[2022] Long-term experience/review of the ZenFone 7/7 Pro?

[ChristianHamilt]

Hi
 
The ZenFone 7/7 Pro has now been out for more than a year, and I'm considering buying it. How has your experience been so far? How is the hardware holding up after (approximately) one year of use?
 
Please share your long-term experience of the device. I’d be great if you note how long you’ve owned it, and if you’ve encountered any problems/surprises etc.
 
This will be interesting for both current and potential ZenFone 7/7 Pro owners 🙂
 
Looking forward to reading your replies!

[Tagion]

I own the ZF7 since release.
I wouldn't buy this phone anymore. Mainly because the updates haven't been good lately. Bugs don't get fixed. One update bricks the phones, the next one destroyed the performance.
A12 will likely be the last update as well. I was in A11 Beta Programm and it took really long to get major bugs fixed, so I don't have high hopes for A12...
Otherwise the phone is still good. Battery life is less than you'd expect from a 5000mAh battery tho.

[fear_dot_com_20]

More than 1 year since I have the phone... I am very dissapointed and I would not buy it again. I had issues with the A11 update(after A11 I was not getting notifications at all..or only 2 times per day). Of course no one from Asus believed though I have provided log, videos and all that they requested...once it started to happen on other devices they came clean and fixed it...but after 3 months while I was rebooting the phone 3 or 4 times per day to make it work... Next they broke the system performance ..again after 3 weeks no reply ... The thread is still open, no answer... I thing it will take another 3 month so they fix it again...
There is another bug I reported on Sept last year with the screen recorder....my thread was closed without any fix or answer...anoher one exactly the same was openend yesterday by somebody else....most probably another update will come and still without a fix for it...
AOD implementation sucks on ZF7 pro...it's a simple watch that just consumes battery...totally useless, they did not even try to provide something else ..
Camera? Hmmm... if you don't take portraits or pictures of people it is good. On people....hmmm ...they look like plastic... Like their faces is made of plastic...like barbie .... Their beautify algorithms does somethings to faces and it cannot be disabled...For landscapes it is ok, even more than ok most of times...but for people I always take shots with other phone...
Volte lacks despite I am on Vodafone DE network ... I cannot talk with someone on phone and surf the web at the dame time... It's 2022 and all custom roms provide it...Asus cannot...
So more than 1 year later, 699 euro (it was an offer) and lot's of issues later...I would advise you not to buy it...if you want stock android, pixel 6 is the best solution (despite issues, it has less issues than my zf7 pro). Otherwise I am sure you can find somethig better at the same price ... I am totally disappointed...

[fear_dot_com_20]

Oh...I forgot to mention..after a while after I bought the phone I opened this thread:

fear_dot_com_2000

A week ago I finally decided to buy this phone, even though I knew I might face some problems with the camera quality( I have been reading all the posts from this forum). I was looking a lot on what phone could replace Xiaomi Mi Mix with custom rom(pixel experience). Since I was coming from big phone, I was looking for something with a screen to match Mi Mix , but also I was loving pixel experince Rom. So I had in mind this phone, Pixle 5 and OnePlus 8 Pro. Since OnePlus moved the software to a more Samsung like experience I dropped it. So it was somehow a tie between pixel and asus (pretty clean android experience better processor and bigger screen) , but the screen tipped the balance towards the Asus ( sorrry for the long post but I wabted to give you some history in here).

After a week with this phone I am starting to think I have made a mistake buying this one...Here are my problems so far:

