ASUS ROG 5 Ultimate gaming phone has more RAM inside it than a PS5

How much RAM is enough? Well, it really depends on your usage, but if you’re wanting to take your next-gen gaming seriously, the new consoles will have you believing that 16GB is what’s really needed to get the job done. And if you’re a graphic designer, at least double that. For a mobile phone though, most manufacturers are more than happy to provide 6-8GB of memory to provide everything from steaming, running apps, and gaming.

Somehow, Asus has decided that its phones needed to pack more RAM than a PS5 or Xbox Series X and shoved 18GB of LPDDR5 RAM into its flagship ROG 5 Ultimate phone.

Yes, you read that correctly. A mobile phone will offer more memory than the latest consoles (though lacking considerable GPU power) and will perhaps give you an indication of just how fast the market is moving forward in terms of processing power. Asus has always intended to make its range of gaming phones stand out from the rest of the market and to ensure that it can produce excellent graphic and gaming performance, it appears to have more than delivered on that front.

The phones all come with the latest Snapdragon 888 processor and a 6.78-inch FHD+ OLED screen with a 144Hz refresh rate and a 300Hz touch sampling rate. The device weighs 238 grams and features a decent 6,000mAh battery that can be charged at 65W. It’s in the RAM and storage department though that the phones really go out of their way, offering a variety of configurations with the top of the range arguably going for overkill with the 18GB RAM configuration. That’s far more power than you are ever likely to need in a phone.

It still needs to be more than just a gaming device, and ASUS ROG Phone 5 does come with a decent triple-lens camera. A 64-megapixel with F/1.8 aperture, 13-megapixel 125-degree ultra-wide with F/2.4 aperture, and a 5-megapixel macro lens with F/2.0 and a 24-megapixel with F/2.45 aperture can all be found in its main camera setup.

The full specs of the ASUS ROG Phone 5 line-up are below, as published by The Verge:

Comparison	ROG Phone 5 Ultimate	ROG Phone 5 Pro	ROG Phone 5
Colors	Matte white	Glossy black	Phantom black or Storm white
Price	1,299 Euros (approx. $1,583)	1,199 Euros (approx. $1,420)	Starts at 799 Euros (approx. $950)
Processor	Snapdragon 888	*	*
OS	Android 11 with ROG UI	*	*
Display	6.78-inch 2448 x 1080 OLED with 144Hz refresh rate	*	*
RAM	18GB LPDDR5	16GB LPDDR5	8GB,12GB or 16GB LPDDR5
Storage	512GB UFS 3.1	*	256GB UFS 3.1
Extra touch sensors	Yes	*	No
Rear-facing cameras	64-megapixel with F/1.8 aperture, 13-megapixel 125-degree ultra-wide with F/2.4 aperture, and a 5-megapixel macro lens with F/2.0	*	*
Front-facing camera	24-megapixel with F/2.45 aperture	*	*
ROG Vision support	Yes, monochromatic	Yes, color	No
Battery	6,000mAh	*	*
Included charger	65W	*	*
Dimensions	172.8 x 77.2 x 10.29 mm	*	*
Weight	238 grams	*	*
Connectivity	LTE and sub-6GHz 5G on AT&T and T-Mobile, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2	*	*
Included accessories	AeroActive Cooler 5, Aero case	*	No cooler included
			* represents the same spec as the Ultimate

Those are certainly some power-hungry phones that should certainly fill any mobile gaming needs you have, provided you have a few spare BitCoin to afford it. Although you should ask yourself why when you can rather buy a new console for far cheaper or a powerhouse gaming PC with far more power for less. I guess for some people, they prefer all that power to be in their hands instead.  

The ASUS ROG 5 releases in May.

Last Updated: March 12, 2021