pro? Well, the handset seems to be a replacement for the ROG Phone 5 Pro and ROG Phone 5 Ultimate editions from last time around. That means you get more RAM inside, as well as two additional touch panels on the back and a small strip of colour display on the back for ROG Vision, where notifications and art can be displayed.
Otherwise, it’s more of the same by the looks of things, which is no bad thing considering how much we liked the original phone. “If you can hack its size and styling, and want a fantastic portable media player and gaming device, you’ll be hard-pushed to find more for less,” Basil Kronfli wrote in his Asus ROG Phone 5 review.
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For now, only Taiwanese pricing has been revealed, with global availability yet to be announced. There, the phone will start at 29,990 TWD (around £780) for the regular handset, or 37,990 TWD (around £990) for the Pro version.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
