Asus Zenfone 12 Ultra Review: specs and features, camera quality test, gaming benchmark, user opinions and photos

ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra - too classic a flagship

It is difficult to classify the Taiwanese company Asus as a leader in the smartphone market, but even a sophisticated fan of mobile electronics finds it difficult to express any significant complaints about the quality of its products, functionality or other parameters. But why then do the corporation's phones not sell out in millions of copies around the world? Perhaps, the list of reasons can include not very humane price tags and sometimes excessive conservatism. And in the hero of today's review, they are quite clearly traced.

The appearance of the new product is largely copied from its predecessor. It is desirable to see narrower display frames in a representative of the highest price category, but otherwise the design is not bad. The combination of metal and tempered glass looks expensive and stylish, and the variety of colors and the unusual block of photo modules are pleasing. The fingerprint scanner is installed in a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen. The displayed image raises a number of questions. Thus, the resolution of 2400x1080 pixels is clearly not enough for flagship image clarity, and the peak brightness of 2500 nits is far from the record. But at the same time, the color rendering did not have any serious errors, the touch panel is highly responsive, and the smoothness of the content at a refresh rate of 120 Hz is excellent.

Of course, the role of technical characteristics is given to the latest top-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite CPU, 12 GB / 16 GB RAM and Adreno 830 video core. This is the most productive bundle today, ready to score about three million points in the AnTuTu test. Is it even worth thinking about the performance of Android 15, the interface of which will be completely free of the slightest lags. The same fate awaits the most resource-intensive games at any graphics settings. The frame rate even in the resource-intensive Genshin Impact will exceed 60 frames per second. There is no saving on the battery capacity, which has reached 5500 mAh. With such a battery, you can hope for one and a half to two days of using the phablet. The power of fast charging is not supernatural (65 W), and the wireless analogue is completely disappointing (15 W). 256/512 GB of permanent memory is allocated, a slot for MicroSD cards is not provided.

The photo capabilities of the device are represented by the main 50-megapixel Sony LYT700C sensor and a 32-megapixel telephoto lens (3x optical zoom), with hybrid stabilization, a 13-megapixel wide-angle module. Unfortunately, the cameras lag behind those of camera phones in terms of detail of pictures, and noise in evening photo material is sometimes noticeable. This situation cannot be considered a failure, but still, in an expensive device, we would like to see more technologically advanced cameras. But the stereo speakers are loud, the sound is voluminous, and a separate headphone jack has been left for music lovers. NFC contactless payments, modem support for 5G networks, and water protection according to IP68 standards add to the list of advantages of the gadget, but minor differences from the previous model and a not entirely justified price are unlikely to turn the gadget into a bestseller.