Asus Zenfone 8 Review
Asus ZenFone 8 launched in a now barren compact class with a 5.9-inch display. Apparently, it is among a few flagship phones in this category alongside iPhone 12 mini. Asus hasn’t made any compromises with the phone though as it comes with the latest flagship chipset, a no-frills dual rear camera setup with 2x lossless zoom, and adding water-resistant on top of it in a form factor that is both easy to hold and premium to look at.
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It will be dubbed as ZenFone 8Z in India once it arrives. Here’s a hands-on detailed review of the Asus ZenFone 8 that you must read.
Asus Zenfone 8 Price in India, Variants, Availability
Asus ZenFone 8 hasn’t made it to India at the time of writing this review. The smartphone is slated to arrive in early August in India so it is either yet to release or released by the time you read it. Asus ZenFone 8 (or dubbed as ZenFone 8Z in India) is likely to arrive at Rs 45,000/- for the base 8GB+128GB variant. The higher 256GB variant is up for sale in the U.S. at $699 which could loosely translate into Indian Rupee when the phone arrives in India. Meanwhile, do keep the colour option in mind when you buy it – Horizon Silver and Obsidian Black.
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Asus Zenfone 8 Box Contents
- Asus Zenfone 8 device
- Ejector pin (SIM tray needle)
- USB power adapter (30.0 W)
- USB-C to USB-C cable
- Protective case
Asus Zenfone 8 Specs at a glance
Before we talk in detail about the Asus Zenfone 8 let’s see what the on-paper specs look like?
- Display: 5.9-inch 120 Hz Samsung AMOLED display
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G
- Storage: 8GB/128GB, 12GB/256GB, 16GB/256GB
- Software: Android 11
- Rear cameras: 64MP (main) + 12MP (ultra-wide-angle)
- Front camera: 12MP
- Battery: 4000 mAh
- Weight: 169g
- Dimensions: 148 x 68.5 x 8.9 mm
Asus Zenfone 8 Design and Build
Asus ZenFone 8 will attract those who want a compact smartphone. At 148×68.5×8.9mm, the device is way larger than iPhone 12 Mini and a bit larger than Google Pixel 5.
The device gets a Corning Gorilla Glass Victus at the front while the rear packs in a Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The back panel is frosted and inclines towards the matte while being a bit glossy as well. The frame is aluminium and it is curved that aids in the proper grip of this compact smartphone.
The phone is tall and has a narrow width that makes it a worthy companion for consuming media and playing games unless you are something who wants a larger display. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack on top (yes, it’s a headphone jack on a flagship phone). There’s a volume rocker on the right along with a blue accented power button on my Obsidian Black colour variant.
There’s a USB-C port, a primary bottom-firing speaker, and a primary mic at the bottom. You get a secondary front-firing loudspeaker on the edge of the forehead that doubles as an earpiece when on a call. Finally, there’s a SIM card slot on the left and that’s all the I/O ports and buttons available on ZenFone 8.
Fortunately, the phone arrives with the highest level of water and dust protection i.e. IP68 that will keep the phone completely safe if submerged deep in 1.5m water for 30 minutes or so although it isn’t something I recommend.
Asus Zenfone 8 Display
Asus ZenFone 8 is fitted out with a 5.9-inch Super AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+ compliant panel boasting a 1080×2400 pixels resolution. It totals at 446 PPI density and comes with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus on top of it.
I am completely inclined towards ZenFone 8 just because it is a non-6-inch smartphone with a flagship configuration under the hood. It is a cheaper iPhone 12 Mini, to be honest bringing a larger screen real estate and a far crispier and colour-accurate panel. The display arrives with a super smooth 120Hz refresh rate but there’s no granular support here. Instead, the display lets users manually control the refresh rate out of five settings available.
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The high refresh rate is way better than 60Hz or even 90Hz because it is smooth, transitions are pretty darn fascinating and animations are great. The screen is totally the cherry on the cake as it allows for enhanced one-handed usage without any hassle. There’s a dedicated one-handed mode that puts the interactive area at the bottom and the viewing area on top for better one-handed usability.
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Talking about the display which has a 240Hz touch sampling rate, the display produces fairly vivid and vibrant colours. Since it is FHD+ with a reduced size, it translates into higher pixel density although there’s a bit of difference in hues that you would see on Zenfone 8 and any other smartphone with the same resolution, but larger display.
Asus Zenfone 8 Performance
ZenFone 8 is equipped with a flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G SoC with an Adreno 660 GPU. The chipset is clocked at 2.84GHz max frequency at 1x Kryo 680 plus 3×2.42GHz Kryo 680 plus 4×1.80GHz Kryo 680 cores. The device packs in 6GB/8GB/12GB/16GB RAM options and 128GB/256GB of storage options.
The device is using a flagship chipset so the performance is undoubtedly better than its predecessors or say literally any smartphone running SD865 and below. When it comes to numbers, the ZenFone 8 scores 1118 and 3604 points on single-core and multi-core tests on GeekBench 5 while the AnTuTu 8 score was at 676,001 points. To put things into perspective, the latter is higher than the one recorded by ZenFone 7 Pro (of course), Samsung Galaxy S21 5G, Huawei P40, Samsung Galaxy S20 FE, and even Oppo Find X3 Pro all of which are flagship phones.
When it comes to performance in real use cases, texting, calling, browsing, videos, and music everything runs buttery-smooth on ZenFone 8. Its storage and RAM configurations make the device a must-have and since the phone is super compact, I wouldn’t have any other reason not to get ZenFone 8 for me since I am totally inclined towards smaller phones and not something I would consider a literal phablet. When I say compact and small, I don’t feel ZenFone 8 is any Apple iPhone SE 2020. Rather, it falls in a sort of goldilocks zone giving the right screen size and form factor with a super-powerful chipset.
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It goes without saying, anything from gaming on casual 2D games to high-graphics games, ZenFone 8 can handle it all well. It falls in the same performance category as ROG 5 or OnePlus 9 so you see, ZenFone 8 is not just a pretty piece of equipment but it is a powerful one.
In the end, it all boils down to the user’s preference. The display is vibrant and flagship-like although lags are a bit behind ROG 5. It goes without saying, the phone has an overall compact form factor which makes a lot of sense for those who want a powerful phone in a compact. On the contrary, you can just let it go if you don’t want a phone with a smaller size.
The battery falls in the average size considering the battery size in the Android sphere. The charging speed is considerably slower than any flagship phone except Apple and Samsung. In any case, buying Asus Zenfone 8 makes a lot of sense for most users although Asus’s software game isn’t on-point. Hope you get a gist of using ZenFone 8 and whether you want to buy it or not.
