Asus Zenfone 9 Review: Key Features, Specifications and Prices

Android Phone, Tech Gadgets Review, Technology & AI

The Asus Zenfone 9 is a great phone that has some great features and costs a fair amount. It looks great, has a great screen, a great camera that offers the best video experience in its price range, and specs that are on par with flagship phones.

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But its battery life isn’t great, and the fact that it doesn’t have 5G connectivity might be a problem for some. But overall, it is one of the best small smartphones you can buy right now.

Asus Zenfone 9 Review and Full Specifications

Design

If the Asus Zenfone 9 wasn’t smaller than most Android phones on the market, it would look like a generic smartphone in the shape of a “chocolate bar.” This makes it much easier to use with one hand than other mega-phones that cost the same.

The phone has both a USB-C port and a 3.5mm headphone jack, which will make wired music fans very happy. There is a volume button and a fingerprint scanner on the right side. The scanner works 9 times out of 10, which is better than some other phones. One thing that makes it stand out is the huge camera array on the back. Each of the two lenses has its own huge round bump. The Zenfone, unlike many phones in the same price range, has a plastic case instead of a glass one. But it has a texture on the grip that makes it easy to hold. It comes in four colors. We tested the black one, but it is also available in red, blue, and white. The phone is rated IP68 against dust and water, so if it falls into water or dirt, it should still work.

Display

The Asus Zenfone 9 has a 5.9-inch screen, which makes it one of the few Android phones that came out in 2022 with a screen size of less than 6 inches. It has an FHD+ display, a maximum brightness of 1100nits, and a refresh rate of 120Hz, which is about what you’d expect for the price, though there are a few devices at this price point with a higher resolution.

The display has been called “fine” before, and it’s hard to think of a better word. It has the same resolution as most programs and a refresh rate that makes moving images look smooth, but it doesn’t do anything better than other smartphones.

Camera

The two cameras on the back of the Asus Zenfone 9 are not as good as those on many other phones in the same price range. The 50MP main camera uses the Sony IMX766 sensor, which can work well even in low light and does a great job.

The ultra-wide camera has a 12MP sensor and a field of view of 113 degrees. This works like most short focal length lenses, with only a little bit of edge distortion. There is no zoom camera, so you have to use digital zoom or cropping to get closer to a subject. Many competitors at the same price point have zoom cameras. If you zoom in too much, your photos won’t look good and will soon be blurry. The selfie camera on the front has 12 megapixels and works well, capturing images with enough detail and light. Even when there isn’t much light, it works pretty well, though Portrait mode can make a lot of fake blurry backgrounds.

Many smartphones can record video with a resolution of up to 4K and 60 frames per second. It also lets you use Pro Video mode, a feature that few devices have. This works like Pro Photo, but you can change the shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and other settings for video recording. This gives you a lot of creative freedom over the movies you make. Light trails, slow-mo, panorama, and time-lapse are some of the other modes, but none of them are very unique.

Battery

Even though the Zenfone’s 4,300mAh battery is small compared to other phones, this is not a problem because the screen is so small. In spite of this, the Asus has pretty average battery life. Most of the time, a phone’s battery life is enough for a full day of use, and it only runs out when it’s used a lot.

Charging happens at 30W, which is slow for a high-end phone, but neither Apple nor Samsung have fast charging, so we can’t be too disappointed. But that does mean that this phone needs to charge overnight.

Asus has a number of ways to keep the battery healthy and prevent overcharging, such as letting you choose the time each morning when the phone should be fully charged. With this method, the phone will last longer before the battery runs out.

Price and Availability

The Asus Zenfone 9 model with 8GB RAM and 128GB costs £699 (about $840, AU$1,210), and the model with 16GB RAM and 256GB costs £749 (about $900, AU$1,300).

The starting price for the Samsung Galaxy S22 is $799, £769, or AU$1,249, and the starting price for the iPhone 13 is $799, £779, or AU$1,349. Asus is in the same general price range as Samsung and Apple, so it’s natural to compare it to them, even though it’s a bit cheaper than both. But it costs a lot more than the Google Pixel 6, which costs $599/£599/AU$999.

