ASUS Zenfone 8 (2021)

Great phone on sale – After breaking my S21, I bought the Zenfone on sale for $599. Overall, it was a great buy at this price. Takes nice photos. Fast. Lots of customisation (but sadly no themes, which I really miss). I prefer it to my S21. I was aware of reviews regarding poor battery life, and it really doesn't last a whole day, even with light use. It has improved… Read more

slightly with optimisation settings and software updates.

Camera takes nice photos, including in low light, but doesn't cope with backlighting or fast moving objects (lots of blur). It is still better and more responsive than my old S21.

This was going to be a stop gap solution while I saved for a new phone, but I am so happy with it that I will continue using it as my main phone until it stops working (or I break it - more probable ;p).

Mostly quite good, except as a telephone. Will that change? – Given my time again I don't think I'd buy this phone. The small size isn't a problem (5.9" screen), display and pixel density is great, the camera is ok for my liking and it works very smoothly. I can't really complain about the battery, either. EDIT: see below. But there is a feature that is missing from the phone (or, if there, works… Read more

intermittently without any clear reason) and for what is meant to be a flagship phone it's just lousy. I'm talking about HD audio or VoLTE, designed to give high quality audio on telephone calls.

It seems there's meant to be some work between phone manufacturers and carriers in order for this feature to work, and both parties in a phone call must have it in their devices to get the improved clarity. My old phone did it and many lesser phones these days do it. Why not this one?

EDIT: Actually you can receive VoLTE calls but outgoing calls are instantly routed through the 3G network. VoLTE takes place on 4G.

If anyone from ASUS is seeing this, please help us out. It's otherwise a fantastic phone but this is like having a nice, shiny new car straight out of the factory and the radio picks up AM only. Please release a software update to correct this problem before too many regret their purchase.

EDIT: Regarding the battery, I have reason to believe the capacity may not be as stated. I have used the Accubattery app for a few years on my devices. Over time it calculates the battery's capacity based on measurements taken during charge and discharge cycles. I have every faith in the app, so it was disappointing when it estimated the capacity of the Zenfone 8 battery as about 3,100mAh, not the 4,000mAh claimed. I am not alone in my findings, either. The subReddit devoted to this device has numerous people with similar results. I experimented with and without the charging limit feature enabled. It made no difference. So I'm not sure what we are to make of this.

EDIT AUGUST 2022 For several months this device has had a problem where the display and its touch capability randomly become active during calls. The result is that certain buttons such as Mute can be activated while in a call, leaving the person at the other end believing the call has been dropped. In theory the proximity sensor could be to blame but I'm not certain. Is it an equipment failure or it is something that a software update would fix? I don't know.