WEBVTT 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:07.040 everybody forgets about the zen phones no one asks how the zen phone is doing 00:00:04.560 --> 00:00:13.519 turns out it's doing great it's living its best life people the zenfone 9 is 00:00:10.639 --> 00:00:18.240 here ASUS is still making phones that aren't ridiculous gaming things 00:00:15.679 --> 00:00:22.240 but turns out yeah the zenfone line has been around for a while there's been 00:00:19.439 --> 00:00:26.720 nine of them and this one may be the best one yet the thing with zen 00:00:24.720 --> 00:00:30.720 phones at least in the past couple generations i think they're making a 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:35.280 flagship phone but they're not making it ridiculously oversized so that only 00:00:32.719 --> 00:00:38.719 people with large hands can use them the zenfone 8 was a compact size it was 00:00:37.440 --> 00:00:42.879 around six inches and they're doing the same 00:00:40.559 --> 00:00:45.760 thing with the zenfone 9 it's a 5.9 inch display but 00:00:44.559 --> 00:00:50.000 it's one of the first phones on the market with the latest snapdragon 00:00:49.120 --> 00:00:54.559 uh eight plus gen one they tried to 00:00:52.800 --> 00:00:58.320 simplify their naming scheme and it only got more complicated for you guys i'm 00:00:56.160 --> 00:01:04.000 gonna unbox the other version i i had the black version here and this is the 00:01:00.079 --> 00:01:04.000 what did you call it sandstone 00:01:04.960 --> 00:01:13.600 moonlight white sandstone in the moonlight all right what do we got in 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:17.680 the box here we have another box compact 00:01:13.600 --> 00:01:20.640 size big possibilities inside we have 00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:27.119 the sim removal tool and it's been a bit of a trend lately uh an included case 00:01:23.759 --> 00:01:28.159 okay and then user guide inside there 00:01:27.119 --> 00:01:32.479 okay and then we have the phone itself come to papa 00:01:31.759 --> 00:01:37.600 oh it felt good what was that noise 00:01:35.520 --> 00:01:43.360 you know in a world full of phones with like five and six cameras on the back it gets 00:01:40.720 --> 00:01:46.880 a little tryptophobic so i appreciate uh ASUS just saying like you know what 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:50.479 we're just gonna have two big old phone big old cameras on the back whoosh you 00:01:48.960 --> 00:01:54.880 know it looks like it looks like a minion 00:01:52.399 --> 00:01:59.759 the cameras are a big thing that ASUS has upgraded uh over the uh the zenfone 00:01:57.520 --> 00:02:03.040 8 and we'll talk about that but first let's talk about the actual exterior of 00:02:01.600 --> 00:02:09.200 the phone you know what that's why i thought it was sandstone because the back has this sort of like texture on it 00:02:06.479 --> 00:02:15.680 feels like sandstone we got this metal rail all around uh the side which is 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:17.280 like vaguely iphone like but also not uh 00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:21.760 because it's like got kind of a rounded edge on it so that's cool 00:02:18.959 --> 00:02:27.040 on the top look at that there's a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack i'll say right 00:02:24.160 --> 00:02:30.959 now this is this phone starts at 6.99 and it's got the latest chip so it's not 00:02:28.560 --> 00:02:34.640 one of those like low end uh uh phones like the pixel a series where 00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:40.080 they were like i will put a headphone jack on there for the people who can't afford bluetooth headphones every phone 00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:45.120 should still have a headphone jack on it i'm sorry there's room for it and even 00:02:42.080 --> 00:02:48.720 in a 5.9 inch phone screw you apple on 00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:49.519 this side we got the volume rocker and 00:02:48.720 --> 00:02:55.760 the power button which doubles as a fingerprint sensor which also doubles as 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:59.200 a multi-function button with swipe functionality we're going to talk about 00:02:57.599 --> 00:03:03.440 that that's exciting on the bottom we got the 00:03:01.519 --> 00:03:08.640 speaker and this phone also they have front-facing 00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:13.440 speakers where the other speaker is here and the earpiece and the ones on the 00:03:10.720 --> 00:03:20.239 bottom so sort of front-facing usb-c port sim card slot no sd card support on 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:23.040 this one and the other side is blanc 00:03:20.239 --> 00:03:28.480 what else we got