ASUS was onto an excellent factor with the Zenfone 9 and Zenfone 10. The Taiwanese producer stood out by delivering small telephones with the absolute best {hardware}, they usually have been genuinely gratifying to make use of. Whereas I normally want bigger telephones, I will agree that each the Zenfone 9 and Zenfone 10 provided one thing that was sorely missing.
That is why it was puzzling to see ASUS change tack with final 12 months’s Zenfone 11 Extremely, reverting to a slab of a telephone that was mainly a rebadged model of its gaming machine. The technique did not make a lot sense to me; in selecting to return to an even bigger telephone, the model misplaced the distinctiveness that made earlier fashions notable, and the machine as an entire wasn’t anyplace nearly as good because the Zenfone 10.
Annoyingly, the Zenfone 12 Extremely does not do something to rectify the scenario this 12 months — you get roughly the identical design because the Zenfone 11 Extremely, and barring iterative updates, there is not something new. I used to be holding out on ASUS going again to a smaller design this time round, however that is not the case.
Whereas I nonetheless like the mixture of {hardware} and software program, the Zenfone 12 Extremely simply does not do sufficient to differentiate itself towards Chinese language rivals which have significantly better digital camera techniques, and ASUS’s lackluster software program replace coverage finally makes the machine a non-starter.
ASUS Zenfone 12 Extremely: Pricing and availability
ASUS unveiled the Zenfone 12 Extremely on February 6, and the machine is launching in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Europe initially. The telephone will likely be offered in a single 16GB/512GB variant exterior Taiwan, and it’ll value €1,099 ($1,141). To incentivize the launch, ASUS is discounting the machine by €100 till February 28, so patrons will have the ability to decide it up at €999 ($1,037).
ASUS does not have particular plans to launch the Zenfone 12 Extremely within the U.S. or U.Ok. in the intervening time, and I will add an replace if that scenario adjustments. It’s doable we would see the machine debut in North America at a later level — that has been the case in earlier years — but it surely is not a given at this level.
| Class | ASUS Zenfone 12 Extremely |
|---|---|
| Show | 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED, 120Hz, FHD+, HDR10, 2500 nits max, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 |
| OS | ZenUI primarily based on Android 15 |
| Chipset | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite, 3nm |
| RAM | 16GB LPDDR5X |
| Storage | 512GB UFS 4.0 |
| Rear digital camera 1 | 50MP f/1.8 Sony Lytia 700, 6-axis Hybrid Gimbal Stabilizer |
| Rear digital camera 2 | 13MP f/2.2 wide-angle, 120-degree FoV, autofocus |
| Rear digital camera 3 | 32MP f/2.4 telephoto, 3x optical zoom, 30x digital zoom, OIS |
| Entrance digital camera | 32MP |
| Ingress safety | IP68 mud and water resistance |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, international 5G bands, NFC, dual-band GPS |
| Safety | Optical in-screen sensor |
| Audio | 3.5mm jack, stereo sound, 24-bit/192kHz, Snapdragon Sound, AptX HD, AptX Adaptive, AptX Lossless |
| Battery | 5500mAh, 65W USB PD 3.0 charging, 15W wi-fi charging |
| Dimensions | 163.8 x 77.0 x 8.9mm, 220g |
| Colours | Ebony Black, Sakura White, Sage Inexperienced |
ASUS Zenfone 12 Extremely: Design
I managed to interrupt the Zenfone 12 Extremely after simply three days of use, in order that’s nearly as good a spot to start out as any. The machine slid out of my pocket and hit the ground, and despite the fact that the space was simply over two toes, the angle of affect — alongside an edge — meant that it picked up a spiderweb of cracks originating on the again.
Let’s discuss concerning the safety — or lack thereof. The Zenfone 12 Extremely has a glass again with Gorilla Glass 3, and whereas the protecting layer does a fantastic job towards scratches, it does not do a lot towards tumbles (as evidenced with my unit). Most telephones I take advantage of as of late include Gorilla Glass Victus or Victus 2, they usually have significantly better resilience towards tumbles.
Manufacturers like Vivo and Honor are utilizing their very own glass protecting layers on their newest telephones, and after prolonged use involving a half-dozen drops, I did not discover any harm on the X200 Professional or Magic 7 Professional. In reality, telephones are usually resilient sufficient that I do not use a case with any of the units I take a look at exterior of the iPhone 16 Professional Max and Pixel 9 Professional XL.
I assume the acute angle of affect in all probability contributed to the glass breaking, and it made utilizing the telephone all of the extra annoying as I needed to put it in a case. One other level of competition is that as a result of ASUS does not promote the Zenfone 12 Extremely in as many areas because it used to, there isn’t any solution to reliably get the rear glass modified — ASUS has no plans to launch the telephone in India.
