Happy Zenfone 8 users?

[huerzgiorg]

Hi everyone.

I am a happy ASUS user in its overall but since now, i am sticking into the pc side (1x ASUS desktop MoBo and 2x ASUS Laptop, using one of them now by 8 years and still working fine)

I have to replace my actual phone (not ASUS) since after 4 years of using it, it is now a "spicy pillow" (for those not knowing, the battery is inflating) +other minor issues.
For info, i appreciate phones with small screen. Actual is a 4.6" in a 129 x 65 x 9.3 mm frame.

At the moment, if i want something small lasting about the same, i don't have really big choice. Like 2 phones i think. Sony and Samsung.
Most likely needs to be a flagship one, so it will not get "old" in half or less of the time
+ I don't really like Samsung UI so, only 1 v 1 actually, and ASUS costs ~350 USD less than the sony
Waiting for the black friday (hope mine does not die before) i choosed to google a little bit and found out that one of them, (so now i am here) seems to have very good datasheet, but, also some problems (?)
Ramdump issue at first, which seems very scary.
Phone calls with jack-headphones causing restart of the phone, which would annoy me because i would use my older headphones while walking in the streets avoiding outside noises (cars and so on) and hearing what my caller is saying (is that problem for everyone or its just someone facing it, and others do not?)

I don't want to create a big mess here. My asking is, is there someone also happy with the phone?

Can someone maybe share its using experience?

[Sim1 · Accepted solution]

Imagine complaining about bezels lmao... Also I use Spotify everyday, with wired and BT headphones and never an issue. Also dinamic mode has nothing to do with screen refresh rate, modes don't change the screen refresh rate, there's a quick tile for that.

raimundas78

Unfortunately, I would not recommend this phone as of now. Maybe once they start doing discounts and only given that you buy it locally and will have a proper warranty (there were people on this board who bought it from stores like Aliexpress and Asus is refusing to service them).

This is from the top of my head, so it's likely I'm missing something. Also the previous phone I had was OnePlus 3, which I had for 5 years, so I might not know everything what's happening in Android world. I had checked other phones, watched and read reviews and what now, but I have not daily driven anything else for that time.

These are my complaints, that I would think are completely personal and others might not find it annoying:

• Ergonomics. I like that the phone is small and does not tear my pockets apart, but it just does not sit in the hand nicely for me. Also, if you are in dry weather, have dry hands it becomes very slippery.
• Bezels are quite thick and side, top and bottom bezels are of different thickness.
• The silver ring around selfie camera. No idea why that was needed, but it catches reflections and as my previous phone had notification LED in exactly that place, it confuses me that I got a notification.
• Headphone jack at the top is very uncomfortable.

Other things that I did not like:

• Battery life is just ok. I can get through one day without a problem, but it is something like 1.3-1.4 day battery phone for me. And we all know that 0.3-0.4 is useless as you have to charge for new day, since it won't make next one. I'm saying this as a bad thing mostly comparing to my old OnePlus 3. The phone was famous for it's poor battery, but as a light user I could easily get 2.5 days with it once it was brand new. I'm not sure Zenfone 8 will be able to last me throughout the day in a couple years.
• Camera is meh. You will need GCam as it makes day and night difference, so it kind of fixes the problem, but it's not fixed by Asus themselves. Also, wide angle is pretty useless unless you are shooting outside on a sunny day.
• There are some funky stuff going on with background apps killing. Be prepared that you will only get notifications for some apps once you unlock your phone.
• Spotify issues. I think this is related to previous point. It constantly stops after a song, so you have to take your phone out of the pocket, unlock the screen and it starts playing again. If you are listening to Spotify, get a phone call, it does not restart playing Spotify after call ends, you have to take phone out and unlock the screen. Headset button controls (play/pause) have a huge delay, anything from one to 10 seconds, and this is not only for Spotify. If you are pressing play/pause with screen on, it works perfect. I reported this on this board but it was never addressed.
• Dynamic mode is pretty bad, most of the time it seems to be at 60hz. No wonder, I found my batter life to be better with it.
• Fingerprint sensor is terribly bad and slow. When I got the phone I had some skin eczema problems and my success rate was something like 30 percent at best. Now it's probably something like 50 percent. I have tried rescanning, adding same finger multiple times but still it's not accurate.