1. Lack of Volte and Voice HD (biggest problem so far...even my 3 years old phone with a custom rom had it. They advertise 5g but it does not work correctly even with 4g. This might be fixed with a software update)
2. Lack of notification icons on AOD( here on the forum it was said this was implemented so, in order to to keep this feature from consuming battery. Guess what, it consumes more battery than the same feature on pixel 3a and it still lacks the icons. Initially I thought there might be a battery drain due to one of the apps I had...but I had the exact same apps as on my Mix and even with a newer processor on 7nm, a screen of about same size but amoled on this one - mix had LCD - and a battery with 500mAh more than Mix, I was getting only 5 hours or maximum 5h30 minutes of SOT on this phone compared with 4h30m constantly on Mix. Mix had ambient light on also. (Sort of AOD but on limited time). With AOD off I am getting more than 7h30m SOT...better but I would kinda like more the AOD, even with the poor screen on time, if it would had the notifications. Otherwise, for me at least it is useless...I have a smartwatch to see the time, I don't need AOD for this... Might be fixed with a software update)
3. Umbalanced stereo between speakers. Not really a big issue but still one can nitice it. The top one can be barely hearable on lower volumes with the bottom one suppressed.
4. Green tint of the screen mostly visible on dark walpapers or apps.( Not sure yet....but I am quite convinced the screen is not the problem but somethig from android and how it renders the black on dark mode. Pixle also seems to have a funny black in the same conditions this one has a funny green. I can leave with it)
5. Blue tint of the screen if the screen goes under 100% brightness. ( This is really starting to bother me and I think it is again a software issue since the screen looks decent at 100% brightness ). Funny but having night mode on makes the screen more pleasant ( a feature which made thw screen yellowish on my previos phone here the screen looks quite white compared with the blue tint when night mode is off ). Blue tint is very noticable compared with green tint( for green disabling datk theme fixes it...you cannot notice it...but the blue....it's just sad.... ( Blue tint diminishes to barely noticeable if you select Standard option on Splendid app. This appears to be the best calibrated option).
6. Bad quality of camera photos ( apparently pixel with an older sensor makes more beautiful photos that this beast with bigger and better sensor and 3 cameras) and not to mention the picture and video quality on 3rd party apps like whatsapp (software issue). Not to mention also that switching between cameras you will notice a totaly different white balance on all 3 cameras. (So won't see this on other phones in the same price range ...even on a few with lower price). Take 3 pictures with the same phone in the same lightning conditions and you will think them were made with different phones....

Sorry for the long post but it might help others decide whether to buy this phone or not...as far for me...I am still not 100 % convinced I am keeping this one. I still have 2 days to decide even though the hardware and the size of this phone I love...the software makes it a very unpleasant experience... Btw I will try to keep track of the problems if I keep the phone and the problems are solved...

Peace!

Problems I have with Zenfone 7 Pro so far...

After more than a year, guess how many have been fixed...

[topolov]

I have 7 pro for one year.
Pros:
1. Good performance, apps loading faster comparing with mid-range phones with lpddr4 and ufs 2.1
2. Great WiFi
3. If update is stable one, works perfectly
4. separate SD slot
5. Battery is good
6. Supports PD and PPS, I can use one charger for laptop and phone
7. LED
Cons:
1. Lack of 3.5 jack not because phone is waterproof (it isn't), but because Asus didn't manage to find suppliers
2. No wireless charging
3. For safe use you should buy Rhinoshield case, because native rugged case is slippery
4. In 3rd-party apps like videochats you can use only ultrawide camera as selfie.
5. No waterproof
6. Battery tests with physical meters shows capacity around 4600-4800 mAh for new phones. Software tools show the same.
7. Poor VoLTE support in the world, unclear future plans.
8. Lack of support from Asus on this forum
9. Always on Display is just a clock, no notification icons, totally useless
10. Unstable updates from time to time
11. Not a flagship in terms of number of major updates
+\- Controversial:
Screen. Really bright and cool, but there is a black square visible on bright sun. This is the place where screen fingerprint sensor supposed to be, but Asus didn't manage to put it under screen and placed in power button. If I knew that before buying phone, I wouldn't buy it. If you live somewhere in north, you won't notice that.
Camera. Totally sucks in Portrait mode and HDR. GCam works a way better in any mode. ZF8 has the same sensor and taking pictures better. Video is OK. I raised few topic regarding issues with quality and settings of camera app, Asus decided to ignore them all. If you don't use camera, it's not problem for you.