Asus ROG Phone 5 review

64MP Quad-Bayer main camera and 13MP ultrawide

An amazing camera experience was never going to be high on the propriety list of a gaming smartphone. Even so, Asus has been consistently delivering perfectly adequate camera setups on the ROG Phone line.

The ROG Phone 5 is no exception. Its camera setup is very similar to the one on the ROG Phone 3. The main snapper is the popular 64MP, Quad-Bayer Sony IMX686 sensor. It's a 1/1.7" unit, with 0.8 µm individual pixels and 2x1 OCL PDAF, sitting behind an f/1.8 lens. Nothing too glamorous or spectacular. There is no OIS, Laser AF and just a simple one-LED flash setup. Even so, the Sony IMX686 has proven its salt as a capable shooter.

Asus also has a nifty habit of making the most out of the hardware at its disposal. In this case, the excellent Spectra 580 ISP has allowed an impressive feature set out of an otherwise modest camera. Especially in the video capture department, where the ROG Phone 5 has impressive 3-axis EIS, all the way up to 8K resolution, 120fps slow-motion at 4K, as well as HDR video capture and even a full-featured Pro video capture mode. Mind you, this is not exactly new coming from the ROG Phone 3. Still, even though the feature set is more or less carried forward, Asus has made continued improvements to quality behind the scenes.

Complementing the main 64MP camera, the ROG Phone 5 has a rather unremarkable 13MP ultrawide (OmniVision OV13B, as reported by the OS). It has a 125-degree field of view and a rather dim f/2.4 lens. Last and probably least - a 5MP, f/2.0 camera. As per our hardware-digging efforts, it actually uses an OmniVision OV8856 sensor, which has a native resolution of 8MP. It acts as a dedicated macro shooter, which is arguably, a bit better than simply having a depth sensor. Once again, quite similar to the ROG Phone 3. Not that we are opposed to carrying forward the setup in question.

Around the front of the ROG Phone 3, we find another Quad-Bayer snapper. This one is a 24MP, OmniVision OV24B1Q, with an individual pixel size of 0.9 µm, behind an f/2.0 lens. No autofocus, or anything too fancy, but still, plenty of potential, thanks to the 4-cell Bayer imaging setup. Also, a module seemingly lifted straight from the ROG Phone 3.

The ROG camera app UI is a fairly custom affair. We would say it is surprisingly feature-rich without being chaotic. It does still have certain idiosyncrasies to it, though, that might need addressing.

One particular issue we had with the ROG Phone 3 was our ability to only reach the 4K HDR video capture from a prompt that shows up occasionally when flipping into 8K mode. We dug around quite a bit on the ROG Phone 5 for the feature and did not find it. Worse still, when we tried the same "flip to 8K" trick, we didn't get an HDR prompt either. So, unless we are missing something, there is no easy way for us to capture and test the advertised 4K HDR mode. Weird. Perhaps we never got conditions that the algorithm deemed HDR would be beneficial in. Even so, having a manual toggle for the feature would be great.

ROG Phone main camera UI

The options on the main camera UI are all self-explanatory. Perhaps with the exception of achieving separate spots metering for exposure and autofocus. This is done by long-pressing on a spot to fix both and then sliding the AF circle to a different location.

There is just a single beauty slider to the right, with no additional options. If you want more control over that, you have to switch over to the dedicated Portrait mode. Besides a slider for the intensity of the blur effect, it also features in-depth controls to thin cheeks, enhance eyes, brighten skin, soften skin and change its tone.

Portrait mode, complete with beauty filters

Most of the same options for stills in both the default and Portrait mode are carried over to the selfie camera UI as well.

Selfie camera UI

The camera app does a fair bit of automatic scene detection. This is indicated by a small scene icon in the top left corner, as well as a Night Mode UI, which automatically pops up in the bottom right corner, when the camera decides it is dark enough. Clicking on the Night mode icon itself presents two options for exposure duration. The numbers themselves are dynamic and also dependent on ambient light conditions. One denotes a shorter exposure, while the other - a longer one.

Automatic Night mode detection

If, for instance, the light is almost enough to pull off a good shot without night mode, but the ROG Phone 5 still automatically decides to turn it on, you usually get an exposure time of around 3 seconds. If you then enter the quick selection menu, the 3-second mode should be set as the "longer exposure" value, with the lower one simply turning Night Mode off.

