With the Asus ROG Phone 5 going on sale via Flipkart next week, IGN India spent some quality time with the standard 12GB RAM, 256GB storage version of the Snapdragon 888 SoC-powered phone. The device itself is a joy to hold, with a sense of heft and weight missing from other current day flagships and the industrial design ensures its 144Hz display stands out in a sea of hole punches and notches. And while the Asus ROG Phone 5’s look, feel, and build quality have been covered by most of the Internet ad naseum (as the Indian embargo for the phone lifts now as opposed to the rest of the world a month ago), we’ve decided to focus on some of the games you can play on it.
Call of Duty Mobile
First up was Call of Duty Mobile. In light of PUBG Mobile being banned in India, the Activision-published shooter has seen an uptick in users with an active community to boot. Setting every visual option to the maximum, Call of Duty Mobile ran at a stable 60fps. From gunning down opponents to moving around its maps, every single bit of the action felt right. And while we wish the game gets support for high refresh rate displays, what’s here is remarkably good. But what makes it better is the endurance. We were able to play Call of Duty Mobile for over two hours at a stretch without the Asus ROG Phone 5 breaking a sweat. At most, it got slightly warm to touch, suggesting that Asus’ combination of hardware choices and OS tweaks are primed for long gaming sessions.
Genshin Impact
In our first impressions, we noted that the Asus ROG Phone 5’s performance in Genshin Impact was subpar. And while this is still the case if you crank every visual option to the maximum, there is a loophole of sorts. Using the Asus ROG Phone 5’s Armory Crate software we were able to run the game at close to 60fps with minor loss in fidelity thanks to a mix of high and medium settings. Considering how poorly optimised it was at the time, to the point where we needed to use the AeroActive Cooler 5 peripheral to keep playing, it fared better this time around.
Fortnite
Thanks to the ongoing lawsuit between Google and Epic Games, Fortnite is not on the Play Store. Of every game we tested, this still performed close to what it did in our first impressions. What this means is, we were able to max out every graphical option but the frame rate was capped at 30fps. Tragic when you consider less powerful devices like the OnePlus 8 range are able to run it at higher fame rates. That said, the enhanced audio capabilities made Fortnite fun to play on the Asus ROG Phone 5, allowing us to distinguish incoming gunfire and footsteps with ease.
Should You Buy It?
With a starting price of Rs. 49,999 for the 8GB RAM version and Rs. 57,999 for the 12GB option, the Asus ROG Phone 5 isn’t cheap. And that’s before you account for the Pro version for Rs. 69,999 and the Ultimate variant for Rs. 79,999. For that kind of money, you can get an Xbox Series X or a PS5 or some meaningful PC upgrades if you get lucky.
However, if you live and breathe mobile gaming, which Asus claims a large chunk of the country does, you’ll be treated to one of the better gaming experiences on the go.
This is because Asus has crammed in a host of comforts that make gaming on the ROG Phone 5 great. A fantastic screen, great ergonomics, multiple performance profiles, and input methods are all additions that actually had us spend more time playing mobile games than we normally would. Although it’s hard for us to give a wholehearted recommendation. Reason being...
Do Game Developers Care About Gaming Phones?
Sure, Asus has shown what is possible but without the support from the likes of Epic and Mihoyo to fully take advantage of the hardware on offer (like maxing out the frame rate), the Rs. 49,999 price tag is a tough pill to swallow.
Granted there are a host of reasons for this ranging from the commercial incentives to an active playerbase, and while that holds true for independent studios and smaller developers, there’s no reason why well-funded companies like the ones mentioned above shouldn’t offer a better experience on Android. Particularly in a game like Fortnite when Epic itself created the tech on which it runs.
Until the biggest developers decide to make their games on Android better, we feel that the Asus ROG Phone 5 is limited in terms of what it can really do— for no fault of Asus’ that has thrown in the kitchen sink and then some with this smartphone. Hopefully that changes sooner rather than later.
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