Pros
Powerful sufficient to deal with graphically demanding apps
Subtle design
Excellent sound high quality
Cons
Short software program help timeline for its worth
AI options are restrained
Some options unavailable at launch
When the Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra arrived at CNET’s workplace, I used to be notably excited to attempt it as a result of I completely loved the corporate’s ROG Phone 8 Pro gaming telephone once I examined it in January. It’s apparent that the Zenfone 11 Ultra’s design was impressed, partially, from the ROG telephone. But fortunately, the Zenfone 11 Ultra’s beginning worth wasn’t. At $900 (£870, AU$1,359), the brand new Zenfone is $100 cheaper than the common ROG Phone 8.Unfortunately, over the course of my week with a overview unit working pre-release software program, the telephone’s knowledge was repeatedly corrupted, which made it unimaginable to overview pretty. When Asus addresses this difficulty, I’ll replace and broaden this hands-on story into a totally rated overview. In the meantime, I’ve many ideas about how the Zenfone advantages from its new similarities to the Asus ROG telephone line.Read extra: Best telephone to purchase for 2024Both telephones run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, characteristic an expansive 6.78-inch show, a long-lasting 5,500mAh battery, 65-watt wired charging, 15-watt wi-fi charging and glorious audio system with a built-in headphone jack. Both even have an identical digital camera system; together with a 50-megapixel most important digital camera, a 13-megapixel ultrawide digital camera and a 32-megapixel 3x telephoto digital camera. All of those options got here in helpful throughout a protracted weekend journey I took to Washington, DC. The shiny and large show was excellent for taking part in the sport Dead Cells, and the telephone’s AudioWizard paired with my Beats Studio Buds to drown out the sounds of screaming youngsters on my flight. I took a number of footage with it throughout my first go to to LaGuardia Airport’s new Chase Sapphire Lounge. I discovered the Zenfone a pleasure to make use of. Mike Sorrentino/CNETIt’s unlucky that Asus commits to solely two years of main software program updates and 4 years of safety updates for the Zenfone. That’s extraordinarily brief in contrast with what Google, Samsung and OnePlus supply for his or her equally priced telephones. The Zenfone 11 Ultra is now obtainable to preorder with an early hen deal that features a $100 set of wi-fi headphones till April 14. But I’d suggest ready till Asus tightens up its software program earlier than buying. And once more that is unlucky, as a result of this telephone in any other case has the potential to face out towards rivals from Samsung, Google and OnePlus.Design, display screen, battery lifeThe Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra is taller than the Zenfone 10 however in any other case shares lots of the identical design parts from the ROG Phone 8, together with an identical digital camera bump on the again within the prime proper nook, twin audio system on the highest and backside, and a USB-C and headphone jack on the underside.Whereas the ROG telephones have darker hues with LED lights on the again, the Zenfone 11 Ultra’s rear is adorned with a triangular sample and is available in 4 colours: skyline blue, everlasting black, desert sand and misty gray (the colour of my overview unit).The 11 Ultra’s massive show is shiny and visual whether or not I used it on a sunny day open air or in a darkish Brooklyn bar. By default, the show runs at an adaptive refresh charge starting from 1 to 120Hz. But even once I set it to run continuously at 120Hz, the 11 Ultra nonetheless made it by means of a full day of use simply.One method the Zenfone differs from the ROG line is that whereas the 11 Ultra can attain 144Hz, Asus permits that refresh charge for use just for video games. On the ROG Phone 8 Pro, I used to be in a position to run at 165Hz always, which appeared smoother. But for many duties exterior of gaming, I did not discover the distinction between 120Hz and 144Hz. It all seems very clean. The Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra subsequent to the ROG Phone 8 Pro. Mike Sorrentino/CNETAll that display screen actual property makes the Zenfone glorious for streaming films and TV exhibits. I discovered the display screen notably good for movies filmed in wider theatrical side ratios as a result of a there is a fast zoom that fills the display screen with out reducing off a lot of the video’s edges.Its 6.78-inch display screen is larger than the 6.7-inch shows discovered on the Galaxy S24 Plus and Pixel 8 Pro and a smidge smaller than the 6.82-inch display screen on the OnePlus 12 and the 6.8-inch display screen on