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Phones · Asus Zenfone

Asus Zenfone 8

9owners with an opinion
71%of verdicts positive
0/2positive/negative since 2024
2 yrslongest happy owner
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for design and performance; criticized for battery and software.

What people wrote

Likes itOwned 2 years
Typing this on Asus Zenfon 8. The best phone I have had in years, I have it for almost 2 years now. No bloat, small, records voice calls. There's nothing more I want from a phone. Battery isn't great but afaik it improved in the newer models.
Neutral
I use this on my Zenfone 8. It's...okay. The UI is pretty sub-par, but the main reason I use it is because the camera, by default, has this annoying, overly aggressive denoising filter built into it that makes everything look slightly cartoony, and there's no way to disable it with any other camera app I've tried.
Doesn’t like it
I can point to my phone as being one of those devices that's _lost_ functionality over the past ten years. Losing functionality is not bad in and of itself, if I stand to gain something in excess of what I lost, but that hasn't happened. Consider when I made the switch from a Treo 650 to an HTC Sensation (yes, I had that Treo a _long_ time): I sacrificed the hard keyboard and exceptionally easy-to-use operating system for Wi-Fi, a decent quality camera, fast-at-the-time 3.5G network connectivity, and the entire Android ecosystem. Then I broke the screen, and got an HTC M9. I gained a bigger screen that I didn't want, an IR blaster that I never used, faster CPU, more memory, more flash... for a device that I didn't do much with. Worse, I lost the replaceable battery - I actually had multiple batteries before that. Then I broke the screen on _that_, and got an HTC 10. I again gained a bigger screen that I didn't want, I lost the IR blaster that I never used, and again got a faster CPU, more memory, and more flash for a device that I didn't do much with. Then the battery went flat, and I got an Asus Zenfone 8, which gained me basically nothing over the HTC 10 except 128GB of storage that I don't use. In this trade, I lost having a good camera in my pocket - the Zenfone 8's camera is atrocious, and even my HTC Sensation took better photos than it does. It has a headphone jack, but it's died and I haven't fixed it... which is a shame, because I have an 80s car with the cassette de…
Doesn’t like it
Check out the official Asus support forums before you buy. I got a ZenFone8 when it came out and was very satisfied with it at the time. Then, a month later, posts started popping up with people reporting that their phones just randomly rebooting and bricking. I think there were a few hundred cases reported. To this day, there is no official response from Asus. I used to carry a backup phone with me every time I was away from home for longer than a day because I was afraid that my phone could die at any moment. Also, every update seemed to introduce a new bug that only got fixed in a month or so with the next update. So we had broken face unlock for a month, broken Google Pay, broken notifications, among other things. I haven't been following reports for the ZF9 or ZF10, but I think they had similar problems. To top it all off, the official unlocker / root tool from ASUS has been disabled for over a year by now, and nobody knows when it will work again. All in all, ASUS phones (at least the ZenFone line) do have great hardware, but official support is abysmal.
Doesn’t like it
I say good riddance. While never having used the Zenfone 9 or 10, my experience with the Zenfone 8 was not so good. It did feature a fast CPU and enough RAM and is still a fast phone, but: - it heated up significatntly from day 1 - even with the battery saver mode on and a durable power profile enabled, the battery barely lasted me a full day of use - the phone was chunky when compared to my previous Huawei P10, and only had one third-party case available on launch day - software updates were regular for the first few months after release, but every second one seemed to introduce a different problem with a major feature (NFC payments, notifications, face unlock, battery life...) - problems introduced in a previous update were only fixed in a month with the next update, so you were left with a buggy phone if you updated regularily - a few months after release, phones from the first two or three batches started randomly dying without any chance of recovery. ASUS never reacted to this, except "contact your local service center". Because of this problem, I got used to carrying a backup phone with me each time I was away from home for more than a day - around when ZF9 came out, the official support forum felt abandoned by ASUS, and software updates became even more irregular, even though issues are still present To sum it up, I feel that ASUS has great (phone) hardware, but just don't care about the users. I moved to a Samsung S23 as it is smaller than the ZF8 and is more popular,…
Likes it
As a long term android user, there are definitely great minimalist phones out there that give you a really good experience with little to no gimmicks. My current favorite is the Zenfone line from Asus. I have the Zenfone 8 and it's just brilliant. There's hardly any bloat, it's just android, no silly gimmicks, small form factor, decent camera and it has a 3.5 headphone jack. The newest model has all that and a much improved camera, and I've been eyeing it even though I really don't need to upgrade yet. It was definitely a long way getting there but android is in a pretty great place right now. I can't imagine ever going back to iPhones. I felt extremely crippled every time I tried to do anything. I remember having no access to the filesystem, having to use proprietary software (iTunes... never again) and having to jailbreak my iPhone to install custom ringtones from my own music. When I got my first android phone and could just plug it in, drag and drop files from my computer, I felt the strongest and weirdest catharsis, akin to "I don't have to suffer anymore".
Likes it
I guess I've been lucky because I had nothing but a great time with my Zenfone 8. I don't remember smoother sailing for so long with a phone and that includes some iPhones I used to own. I dread the day I will have to replace it because not sure I'll find something that fits my needs so well for a long time.
Likes it
I got an Asus Zenfone 8 mostly because it was one of the smaller Android phones available. It's mostly stock with a few UI changes, and I don't think it had any bloatware apps preinstalled that I can remember.
Likes it
>Sony doesn't produce phones, but remote controls. Their software is nice clean, but their camera is pretty bad, might as well buy Zenfone 8 if you don't mind camera. I imagine few who have used one would ever be able to say this with a straight face. I never met an iPhone user who believed me when I told them all the photos I was showing them were taken with an Xperia XZc (1 and 2, respectively) and that's with every single one of them. There may be half a dozen compact smartphones that really compare to the XZ2c. Sony just gave up on them because the herd loves their phablets so much. I am also a current owner of the Zenphone 8 and its camera is also decent. If it's really important that you be able to snap the best photos possible, though, they've been developing these discrete camera things for over a century (and the best of them will likely continue to outperform any general purpose device for the foreseeable future).
Doesn’t like itDoesn’t say they own it
List of smaller Android phones with decent specs: Pixel 5 - 144.7 x 70.4 x 8 mm Samsung S22 - 146 x 70.6 x 7.6 mm Zenfone 8 - 148 x 68.5 x 8.9 mm (could be higher thanks to narrower body) Xiaomi 12X - 152.7 x 69.9 x 8.2 mm Samsung S21 - 151.7 x 71.2 x 7.9 mm S22 has almost identical dimensions as Pixel 5, so there is your upgrade. Personally I find all of these overpriced for what I need, I would be perfectly fine with 4A specs with better battery, so can't justify to upgrading to some of these.
Likes itDoesn’t say they own it
List of smaller Android phones with decent specs: Pixel 5 - 144.7 x 70.4 x 8 mm Samsung S22 - 146 x 70.6 x 7.6 mm Zenfone 8 - 148 x 68.5 x 8.9 mm (could be higher thanks to narrower body) Xiaomi 12X - 152.7 x 69.9 x 8.2 mm Samsung S21 - 151.7 x 71.2 x 7.9 mm Sony doesn't produce phones, but remote controls. Their software is nice clean, but their camera is pretty bad, might as well buy Zenfone 8 if you don't mind camera.