Alternatively, if it's really dark, you might find that the lower exposure time is in the 5 to 8-second range, with the longer option potentially going all the way up to 25 seconds. This dynamically populated selector is definitely a custom Asus control and one that is surprisingly convenient.

On top of that, there is also a dedicated Night mode in the camera app, which always applies at least some minimal value to the shorter exposure option.

Pro mode is surprisingly versatile. You get a level meter in the middle of the frame, as well as a histogram in the bottom left corner. WB adjustment goes from 4500K to 7500K. Exposure compensation can be set between -2 and +2. ISO goes from 25 to 3200. You can do shutter speeds between 1/60 and 32 seconds, and the is a manual focus slider.

Pro camera mode

A nifty new addition to Pro mode, debuting on the ROG Phone 5 is a quick-saving mechanic for up to two additional sets of settings. These are denoted as C1 and C2 and can be flipped on the fly. Neat! Auto Exposure Bracketing is also quite convenient. In Pro mode you can set up a range of up to plus and minus two stops for exposure. The camera will then capture successive shots with different shutter speed and aperture values and combine those into a single one with greater dynamic range. Perfect for scenes with lots of backlight.

There is a Pro video capture mode, as well. It offers the same set of controls on the right-hand side as Pro photo mode, as well as a nifty smooth zoom feature. You can just click on an area in the frame and then have the phone gradually zoom to it. The ROG camera app also allows smooth switching between the main and ultrawide cameras while filming.

Pro video mode

Video options on the left side of the frame are the same for regular Video recording mode and Pro mode. Interesting among these is the stabilization toggle. It enabled and disables HyperSteady, which goes one step beyond the regular EIS video stabilization, controlled via a central toggle in the Video setting screen. HyperSteady is only limited to FullHD resolution and only works on the ultrawide camera. You can't use it together with the smooth zoom feature either.

Video capture UI

The ROG phone 5 also has what it calls Audio effects. Once enabled via the settings menu, these are controlled from a small menu shortcut, denoted by a microphone icon, in the top right corner of the UI. In default video capture mode, you get two features - automatic mic zoom and wind suppression. Both work surprisingly well. Or rather unsurprisingly so, considering the powerful four-microphone array on the ROG Phone 5.

In Pro video mode, the zoom mic option gets replaced with a more in-depth Recording direction selector. It allows the four-microphone setup on the phone to be used even more effectively in interesting use cases, like wanting to only capture frontal or back-facing audio.

Still photo settings

There are plenty of settings to play around with in the camera app, both for stills and video capture.

Video capture settings

We appreciate the addition of an h.264 and h.265 (HEVC) codec selection in the video capture settings. Among other options, we already mentioned in some detail.

Still image quality

Like we said, the Sony IMX686 is a tried-and-true camera sensor that, while not truly flagship-grade by today's standards, has proven its salt time and time again and is capable of producing perfectly decent stills. Due to its Quad-Bayer design, the 64MP unit actually captures photos at right around 16MP. Detail in these is plenty, and we continue to enjoy Asus' ongoing choice of a more natural color reproduction overall.

ROG Phone 5 16MP main camera samples

Admittedly, there is a bit more noise than we would like. Noise-suppression is clearly kicking-in and doing the best it can, but that often leaves behind minute trails that almost look like banding in uniform areas, like the sky. Dynamic range is far from perfect either. To be clear, though, these are by no means major issues.

This first batch of shots was taken in "full-Auto" mode, with HDR set to auto and AI scene recognition doing its thing. We had no issues with either detecting what is going on and acting accordingly. HDR, in particular, is pulling its weight nicely, as you can clearly see from this same set of still taken with HDR forced Off.

ROG Phone 5 16MP main camera samples: HDR OFF

You can capture photos at the full 64MP resolution of the Sony IMX686, though that hardly offers benefits in terms of detail and tends to introduce a bit more noise in the frame. This isn't how Quad-Bayer sensors are meant to be used, and you can also see chromatic aberrations and some wrong and algorithmically made-up lines and shapes, especially in fine patterns. To Asus' credit, though, these particular issues were quite a bit worse on the ROG Phone 3.

ROG Phone 5 64MP main camera samples

Portrait shots come out looking clean with nice subject detection and separation. Background blur also looks neat and convincing. Well, most of the time, that is, since certain finer patterns can trip it up.

ROG Phone 5 portrait mode samples

It works just fine on non-human subjects too.

