Asus Zenfone 8 Unboxing & First Impressions! Best Compact Phone Of 2021 By Matthews Tech

Yo, what is up guys today we're going to be checking out the ASUS before 8. I'm pretty excited about this one, because it is a compact device and um yeah, so they don't make a ton of compact devices. So the screen comes in at about like 5.9 inches and uh. Here's the box, a pretty nice box. You can see a little sort of like changing effect here, um and then on the back uh. This is the black version.

They do have a gray or a silver version as well. Then you have 8 gigs of ram 128 gigs 5g, and then you have snapdragon 88. So and then you have a dual camera setup on the back, and we'll get into all these specs. But let's go ahead and get this guy off all right. All right see here we got sim tray, little suits logo on it, and we actually get it looks like we actually get a case.

It's not a. It looks like an okay. I don't know yeah it's a little. It's a little case. It doesn't it's not like you know it's a little case, nice.

Looking it's got a little texture to it. Actually as well. That's pretty nice um paperwork, and we have our phone here set that to the side, and then we have our charger, and I believe this is a. This is a 30 watt charger as well, so it's nice. They included that in the box, and then we have our it's USB to USB all right.

So let's go ahead and get this guy out and boom. So this phone has got a lot of flack. I guess for um sort of the same simple design it has or a lot of people have called it. Just a boring design, um and I can see where they're coming from it is very you know, basic looking and it kind of it reminds you of like a more plastic kind of phone. Even though this phone is not actually plastic, it's actually a glass uh back on here, an aluminum frame.

It feels extremely solid in the hand. It does not feel like an um. You know a cheap phone at all, but you know some people, don't like the design um, I'm going to wait, give it a couple of days and see uh. It does look clean, but I can see where they're coming from when they say that um, you know it's kind of a boring design. You have this really cool blue light blue power button right here as well volume rockers down here it looks like we have USB uh USB.

I don't know why I said it looks um, and then we also have stereo speakers on this phone as well. So once we run down the specs, it's really specked out, and then you still retain a headphone jack on this guy as well. So let me go ahead and boot this guy up, and then we'll get started here, all right, so we're all booted up and again this is a 700 phone and I will have that link down below so um. I was really impressed just with my first impressions with the specs and everything so uh, starting up the display. It's the kindest of the most important thing about this phone because uh, it's you know being avatars to people with smaller hands that want a more compact phone that you know pretty much has flagship specs um, so this phone definitely does deliver on the display.

It's a very nice display, so we're at a super AMOLED 120 hertz, HDR, 10, plus 700 nits, brightness peak 1100 nits, and then we have a 5.9 inch display with a punch, hole, 1080p 446 for the PPI. So, as you can see, it's a very nice display color wise. But the question is for people with smaller hands like myself. Is it comfortable to use with one hand, and that answer is yes right off the rip uh. This phone is definitely much smaller than your average phone, and it is very comfortable to use uh with one hand and also ASUS.

You know, put in a little gesture here a little swipe down gesture, one-handed mode that they put right here um. So you can just sort of flick it down. It's kind of like the iPhone uh kind of thing um, but they have that right. There. Just in case it is still too big for you, but I think 5.9 inches is a perfect. Uh screen size uh for uh.

You know the times right now, because you get to enjoy you know being on your phone. Looking at a lot of content, whether that's playing games or uh, you know you're watching a YouTube, video or whatever you'll be able to sort of enjoy content on here without it being too small like on the iPhone 12 mini uh. With that notch on the display, I thought it was too small. So that's one thing you know about that phone, but uh with this phone um. I found that you're.

You know just viewing experience watching videos, brightness, 120, hertz and also, if you dive into these settings now, this does have a on. You know a refresh rate that you can change to auto if you would like to, and you can also toggle it to 90 hertz as well as uh. Furthermore, you know 60 hertz, if you want to I've, been keeping on 120hz just to see how the battery does and then over you know, time I'll, test it and see how it does on 90, hertz and then with auto, but I'm going to leave it on 120 hertz. Just for that maximum. You know smoothness and stuff like that.

