Asus has updated its gaming smartphones. Rog Phone 5s and 5s Pro come to Germany with Snapdragon 888 Plus – and otherwise remain almost unchanged compared to their predecessor. The prices of the gaming smartphone, which can be ordered from today, start at 1000 euros.
(Image: Asus)
The main change concerns the system-on-chip (SoC) of the Rog Phone 5s, which is now the Plus version of the Snapdragon 888. If the Snapdragon 888 reached a maximum clock frequency of 2.84 GHz, the Plus version increases that to 2.995 GHz. The SoC is based on an octa-core CPU with a Cortex-X1 as prime core, three performance cores of the type Cortex-A78 and four weaker Cortex-A55 cores with a maximum of 1.8 GHz. An Adreno 660 is responsible for the graphics.
The leap in performance remains manageable. The Rog Phone 5s and Rog Phone 5 (with Snapdragon 888) are almost on par in both the Geekbench and Coremark benchmarks – while the 5s performs slightly better in single-core operation, it falls marginally behind in multi-core operation. The Plus version can set itself apart from the predecessor in the GFXBench graphics benchmark a little more clearly. It is noticeable that the 888 Plus in the Rog Phone hardly throttles even under continuous load, which was one of the main problems of the predecessor.
Plus sucks on the battery
However, the plus version seems to suck more on the battery. While the Rog Phone 5 lasted 15.3 hours in the game run, the 5s ran out of breath after 13.3 hours. The difference in the streaming test was even bigger: The 5s went dead after 16.5 hours, while the Rog Phone 5 still managed 23.7 hours. The record holder on the c’t test bench remains the Rog Phone 3 (with Snapdragon 865) with 25.8 hours of streaming.
The rest of the equipment of the 5s corresponds to that of its predecessor: Like this one, it is equipped with a 6.8-inch OLED that represents a maximum of 144 Hertz. According to Asus, the sampling rate has increased from 300 to 360 Hertz. The panel should cover the DCI-P3 color space to 111 percent. The 6000 mAh battery can be charged with up to 65 watts, but not wirelessly. Thanks to the integrated amplifier, the headphone jack should be able to drive headphones with impedances of up to 1000 ohms. The triple camera remains unchanged: It consists of a wide-angle main camera (64 MP, f / 1.8), ultra-wide-angle (13 MP, f / 2.4) and macro camera (5 MP, f / 2).
The Rog Phone 5 stands out from other smartphones with its touch-sensitive surfaces in the housing frame. These react to pressure and swipe gestures and simulate shoulder buttons in games, as known from conventional controllers. The more expensive Pro model comes with a rear matrix display that shows system messages and battery status.
The Rog Phone 5 can now be ordered from the Asus online shop, Asus calls for € 999 for 12/512 GB, and € 1099 for 16/512 GB. The Pro version with rear display and 18/512 GB costs 1299 euros and can be ordered from week 45.
(rbr)
