| 128 GB 8 GB RAM | $644.99 | $655.00 |
| 256 GB 8 GB RAM | $749.00 USD |
£760.61 |
| 256 GB 16 GB RAM | $799.99 |
£759.99 |
| Show all prices | ||
Introduction
Small smartphones are strange. And not just in itself – if the screen is the main point of interaction with the device, why would you want it less of the? But also because everyone on the internet (and especially on YouTube) seems to love them, and yet – sales figures for the little handsets out there generally range from unimpressive at best to downright disastrous. Just ask Apple about the iPhone 13 mini, see how that conversation goes.
In theory, the small smartphone should at least make sense for people with small hands. But anecdotally, most of the people we’ve come across still have ‘regular’ sized devices, at the cost of struggling to use them one-handed if at all possible.
This is the setting where Asus threw the Zenfone 9 into the game last year. It’s one of the smallest smartphones to launch in 2022, alongside Samsung’s Galaxy S22 of the same size, and its size is certainly trying to be one of its main selling points – that’s why we’re so into it. But it’s not just a small smartphone, it’s a small one flagship smartphoneand again, though not alone in that regard, this field is certainly anything but crowded.
On paper, it’s every little smartphone lover’s dream. The small size comes without compromising on performance, and while offering a smaller camera than you might expect, the specs for those that are there seem solid too. Ditto the battery capacity for the size.
Things that sound great on paper don’t always translate this greatness to real life, so we were curious to see what the case would be for the Zenfone 9. Away from our labs, in the real world, how would it fare as our unique smartphone, used for a long time? Let’s find out together in the coming pages of this long-term review.