in the box oh a little fancy compartment with 00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:32.400 a charging cable USB-C to c 00:03:28.480 --> 00:03:34.319 and a power adapter this is 30 watts i 00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:37.920 did a little bit of testing with it i got from 35 00:03:36.480 --> 00:03:42.319 to 100 in an hour i got 30 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:46.239 in just 20 minutes so that's not bad actually that's i mean 00:03:44.159 --> 00:03:49.360 i've seen better the one other big thing that i wanted to say about uh the 00:03:47.920 --> 00:03:52.799 exterior right off the bat is that this is my pixel 3 okay it's that perfect 00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:57.840 size where i can reach all the way across with my phone when i use these bigger phones i'm like what's the point 00:03:56.080 --> 00:04:00.239 like am i supposed to be double handing do you guys have big phones why do you 00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:05.519 why do you have big phones what's the point okay anyways the point is that i like 00:04:04.159 --> 00:04:09.920 smaller phones because you can do the one-handed thing and ASUS is really one 00:04:07.760 --> 00:04:15.200 of the only manufacturers out there that is still deciding to make a compact 00:04:12.480 --> 00:04:18.320 phone with decent specs i mean you can find like 00:04:16.320 --> 00:04:22.960 quote-unquote compact phones out there but most of them are going to be like 00:04:20.880 --> 00:04:29.040 really low end i've seen some people say that this might even be the best compact 00:04:25.840 --> 00:04:31.520 phone even considering the iphone minis 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:34.320 and i don't i don't want to say that but i will tell you that people are saying 00:04:32.960 --> 00:04:38.880 that i'm protected i won't tell you what to 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:43.520 do but i will tell you to check out our sponsor manscaped their performance 00:04:41.280 --> 00:04:47.280 package 4.0 kit is designed to contain everything you need to make grooming 00:04:44.960 --> 00:04:51.680 below the waste easy it includes the updated lawnmower 4.0 with wireless 00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:55.919 charging weed whacker nose trimmer for the tricky areas plus some other goodies 00:04:53.840 --> 00:05:00.960 like the crop preserver and crop reviver sprays for deodorizing and toning get 20 00:04:59.199 --> 00:05:04.560 off plus free international shipping using the link in the description below 00:05:02.800 --> 00:05:09.520 as you can see here the bezels aren't like the you know what you'd expect from a 00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:13.840 flagship phone uh there's a little bit more of a chin and a what do you call 00:05:11.600 --> 00:05:18.639 that forehead over the top so you can see on my pixel 3 it still has those so 00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:26.479 thankfully i'm already used to it but this is a 5.9 inch screen 1080 by 2400 00:05:22.400 --> 00:05:28.320 super amoled with apparently 1100 nits 00:05:26.479 --> 00:05:32.800 peak brightness which you know that looks that looks pretty bright it's got 00:05:30.160 --> 00:05:36.880 HDR 10 plus wow so that's the peaks that you're gonna get when you're watching 00:05:34.560 --> 00:05:41.759 something with high dynamic range the other thing is it's 120 hertz screen so 00:05:39.360 --> 00:05:46.080 we're up to flagship standards with that it's crazy especially seeing 120 hertz 00:05:43.840 --> 00:05:51.199 on such a small display like this going from the pixel 3 which is 60 hertz i 00:05:48.720 --> 00:05:54.880 guess to 120 hertz on this thing it's just like a crazy difference and because 00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:58.880 it has the latest snapdragon phone i mean i've been using this for a day or 00:05:56.639 --> 00:06:04.479 two i have not experienced any kind of slowdown you click on something it goes 00:06:01.440 --> 00:06:07.120 this baby flies also contributing to 00:06:04.479 --> 00:06:13.520 that performance is the eight gigabytes of RAM that comes with default the the 00:06:10.080 --> 00:06:16.240 699 price point is gonna get you uh 00:06:13.520 --> 00:06:21.039 eight gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage but there's 256 gigs storage and 00:06:19.039 --> 00:06:23.919 up to 16 gigs of RAM as well if you really want to spec this thing out i 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:26.880 don't know how expensive that one is it's probably over a thousand dollars 00:06:25.440 --> 00:06:31.840 while we're talking about the display we were talking about this place a second ago let's do 00:06:29.919 --> 00:06:34.960 a youtube thing i mean that's