ROG Phone 5 portrait mode samples

Zooming is available on the ROG Phone 5, just as it was with the 64MP camera on the ROG Phone 3. This time around, however, Asus confidently markets "2x lossless magnification". And, technically, that gets a pass for being factual. Though, zooming on a Quad-Bayer camera in such a "lossless" manner has its well-documented shortcomings. Plus, Asus is absolutely forthcoming about the fact that in low-light conditions, the ROG Phone 5 automatically switches to zooming-in the 16MP binned shots from the camera, in order to get more light.

ROG Phone 5 16MP 2x zoom samples

Asus has thankfully addressed one of the big issues we had with zooming on the ROG Phone 3 and now has a convenient way to quickly toggle between 0.6x , 1x and 2x, instead of relying on an imprecise pinch gesture. You can still use the latter to go all the way up to 8x zoom.

ROG Phone 5 16MP zoom samples: 1x • 2x • 8x • 1x • 2x • 8x

Zoomed shots look decent-enough at 2x, though a bit too soft to be labeled "lossless" in our mind. 8x is clearly heavily-digitally enhanced. Many of the lines are painted-over and restored. Even so, there is still a surprising amount of usable detail.

Shots from the 13MP ultrawide camera on the ROG Phone 5 are also best described as "perfectly decent", but not particularly impressive. There is a general softness visible the further you extend into the edges of the frame also noise and dynamic range issues are par for the course.

ROG Phone 5 13MP ultrawide camera samples

Still, overall, about what is to be expected from the OmniVision OV13B. Perhaps Asus can do well with a bit more aggressive sharpening and distortion correction in these.

HDR Auto mode worked out just fine on the ultrawide, as well, kicking-in as needed. In most cases, the algorithm managed to do its job properly, with recovered details in otherwise crushed shadows being the most obvious benefit. Here are the same scenes from the ultrawide with HDR forced Off for reference.

ROG Phone 5 13MP ultrawide camera samples: HDR OFF

There is no autofocus on the ultrawide camera, which means it can't pull double-duty for some fancy macro shots. The ROG Phone 5 has a dedicated 5MP macro camera to handle that. Or rather an 8MP unit, set-up to capture at 5MP. It is fixed-focus and not particularly special in any way.

ROG Phone 5 5MP macro camera samples

Detail is about what you would expect from a sensor of this size. That is to say, adequate, until you start pixel-peeping. The focus plane, while not super wide is comfortable enough to not worry too much about the distance from the subject. We also like that the camera UI prompts you to switch over to the macro if you try to get too close to a subject with any of the other cameras. Overall - pretty good use of an unremarkable third camera.

Low-light still image quality

Low-light performance on the 64MP Sony IMX686 is a well-explored topic by now. Overall, we are mostly pleased with how the ROG Phone 5 held-up. Detail is about what you would expect from a modern Quad-Bayer camera, and noise is surprisingly subdued, with little left behind in most shots. Even fairly complicated combinations of light sources weren't enough to properly trip-up the phone.

ROG Phone 5 16MP low-light camera samples without Night mode

ROG Phone 5 16MP low-light 2x zoom camera samples without Night mode

Asus has a rather interesting take of its own on Night mode implementation. We found that simply leaving the automatic detection on in the settings (which it is, by default), the camera generally does a fine job of determining just when to enable Night mode and with how long of an exposure, without having to ever leave the default photo mode.

If the phone detects a particularly dark scene, it doesn't shy away from bumping the exposure time even if you are not in the dedicated Night mode. And if tripod-detection kicks in, it will happily do a 25-second or even 32-second shot completely of its own accord.

ROG Phone 5 16MP low-light camera samples with Auto Night mode

Depending on the particular scene, Night mode can have effects ranging from almost unnoticeable to surprisingly effective, often managing to bring-back entire section of otherwise dark frame. Night mode didn't do that much for clipped detail around bright sources, though.

You can try to mitigate that to some degree in a few ways. For one, there is the nifty ability to separate the autofocus and exposure points within the camera app, which we already mentioned. Then there is also going for the higher suggested exposure time within the dedicated Night mode. In general, even the lower suggested value of the two tends to be higher than what the ROG Phone 3 will algorithmically decide to use on its own in regular camera mode.

ROG Phone 5 16MP low-light camera samples with Night mode on the maximum suggested exposure time

Beyond that, there is always Pro mode, which hands over control entirely.