What I found the worst about it, is the support, especially ramdump issue and them being quiet about it. Also, as I wrote in my other comments, I don't get the purpose of this is board and why it's linked in Support menu. Like, with one of the previous updates they broke the feature where if you have headset connected via headphone jack and get a call, the ringtone does not play through the headphone, only phone speaker. Once I reported it, a support person asked me to try restarting the phone. I did so and came back to say that it did not help and I was ignored ever since, sent like 2 or 3 follow ups, but no response. After some even earlier update, the function to adjust brightness in night mode was removed, I reported it but never got a response. Don't know, maybe it was intentional, but this rendered night mode pretty useless as photos would come out way overexposed (thank god for GCam once again).

I just feels that Asus does not really care about this phone and people who bought it. Like the phone call quality issue. Upon release it did not have HD Voice and VoLTE was available in only few operators. The phone call quality was so atrociously terrible that I almost returned the phone (should have done it tbh), but Asus promised they were working on adding VoLTE. My point is, that someone had to test it and sign off on it and I just cannot wrap my mind around how someone could have thought that it is okay to release the phone with such terrible call quality. It just seems that they don't care about it.

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I find the device to be very good. Battery is nothing fenomenal but I get 6 hours SOT constantly. Screen is awesome, 120hz is very good, 90hz has a tint issue. Audio stereo is awesome, is on par if not better than an iPhone 12 pro max super. Camera is good, worse than Samsung or Pixel, but is good. Video are awesome in 4k60 fps. 8k is laggy, I'd say unusable but I don't care at all.
Software is great, I really like zenui and there's plenty of great options.

SD 888 is overkill, it tends to overheat even on small tasks,but it got better with OTAs.
It has some issue with VoLTE in some regions and with certain carriers, maybe check before buying if you care about it.
Too bad about ramdump issue but only thing I can do is hope I don't get it... If it will die I will ask for a refund.

[cicagorio]

I am happy so far. Phone is really good, camera is really good (and I am coming from a pixel device). Performance wise you will be happy. Heating is not a problem unless you are gaming heavily or have something in the background that's killing the CPU. Updates seem to be improving as we're on October security patch and Android 12 is already in beta and announced for official release on the Zenfone 8 in December which is pretty good given that pixels received it a week or so ago?

As people said there is that Ramdump issue hovering, but there is 2 year warranty so I am not super worried.

[raimundas78]

Sim1

Imagine complaining about bezels lmao... Also I use Spotify everyday, with wired and BT headphones and never an issue. Also dinamic mode has nothing to do with screen refresh rate, modes don't change the screen refresh rate, there's a quick tile for that.

https://zentalk.asus.com/en/discussion/comment/192861#Comment_192861

I find the device to be very good. Battery is nothing fenomenal but I get 6 hours SOT constantly. Screen is awesome, 120hz is very good, 90hz has a tint issue. Audio stereo is awesome, is on par if not better than an iPhone 12 pro max super. Camera is good, worse than Samsung or Pixel, but is good. Video are awesome in 4k60 fps. 8k is laggy, I'd say unusable but I don't care at all.

Software is great, I really like zenui and there's plenty of great options.

SD 888 is overkill, it tends to overheat even on small tasks,but it got better with OTAs.

It has some issue with VoLTE in some regions and with certain carriers, maybe check before buying if you care about it.

Too bad about ramdump issue but only thing I can do is hope I don't get it... If it will die I will ask for a refund.

