Asus Zenfone 9 evaluation: one for the small cellphone superfans

Unboxing the Asus Zenfone 9 was like assembly somebody new and studying that you just like the identical obscure films or went to the identical highschool. I might inform instantly we’d get alongside. “You’re IP68 and you have a headphone jack? No way! I love headphone jacks!”

A number of the attraction has to do with its dimension. As it did with the Zenfone 8, Asus has got down to reply the query “what would a small (read: reasonably sized) flagship Android phone look like?” The reply begins with a 5.9-inch display — not almost as small because the 5.4-incher on the iPhone Mini. But so far as the Android ecosystem goes, it’s downright tiny.

“Small and runs Android” isn’t the one factor going for the Zenfone 9: it gives top-shelf parts like a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor, a smooth-scrolling 120Hz show refresh price, and a 12-megapixel foremost digital camera with a one-of-a-kind stabilization system. It begins with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for $799 and can go on sale within the US instantly from Asus in mid-September. Introductory pricing shall be decrease — $699 — and you could find world variations of the cellphone on Amazon proper now for a bit lower than MSRP. However, there’s good purpose to attend till it’s formally on sale: Asus offers a one-year guarantee with the cellphone whenever you buy it instantly, and the imported variations floating round now don’t embrace that.

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Even whenever you’re driving excessive since you met your new finest good friend, it’s important to come again right down to actuality ultimately. The Zenfone 9 isn’t the proper small cellphone: it lacks wi-fi charging, which most telephones at this value embrace. There’s additionally no telephoto digital camera, which isn’t a given in a cellphone below $1,000, however the (additionally $799) Samsung S22 does embrace one. The Zenfone 9 doesn’t work with each US service, both. It features on AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks, however you’re out of luck on Verizon. Trust me, I attempted.

Then there’s software program help. Asus is committing to 2 platform OS updates and a paltry two years of safety patches. A cellphone at this value level ought to actually get extra years of software program help. This makes it onerous to broadly advocate the Zenfone 9, particularly with the superb, five-years-of-security-updates, works-on-every-carrier Galaxy S22 in the identical value bracket. But like sure genres of cult traditional films, it should actually hit the spot for a particular type of individual, and I’m considered one of them.

The Zenfone 9 embraces 2022’s return to flat rails moderately than the period of rounded edges that the iPhone 6 ushered in. This exterior body is aluminum, and the show curves ever so barely the place it meets the perimeters. The entrance panel is glass, however the again is a composite polymer materials with a textured, delicate end that makes the cellphone straightforward to grip one-handed. The complete factor feels sturdy, and it’s rated IP68 for sturdy water and mud resistance.

Did I point out it’s small? It is, and I find it irresistible. There’s an assortment of high-end telephones on my desk as I write this, they usually’re all very succesful. But after I maintain the Zenfone 9, it simply appears like a sigh of aid. It takes up so little area that after I put it within the pocket of my yoga pants, I’ll preserve doing that factor the place I believe “oh crap, I left my phone in the house” after which uncover with aid that it’s truly in my pocket. This shouldn’t be one thing that occurs after I’m carrying a 6.4-incher just like the Google Pixel 6 in my pocket. The solely cellphone extra snug to hold in my pocket actually folds in half, so nicely achieved, Asus.

The energy button on the facet of the cellphone does triple obligation as a fingerprint sensor and a “Smart Key.” The latter gives a customizable interplay whenever you swipe your finger throughout the button from prime to backside. By default it’s set to tug down the fast settings and notification shade; it’s a pleasant technique to verify notifications one-handed with out having to achieve as much as the highest of the display, which remains to be a stretch, even on a cellphone this small.

The characteristic works nicely. Too nicely. Whenever I used to be utilizing the cellphone with two fingers, my proper palm stored by accident pulling the shade down. This was annoying, and I turned the Smart Key characteristic off. On the brilliant facet, I admire that Asus doesn’t make you bear in mind a button mixture whenever you wish to flip off the cellphone — you simply long-press the facility button like within the good previous days.

