ASUS’ ultimate smartphone that is over-engineered for gaming, the ASUS ROG Phone 5 actually launched earlier in the year. The device specifically launched in Malaysia in the month of March 2021. If you consider the ROG Phone 5 selling first in the beginning of March 2021, that was six months ago. We understand your confusion in this case.
While the ROG Phone 5 series did launch in March 2021 (even we wrote about it), there is one device in the series that has not been really on sale. That device is the ASUS ROG Phone 5 Ultimate, the ultimate iteration of ASUS’ ROG mobile gaming powerhouse. For months as well, there were no mentions of the device ever coming to Malaysia to the point that some thought that it was only a myth.
We now can assure you that the ASUS ROG Phone 5 Ultimate is real and will be reaching your hands very soon in August 2021. Like the launch in March 2021, the ASUS ROG Phone 5 Ultimate will also be an online exclusive. It might as well be with the current condition in Malaysia.
Before we go into the pre-order details though, we have to talk about the device just to remind ourselves what the ASUS ROG Phone 5 Ultimate is, and why you might want one still.
The ASUS ROG Phone 5 series is known to push smartphone hardware to absolute limit on paper. While all of them comes with Qualcomm’s most powerful System on a Chip (SoC) to date; the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip, the most budget friendly variant of the device comes only with an 8GB RAM.
We say only, because one step up from that is a 16GB RAM option. 16GB RAM is a lot of memory for a smartphone, more than even Samsung’s Galaxy S21 Ultra at its best. The Ultimate variant of the ASUS ROG Phone 5 comes with an even bigger memory module at 18GB. Why do you need 18GB of RAM for a smartphone? At this time, we do not know yet.
Its storage module is not as crazy though at 512GB in built-in storage for the Ultimate variant. The ASUS ROG Phone 5 Ultimate also features something called ROG Vision, a customizable LED display embedded in the back plate of the device. As far as we can tell as well, everything else about the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate is similar to the other devices in the range. They are still the most extreme on a modern smartphone though.
It has a 6.78-inch AMOLED display with the highest possible colour accuracy in a smartphone display that boasts Full HD+ in resolution. While that may not sound like a lot, the display refreshes at up to 144Hz, comparable to modern PC gaming monitors today. It also samples at 300Hz for a super-fast 1ms response on the display itself for near instant interaction with the interface and games.
It is also one of the only flagship spec devices that comes with a super large battery. It packs a 6,000mAh battery pack. That is as large as a small to medium sized powerbank today and is nearly double what regular smartphones pack today. You can charge other flagship smartphones with this mobile ROG powerhouse.
You could not get the ASUS ROG Phone 5 Ultimate anywhere though, when the other ROG Phone 5 devices launched. Even Malaysia’s website says that the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate is “Coming Soon” at the time of writing. It will not be “Coming Soon” for much longer though.
The ASUS ROG Phone 5 Ultimate will finally be available to buy in Malaysia from the 8th of August 2021 onward. Well, the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate starts its pre-orders from that day all the way to the 21st of August 2021, to be specific. It will ship out toward the end of the month of August 2021 too. It will be priced at the anticipated price of MYR 4,999, which is no small amount of money for a smartphone that only comes in Matte White colour option.
Of course, you are not just buying the smartphone though, at that price. If you choose to wait this long and pre-order your ASUS ROG Phone 5 Ultimate, you are getting a treat from ASUS. You are eligible for an ROG Strix Go Core headphone in Moonlight White to match your ASUS ROG Phone 5 Ultimate for free. You also get the Ultimate Fan Gift Box alongside your device. All in all, you are getting a total of MYR 1,099 worth of goods on top of your Ultimate gaming smartphone.
You can pre-order your ASUS ROG Phone 5 Ultimate from ASUS’ official stores on Shopee and Lazada. Again, the device is exclusively available online at this time. As mentioned, the MYR 4,999 device will be available for pre-order from the 8th to 21st of August 2021. More information on the ASUS ROG Phone 5 is available from their website.