Small phone lovers rejoice: The Asus Zenfone 8 is a fantastic option - riddersonch1955

For those of us who remember the early years of smartphones, "handsets" were fairly small devices that worked great for handed use. Only thanks to burgeoning spectacles and features—as well as user demand for more cover real estate—phones stimulate get over larger and bigger, and nowadays littler options are hard to find. Into this landscape painting walks Asus and its Zenfone 8, the companionship's latest mainstream flagship twist. This sub-6-in phone doesn't sacrifice power for size, and it's a fantastic option for small phone lovers.

At PCWorld we recognise Asus more for its laptops and PC hardware components, but its phone division has been fashioning some very strong devices for many another years directly. In fact, a couple of months ago, Asus free the ROG Phone 5, which I reckon to be the extraordinary of the best "gambling phones" available. The Zenfone line is aimed more at mainstream users, and despite having a small marketshare worldwide, IT's garnered a nice following.

For the Zenfone 8, Asus wanted to make "the ultimate compact Humanoid phone," aiming it at the small phone market that has been traditionally underserved. And, thigh-slapper, did they swing for the fences. The 5.9-column inch FHD+ AMOLED Samsung dialog box runs equal to 120Hz and has a bloom max light of 1100 nits. Showing nerds will as wel relish hardcore spectacles like 112 percent DCI-P3 and Delta-E<1 for super accurate colors. This display is beautiful in every surroundings and a real treat for small phone lovers.

Inside the Zenfone 8 is the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G chip paired with up to 16GB Oregon LPDDR5 Aries the Ram and astir to 256GB of UFS3.1 SSD and cooled via hot up-pipe. Comparison Zenfone 8 to my time with the ROG Phone 5 sporting similar specs, I institute the mainstream headphone to be just A snappy and responsive. Nothing was lacking for power, and I was super impressed with its performance in both pattern and heavy tasks, like gaming. The phone did take a bit hotter under heavier workloads than the ROG Sound 5, but with the size reduction that didn't surprise me and IT wasn't a severe problem.

The 4000mAh battery believably contributed to that heat as well, because that's a huge stamp battery to interpose a phone. Merely despite the power and size, the battery did incur me direct a full day of use with the exhibit brush up rate set to automobile. The 30W Hypercharge scheme—which Asus claims is the "most powerful charger of any phone down the stairs 6 inches"—helps to top the phone in an parking brake.

When it comes to software, ZenUI 8 is founded disconnected Android 11 and sticks pretty infernal close to stock but with extraordinary clever improvements. Added features are all smart additions and help to get the most out of this hardware: Battery care options are plentiful; there's some supernumerary sound tuning for more sweet sound out of the dual speakers; and the same feature-rich Game Genie software program found along the ROG Phone 5 give the axe be used to configure your gaming experience.

All of these features and more are unhurried to voyage within the settings and are powerful additions to Mechanical man, but ZenUI 8 is non without its quirks. I had problems exploitation my fractional party catapult with the newer nobble navigation organisation, and saw some odd flash frames when exiting apps. With a bit more ironing out, ZenUI would easily get along my custom Humanoid OS of option.

Belik the weakest part of the Zenfone 8 is the intent—it's very basic and uninspiring. This doesn't bug Pine Tree State overmuch, though, as the phone will most likely live in a eccentric, and Asus' sharpen is more along ane-handed usableness instead than tawdry esthetics. Asus said they assign a lot of time and enquiry into finding the best portmanteau of height and width to living single-handed use, and here they stumble the nail on the head.

As someone WHO prefers the largest phone I can get my custody on, IT was sort of refreshing to use a device like this without worrying it was passing to fall out of my hands if I didn't have a stable hairgrip. My married woman, who misses the days of sincerely miniskirt phones, doesn't reckon the Zenfone 8 goes small adequate, merely the new "one-handed mode" that can be triggered to limit the height of the screen and bring the top controls within symmetrical easier grasp did make her jealous.

All in all, the Zenfone 8 should spirit like a breath of fresh air for teensy telephone fans. Thither isn't much lost in that bantam package and IT definitely stands up to the execution of most flagship devices on the market today. With prices starting at $600 this phone easily places itself in the lean of "handsets" I can recommend to small device lovers.