The 5.9-inch OLED on the Zenfone 9 gives a prime refresh price of 120Hz, which is kind of commonplace within the flagship class now. It makes for a {smooth} scrolling expertise, and the flagship-grade Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor paired with 8GB of RAM makes the cellphone really feel lots responsive for on a regular basis and even heavy duties. The display’s peak brightness of 1,100 nits means it may be comfortably used even in very vivid circumstances. It’s a comparatively small cellphone, so it’s in all probability not the way you wish to watch an entire season of tv, however the built-in stereo audio system are surprisingly good if you happen to do use it to observe video. You may even hear one thing like bass coming from them! And there’s extra good audio information: the Zenfone 9 nonetheless has a headphone jack. A headphone jack! That’s simply considerate. It all checks out as top-tier {hardware}.

The software program is beautiful, too. It’s a light-weight contact on Android 12 that stays out of your manner. When it does request my consideration, it’s very well mannered, like with pop-up textual content within the digital camera app recommending that I shoot in brighter circumstances or that I activate battery saving if I wish to use the gimbal stabilization for a very long time. Otherwise, it’s a heck of lots like utilizing a Pixel cellphone. But one factor that’s not Pixel-like is the help. Asus is committing to 2 OS platform upgrades and solely guarantees two years of safety updates. For the identical $799 value, the Galaxy S22 comes with a promise of 4 OS model updates and 5 years of safety patches. The Zenfone 9 simply isn’t an amazing possibility if you happen to plan to maintain your cellphone longer than a few years.

It’s not completely clear whether or not the Zenfone 9 will help 5G within the US, both, despite the fact that it has the best {hardware}. As of this writing, Asus spokesperson Ester Suh instructed us that 5G on AT&T was “in progress.” I checked with T-Mobile, and its official stance is that it hasn’t licensed the gadget — the Zenfone 9 helps the best bands, however T-Mobile considers it a “bring your own device” state of affairs and says it will possibly’t assure efficiency. I haven’t been in a position to check it myself, and in any case, it’s a good suggestion to verify along with your service everytime you purchase an unlocked cellphone whether or not it should work on its 4G and 5G networks.

Battery life is normally excessive on the listing of small cellphone issues; they have a tendency to have smaller batteries that battle to ship a full day’s price of utilization. The Zenfone 9 doesn’t; its mixture of a 4,300mAh battery and the power-efficient 8 Plus Gen 1 processor will get it by means of a day of reasonable use (clocking round two hours of screen-on time with the always-on show enabled continually) with no downside. By default, the cellphone operates on a “Dynamic” mode for battery optimization. You can go for “High performance mode,” which Asus describes because the “best choice for demanding apps.” There are two modes under dynamic that preserve extra battery life, however I discovered the default mode offered steadiness of efficiency and battery stamina.

There’s excellent news and unhealthy information on the battery charging entrance. The unhealthy information, as talked about above, is that there’s no wi-fi charging. It’s roughly a given on high-end telephones nowadays, so it’s a disgrace that the Zenfone 9 doesn’t embrace it. It’s onerous to think about that it is a tradeoff to maintain the cellphone dimension down because the smaller iPhone 13 Mini consists of it. In any case, the excellent news is that the Zenfone 9 helps quick 30W charging and even consists of the 30W charging brick within the field. That’s particularly helpful if you happen to do push the Zenfone 9 with loads of battery-intensive duties like streaming video and gaming — upward of 4 or 5 hours of screen-on time. In that case, its comparatively small battery would profit from a late-afternoon enhance to make it by means of the tip of the day.

Asus didn’t festoon the Zenfone 9 with ineffective depth sensors and macro cameras, and for that, I’m grateful. There’s only one 50-megapixel commonplace huge digital camera with some critical stabilization (extra on that in a second) and a 12-megapixel f/2.2 ultrawide with autofocus so it will possibly double as a macro, plus a 12-megapixel selfie digital camera. There’s no telephoto lens, which type of stinks. Image high quality is nice, typically talking, although the Zenfone 9 generally will get into bother with some aggressive over-sharpening. It’s not disastrous however not my favourite.

