Qualcomm and ASUS have announced a lightly-skinned version of the ASUS ROG Phone 5 that’s aimed at Snapdragon Insiders and costs $1500.

Maybe “announced” is the wrong word, as there’s no announcement on either companies’ websites, at least for now. Instead, it appears that they briefed several tech enthusiast sites about the product, so I’ll have to go off of those.

What appears to be happening is that Qualcomm, as the next step in its plan to push the Snapdragon brand to fans, has partnered with ASUS to release a version of the ROG Phone 5 that’s even more awkwardly named the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders. You may recall that the company unveiled its Snapdragon Insiders program back in March.

I’m not sure that the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders justifies its $1500 price tag, but it is very much a high-end device, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, 512 GB of UFS 3.1 storage, 5G networking, and a 6.78-inch 20.4:9 Samsung AMOLED display panel with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus and HDR10 and HDR10+ capabilities. It has a 4000 mAh battery and 65-watt wired fast charging. The cameras look decent as well, with a 64 MP main sensor, a 12 MP ultra-wide sensor, and an 8 MP telephoto sensor with 3x optical zoom.

I assume you’ll be able to buy this directly from Qualcomm soon.

Tagged with Qualcomm, Qualcomm Snapdragon 888