The ASUS Zenfone 8 Hands-On Review: A New Compact Direction
by Andrei Frumusanu on May 12, 2021 1:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Asus
- Mobile
- Zenfone 8
Battery Life
The Zenfone 8 features a contemporary 4000mAh battery, which considering the size and 169g weight of the phone is actually quite respectable and competes well with other alternatives in the market.
The features that might impact the battery life of the phone are the Snapdragon 888 SoC, less efficient than its predecessor, as well as the 120Hz display which lacks any more advanced power management. The latter aspect of the phone can be quite negative – while the 60Hz mode of the phone has an underperforming base power consumption of 615mW, the 120Hz mode raises this to a rather eye-watering 783mW on a full black screen at minimum brightness.
Anecdotally speaking, I’ve seen vast power regressions on almost all Snapdragon 888 flagship devices this year, all except for Samsung’s S21 Ultra. The Mi 11, Mi 11 Ultra, OnePlus 9 Pro, ROG Phone 5 all exhibit quite bad base power behaviour, and the only difference to the S21 series is that Samsung employs Maxim PMICs and Broadcom WiFi solutions rather than Qualcomm’s own chips. I don’t know if there’s a correlation there or not, but the Zenfone 8 shows similar lacklustre efficiency.
In the web-browsing test in Auto mode which switches to 90Hz inside of the browser, the Zenfone 8 tracks rather closely to the Zenfone 7. The predecessor has a 25% larger battery, but also has a much larger display. The contemporary comparison to make is the smaller Galaxy S21 which lands ahead of the ZF8 even though it runs at 120Hz mode, and far ahead at 60Hz.
I’ll be updating the article with fixed 120Hz and 60Hz results for the ZF8 in the coming days.
As noted in the performance section, “Auto” mode actually fixes itself to 60Hz in various applications, such as PCMark. The ZF8 here in its best-case scenario lands actually quite well in the relative positioning, meaning battery life in this mode is relatively competitive.
Again, I’ll be completing the result set with other refresh rate modes in the comings days.
Generally speaking, the Zenfone 8 finds itself in a tough situation when it comes to battery life. The 90Hz and 120Hz modes are really inefficient due to extremely lacklustre base power consumption behaviours. If you were to use your phone at very high brightness levels, the luminance power would vastly overcome that disadvantage and one probably wouldn’t notice the deficit as much, but at lower brightness levels, the phone would last much less than comparative devices.
The conundrum with this situation is that while 60Hz seems to be efficient for the Zenfone 8, it’s also not an as quite good experience when it comes to performance and responsiveness. So either you’ll have to deal with a responsive and inefficient device, or with an adequate battery life but sluggish feeling phone.
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yetanotherhuman - Saturday, May 15, 2021 - link
They're finally paying attention!! Thank you.. However I'm about to be in the "enormous phone" crowd, sadly, because I'm getting a Galaxy A52 for free from work, and it was that, or an iPhone SE.inperfectdarkness - Sunday, May 16, 2021 - link
When did 5.9" become small?I'll keep my XZ2 Compact, thanks.
ithehappy - Wednesday, May 19, 2021 - link
Thank you for the review, especially in respect to the camera section. I was not liking the dynamic range on the sample photos but I thought I must be wrong because of all the praising words, however, now I am sure that DR is not particularly good on the phone indeed. Shame, I really liked the device but that camera is not acceptable.flyingpants265 - Saturday, June 12, 2021 - link
Ok. Phones have all been the same, for like 10 years now.What I want is: portless/waterproof, in-screen camera, with front speakers. 512GB storage. Case with a kickstand. This should allllll be standard. There is no reason to have leaks, bezels, or run out of space, or need to cup your hand in order to hear stuff. That is a mini-TV/computer I can take with me everywhere. Make them in various sizes, 5" (nexus 5) all the way up to about 7.2" like a Huawei Mate.
raajesh.k - Friday, March 18, 2022 - link
This phone has just launched in India renamed as '8Z'. The phone suits my budget and me perfectly. There's just one thing I need to know: If the stock camera app can shoot RAW photos from both the rear cameras? And also if third-party camera apps (like OpenCamera) atleast access the ultrawide camera (and shoot photo in RAW)? If this works, I'll definitely go with the phone. It'll be great if someone can confirm this.Please do respond.
Insomnicrap - Sunday, July 17, 2022 - link
Currently using Zenfone 8 (16gb RAM/256gb)From what i read and tested, auto doesn't turn on 120hz refresh rate. 120hz active if you put the phone on 'high performance' > system modes. I think default is 'dynamic'. You can tweak each mode (by only a bit) except 'dynamic'.
Since Zenfone 8 also comes with 'fps display' function and also Game Genie - which can show stuff like temp, fps, etc - no matter with 120hz set, game settings maxed, fps is pretty much at 90 but it's a different story when 'high performance' mode is used.
(And of course, without a doubt, any phone running on SD888 with high settings will heat up)
::Just a phone enthusiast with no real knowledge of how my phone works::