looking pretty nice 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:37.280 the greens are popping looks pretty sharp 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:47.280 there they are love those guys those dark lobsters 00:06:47.280 --> 00:06:52.940 okay i mean 00:06:50.560 --> 00:06:55.360 it's a phone 00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:59.240 oh i'm already disappointed 00:07:04.319 --> 00:07:08.090 as usual iphones are kind of like the gold standard for phone speakers right 00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:13.520 now yeah 00:07:12.080 --> 00:07:18.080 this definitely sounds like a little bit tinier but 00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:22.319 is pretty good oh yeah this is a 13 pro i mean what does that start at like 1200 00:07:20.319 --> 00:07:26.960 bucks or something so this is a thousand sustained brightness on the 13 iphone 13 00:07:24.800 --> 00:07:31.039 pro and this has 800 sustain brightness the peak brightness is very similar this 00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:35.440 is 1100 this is 1200. yeah they're both on max brightness now they look pretty 00:07:32.800 --> 00:07:38.319 similar nice job ASUS all right let's talk about the cameras because they're 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:44.240 these big chunkers on the back of the device so i don't know which is which but one of these is a 50 megapixel main 00:07:41.919 --> 00:07:50.639 camera and the other one is a 12 megapixel ultra wide the main camera 00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:53.039 uses the sony imx 766 uh sensor the 00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:57.440 ultra wide whatever one is the ultra wide uses the imx 363 which is the same 00:07:56.479 --> 00:08:04.560 sensor used in the 6a uh 12 megapixel camera 00:08:01.440 --> 00:08:06.000 and all of the previous pixels so maybe 00:08:04.560 --> 00:08:10.000 zenfone was going for something where they were like okay we're going to be 00:08:08.080 --> 00:08:14.000 drawing in some pixel fans with this let's bring back that old camera sensor 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:19.360 that they all know about for sure so those rear cameras can do 8k video 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:22.080 recording at 24 FPS 4k at 30 or 60 and 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:28.800 up to 120 FPS slo-mo so that's nice to see and on the front camera it's a 12 00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:32.080 megapixel sony imx 663 sensor okay so 00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:35.120 ASUS talked about how their camera ui is 00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:37.200 easy to use one-handed i guess in this 00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:41.760 scenario translates to them just using something that looks like iOS's camera 00:08:39.279 --> 00:08:47.040 module are you guys ready look at these guys okay so that's using the regular 50 00:08:44.720 --> 00:08:50.959 megapixel sensor on the back hey okay it's a little bit gray it's a little bit 00:08:48.720 --> 00:08:54.320 uh you know i i think i'd like a little bit more pop in there so the main camera 00:08:52.959 --> 00:08:59.360 is already pretty wide there and when you go to the ultra wide i mean i'm very 00:08:56.640 --> 00:09:03.279 happy with how wide that situation is good gravy you can get the whole 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:07.040 situation in there one of the really cool additions that made me a bit more 00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:11.440 excited for the zenfone 9 was that they have this like what they're calling you 00:09:08.959 --> 00:09:16.320 know an advanced gimbal system based on some demo videos that i've seen it does 00:09:13.920 --> 00:09:19.680 a really good job of like emulating you know kind of like one of those handheld 00:09:17.680 --> 00:09:23.279 gimbals and to help you have even steadier photos they have this 00:09:21.360 --> 00:09:26.640 like guide system where you have to if you keep that little ball in the circle 00:09:25.600 --> 00:09:31.440 then you're it's saying that your videos are going to be a little smoother i want to take a 00:09:29.839 --> 00:09:34.920 video now what do you think about that i'm going to go running 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:43.200 excessive shaking 00:09:41.279 --> 00:09:48.760 on screen and said excessive shaking keep the phone stable 00:09:45.760 --> 00:09:48.760 no 00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:57.040 that's pretty smooth okay so even at the point where it told me excessive shaking 00:09:55.040 --> 00:10:01.920 keep the phone stable it still looked really stable and for the selfie camera 