Watch Asus reveal the Zenfone 8 (Full presentation) By CNET Highlights

Without further ado: let's meet the before 8 big arm performance compact. I'm sure you cannot wait to hear more about our new before 8. So let's welcome Sasha hi Sacha. Thank you so much. Thank you SY and hello. Everyone.

I have a feeling. This is probably not what you expected us to reveal today, a compact phone and at first it may look just like a typical phone, but as I mentioned, our motto is defied ordinary and the before 8 definitely lives up to this at ASUS. We are well known for our large phones with our massive batteries, our before series, with our impressive flip camera and our spec busting kg gaming series. So chances are, if you know, and like ASUS phones, you like large phones, the bigger, the better. So why are we launching the surprisingly compact before here today? Well, phones are less and less about making calls and more about browsing.

The web enjoying video games enjoying videos capturing the world around us and sharing it and for all this larger displays generally improve the user experience. This does come at the cost of ergonomics, though, and an increasing number of our customers request better ergonomics from us, and they don't consider a smaller display and a smaller phone, a drawback, actually. On the contrary, there are several compact phones on the market already, but they all come with compromises, so we set out to make the most ergonomic phone. We could that's still truly a flagship without compromises, but what makes a phone ergonomic from our study? The key factor is the length of the thumb. If you want your phone to fit into your palm and be able to reach the left and right side of the display effortlessly, pretty much all flagship phones, these days are approaching a width of 80 millimeters, but research shows that over 95 of us have a thumb, length of 70, millimeters or less so to be ergonomic.

A phone should ideally have a width of less than 70 millimeters. To illustrate this here are some thumb zone simulations comparing different phones, green is where your thumb can reach easily and red is where you probably can't reach. Even when stretching your thumb. After going through several designs and prototypes and some clever math, we concluded that around 68 millimeters is the sweet spot that even users, with a smaller than average hand, can use comfortably, while still giving the biggest possible display space on the phone. Alright.

So we know the ideal width. What about the height then, when theory, the taller, the phone, the better, since you increase the size of the display right, but besides, looking pretty odd a really tall phone increases, the overall weight and even worse, shifts the weight balance. Making it uncomfortable to hold a tall phone also fits in less pockets. So there's a clear upper limit for how tall phones should be after another round of simulations prototypes and math. We found the sweet spot to be just under 150 millimeters, at that height phones fit into pretty much any pocket from jeans to shirts and jackets or even leggings.

So here it is the before 8 in all its ergonomic glory. What probably surprises you is that we managed to fit a 5.9 inch display into this super compact chassis. Besides the height and width of the phone, the shape of its edges and corners is crucial for ergonomics as well. We kept our comfortable signature 3d curved back design that we perfected on our before series over the years, and we adjusted a display edge to be as round and smooth and comfortable to hold as possible. We use a frosted matte glass back, which looks and feels really premium, has a nice grip to it and rejects fingerprints pretty well, and we have two color options: now: a classy obsidian black and a horizon silver on the horizon silver.

You can see an understated, but cool, blue and yellow glow, depending on which angle you look at it from now, making a compact phone in itself isn't all that difficult. If you cut enough corners here and there you can make it happen, but, like I mentioned earlier, we felt that other solutions on the market made too many compromises. More compact phone shouldn't mean it's a budget phone with budget components and made from cheaper materials from surveys. We know that performance and battery life are the two most important valued features customers desire in a compact phone, so we set out to make a true flagship phone in a compact chassis and in true ASUS fashion. We pushed everything to the limit, and we didn't just try to make it barely good enough to qualify as a flagship.

First, we naturally chose the 5 nanometer Qualcomm snapdragon 888, to sit at the heart of the before 8. Next up the battery. We wanted a large battery that matches the snapdragon 888, so we split the motherboard into two pieces and then used an interposer to essentially stack the two pieces on top of each other to reduce the oval footprint which allowed us to pack in a generous 4 000 milliampere hour battery. So we have a 5.9 inch display a snapdragon 888 and a 4 000 William hour battery in a super compact chassis. This is what we think the before 8 should be all about.

It's powerful, compact and optimized for one hand, operation.

Source : CNET Highlights