The front panel uses the Gorilla Glass Vitus, while the rear has Gorilla Glass 3. The front of the phone has thick top and bottom bezels to prevent accidental touches during gaming sessions, but at the same time, they make the device easier to hold in landscape mode. The advantage of this design implementation means you get proper front-facing speakers (more on that later).
The Gaming Phone 5s comes with aggressive angular lines and the dot matrix design first seen on the Gaming Zephyrus G14.(Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)
The port selection is better than any other smartphone I have reviewed, including two USB-C ports to both the front and right edge of the phone. It’s a clever feature, allowing you to charge the phone while holding it horizontally, but the rubber clasp feels cheap. The proprietary connector can also be used with an Aero Active Cooler 5 fan. Unlike many high-end smartphones on the market, the Gaming Phone 5s has no official IP rating for water resistance.
Asus Gaming Phone 5s review: Display and speakers
The Gaming Phone 5s comes with a 6.78-inch panel FHD+ AMOLED panel that refreshes between 60 and 144Hz. I have always told my readers that high-refresh-rate screens on smartphones benefit the most when you are playing a game with visual fidelity or scrolling through articles. I played Call of Duty Mobile on the Gaming Phone 5s and the 144Hz display option and the touch sampling rate of up to 360Hz does not certainly feel like a “luxury feature” to me. But a 144Hz display on a phone? That’s insane. If a general-purpose smartphone had a 144Hz display option, I would have said I don’t see the purpose of having a super ultrafast lightning display.
The Gaming Phone 5s comes with a 6.78-inch panel FHD+ AMOLED panel that refreshes between 60 and 144Hz. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)
The 144Hz display on the Gaming Phone 5s is first-rate and there is no doubt about it. It’s a gorgeous looking 1080p display with great colors and brightness. And yes, it’s fast. With a peak brightness of 1200 nits and with refresh rates of 144Hz, it’s also one of the brightest screens used on a smartphone. The display is taller than usual with a 20:4:9 aspect ratio, and playing games or watching HDR 10+ content feels thoroughly enjoyable.
One question I always had in my mind while using the Gaming Phone 5s was about its portability. I get that if you are gaming with two hands, this form factor works. But in everyday use, the phone becomes a bit uncomfortable to use, like any other extra-large sized smartphone. This thing is heavy and huge at 238 grams. No matter what justification Asus comes with, you need to have large hands to use the Gaming Phone 5s. I hope and wish in future to see a miniature version of the Gaming Phone 5s that has the same guts as the current model but, only in a more compact shell.
The front-facing stereo speakers offer a richer and wider sound than any smartphone I have used to date. Each speaker has its own tweeter and the result, well, is stunning. You also get a 3.5 mm headphone jack with a hi-fi grade ESS DAC and headphone amp. In fact, you can play back audio files at up to 24-bit/96kHz or 24-bit/192kHz when paired with a hi-fi audio output device. The four microphones are excellent, and I had no trouble taking interviews via Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
Asus Gaming Phone 5s review: Performance and battery
Under the hood, the Gaming Phone 5s is powered by a Snapdragon 888 Plus processor. This is a 5 nm chip from Qualcomm and performance has no issue as expected. The processor isn’t any faster than the Snapdragon 888, Qualcomm’s last-generation flagship chipset, but the main cortex-X1 performance core clocked to 3GHz rather than 2.84GHz. Paired with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage (Asus provided the model with this configuration), this is a capable gaming smartphone. From playing Battleground Mobile to scrolling a news piece on indianexpress.com, the chip is fast measured by both benchmarks and real-world use. The 5G-capable Gaming Phone 5s is undoubtedly a fast phone – but the chip inside the phone isn’t the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which will power this year’s top-end flagships, including the OnePlus 10 Pro and Galaxy S22 Ultra.
The 5G-capable Gaming Phone 5s is undoubtedly a fast phone, good enough to run any high-profile mobile game. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)
The Gaming Phone 5s is blazing fast, but what separates this phone from other smartphones is the Air Trigger tech that uses ultrasonic sensors to turn the bumpers of the device into touch-sensitive triggers. Meanwhile, the Aero Active Cooler 5 accessory (which is sold separately) has two physical Air Trigger buttons of its own, and comes with the kickstand. Asus sells a bunch of accessories that will enhance your gaming experience on the Gaming Phone 5s.
The phone runs Android 11 with Asus’ Gaming UI. It’s different from Zen UI with a focus on gaming. Asus gives you the option to switch to Zen UI, in case you prefer a simplistic experience. In fact, I liked Gaming UI a lot. The Armory Crate app, which also includes the X-mode, improves performance drastically and tweaks are visible when you play games such as Genshin Impact. I haven’t noticed heating issues, but the phone does get hot after a prolonged session.
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