00:09:59.600 --> 00:10:05.920 let's take a demo shot for that yeah the colors i mean just looking at 00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:09.200 the viewfinder here the colors are like a little 00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:14.560 um muted for me i would like a little bit more pop not too much but like you 00:10:11.839 --> 00:10:19.519 know on top of all the things that are so great about this phone if the camera 00:10:17.279 --> 00:10:23.200 is just okay that's fine with me now the phone is not 00:10:22.079 --> 00:10:28.560 perfect i'll say that right now because there's 00:10:25.680 --> 00:10:33.360 no wireless charging that's a big annoying thing for me i wireless charge 00:10:30.959 --> 00:10:39.360 my pixel 3 all the time it does have a 43 00:10:34.640 --> 00:10:42.240 000 milliamp hour battery 4 300 4300 00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:46.000 43 000 you could ride it into space i haven't charged it since i did that 00:10:43.680 --> 00:10:49.279 charging test yesterday and it's still only at 52 percent and i've been using 00:10:47.839 --> 00:10:52.959 it you know kind of on and off as much as i would i would use a normal phone 00:10:51.519 --> 00:10:56.640 i'm not sure if i said it already but the zen ui that they include with these 00:10:55.279 --> 00:11:02.320 end phones is a lot leaner it seems to me than the uh 00:11:00.560 --> 00:11:07.120 custom Android skin that they put on the rog gaming phones it basically seems 00:11:04.880 --> 00:11:12.320 like stock Android i mean when you go into the settings there's not a ton of 00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:14.079 like extra crazy stuff but what i did 00:11:12.320 --> 00:11:17.360 notice is that as you kind of dive into the settings there's just a few little 00:11:15.760 --> 00:11:21.440 quality of life tweaks that i thought were were good like in the battery 00:11:19.279 --> 00:11:24.399 section for example you have a battery saving mode 00:11:22.720 --> 00:11:29.360 but they also give you a high performance mode and a way to like 00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:34.240 customize all that ASUS has also gone out of their way to add the type of 00:11:31.680 --> 00:11:38.720 shortcuts that i love to see in a phone for one i mentioned earlier the 00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:43.200 power button fingerprint sensor also doubles as a 00:11:40.959 --> 00:11:47.600 scroll uh scroll you can add scroll functionality to it i disabled uh the 00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:52.000 swipe up and down thing where you can bring the notification bar down by 00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:56.639 swiping on the side because i don't really like that uh but you know if you 00:11:54.399 --> 00:12:00.560 want that there it's there and i believe you can customize it for other things 00:11:58.480 --> 00:12:05.200 let's go see you can have check notifications so you can swipe to uh 00:12:03.360 --> 00:12:10.320 open your notification slide you can refresh the web page so like instead of 00:12:08.079 --> 00:12:13.279 scrolling down from the top home end of web pages i don't even know about this 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:18.800 that's actually seems like it would be really useful maybe i should enable that 00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:20.240 and look at that it it's kind of finicky 00:12:18.800 --> 00:12:23.920 i don't know if i'll have that enabled all the time but the other cool thing 00:12:21.920 --> 00:12:28.399 about this is that you can customize the double tap action on the power 00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:34.160 button there's also gestures you can do with uh a back double tap so right now i 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:37.760 think iphone has this as well but this is not a standard thing on Android 00:12:35.760 --> 00:12:43.120 phones at all and if i've set it to double tap to open the flashlight 00:12:41.040 --> 00:12:47.839 it did it now this is probably not useful in a small phone but they also 00:12:45.279 --> 00:12:51.600 have an option where i think if you if you swipe down past the little 00:12:49.920 --> 00:12:56.079 navigation pill at the bottom it'll enter one-handed mode and you can do 00:12:53.680 --> 00:12:59.760 stuff with that and then put it back up what is this now mobile manager i didn't 00:12:58.079 --> 00:13:03.360 even know this was a thing but i guess this is an ac one of one of the things 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:06.959 ASUS has added that you can optimize your your RAM and storage and stuff like 00:13:05.120 --> 00:13:11.120 that so that's cool bell really really wants me to talk about 00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:15.760 