So overall for the display, it's a really nice display. Does it have a little of bezel yeah um? But you know again. I have really no complaints here. It is honestly a nice display. This phone is running android 11, and basically it's a pretty much a stock version of android, and it's extremely smooth on here.

Um, I'm not really getting hiccups. Everything is superfast at 120 hertz. It feels super smooth, as you can see, no bloatware uh, nothing on here, so ASUS pretty much left it um. You know, android alone, it's the zen UI 8. But to me this is really just stock android with like a few little uh tweaks, they barely did anything to it.

As you can see. Just with the toggles alone, you have a lot of your basic toggles audio wizard on here. If you want to sort of equalize your music, and then we have um your screen recorder, your hand, one-handed mode, and then we have something uh fascinating on. Here. Is the system uh mode, uh dynamics, so basically on here we can switch to high performance mode, and you can see we have a bunch of little settings and stuff like here durable.

As you can see, uh you can see your refresh rate uh, just these little settings that you can get to very quickly touch sampling rate. You have a lot of stuff that you can play with. If you really want to, like you know, get really technical with uh performance- and you know stuff on here, so that was fascinating as well to see uh but overall for zen UI, it's pretty much stock, android, there's not a ton. You know in here to look at, honestly. Now there is one thing I really like with zen UI.

Is that the smart key right here? So if I uh double tap it, I can set it to any application that I want. So you can see it just opened up. Google Chrome, I thought that was really cool, so you actually get to use this. You know to open applications and look what happens if I press and hold it. Usually it will uh, you know, turn the phone off, but if I press and hold it on here now, I have it to bring up YouTube as well.

So how cool is that you can uh remap this button to be able to pull up any application that you want? So that is really, really awesome, alright guys. So you do have a snapdragon 888 chipsets on here, along with the arena 660. So basically, this thing will blow through pretty much anything that you throw at it. As far as gaming, you do not have SD card support, 128 gigs of internal storage and eight gigs of ram uh on here. This phone is ip68 dust and water resistant as well and uh.

I found that you know just the gaming experience on here is pretty good wow, this guy uh yeah. The gaming experience on here is great um. One thing I will say the phone kind of gets warm doing just uh like not gaming, but just kind of like your basic tasks. I know uh most of you guys will put a case on it, but I didn't notice that, like it does get kind of warm, not um, it hasn't gotten hot to the touch. So I just want to throw that out there.

It does get a little warmer than most phones um, but definitely like I've been holding it the whole time and everything. So it's not uncomfortable um. I do want to throw that out there. Here are the settings for Call of Duty mob like, like I said, it'll, it'll max everything out. So it's not it's not like something, that's very weak.

You know, I would say if you're a gamer or whatever um. My main concern is battery life um. So I really wanna. I will see how this is going to do with battery life um. I don't expect a smaller phone.

You know with a four thousand William battery to honestly be able to like churn out. You know be a gaming beast as far as on battery, but I don't think that's what this phone is really geared towards, but, as you can see, um it's great. The display is great. It is its a pretty good gaming experience. This phone does have stereo speakers.

Let's hear what they sound like max that volume out. Oh, oh, my! What wow yo the bass on this is crazy. The bass clarity on here. Oh that's, nuts yo- that is that has to be some of the clearest face that I've heard. It's almost like the uh, the ROG uh speakers um.

It has that same clarity, but it's not front-facing um. So I wonder what they did to get it to do that it's got to be some type of software. Um man, that's crazy! Yo! This thing is like so loud like, and you know what it's this one right here. This one has above average, quality when it comes to uh the bass like overall, the overall sound with this speaker, because you know how this speaker would pretty much do all the work. This one right here is putting out a good uh decent.

You know sound or good foils, full sound yeah. I love that. I love that this is it's, probably. This is the best um a speaker set up on a compact phone um that I've heard so far. The clarity and it's not just that it's you know it's loud um, the clarity of the bass and the mid and highs everything was spotless.