the Galaxy S24 Ultra.The Zenfone 11 Ultra’s 5,500mAh battery lasted a day and a half between fees, even on my most intense days of use. On a day the place I used the telephone from 8 a.m. to midnight, I racked up 5 hours and 31 minutes of screen-on time, and the battery dropped from full to 31%. The Zenfone 11 Ultra helps 65-watt quick charging and 15-watt wi-fi charging. Like different new Android telephones, the 11 Ultra lacks help for the magnetic Qi2 customary. Asus stated that a few of its accent companions are making circumstances for attaching magnetic equipment. The Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra runs on Android 14. Mike Sorrentino/CNETAndroid 14 software programThe Zenfone 11 Ultra runs Android 14 and — just like the ROG Phone 8 — permits for enabling or disabling a lot of Asus’ customizations based mostly in your choice. I discover that even with the entire Asus choices enabled, it is nonetheless largely just like a pure Android expertise. The largest variations are the choice to separate the notification pulldown, putting notifications in a pulldown from the top-left of the display screen and management middle toggles in a pulldown from the top-right. In different phrases, it is just like iOS 17 on the iPhone. Even although this is not an ROG telephone, Asus consists of the Game Genie overlay for toggling gaming-specific settings. These can embody increased efficiency modes, the aforementioned 144Hz refresh charge, establishing macros and blocking alerts throughout gameplay. The Game Genie overlay on each the Zenfone 11 Ultra and the ROG Phone 8 Pro. Mike Sorrentino/CNETAsus’ AudioWizard is my favourite choice to play with on the Zenfone 11 Ultra, as its Dirac Audio settings present a noticeable punch to a tune’s bass. I stored the “Dynamic” setting turned on loads, however there are additionally extra delicate profiles for music, cinema and video games obtainable. You also can additional tweak Equalizer settings if you need one thing extra customized. I discovered these settings to be fairly efficient no matter how I used the telephone to play music.If you utilize a music service that helps lossless and spatial audio like Apple Music or Tidal, the built-in headphone jack makes it straightforward to reap the benefits of the format with out Bluetooth compression. These settings and choices make the Zenfone maybe top-of-the-line flagship telephones for plugging in any mixture of audio gear that you simply like, whether or not wired or wi-fi.These options are all powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, which in our benchmark efficiency exams helped make the Zenfone probably the most highly effective telephones we have examined this yr. Its Geekbench 6 CPU scores are akin to the Samsung Galaxy S24 line working on the identical processor. In our 3DMark Wild Life Extreme gaming take a look at nonetheless — which is a really demanding graphics take a look at — the Zenfone outperforms your complete Galaxy line with numbers roughly equal to Asus’ ROG Phone 8 Pro. It largely affirms that contained in the Zenfone is quite a lot of the identical energy that we noticed within the costlier ROG gaming telephone.When it involves synthetic intelligence, Asus took a low-key method for each the Zenfone in contrast with Samsung and Google. The Zenfone has an AI noise-canceling characteristic for voice calls that works on each customary telephone calls and voice calls in apps like WhatsApp. I answered numerous telephone calls whereas loud above-ground subway trains rushed overhead, and whereas the characteristic did not totally get rid of the sounds from my conversations, it did scale back them.The Zenfone additionally has Semantic Search that allows you to use extra versatile phrases when trying to find apps, settings or photographs. For occasion, once I wanted to learn how a lot display screen time I used the telephone for, as an alternative of getting to recollect the “Digital Wellbeing” setting the place this timer is positioned, I typed in “screen time” and the proper setting appeared inside an inventory of different choices. The Zenfone additionally has numerous AI options which might be at the moment in beta. For occasion, its AI Wallpaper Generator creates some slightly generic trying backgrounds based mostly on a restricted variety of prompts, which suggests you will not be creating something heinous by typing in a phrase like “Merge together the lion, the witch and the wardrobe” like you possibly can utilizing different AI picture mills. There’s a Call Translate characteristic that I could not take a look at because it at the moment appears frozen on Chinese. And whereas it is good to see a Recorder app that gives dwell transcriptions, such a characteristic is not exactly new to telephones. For