ASUS Zenfone 8 is a big win for fans of small phones

I’m old enough to remember when we used to joke about how phones kept getting smaller. Now, in an era where screen sizes are ballooning to tablet-like proportions, the ASUS Zenfone 8 is going in a different direction.

ASUS managed to jam some flagship-esque specs into the diminutive new Zenfone 8, which launches in the U.S. this summer. For a $629 starting price, you get 5G speeds and a 5.9-inch 120Hz display. Combine that with acceptable cameras and a couple of neat (though non-essential) ASUS-specific features for battery maintenance and gaming, and the Zenfone 8 could be an enticing value for Android devotees who want to venture outside the Samsung safe zone.

Smaller is better

The hole-punch selfie cam allows the screen to take up most of the phone’s body.
Credit: molly flores / mashable

The only visually distinctive thing about the Zenfone 8 is its relatively small size compared to flagships from other companies. With a 5.9-inch display, it’s smaller than the base iPhone 12 (6.1-inch) and Samsung Galaxy S21 (6.2-inch). The iPhone 12 mini still wins this competition with a tiny 5.4-inch screen, but the Zenfone 8 strikes a nice size balance where it feels substantial without feeling large. It’s very comfortable in my hands, though obviously your mileage may vary in that regard.

It’s available in either black or silver, so folks who want a flashy, colorful phone should probably look elsewhere. The rest of the physical design is functionally boring for the most part: volume and power buttons on the right edge, a USB-C charging port at the base, and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top of the phone. Two rear cameras (a 64MP main lens and a 12MP secondary lens) sit in a rectangular bump on the back, with a 12MP selfie cam in a hole-punch style on the front.

I’m conflicted about the headphone jack here. On one hand, it’s great to have a headphone jack on any new smartphone, but on the other hand, plugging headphones into the top of a phone can be just a little awkward. I’ll give ASUS points for including one at all, I guess.

The Zenfone 8 doesn’t have the largest display, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in quality. A full HD 1080p resolution combined with a 20:9 aspect ratio produces a sharp image with plenty of screen real estate to work with, especially considering the 90 percent screen-to-body ratio. By far my favorite part of the display, though, is the 120Hz refresh rate. That’s twice what you get in even the most expensive iPhone model on the market right now. Even basic tasks like web browsing and scrolling through Twitter are so much smoother-looking with a refresh rate that high. Overall, this is an excellent display for a sub-$700 phone.

Kind of a weird place for a headphone jack.
Credit: molly flores / mashable

“Great for the price” also applies to some of the rest of the guts powering the Zenfone 8. Here’s what’s on offer:

Pairing one of Qualcomm’s newest smartphone processors with a good amount of RAM (no matter which configuration you get) is a heck of a value for what you’re paying. Those storage sizes are also competitive with the iPhone 12 and Galaxy S21, while the battery size is slightly larger than the former and the same as the latter.

Last but not least, ASUS included both face unlocking and an in-display fingerprint sensor for security. Both take about 30 seconds to set up and seem to work exactly as intended. Even in low light, face unlocking worked just fine for me. I’m also happy the fingerprint sensor is nestled in the display rather than on the back of the phone — a recent trend I’m not especially fond of.

Plenty of pep

USB-C charging is convenient, to go along with nice battery life.
Credit: molly flores / mashable

ASUS isn’t reinventing the wheel with the Zenfone 8. Roughly 90 percent of the time, it’s a fairly standard Android phone without much in the way of manufacturer-specific bloatware or gimmicks. That said, the ASUS-specific additions here are largely smart (or at least easy to ignore) and overall performance is strong.

Pairing a new processor with a high refresh rate makes everyday activities like web browsing and social media feel snappy and responsive. Apps load quickly, with nary a hitch when rapidly switching between them or opening and closing new ones. And while it’s not a gaming powerhouse on the level of the ASUS ROG 5, the Zenfone 8 includes the same Game Genie interface you’d find on its gaming-focused sibling. Swipe it in from the left side of the screen as you game and you can adjust the refresh rate, see how hot the phone is running, and a handful of other nice gaming perks.

I tested the phone’s gaming capabilities using Genshin Impact, an open-world game with console-quality visuals that wound up as one of our favorites of 2020. The Zenfone 8 is able to hit 60 frames per second if you toggle it in the options menu, though the game warns of possible overheating if you do that. It definitely got hot for me after playing it that way for just a minute or two. Thankfully, the Zenfone also runs Genshin at a stable 30 frames per second by default.

