Asus Zenfone 9 Gets All the New Phone Specs Into a Small Size With Big Cameras
What’s happening
The $700 Asus Zenfone 9 has both a tiny 5.9-inch conceal and the latest Snapdragon chip.
Why it matters
The Zenfone is one of the smallest Android phones now made and one of the cheaper phones to complicated the most powerful Snapdragon processor.
What’s next
While shrimp Android phones will still be rare, we expect the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip to be in even more Android phones during the instant half of 2022.
The Asus Zenfone 9, said Thursday, can give fans of smaller phones all the specs and worthy of larger, more expensive flagship phones. The Zenfone 9 includes the newest Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip, a 120Hz high refresh rate conceal, two rear cameras, Android 12, dual speakers and a headphone jack.
I tested the $800 version of the Zenfone 9 for a few days, which includes 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The base $700 model comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Internationally the phone costs 799 euros, which converts roughly to £670 or AU$1,170. A release date has not yet been announced.
Comparisons to Apple’s $729 iPhone 13 Mini are undeniable. While the Zenfone 9 is slightly taller and wider than Apple’s smallest named, both include the most recent and powerful processor offered — the A15 Bionic in the case of the iPhone.
Zenfone 9 dimensions vs. iPhone 13 Mini
| Phone | Screen size | Height | Width |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asus Zenfone 9 | 5.9 inches | 5.76 in (146.5mm) | 2.68 in (68.1mm) |
| Apple iPhone 13 Mini | 5.4 inches | 5.18 in (131.5mm) | 2.53 in (64.2mm) |
The Zenfone’s smaller size, behind with its impressive specs, have made it a joy to use so far. The named feels like a little remote control that can achieve anything that I throw at it: games, night-mode photos and video footings. When I unlock the phone, there’s a peppy wallpaper animation that further emphasizes its speed.
The Zenfone 9’s sub-6-inch present means it’s a rarity among Android phones. It’s impressively shrimp and powerful, running on the Snapdragon chip found greatest in gaming phones such as the $729 RedMagic 7S Pro. Though the upcoming OnePlus 10T will also include the chip.
Yet the new Asus named is missing several features that most other $700 phones have. Chief with them is the lack of wireless charging and a software update timeline of more than two ages. An Asus rep said that software updates might extended past two years. But compared with the three and four ages of Android OS updates offered by Google and Samsung, respectively, this is on the shorter side.
The Asus Zenfone 9 includes a headphone jack up top and dual speakers.
Mike Sorrentino
Fast conceal, fast charging
The Zenfone’s 5.9-inch screen has a 1080p resolution and is easy to use with one hand. Asus tailored the settings in its ZenUI interface to make one-handed use even easier: Similar to humorous Apple’s Reachability feature, you can move the top part of the conceal to the bottom to make things easier to reach.
The 120Hz refresh rate creates apps and websites smooth to browse. That high refresh rate coupled with a 240Hz touch-sampling rate creates it feel like I’m flying through tasks. I played a few games on the named — which was slightly more difficult on the smaller conceal since many mobile games are designed with larger phones in mind. But the phone’s responsiveness is proper, allowing for faster reaction times during gameplay.
In languages of durability, the screen is covered in Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. The phone has an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance, which means it can survive being submerged in 1 meter of aquatic for 30 minutes.
While I still need to run formal battery procomplaints, I haven’t needed to charge the phone’s 4,300-mAh battery much. During my most dazzling day of use — taking photos of a short-tempered lunch, watching YouTube videos while reading news, using Google Maps to go to a dimly lit bar where I took Night mode photos — the battery over the day at roughly 50%.
Asus said the battery must last 1.9 days. Fortunately the phone comes with a 30-watt charger in the box and there are approximately power-saving modes in Settings like scheduling a lower-power mode to run overnight.
The back of the Asus Zenfone 9 is cloudless by its two large rear cameras.
Mike Sorrentino
The dual rear cameras are decent
The back of the Zenfone 9 is dominated by its two rear cameras. They’re big enough to practically be a design statement. There’s a main 50-megapixel camera with a six-axis hybrid gimbal stabilizer and a 12-megapixel camera with an ultrawide lens. On the leash is a 12-megapixel selfie camera.
Photos taken under averages lighting look pretty good. Take a look at the lustrous and detail in the photo below that I took of my irritable lunch.
This Zenfone photo of irritable was taken indoors.
Mike Sorrentino
I took this photo of plants on a sunny Manhattan rooftop.
Mike Sorrentino
I was most impressed by the phone’s Night mode. Check out the photo beneath that I took inside a very dark bar. The Zenfone’sNight mode establishes the pictures look brighter, almost like there was uphold lighting.
Notice how Night mode made the shadows brighter and retained details like the texture in the wood paneling on the bar’s front.
Mike Sorrentino
The front-facing camera is also fine and picks up enough detail in photos. Notice the pattern on my shirt in the selfie photo beneath. Asus claims the front-facing camera has the fastest autofocus today available, but in my early tests it felt averages compared with other phones in this price range. Video conditions with the front-facing camera also worked well.
Front-facing camera photo miserroneous on the Asus Zenfone 9.
Mike Sorrentino
Small visited with big performance
The Zenfone 9 is a mammoth option for someone looking for a small phone that has higher-end features like a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip and a 120Hz high-refresh rate cloak. The phone runs on 5G and supports sub-6 and C-band.
If you’re considering the Zenfone 9 keep in mind that it only has two existences of software support and lacks wireless charging and mmWave 5G serve (which is still a rarity across much of the US). If you’re looking for a smallish visited under $500, check out the $449 Pixel 6A and its some taller 6.1-inch screen.