occasion, Google’s Pixel Recorder app has allowed for offline dwell transcriptions for 2 years. The Zenfone 11 Ultra has a 50-megapixel most important digital camera, a 13-megapixel extensive lens and a 32-megapixel telephoto lens. Mike Sorrentino/CNETCamerasThe Zenfone 11 Ultra’s cameras are fairly good.My weekend journey kicked off with a go to to LaGuardia’s Chase Sapphire Lounge. I ran all around the first ground with the Zenfone taking photographs. But it was the meals pictures that impressed me probably the most. My photographs of the 4 egg dishes I ordered had an exquisite texture simply as they had been in actual life. The Chase Sapphire lounge taken on the Zenfone 11 Ultra. Mike Sorrentino/CNET Egg dish picture taken on the Zenfone 11 Ultra. Mike Sorrentino/CNETWhen I took the telephone to Tysons Corner Center mall in Virginia on what turned out to be a wet day, these photographs precisely captured the colours of the doorway plaza and the shiny moist environment. A selfie picture I took had good element in my frazzled strands of hair. The wet Tysons Corner Center entrance, taken on the Zenfone. Mike Sorrentino/CNET Self-taken picture utilizing the entrance dealing with digital camera on the Zenfone. Mike Sorrentino/CNETAsus clearly put emphasis on video stabilization on the Zenfone, and filming out the window of a really rocky Lyft automobile experience I used to be in a position to seize what seems to be a clean voyage down the road. If you look carefully on the backside left of the body beneath, you possibly can see how a lot the automobile was really shaking. By default, the telephone makes use of an Adaptive setting that crops out and in of the picture based mostly on how a lot the telephone is shaking. You also can allow a HyperSteady choice that stays persistently cropped inward to perform the impact extra persistently. This is a GIF taken from a video recorded on the Zenfone, with Dynamic video stabilization turned on. Mike Sorrentino/CNETI additionally took some night time mode comparability photographs between the Zenfone 11 Ultra towards the $1,000 Pixel 8 Pro, utilizing the darkish atmosphere of the House of Wax bar in Brooklyn and CNET’s NY podcast studio. In most circumstances, I discovered comparable outcomes throughout each the Zenfone and the Pixel. In actual life this can be a darkish nook of the House of Wax bar in Brooklyn, taken on the Zenfone with night time mode turned on. Mike Sorrentino/CNET The identical nook taken on the Pixel 8 Pro. Mike Sorrentino/CNETAmong my bar photographs, I discovered the Zenfone smoothed out among the blurriness of the darkish room nook. But amongst my studio photographs, the Pixel did a a lot better job at depicting a brick wall and plant lit solely by an iMac and lightweight spilling in from an adjoining studio. The darkish podcast studio at CNET’s New York workplace, taken on the Zenfone. Mike Sorrentino/CNET CNET’s podcast studio taken on the Pixel 8 Pro with night time mode. Mike Sorrentino/CNETIn the photographs beneath of CNET’s grass wall, outcomes are comparable between the Zenfone, the ROG Phone 8 Pro and the Pixel 8 Pro. The grass wall within the CNET workplace taken on the Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra. Mike Sorrentino/CNET The grass wall in CNET’s workplace taken on the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro. Mike Sorrentino/CNET The grass wall at CNET’s workplace taken on the Pixel 8 Pro. Mike Sorrentino/CNETThe backside line… for nowThe Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra’s bigger dimension coupled with newer specs make it a standout transportable leisure middle. With a processor that may simply deal with demanding video games, audio choices that make your music sound nice regardless of the way you wish to pay attention and an expansive display screen that is shiny for films or net shopping, the 11 Ultra ought to attraction to anybody that makes use of their telephone primarily like a small tv. But sadly for the worth, it is onerous to disregard the brief software program and safety timeline. If you are in search of a telephone that is nice for streaming movies and music, and also you additionally respect having first rate cameras for pictures and movies, the Zenfone might be an interesting choice, so long as you propose on transferring to a different telephone in three to 4 years. However, when you hope to make use of your subsequent telephone till it is fully damaged, there are quite a lot of different nice Android telephones from Samsung and Google that can get software program help by means of 2031. And if it is AI that you’re in search of, Google and Samsung additionally look like putting most of their power into that area, although we’re nonetheless determining precisely what we would like AI to do on our telephones.Yet we won’t overlook, that is most likely the one flagship telephone being supplied proper now that features a headphone jack. That in itself may assist it stand out.Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra vs. Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus, Google Pixel 8 Pro, OnePlus 12 Asus Zenfone 11 UltraSamsung Galaxy S24 PlusGoogle Pixel 8 ProOnePlus 12 Display dimension, decision 6.78-inch versatile AMOLED, 2,400 x 1,080 pixels, 1-120Hz adaptive refresh charge, 144Hz refresh charge in games6.7-inch AMOLED; 3,120×1,440 pixels; 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate6.7-inch OLED; 3,120×1,440 pixels; 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate6.82-inch OLED; 3,168×1,440 pixels; 1-120Hz adaptive refresh chargePixel density 388 ppi509 ppi489 ppi510 ppiDimensions (inches) 6.4 x 3 x 0.4 in.6.24 x 3 x 0.3 in.6.4 x 3.0 x 0.3 in6.5 x 3 x 0.36 inDimensions (millimeters) 163.8 x 76.8 x 8.9mm158 x 76 x 7.6 mm162.6 x 76.5 x 8.8 mm164.3 x 76 x 9.2 mmWeight (ounces, grams) 224g197 g (6.95 oz.)213 g (7.5 oz)220 g (7.8 oz)Mobile software program Android 14Android 14Android 14Android 14Digicam 50-megapixel (most important), 13-megapixel (extensive), 32-megapixel (3x telephoto)50-megapixel (extensive), 12-megapixel (ultrawide), 10-megapixel (3x telephoto)50-megapixel (extensive), 48-megapixel (ultrawide), 48-megapixel (5x telephoto)50-megapixel (extensive), 48-megapixel (ultrawide), 64-megapixel (3x telephoto)Front-facing digital camera 32-megapixel12-megapixel 10.5-megapixel32-megapixelVideo seize 8K 24fps, 4K 60fps8K4K8KProcessor Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3Google Tensor G3Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3RAM/Storage 12GB + 256GB, 16GB + 512GB12GB RAM + 256GB, 512GB12GB RAM + 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB12GB RAM + 256GB; 16GB RAM + 512GBExpandable storage NoNoneNoneNoneBattery/Charger 5,500 mAh4,900 mAh5,050 mAh5,400 mAh (dual-2,700 mAh)Fingerprint sensor Under showUnder showUnder showUnder displayConnector USB-CUSB-CUSB-CUSB-CHeadphone jack YesNoneNoneNoneSpecial options 65W wired charging, 15W wi-fi charging, passthrough charging, 6-axis hybrid gimbal stabilizer 3.0, 2,500-nit peak brightness, Wi-Fi 7, Game Genie, AI noise cancellation, AI name translator, semantic search, GlideX, AI transcript2,600-nit peak brightness; 7 years of OS and safety updates; 5G (mmWave); IP68 water and dirt resistance; wi-fi PowerShare to cost different units; 45W wired charging (charger not included); Galaxy AI; Wi-Fi 6E5G (Sub 6 and mmWave); VPN by Google One; 7 years of OS, safety and Feature Drop updates; front-facing digital camera has autofocus; 13W Qi wi-fi charging; 30W wired charging; USB-3.2 speeds by way of USB-C; IP68 mud and water resistance; Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on entrance and back4,500-nit peak brightness; 80W wired charging (100W wired charging exterior US); 50W wi-fi charging with fan dock; Wi-Fi 7; Gorilla Glass Victus 2 cowl glassPrice off-contract (USD) $900 (256GB)$1,000 (256GB)$999 (128GB)$800 (256GB)Price (GBP) £870 (256GB)£999 (256GB)£999 (128GB)TBDPrice (AUD) Converts to AU$1,680AU$1,699 (256GB)AU$1,699 (128GB)TBD How we take a look at phonesEvery telephone examined by CNET’s critiques crew was really utilized in the actual world. We take a look at a telephone’s options, play video games and take photographs. We study the show to see if it is shiny, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and construct to see how it’s to carry and whether or not it has an IP-rating for water-resistance. We push the processor’s efficiency to the extremes, utilizing standardized benchmark instruments like GeekBench and 3DMark in addition to our personal anecdotal observations navigating the interface, recording high-resolution movies and enjoying graphically intense video games at excessive refresh charges.All the cameras are examined in quite a lot of circumstances, from shiny daylight to darkish indoor scenes. We check out particular options like night time mode and portrait mode and evaluate our findings towards equally priced competing telephones. We additionally try the battery life through the use of the telephone each day in addition to working a collection of battery drain exams.We keep in mind extra options, like help for 5G; satellite tv for pc connectivity; fingerprint and face sensors; stylus help; quick charging speeds; and foldable shows, amongst others that may be helpful. And we steadiness all this towards the worth to provide the verdict on whether or not that telephone, no matter worth it’s, really represents good worth. Though these exams might not at all times be mirrored in CNET’s preliminary overview, we conduct follow-up and long-term testing in most circumstances.