All things considered, we would say that the main 64MP camera on the ROG Phone 5 can often get away without Night mode enabled. The same, unfortunately, can't be said for the 13MP ultrawide.

ROG Phone 5 13MP ultrawide low-light samples without Night mode

It just has such a dim f/2.4 lens that for it, Night mode often ends up being the difference between a usable and a throw-away shot.

ROG Phone 5 13MP ultrawide low-light samples with Auto Night mode

The algorithm knows that all too well and tends to suggest longer exposure periods for the ultrawide, regardless of which mode it is operating in.

ROG Phone 5 13MP ultrawide low-light samples with Night mode on the maximum suggested exposure time

Rounding off the main camera photo section, we have the ROG Phone 5 in our extensive photo compare database, both in its intended 16MP resolution and at 64MP. Feel free to pixel-peep.

Asus ROG Phone 5 against the Asus ROG Phone 3 and the ZTE nubia Red Magic 5S in our Photo compare tool

64MP: Asus ROG Phone 5 against the Asus ROG Phone 3 and the Samsung Galaxy S21 in our Photo compare tool

Selfie photo quality

The 24MP selfie camera on the ROG Phone 5 is also a nifty Quad-Bayer unit. Which is why the resulting stills are right around 6MP big. The OmniVision OV24B1Q, in particular, with an individual pixel size of 0.9 µm, behind an f/2.0 lens. Pretty solid hardware, but unfortunately missing autofocus. Even so, the focus plane is fairly liberal, and its sweet spot is well-adjusted to a standard arm's length or so.

ROG Phone 5 6MP selfie camera samples

Detail is good, so are colors and sharpness. The way the ROG Phone 5 handles bright lights in combination with thick shadows in the same frame is impressive.

ROG Phone 5 6MP selfie camera samples

You can do Portrait mode shots on the selfie camera, as well. Without any additional camera for depth detection, the subject separation on this one is not nearly as impressive as on the main camera. Even so, results look surprisingly good. Small hairs and glasses still manage to trip the algorithm up, but the blur effect looks impressive overall.

ROG Phone 5 6MP portrait samples at different blur intensities

We kind of glanced-over the Beauty mode options in the main camera section. Luckily, the entire impressive set is carried over to the selfie camera. In particular - selfie portrait mode. The regular mode just gets a basic beauty slider. You get skin smoothing, skin soften, skin brighten, eye correction and cheek correction all on individual intensity sliders. Honestly, it almost looks like a SIM Creator style tool and there are plenty of options to go around, if you are into that.

ROG Phone 5 6MP selfies with beauty mode

ROG Phone 5 selfies with beauty mode: Min • Medium • Max

A dimly-lit room is not particularly challenging for the ROG Phone 5's selfie camera. Quality remains high, and noise - surprisingly low. Even Portrait mode remains usable.

ROG Phone 5 6MP selfie samples

Once it gets properly dark, the phone's selfie game takes a hit, especially if you torture the limited dynamic range with odd light sources. Even in these conditions, though, photos still remain usable. There is no Night mode for the selfie camera, automatic or manual.

ROG Phone 5 6MP low-light selfie camera samples

We have to say that, overall, we are quite pleased with the selfie experience. Especially considering this is not a camera-centric phone, let alone a selfie-centric one. Though, a certain niche of mobile game-streamers might still appreciate the extra attention this particular camera has received.

Video capture quality

The ROG Phone 5 can go all the way up to 8K resolution, at 30fps on its main 64MP camera. Better still, even at this high resolution, the camera app still lets you use the advanced audio features - Mic focus and Wind noise reduction. You are free to choose an encoder of your choice, as well - h.264 for the best possible quality or the dynamic h.265 (HEVC) to save some space at a small expense to quality.

Even with the Snapdragon 888 and its impressive Spectra 580 ISP 8K video capture remains a somewhat janky experience. And we're not just talking about the ROG Phone 5 in particular, but as a more general statement about smartphone video. To Qualcomm's and Asus' credit, compared to last year's ROG Phone 3, the ROG Phone 5 has a way more-stable bitrate on its 8K footage. Not to mention notably higher at around 130 Mbps. Just like with all other video resolutions and modes, you get a standard AVC stream, plus a stereo 48 kHz AAC audio one.

Details look amazing at 8K. We also continue to enjoy Asus' color science - not too oversaturated and not too plain. The 64MP IMX686 does still show some of its slight shortcomings, compared to other modern flagships. Mostly, a slightly limited dynamic range. Nothing deal-breaking by any means, though, especially not with good lighting.

