Something to look forward to: What could be one of the best gaming phones around---the ROG Phone 5---will launch on March 10, Asus has confirmed. You might wonder why it uses the number 5 when the last entry in the series was the ROG Phone 3. It's because the number 4 is considered unlucky in Chinese as it is nearly homophonous to the word "death," which could put off buyers in China and Taiwan.
Asus has placed a timer on its website, counting down to the ROG Phone 5's launch event that starts at 6 AM EST on March 10.
The new ROG phone is expected to come with a 6.78-inch screen, dual-cell 6,000mAh battery with 65W charging, Snapdragon 888 SoC, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 64MP main camera.
It appears that the ROG Phone 5 will have a strip-like secondary screen on the rear of the device, likely used as a notification ticker that also shows alerts and gaming effects.
Being from Asus' ROG brand, the handset will have the same gaming focus as the previous devices. Both the ROG Phone 2 and 3 feature trigger keys that double as shoulder buttons when the phone's in landscape mode. There's a large red button on the side of the ROG Phone 5, so we can expect physical buttons to appear in the latest iteration, too.
The ROG Phone 5 is also expected to feature the same 144Hz refresh rate as the ROG Phone 3. No current phones can beat that, though if a recent Apple patent is anything to go by, the iPhone 13 could reach 240Hz.
The ROG Phone 3 launched with a $999 price tag, so don't be surprised to see the ROG Phone 5 exceed $1,000.