Asus today announced the new ROG Phone 5s and ROG Phone 5s Pro. The newly launched gaming smartphones are very similar to its not-so-old successor Asus ROG Phone 5. The only (major) difference between the ROG Phone 5s/Pro and ROG Phone 5/Pro is that the former comes with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 888+ chipset. There are some other minor improvements as well.

Both the ROG Phone 5s and ROG Phone 5s Pro, as mentioned above, feature the Snapdragon 888+. Snapdragon 888+ is the latest processor from Qualcomm. It features one “Prime” core clocked at 2.995GHz, as compared to 2.84GHz on the Snapdragon 888. There are other features like improved artificial intelligence and machine learning performance.

Along with the improved chipset, the touch sampling rate has also been increased to 360Hz from 300Hz. Asus says the display on the ROG Phone 5s/Pro should feel even more responsive than the last-gen one. There’s also a new option to opt for the 90Hz refresh rate, on top of existing 60, 120, and 144Hz options.

ROG Phone 5s with Snapdragon 888 chipset

ROG Phone 5s Pro features the color-enabled “ROG Vision” PMOLED display on the back, just like the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate. It also features two extra touch-sensitive sensors on the back. The regular ROG Phone 5s loses out on the PMOLED display and the touch-sensitive sensors on the back, but still, retains the RGB lit ROG logo.

The rest of the specs, including the 6.78-inch 144Hz refresh rate AMOLED display, LPDDR5 RAM, UFS 3.1 storage, 3.5mm headphone jack, ultrasonic AirTrigger buttons, under-display fingerprint scanner, and the massive 6,000 mAh battery with 65W fast charging support are still here. The phone still runs on ROG UI based on Android 11 but should be updated to Android 12 when it’s available.

rog 5s

Asus says the ROG Phone 5s series will replace ROG Phone 5 when it goes out of stock. ROG Phone 5 is already out of stock in the United States and is available in limited quantities elsewhere. The phone will be replaced by ROG Phone 5s in the coming weeks.

The Pro will only be available in Phantom Black color while the regular 5s will be available in both Phantom Black and Phantom White colors. The phones are only available for purchase in mainland China and Taiwanese regions, for now. There’s no official word on the US or Europe availability just yet, but we expect to launch sooner or later. Given there are only minor upgrades, the 5s series will likely cost the same as the previous-gen smartphones, i.e., ~$999 in the United States and ~€799 in Europe.