Asus Zenfone 9

The Asus Zenfone 9 is the compact phone of choice, making few compromises to deliver a flagship experience in a smaller package. There's plenty of power and performance, with good cameras only marred by the lack of telephoto. The design is attractive and the build is quality, including waterproofing. Still, the phone is let down through the software - bloat and app duplication are compounded by relatively short support, with only two years of updates.

The Zenfone 9 may be small, but it’s one of the most impressive phones to come out this year. Not only does it sport a beautiful 5.9-inch AMOLED display, but it turned in impressive results in our benchmark tests, thanks to the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset. Best of all, the Zenfone 9 goes an incredibly long time on a charge, beating much larger phones with bigger batteries.

The Zenfone 9 is a full-force flagship in a small size, and with remarkably few compromises for it. The design is distinctive, the battery lasts well over a day, and performance is solid – albeit limited by the phone’s cooling skill. Undoubtedly the best small flagship Android about.

Asus has done it again. The $699 Zenfone 9 is a small phone that delivers big performance. By making clever sacrifices (if you perceive a thicker phone as one), the latest flagship carries similar processing power, battery life, and software features as its larger counterparts.

We had high hopes when we found out that the Zenfone 9 combines the Oppo Find X5 primary camera sensor with gimbal stabilization, but the system doesn't quite live up to its potential. While you can get brilliant RAW photos from it, making it a fun option for anyone happy with editing their snaps, and its secondary cameras and video capture are very good, the Zenfone 9's photos captured in auto mode fall short of those from the similarly priced competition.

Asus doesn't quite pack in everything you'll want at this price, but the pint-sized Zenfone 9 bundles enough of the good stuff into a compact and quirky package to be worthy of your consideration.

I’m in the camp that’s searching for top performance and endurance doing all the things one does on a phone. This is the best value out there. I know “compact flagship” have been the buzzwords around town, but in a sense, it seems like the small size is more a function of all the shortcuts Asus packed in here than the other way around.

The Zenfone 9 is a small phone with huge potential. The diminutive design makes it ideal for one-handed use, and it has the same caliber of hardware as $1,000 flagships. The 120Hz AMOLED screen is a joy to use, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is the fastest chipset you'll find today, the cameras are phenomenal, and the battery lasts two days on a full charge. Combine that with an IP68 rating, 3.5mm jack, and clean software without any bloatware, and you get the best small Android phone money can buy today.