I, like I actually kind of threw me off. I was expecting it to sound like pretty much every other speaker, but that threw me off. That's actually a perfect, um speaker quality. I do want to touch on some other additional features like this phone does have NFC. So, if you're into mobile payments, you do have that.

Like I said earlier, your headphone jack is up top, and you have faced unlock on here, which works pretty good, and you also have a fingerprint sensor, which they put perfectly in the middle of the display here or not the middle, but at a perfect um. You know it's not all the way down here. It's its at a perfect height. So I really love that face. Unlock works pretty fast as well, and there's also a little led notification right here.

This little green thing right there. I don't know if you guys see, see it but hold on, I have to you, can see it now, sort of uh lit up right. There's also a LED right down here as well. When you charge the phone you'll, see that turn green uh or orange. So that's pretty cool um as well, but yeah so uh, the fingerprint scanner does work.

Fine. I've, you know, seen videos of people saying it's not very accurate, but it honestly you just have to do it right, and it works, and sometimes I think the face unlock like if you have face, unlike in the fingerprint scanner. At the same time, sometimes I think it kind of I think, that's what's happening because you kind of get like a two sort of thing, and you get that kind of. I don't know, but I've noticed that, but yeah uh, the fingerprint scanner and face unlock work are really well alright. So the before 8 has a 64 megapixel lens, a 12 megapixel ultra-wide 8k video at 24 frames per second, and then you have 4k video up to 120 frames per second, and then you have a 12 megapixel selfie that also shoots in 4k um.

So the cameras on here are absolutely fantastic, so I was just extremely impressed with this phone overall, just my first impressions, it's just like wow um. This is a true compact flagship, guys you're, getting some beautiful photos here. Uh. My favorite thing about the cameras is just the natural colors. It nails everything as far as not being overexposed uh it nails just the natural colors, like I said, the ultra-wide colors are pretty close to the main lens as well and um yeah.

So I was just super impressed here. There's no other like little fancy macro cameras or anything like that uh, but yeah. As far as just detail, dynamic range uh, this phone is gonna, kill it. It does a perfect job. The HDR- that's really nice on here as well.

I just leave it to auto, so it pretty much does a good job and yeah. I was just really impressed uh, there's a couple of modes on here as well in the video um, which I don't really get talked about, like the wind noise reduction, you have that option on here, and then you have mic focus as well, and I think the portrait mode for the selfie works perfect. It blurs super hard, though, and um. I think skin tones look great too on here. So overall uh cameras are just excellent on here.

To me, it's taking, you know up there with flagship quality, uh photos um, but one of the things. That's really awesome is the video I'll go ahead, and let you see that as well too. Here's the video guys if you got a random cat volunteer here. You know what the mic sounds like you can punch out to the ultrawide as well: hey he bought the dart yeah all right, so you do have a 4 000 William battery 30 watt fast charging, and then you have reverse charging on here as well. I want to give you guys a more sort of uh.

You know in-depth look with the battery life um, but from what I'm seeing online, it's averaging around five hours of screen on time, which is definitely not a full day's battery life um, so do note that it's probably not going to be able to get through a full day's battery life, but I'll, I'll see how it does on like 90 hertz. You know, I'm pretty sure at 120 hertz with a 4 000 William batteries there's no way um. So that's always been. The compromise with smaller phones is that you kind of have to sacrifice battery life and um. My whole thing is, I feel, like people who do have smaller phones shouldn't be going super hard with gaming and stuff like that um, so I don't know we'll, we'll, we'll see but yeah.

Overall, this phone is a beast. I mean cameras. Everything is just super solid on here um, I just love it. I love it so far. It's its really.

This is to me at least one of the top 10 phones that I've played with this year, if not top five. In my top five, I'm super impressed um. So what do you guys think of the before 8 be sure to let me know, and I'll catch you guys in the next one.

Source : Matthews Tech