If my words don’t convince you of the Zenfone 8’s performance prowess, the Geekbench benchmarking software might. I ran a CPU test (which simulates everyday tasks to evaluate the phone’s performance) that gave the Zenfone 8 a single-core score of 1123 and a multi-core score of 3439, both of which were above the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G. That phone starts at $1,199, for context. Tough to find any performance complaints here, especially given the price.

Oh, and the battery is solid, too. A single charge got me through roughly 24 hours of regular web browsing, watching YouTube videos, idly scrolling through Twitter and Instagram, and apartment hunting on Facebook before I needed to plug the Zenfone 8 in again. Nice. I should note, however, that I couldn’t test the Zenfone’s 5G capabilities or 5G’s impact on battery life because I don’t have a 5G SIM card on hand.

There are a couple of nice Zenfone-exclusive features here, though one of them isn’t nearly as cool as it could be. There are a litany of battery modes you can choose in the settings menu, giving the user a pretty significant amount of control over how much juice the Zenfone 8 uses. “High Performance” unleashes the beast with a full 120Hz refresh rate and no restrictions, while “Ultra Durable” bumps the refresh rate down to 60Hz, cuts down on 5G connectivity, and puts the phone to sleep faster. You can also adjust all of those settings individually to set up a battery mode that works exactly to your liking.

That’s a really excellent feature that, thankfully, more casual users can ignore completely. Zenfone 8 also gives you the ability to customize what the phone’s power button does with a double tap or long-press, which is a sweet bonus. I set it so a long-press takes a screenshot, eliminating one of the more cumbersome aspects of modern smartphones.

The light blue power button can do more than you think.
Credit: molly flores / mashable

Unfortunately, the one feature I really wanted to like wound up being the least useful. Swipe downward from near the bottom of the screen to activate “One-Handed Mode,” which simply reduces the window size of whatever app you have open, leaving blank space at the top of the screen. You can go into the settings and adjust how much the phone resizes apps for one-handed mode, but it’s all kind of for naught because most apps are simply not designed for use with the bottom of the screen cut off. You can’t switch to different tabs in Twitter or Instagram, for example, because the bottom section of the app disappears.

But even with an underwhelming one-handed mode, I’m happy with the Zenfone 8’s performance profile overall. Despite costing less than other prominent flagships, you don’t really feel that as you use it. It’s hard to ask for more than that.

You can adjust how much of the screen gets cut off in one-handed mode, but it never truly feels useful.
Credit: screenshot: mashable

Oh yeah, it has cameras, too

One clear disadvantage the Zenfone 8 has compared to more expensive flagships is the fact that there are just two cameras on the back as opposed to three or four. Put simply, an iPhone 12 Pro will probably be a better fit for amateur photographers, but you can still get some nice shots out of the 64MP main lens and 12MP secondary lens on the Zenfone 8.

For instance, you can get up close and personal to capture fine details on small objects like flowers using just the default photo mode. Portrait mode also does its job, adding a nice bokeh effect behind the subject of a shot.

Portrait mode in action.
Credit: alex perry / mashable

I got this with the default lens.
Credit: alex perry / mashable

Zenfone 8 also has a night mode that works fairly well, though it sometimes makes nighttime shots look a little too fake. Part of that is probably that New York is intensely light-polluted, but some of my test shots came out looking more like daytime photos rather than keeping nighttime ambiance. Still, they do look nice.

No night mode

Credit: alex perry / mashable

Night mode

Credit: alex perry / mashable

A quality Android alternative

ASUS may not have quite as big a brand footprint in the U.S. as Samsung, but the Zenfone 8 is seriously worth considering for Android fans who are looking for an upgrade without breaking the bank. It brings to the table a very good display that does a lot at a relatively small size, flagship-level performance, a rock solid battery, and even decent cameras. The best part is you can get all of that for less than $700.

Of course, nothing is perfect. Nighttime photography can be a little too blown out, while the headphone jack’s placement on top of the phone is less than ideal. I love the idea of one-handed mode, but most major apps just don’t play nicely with it. At least one or two more interesting color options would also be nice, but that’s small potatoes compared to everything else.

All in all, this is a likable little Android phone. Using it is like watching a little guy absolutely kill it on the bench press at the gym. It may not look like much, but there’s a nice amount of horsepower under the hood at an agreeable price.