Of course, the downside to buying from China is that ASUS can use that fact to weasel out of honouring the warranty should anything go wong with the phone. My screen started to fail and ASUS said I had to return the phone to the reseller in China in order to get it looked at under warranty. ASUS...

Couldn't be more wrong

I rarely buy from a local store - they only officially sell neutered versions of common brands where I am (Thailand) at insane prices, so our last 6 phones have all be bought direct from China.

Yes. I use UAPP and have just downloaded a DSD256 file to test for you.

I guess all the reveiwers and experienced audio testers were wrong. Blimey!

Any old phone would do then

Depends on pairings in my experience. My V30, V35 and ROG5 sound better with my DT990 Pros and my Topping D3 sounds better with my HD6XXs.

How well does it drive proper headphones?

Is that opinion based on actually hearing a phone with a Sabre DAC compared directly to a dongle?

I got my ROG 5 a week ago and am very happy. It has a cracking battery (unlike my old V30), great speakers and a massive screen with no bloody holes or notches. UAPP works great (I got some help from the awesome developer, Davy) and drives my 250 Ohm headphones beautifully. I never used MQA...

Get a battery case for it. Problem solved.

One Sabre device has 'artifacts' and one Sabre device doesn't, so its 'Sabre glare'? Maybe its just V40 glare? Maybe its reviewer bias? Who knows..?

There's an app you can download that shows which mode you DAC is in. Its called "Hi-Fi Status(LG)"

Interesting. I don't think I've ever compared the LG app with UAPP. I'll have to give it a go. I did try the bundled B&O IEMs today for the first time since I got the phone a year or so ago. I put them straight back in the box after about 5 seconds.

I'm not sure having a big chunk taken out of the screen is an upgrade...