The phone came out at the end of July 2022, which was a long time after the Zenfone 8, which came out in May 2021. We only know how much the product costs in the United Kingdom right now, but it’s likely that it will be sold in other places as well.

Software

The Asus Zenfone 9 uses stock Android 12, which hasn’t been changed much by Asus. This gives you a good, clean experience with Google’s built-in apps and the ability to make this version of Android your own. This is because Asus didn’t change it very much.

Asus Zenfone 9 Specifications

NETWORK	Technology	GSM / HSPA / LTE / 5G

LAUNCH	Announced	2022, July 28
LAUNCH	Status	Coming soon. Exp. release 2022, September 15

BODY	Dimensions	146.5 x 68.1 x 9.1 mm (5.77 x 2.68 x 0.36 in)
	Weight	169 g (5.96 oz)
	Build	Glass front (Gorilla Glass Victus), plastic back, aluminum frame
	SIM	Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
		IP68 dust/water resistant (up to 1.5m for 30 mins)

DISPLAY	Type	Super AMOLED, 120Hz, HDR10+, 1100 nits (peak)
	Size	5.9 inches, 84.4 cm² (~84.6% screen-to-body ratio)
	Resolution	1080 x 2400 pixels, 20:9 ratio (~445 ppi density)
	Protection	Corning Gorilla Glass Victus
		Always-on display

PLATFORM	OS	Android 12, ZenUI
	Chipset	Qualcomm SM8475 Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 (4 nm)
	CPU	Octa-core (1×3.19 GHz Cortex-X2 & 3×2.75 GHz Cortex-A710 & 4×1.80 GHz Cortex-A510)
	GPU	Adreno 730

MEMORY	Card slot	No
	Internal	128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 16GB RAM
		UFS 3.1

MAIN CAMERA	Dual	50 MP, f/1.9, 23.8mm (wide), 1/1.56″, 1.0µm, PDAF, gimbal OIS 12 MP, f/2.2, 14.4mm, 113° (ultrawide), 1/2.93″, 1.4µm, AF
	Features	LED flash, HDR, panorama
	Video	8K@24fps, 4K@30/60/120fps, 1080p@30/60/240fps, 720p@480fps; gyro-EIS, HDR

SELFIE CAMERA	Single	12 MP, f/2.5, 27.5mm (standard), 1/2.93″, 1.22µm, dual pixel PDAF
	Video	4K@30fps, 1080p@30/60fps

SOUND	Loudspeaker	Yes, with stereo speakers
	3.5mm jack	Yes
		24-bit/192kHz audio

COMMS	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6e, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, hotspot
	Bluetooth	5.2, A2DP, LE, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, LDAC
	GPS	Yes, with A-GPS. Up to dual-band: GLONASS (1), BDS (2), GALILEO (2), QZSS (2), NavIC (1)
	NFC	Yes
	Radio	No
	USB	USB Type-C, USB On-The-Go

FEATURES	Sensors	Fingerprint (side-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass

BATTERY	Type	Li-Po 4300 mAh, non-removable
	Charging	Fast charging 30W USB Power Delivery 3.0 Reverse charging

MISC	Colors	Black, Blue, Red, Silver
	Models	AI2202-1A006EU
	Price	$ 699.00 / € 799.00 / £ 699.33

TESTS	Performance	AnTuTu: 1083092 (v9) GeekBench: 4338 (v5.1) GFXBench: 89fps (ES 3.1 onscreen)
	Display	Contrast ratio: Infinite (nominal)
	Camera	Photo / Video
	Loudspeaker	-26.7 LUFS (Good)
	Battery life	Endurance rating 108h

Source: GSMarena

Verdict

Overall, the ZenFone 9 is a great device for people who want something that’s easy to use and doesn’t take up too much space in their pockets. It has a beautiful design, a great screen with nice colors and good brightness, and a great camera with lots of features and options for manual controls if you want them (but this phone doesn’t need them if you don’t want to use them), and great battery life.

Its battery life, on the other hand, isn’t great, but it should be enough for most people who use smartphones often. The price range is high right now because there haven’t been any big changes since their last generation of models came out. However, they did manage to improve some things while keeping prices as low as possible!