The foremost rear digital camera consists of what can finest be described as “gimbal stabilization.” It’s not only a lens factor shifting, and it’s not simply the sensor, so “optical” or “sensor-shift” stabilization aren’t the best phrases. Virtually each different flagship cellphone consists of both optical or sensor-shift stabilization.

On the Zenfone 9, every little thing strikes collectively — lens and sensor — to compensate for digital camera shake, which is extra sturdy than the everyday strategies. Asus says it will possibly higher compensate for larger actions than a standard, optical-only system: as much as three levels of movement on six axes — vertical, horizontal, and forwards and backwards — versus one diploma. It’s coupled with digital picture stabilization, too, which smooths out movement even additional and provides a “predictive” factor because of Asus’ algorithms.

It’s significantly spectacular. For starters, if you happen to look carefully, you can actually see the camera and lens moving around below the primary housing whenever you activate video mode. That’s wild. More importantly, it really works rather well. It’s most helpful for video recording. With stabilization off, footage recorded whereas strolling down a gravel path is a shaky, jumbled mess, similar to you’d count on. Turning it on transforms the motion to a barely perceptible swaying. You’d normally want an precise gimbal mount, just like the DJI OM 5, to get footage this regular, and the Zenfone 9 simply does all of it in-camera. That could be very cool.

It’s not fairly a killer characteristic, although. I’m not a fan of the colour processing utilized to my video clips — it seems to be over-brightened and too flat all of sudden. There’s additionally an intense crop if you happen to use each digital and gimbal stabilization that makes it very tough to movie something in shut quarters. Gimbal stabilization can be solely accessible for 1080p HD clips, not within the 4K or 8K (lol) recording modes.

Grid View

The advantages for nonetheless pictures aren’t as important. Better stabilization ought to make it doable to make use of slower shutter speeds in low mild and nonetheless get sharp pictures of static topics. This appears to be the case, however that solely makes it about nearly as good because the Pixel 6 and its mixture of OIS and computational methods. It’s additionally not going to do something for shifting topics. You’re nonetheless on the mercy of, you recognize, how mild works.

Anyway, it’s cool, and I’m dying to take it out on a hike to file some video of the journey as much as the highest of a summit. With the IP68 score, I wouldn’t even have to fret in regards to the mud on the path or how a lot sweat it’ll be uncovered to in my yoga pants pocket. As a lot as I really like taking footage with the Galaxy Z Flip 4, that’s one atmosphere I don’t really feel nice about exposing it to, and the Zenfone 9 would actually excel there.

If you’re on AT&T or T-Mobile and also you desire a actually compact Android cellphone with flagship-grade efficiency, that is the one to noticeably take into account — offered you’re snug with the sadly brief software program help lifespan. It’s simply pretty to make use of. I don’t miss the glass panel on the again one bit as a result of the delicate texture of no matter composite plastic that Asus has used is so pretty. It has digital camera capabilities that make me wish to depart my home and shoot video. To be clear, my home is the place the (softest) delicate pants and espresso machine are. This is a critical barrier to beat.

That pleasantness extends to the expertise of utilizing the cellphone to do day-to-day issues. It feels responsive and polished. The built-in audio system are higher than common. If I neglect to cost my wi-fi earbuds, I can simply plug in wired headphones. The energy button even does what it’s purported to whenever you maintain it down for Pete’s sake!

Realistically, the Zenfone 9 is destined for cult traditional standing within the US. It doesn’t work on all carriers within the US, and the American public has spoken loud and clear that it desires huge telephones. For not way more cash, the Samsung Galaxy S22 is a better option for most individuals, with broad service help, a telephoto digital camera on each mannequin, and a strong five-year safety help coverage to again all of it up. I simply hope that one thing just like the Zenfone 9 can stay an possibility in our present duopoly for small cellphone superfans like me.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge