Asus Zenfone 9 with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, audio jack, gimbal-like camera launched – Times of India

Asus has announced its new flagship smartphone – the Zenfone 9. Asus’ Zenfone 9 is smaller than its predecessor but comes with a much faster processor. The smartphone is one of the smallest and lightest Android flagships. It comes with Qualcomm’s top-tier Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset.
Asus Zenfone 9: Specifications, features and more
Asus’ Zenfone 9 features a 5.9-inch OLED panel from Samsung. The panel has a 1080×2400 pixels resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate and a touch sampling rate of 240Hz. It offers a peak brightness of 1,100 nits and HDR10+ playback support. Furthermore, the OLED panel covers 112 per cent of DCI-P3 and 151.9 per cent of the sRGB colour gamut. The side-mounted fingerprint on the Zenfone 9 doubles up as a smart button that can be used to perform various tasks.
The Zenfone 9 is powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset. The phone features a large vapour cooling chamber for keeping the temperature under check. The chipset under the hood comes paired with 8GB/16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB/256GB UFS 3.1 internal storage. The phone runs ZenUI, a near-stock custom skin on top of Android 12. Asus has promised two major Android updates and at least 2 years of security updates for the Zenfone 9.
The new Zenfone from Asus comes with a dual camera setup at the back. A 50MP Sony IMX766 sensor leads the camera setup with a six-axis hybrid gimbal stabiliser and 2x lossless zoom at 16MP. The second camera is a 12MP IMX363 sensor paired with a 113-degree ultra-wide lens. The ultrawide unit here is capable of shooting macros and comes with EIS. On the front, the Zenfone 9 has a 12MP IMX663 sensor with dual PDAF and autofocus.
The Zenfone 9 features Qualcomm’s hardware with Dirac tuning, handling the audio. There are two speakers on the phone – a 7-magnet one on the top and a 3-magnet speaker on the bottom – with Qualcomm’s Aqstic amp. The Zenfone 9 is one of the few flagship smartphones to come with a 3.5mm audio jack. The phone also supports aptX HD, adaptive and LDAC audio codecs.
A 4300mAh battery backs up the Zenfone 9, which supports 30W fast charging. Asus promises a 2-day battery life on the Zenfone 9.
Asus Zenfone 9: Price, availability
The Asus Zenfone 8 will start at €799 (Rs 64,600 approximately) for the base storage configuration. It will first go on sale in Europe, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Later it will be made available in North America, Japan, Indonesia and South America. There is no word on when the Asus Zenfone 9 will come to India.