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Sorry, what's so lmao about the bezels for you? Are you saying that side, top and bottom bezels are of same thickness or are you ignoring the fact that some manufacturers manage to make bezels of same thickness around the phone?
About the refresh rate, yes I meant Auto refresh mode, and yes, it's way too often stuck on the 60hz, and once it goes to 90hz it gets the green tint. I don't think it ever goes to 120hz.
I guess it's good for you that you don't have these issues, but I have them and I really liked to take walks while listening to Spotify and my experience of this with Zenfone 8 is pretty much ruined. I'm using same Spotify account, same network carrier, same SIM card, being in same places, using same headphones what I used my old OnePlus and never had any issues. I cannot imagine it's not Zenfone 8's fault.
To add to previously mentioned problems, you can say goodbye to calling over internet apps as you cannot lower the volume to usable levels. The phone is acting like it's on loudspeaker while on lowest volume level. This is somewhat fixed when using headphones, but still it only gives you 5 volume levels to choose from. This has been reported since for ever, so I don't think Asus knows how to fix it, or again, they don't care.
Also, issues with 3rd party launchers. Asus themselves responded that's it's Nova Launcher's problem and they cannot do anything about it until someone replied that they have same issues with other launchers. Asus support was never heard from about that issue again.
I'm not denying that there are good things about Zenfone 8. It's quite fast, eventhough it lags when switching between recent apps. I like the ability to choose charging speed and levels. UI is not overloaded with custom crap and there was not much bloatware preinstalled (Netflix and one or two orther things I cannot remember). I like the AudioWizard, saw other people complaining about it, but I like ability to configure the sound and find the audio output quality real good. I like the LED light, just not sure why they did not make it RGB. But the thing is, this is a flagship money costing phone. My unit cost 727 euros, since 128GB version was nowhere to be seen at the launch in my region. And for that amount of money, I cannot justify the problems this phone is riddled with.

[huerzgiorg]

Cyslawo

I think 95%+ users are happy, they just don't write here because have no purpose.

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Well, since i only read bad comments about this phone in the overall, i begin to ask myself if it will be a good way to go..

But until now it seem it is also a OK phone on what i read on your comments here, so there is still hope


Bezels are not so my problem (actually having about 2mm on left and right side, and like 10mm in the upper and 12mm in the lower)

Luckily in my country there is 1 place i can buy it, without having to "amazon-ing" it, and it is also covering it with 2 years of warranty, expandable up to 3 or even 5 years, and adding a "express" option for like ~50USD if phone breakes down, they will immediately replace or refund it (in 2 years from buying it)

Since it costs ~1/4 less than its competitor/rival i probably stick on this one (~1100 USD vs ~800) with almost same hardware, and the other also has already a .3' bigger screen

[daniel91m]

huerzgiorg

https://zentalk.asus.com/en/discussion/comment/192847#Comment_192847

Well, since i only read bad comments about this phone in the overall, i begin to ask myself if it will be a good way to go..

But until now it seem it is also a OK phone on what i read on your comments here, so there is still hope

Bezels are not so my problem (actually having about 2mm on left and right side, and like 10mm in the upper and 12mm in the lower)

Luckily in my country there is 1 place i can buy it, without having to "amazon-ing" it, and it is also covering it with 2 years of warranty, expandable up to 3 or even 5 years, and adding a "express" option for like ~50USD if phone breakes down, they will immediately replace or refund it (in 2 years from buying it)

Since it costs ~1/4 less than its competitor/rival i probably stick on this one (~1100 USD vs ~800) with almost same hardware, and the other also has already a .3' bigger screen

View post

If you have the option to extend the warranty, this is a good option - just remember that you will not replace the battery under the warranty, so it is better to take 3 years than 5 (if you replace the battery yourself, you will lose the warranty, and with the batteries there is a problem to buy the original one).
When it comes to my satisfaction with this smartphone - if not for ramdump, I would be happy (but no exiting, because my battery is weak, for 6 months asus struggled with software errors, at the beginning there was no security update, fingerprint reader with glass 0, 3mm is useless.
When it comes to visual aspects - everyone can see what they are buying. The size is great (everyone who sees it wonders what a smartphone is because there are no such small ones anymore ...)