Asus Zenfone 9 Review

The Zenfone 9 is 5.9 inches, 169 grams and 9.1mm, with a flat 120Hz Samsung AMOLED, a headphone jack, IP68 and the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, the best chip of 2022, which the small body cools better than you would expect because Asus capped sustained clocks sensibly. It is the phone that people who missed the iPhone mini and the Galaxy S10e asked for. The 50 megapixel IMX766 main camera rides on a six-axis gimbal, so handheld video is smooth without the crop of electronic stabilisation, and stills are solid with honest colour; the 12 megapixel ultrawide has autofocus so it doubles as a macro.

There is no telephoto. The 4300 mAh battery lasts a full day and charges at 30W, with no wireless charging, and the polymer back with its soft texture is good in the hand and picks up marks. ZenUI is close to stock Android with a useful side fingerprint sensor that doubles as a swipe pad for the notification shade. The catch is the policy: two Android upgrades and two years of security patches, at a time when Samsung and Google had moved to four and five, so this phone shipped on Android 12, got 13 and 14, and was out of patches by 2024.

The Zenfone 10 a year later added wireless charging and four years of patches; then the Zenfone 11 Ultra went big and the small one was gone. Sold in the US from September 2022 at $699 for 8GB and 128GB.