gaming performance on the phone because it's got the snapdragon 8 plus gen 1 00:13:13.920 --> 00:13:20.160 which is the new chip everybody's talking about everyone who wants to play 00:13:17.440 --> 00:13:25.839 genshin impact our fancy new Labs team did some testing on one of the zenfones 00:13:23.040 --> 00:13:31.600 that we have here and let me tell you about it the Labs team notes that the 00:13:28.160 --> 00:13:33.600 zenfone 9 is able to achieve 60 FPS in 00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:38.000 some some games that they tested like real racing three and shadow fight three 00:13:36.160 --> 00:13:44.000 but in gentian impact it couldn't quite get there it it could only manage 40 FPS 00:13:40.959 --> 00:13:46.240 although apparently ASUS uh did some 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:50.160 magic development stuff and were able to make the 120 hertz display work well 00:13:48.560 --> 00:13:53.760 with lower frame rates and games so that you don't experience micro stuttering so 00:13:51.920 --> 00:13:57.760 that's good they also noted that during gaming the overall temperature stayed 00:13:55.519 --> 00:14:02.320 low uh we're seeing a peak temperature of 51 degrees but it 00:14:00.959 --> 00:14:06.639 hovered more most of the time more around 40 degrees and in my experience 00:14:04.880 --> 00:14:11.040 that was true as well i think while i was charging it uh from 35 percent to 00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:14.720 100 i did notice the back of the phone getting a little warm but it wasn't 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:19.839 anything that seemed problematic and it cooled down uh relatively quickly so 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:22.320 there's that okay bell just brought up something interesting that i didn't know 00:14:20.959 --> 00:14:28.079 about so i was going to say one of the great things about the phone another great thing is that it's ip68 00:14:26.079 --> 00:14:35.440 water and dust resistance however ASUS says on their website that it's ip68 00:14:31.680 --> 00:14:38.320 65 because over time the ip68 protection 00:14:35.440 --> 00:14:44.000 may degrade and then get down to 65. drop three points yeah on 00:14:41.760 --> 00:14:48.079 one hand i'm like okay good on you ASUS for saying that but on another hand i'm 00:14:45.440 --> 00:14:53.199 like but maybe it should just stay ip68 00:14:50.880 --> 00:14:56.000 and okay the last kind of interesting tidbit that i wanted to say 00:14:54.800 --> 00:15:01.040 about the zenfone 9 is that they apparently have these modular accessories there's a case that can go 00:14:59.839 --> 00:15:05.040 on the back and then have like a magnetic attachment for either like a 00:15:02.880 --> 00:15:08.639 little wallet thing for your cards or for a kickstand which i thought was cool 00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:14.720 but i'm probably not gonna buy because it's probably you know more expensive than you know a comparative cheap thing 00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:19.839 i could get on the internet but they also have this interesting like backpack 00:15:16.720 --> 00:15:22.800 mount thing with like a retractable 00:15:19.839 --> 00:15:26.959 connector so that's cool probably no one will get that 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:30.079 but hey it gave me the vibes of like lg back when they were making uh they were 00:15:28.639 --> 00:15:35.360 they were like getting into the modular thing and they released that phone i forget what the phone was called you 00:15:33.040 --> 00:15:38.480 could take out the bottom of the phone and you could slot in either a new 00:15:37.040 --> 00:15:43.600 battery or there were also like there was like a camera uh module and then 00:15:41.279 --> 00:15:48.079 there was also an audio module for like higher quality audio playback that was a 00:15:46.079 --> 00:15:52.720 time where we had like fun innovations and phones and while the zenfone 9 00:15:50.320 --> 00:15:57.680 doesn't quite achieve that level of quirkiness it's really nice to see that 00:15:55.600 --> 00:16:00.480 at least one manufacturer is still taking the idea of 00:15:59.519 --> 00:16:04.560 you know flagship quality 00:16:02.800 --> 00:16:08.240 somewhat affordable compact phones 00:16:06.160 --> 00:16:12.800 seriously because that's exactly what i want ASUS knew 00:16:10.480 --> 00:16:16.720 that this is what i needed and i love them and i love you 00:16:14.560 --> 00:16:19.680 for watching this video subscribe to ShortCircuit 00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:23.839 or don't and help me burn it to the ground there are 00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:28.240 other videos you could watch too like my pixel 6a review okay see you later