We have already given you the detailed ROG Phone 5 review but we also happened to get ROG Phone 5 Ultimate with ludicrous 18GB RAM and 512GB storage. This requires quick manual handling to see just how different the two editions are and more importantly what the final edition is made of.
For starters the basic specs have not been changed – a 6.78 ”AMOLED display with 144Hz refresh rate, Snapdragon 888 and a 6,000 mAh battery with a cost of 65W. What you get on the Ultimate edition is a monochrome PMOLED ROOL Vision display on the back that can display alerts, animations, images or just your favorite website as we decided to do.
Another more functional addition is the two programmed rear touch buttons that are supported in games like PUBG Mobile. These are part of the phone’s rear panel and are located under a small ROG Vision display and next to the camera sensor. In short, you get the L2 / R2 motivational action found on most game controllers. The Ultrasonic side stimulators located on the right side of the frame are still here.
The ROG Phone 5 Ultimate also comes with the AeroActive Cooler 5 which Asus claims could reduce the surface temperature of the device by 15ºC and the temperature of the chipset by 10ºC. The fan also has a nifty set of body shoulder buttons as well as a headphone jack and kickstand. Another added benefit is the obvious protection case which has a cut-out for the ROG Vision display and rear buttons.
The ROG Phone 5 Ultimate is only offered in the Clone Trooper Matte White which has a satin-like finish compared to the sleek one on the vanilla ROG Phone 5. It is definitely weird to use a device with 18GB of LPDDR5 RAM when you only have a working laptop there is an 8GB or 16GB medium slot but the world of gaming phones is in 2021. The 512GB of larger storage looks like overuse but keep in mind that it cannot be expanded Asus made sure you have enough to match your gaming multimedia content on this.
Overall, the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate is a faster alternative to the already excellent ROG Phone 5. Is it worth 18GB of RAM, rear touch buttons and a ROG Vision display? That is up to individual buyers to decide.
In the meantime, check out our full ROG Phone 5 review to see how the hardware performed in our test and our decision on the latest Asus gaming phone.