Honestly, though, looking at how well all the ROG Phone 5 carries all of its strong suits over to the much-more-sensible and easy to work with 4K mode, with just a minor hit to detail makes us think that it should still be your go-to default. You even get more frame rate options, namely 60fps, in case you are the kind of person to enjoy the particular look and feel of that footage.

At 30fps, clips come out with a very stable bitrate right around the 50 Mbps mark, plus 48 kHz AAC stereo audio.

Even at FullHD, clips from the ROG Phone 5 remain competitive. Just the dynamic range issue persists across the board, resulting in it some clipped shadows and overexposed bright areas.

The ultrawide camera on the ROG Phone 5 does up to 4K@30fps. With a dimmer lens and less-impressive sensor, it suffers from even narrower dynamic range. On the plus side, Asus did the best it could to keep other aspects of the video consistent and competitive, like color rendition. The detail is decent for the sensor at hand. Here is a playlist of ultrawide camera footage at 4K and 1080p.

Asus does a stellar job with video stabilization overall. The ROG Phone 5 does not get a dedicated OIS system, but more than makes up for it with an excellent 3-axis EIS setup. The most impressive part has to be the fact that EIS can be used at the full 8K resolution and with surprisingly good results.

Naturally, since the stabilization is electronic, you will be giving up a portion of the frame. But, we find the tradeoff perfectly reasonable. EIS arguably works even better on the ultrawide camera. Once again, it can go up to the maximum 4K resolution of the respective module and you get it enabled by default, so no accidental shaky footage.

Beyond the regular stabilization toggle in the settings menu, the ROG Phone 5 also has advanced stabilization, called HyperSteady. It can be turned on from the hand icon on the main video UI of the camera app. Once on, it limits the capture resolution to 1080p, which is necessary, since it crops quite a large section of the sensor to do its job. Oh, and crucially, it only works with the ultrawide camera, since it needs all of the extra field of view it can get.

Here you can see HyperSteady compared against regular stabilization. Results are impressive. HyperSteady managed to produce a perfectly-pleasant to watch, "floaty" video even during sprints with lots of tossing-about - all without destroying the overall quality of the clip too severely. Seeing how impressively-smooth the regular stabilization already is, we would say that HyperSteady mostly just gets rid of nay last remaining "jarring" pans in the footage.

Low-light videos on the ROG Phone 5 are decent, but nothing to phone home about. The dynamic range issues become even more apparent in challenging lighting conditions and you can really see the noise-suppression algorithm working overtime in more uniform areas of the frame.

The ultrawide suffers particularly bad in these conditions, mostly due to its dim aperture. Low-light videos from it are too dark and borderline unusable. If you stick to the main camera, though, you can get some decent results. EIS remains just as excellent, regardless of lighting, and so do the advanced audio features. You can, once again, go up to a full 8K resolution. We have compiled a playlist of all of the low-light samples we took for your convenience.

Finally, we have videos from the 24MP selfie camera. Seeing how we were already quite impressed by its video capture qualities on the ROG Phone 3, it shouldn't come as a major surprise that it remains excellent on the ROG Phone 5.

We just can't help ourselves and gush over just how surprisingly-good it looks. Despite the lack of autofocus of the selfie cam, there always seemed to be liberal depth to make use of. Detail is great, and the picture is very sharp. EIS continues to shine here, as well, though it does take away a noticeable chunk of the frame. On a device as heavy as the ROG Phone 5 you should probably use a monopod or some similar rig to make it easier to carry anyway.

You can still make use of wind noise cancellation and audio focus for selfie video too. We only wished that there was a Pro selfie video mode or other way to get access to the directional audio capture settings. Even so, if you can deal with the weight, the ROG Phone 5 can be a shockingly-good vlogging camera. Or, alternatively and more-realistically, anyone looking to use it for streaming a facecam while gaming won't be disappointed either.

Rounding-off the video quality section, we didn't forget to include samples from the main camera of the ROG Phone 5 in both 8K and 4K resolution in our video compare database.

Asus ROG Phone 5 against the Asus ROG Phone 3 and the ZTE nubia Red Magic 5S in our Video compare tool

8K: Asus ROG Phone 5 against the Asus ROG Phone 3 and the Samsung Galaxy S21 in our Video compare tool