Asus Zenfone 8

The first time I saw the Asus Zenfone 8 bearing in mind that this is 599 euros which is not super expensive but it’s also not cheap and that this is what last year’s zenfone 7 looked like and the asus as a company has proven that they understand what it is that consumers want I was perplexed like what is this?

But first let’s start with what comes inside the box. Even though the phone looks plain it’s got the goods – a hardback plastic case with some light texture a usbc cable and a 30 watt charging room.

But still I was so confused how the same company who’ve created designs like the Zenfone 7 and this have just launched something so devoid of character.

I feel like i’ve just jumped back 10 years in a time machine. It’s got a completely plain monotone, finish a logo that really just looks like text and possibly the most generic looking camera system on the market right now. Asus did say that we’ve tried making loads of fancy color options in the past but because people would always just end up buying black anyways, this time we’ve decided to keep things flat which, is a fair point but i think because this phone’s core design is so simple anyways it almost needs a more jazzy finish to stop it looking budget. And it also looks unfinished because the camera is misaligned. Like if you’re going to put something in the corner you really have to make sure that it’s an equal distance from both edges otherwise it just looks a bit lost.

They’ve tried to give it some flair by putting a chrome ring around the front camera but that makes it more noticeable. Anyways the reason that i’m giving it such a hard time for this is that the design is completely at odds with what the phone can do. You put this next to a Oneplus 9 or a Galaxy s21 or a xiaomi 11, it fades into the background when actually it’s the star of the show.

So keep at the forefront of your mind when I tell you this that this is a small phone and the thing with small phones is that they are usually riddled with compromise. So we’ve just kind of come to expect that if you’re shopping for a small phone you’re having to ask yourself the question: what am i giving up for that size? Not anymore thanks to a new PCB design and some clever bits of engineering, for 599 euros you are getting some of the best hardware

and software irrespective of size. It has a snapdragon 888 paired with six to 16 gigabytes of fast LPDDR5 Ram and 128 to 256 gigabytes of fast ufs 3.1 storage. That’s not just high-end performance, that is ultra performance.

The display is quality too it has a 5.9 inch AMOLED 120 hertz refresh rate with 1080p screen protected by gorilla glass victus. It doesn’t feel distinctly different to the very best phones i’ve used. And the side effect of this one of the few things that compact phones do have going in their favor is that because you can get away with a lower resolution and a smaller display, the battery life is quite good. You can easily cover a day of use with 80% charge. This phone has a new linear vibration motor that makes typing feel really satisfying.

The software of Asus is really good. It has one of the cleanest implementations of android with a deep level of customization if you’re looking for. It has a set of stereo speakers that completely defies the phone’s dimensions. It has an official IP rating and a headphone jack!

Okay now all of this just leaves us with one question mark. The cameras. But it’s a big question mark. After all asus isn’t exactly known for creating incredible camera systems. But it’s better than you think. So two cameras a main 64 megapixel one and a 12 megapixel ultra wide one, and assuming that your expectations are somewhat grounded I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the level of detail the background blur you can get, the ability to brighten dark areas and control highlights and the general color profile too. I’d call it natural but with a little bit of a pop. And this carries through to the ultra wide which also has the bonus of generally minimal color shifting as you move to it. Nighttime performance is pretty good too actually. And because this phone unlike other asus phones and also unlike the oneplus 9 has optical image stabilization I gotta say the video recording just feels like it’s come from a larger camera sensor. So overall this camera system is not incredible but it is good.

So now it should be pretty clear why this phone is so special. Even though the cameras are good they are like the weakest part of it. The performance, the display, the battery and all the little things like the notification led, the headphone jack, the size of the speaker units, these are very good by the standard of any phone. Let alone a device with such a stringent price constraint and a stringent size constraint. But it’s a bit of a shame that it looks like the kid who got bullied in class as opposed to the hero it actually is. But there shouldn’t be a reason not to at least consider it.