Asus ZenFone 8 - worth the premium price?

Unboxing video and first impressions of the Asus ZenFone 8 smartphone. Is it really worth the asking premium price or is it yet another ordinary phone?

Asus ZenFone 8 smartphone
Asus ZenFone 8 smartphone after the unboxing

We got our hands on the Asus ZenFone 8 smartphone for the very first time today and as usual we did a quick unboxing and first impressions video to share our thoughts on this new flagship device from Asus. We were really surprised to see the high MSRP of this phone while lacking some (at least for us) modern smartphone features.

Today we will also share detailed images of the phone itself, the package contents and everything that is interesting about this product.  

To start with, here are the main ZenFone 8 phone specs:

Asus ZenFone 8 - product specifications

ModelASUS ZenFone 8
TypeMobile
Screen size5.9 in
RAM16 GB
ProcessorQualcomm
Operating systemAndroid 11
Storage capacity256 GB
Main camera resolution64MP
Front camera resolutionSony® flagship IMX663 12 MP dual pixel image sensor
ColorBlack
Battery Capacity4000mAh
StyleBar
FeaturesQualcomm® Snapdragon™ 888 5G Mobile Platform, 5.9-inch 20:9 (2400 x 1080) 120 Hz
Display2400 x 1080, Super AMOLED, 120Hz, HDR10+, 700 nits
Internet ConnectivityWi-Fi + 5G
WLANWi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6e, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
Bluetooth5.2, A2DP, LE, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive
GPSYes, with dual-band A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS, QZSS, NavIC
NFCYes
RadioFM radio (market/region dependent)
USBUSB Type-C 2.0, USB On-The-Go
Battery typeLi-Po 4000 mAh, non-removable
ChargingFast charging 30W, 60% in 25 min, 100% in 80 min (advertised)
USB Power Delivery 3.0
Reverse charging

Depending on the market where it is offered you can buy the ZenFone 8 in couple different memory setups: 128GB 6GB RAM, 128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 12GB RAM, 256GB 16GB RAM.

As you can see the ZenFone 8 is pretty well equipped and has good hardware power onboard. But is it really that good to justify the high asking price? Now lets take a look at the price info on the different markets.

Asus ZenFone 8 - price info

The main question of this review from its very beginning is about the value for money ratio for this product. We were really surprised to see a $700+ Asus smartphone that does not feature some extra special feature like spaceship recognition or Bitcoin generator or something like that (just kidding). 

Released in the middle of 2021 the ZenFone 8 came with a pretty high price tag in Europe of over 800 Euro for the 12GB version and some £700 for the middle 8GB version in UK. That is really a lot of money but do you really get a lot of phone for the money?

Asus ZenFone 8 - unboxing video and first impressions

Box contents
  • Asus ZenFone 8 smartphone
  • Charger/charging cable
  • Plastic bumper case
  • Booklets
And now it is time for the unboxing that we did yesterday. It is a pretty standard packaging except for the included bumper case in the box contents. We were surprised to see that there were no headphones included whatsoever, something very strange for a flagship smartphone.


The box itself is made of hard cardboard and feels solid just like the ZenFone 8 smartphone.  

And here are some images from the unboxing process where you can see the contents of the package:

Asus ZenFone 8 package
Here you can see the box which is almost entirely in gray color and hard cardboard. It fits all of the contents nicely and you can easily put them back like new if you require to so for any reason.
Asus ZenFone 8 package contents
The package consists of the phone, a case, fast charger/cable and a small pin for the SIM-card release and of course some booklets that you will probably never read.
Asus ZenFone 8 unboxed
And here we see the ZenFone 8 itself, really compact and solid made device. On the top left corner you can see the front-facing camera with quality 12MP Sony sensor
Asus ZenFone 8 rear
Some photography fans might be unpleasantly surprised only dual-camera setup on the back of the ZenFone 8. Still these are some very powerful cameras with lots of potential. The main camera has 64MP on board and optical image stabilization (OIS) as well. The interesting thing here is that it supports 8k video recording, still a premium feature for many flagship smartphones.
Asus ZenFone 8 bumper case
The hard-plastic bumper case is a nice addition that you will find in the ZenFone 8 package. We have already tested it and it fits and looks nice on the phone and is quite usable to be honest.
 
The first impressions that we have for the ZenFone 8 are quite positive, mostly because there aren't many similar offering on the market today. We are still not sure if it is really worth the premium price but that is probably something that we will know after our in-depth consumer review of this interesting smartphone by Asus.

Asus ZenFone 8 cameras test

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1 Comments

Tech Geek said…
Couple of days with the ZenFone 8 and now we appreciate our workhorse the Note 9 even more.