Annoyingly, there aren’t many equipment both. I are likely to want ultra-thin circumstances as they do not add an excessive amount of heft to the telephone, however most case manufacturers aren’t releasing equipment for the machine, so your decisions are very restricted on this regard. ASUS bundled a cumbersome Rhinoshield case with the telephone, and that is the one I needed to go together with.
The design of the telephone itself is not significantly noteworthy. You mainly get a plain glass again with an oblong digital camera island, and the design is basically forgettable. There is no defining characteristic to the telephone, and it simply does not seem like a flagship that prices over $1,000.
There’s an aluminum mid-frame, and ASUS says it is utilizing 100% recycled aluminum this time, which is sweet to see. The Ebony Black variant does not stand out, however you will get the telephone in Sakura White and Sage Inexperienced, with the inexperienced mannequin the most effective of the lot.
As a result of the telephone makes use of the identical basis as ASUS’s gaming-oriented units, the USB-C port is positioned to the facet. That is inconvenient in the event you’re attempting to fit the telephone right into a cell controller just like the GameSir G8 Galileo, or cost the machine when it is on a telephone stand.
Whereas the Zenfone 12 Extremely is lighter than final 12 months at 220g, it’s bulkier and taller than most different telephones I used lately. Actually, ASUS ought to have caught with the flamboyant styling and vivid hues that made the Zenfone 9 and 10 so distinctive — I used price range telephones which have higher character.
ASUS Zenfone 12 Extremely: Show
ASUS is not making any adjustments to the panel this 12 months, so the Zenfone 12 Extremely comes with the identical 6.78-inch Samsung AMOLED panel as its predecessor. It makes use of LTPO tech to dynamically alter refresh between 1Hz to 120Hz, and it goes as much as 144Hz in choose video games.
The 2400 x 1080 decision is unchanged as nicely, as is the max brightness of 2500 nits when viewing HDR content material. Whereas the Vivo X200 Professional, Pixel 9 Professional XL, and Magic 7 Professional get brighter in common use, there aren’t any inherent points with the Zenfone 12 Extremely on this regard — the panel is readable beneath harsh daylight.
ASUS is aware of the best way to calibrate the panels on its telephones, and the Zenfone 12 Extremely has nice colours out of the field, and also you get an excellent quantity of customizability in the case of adjusting the colour stability. The bezels are simply as skinny as final 12 months, and it makes utilizing the machine simply that little bit extra thrilling. Additionally, the optical fingerprint sensor is positioned within the perfect place, and I had no issues accessing it.
You even get a 3.5mm jack, with ASUS being the one model to nonetheless provide the characteristic on a high-end telephone. It is not simply the inclusion of the analog jack both; ASUS put in loads of work to ship nice audio, and the collaboration with Dirac genuinely makes a distinction.
Fortunately, the display screen is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus 2, and the one factor I will say about it’s that ASUS ought to have used the identical coating on the again too. Gaming or consuming content material on the machine is extremely gratifying, and aside from the restricted choice of always-on types, I haven’t got any issues with the panel on the telephone.
ASUS Zenfone 12 Extremely: {Hardware} and battery
ASUS clearly is aware of the best way to make telephones with top-notch {hardware}, and the Zenfone 12 Extremely is a real powerhouse. Much like its predecessors, the machine comes with the newest Qualcomm silicon, and it’s concerning the quickest cell chipset obtainable at this time — it even outshines the A18 in single-core workloads.
I obtained the 16GB/512GB variant of the machine, and that is the variant that ASUS is rolling out globally. ASUS did a unbelievable job organising the telephone, and it completely flies — that is the quickest telephone I utilized in 2025. There aren’t any slowdowns, no glitches or stutters, and the telephone does a terrific job in demanding video games. It has stricter thermal limitations than the ROG Cellphone 9 Professional, and actually, that is an excellent factor; the telephone does not get absurdly sizzling, but it surely nonetheless manages to ship steady framerates.
| Class | ASUS Zenfone 12 Extremely | Honor Magic 7 Professional | Vivo X200 Professional |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geekbench 6 (single-core) | 3116 | 2965 | 2381 |
| Geekbench 6 (multi-core) | 9824 | 6342 | 7175 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 (General) | 25558 | 21008 | 15731 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 (Internet Looking) | 32147 | 24889 | 13716 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 (Video Enhancing) | 9152 | 8072 | 5823 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 (Writing) | 32843 | 27504 | 24744 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 (Photograph Enhancing) | 59086 | 40642 | 13582 |
| 3DMark Wild Life Excessive (rating) | 4782 | 6391 | 6070 |
| 3DMark Wild Life Excessive (FPS) | 28.64 | 38.27 | 36.35 |
| 3DMark Photo voltaic Bay (rating) | 7863 | 11298 | 11021 |
| 3DMark Photo voltaic Bay (FPS) | 29.9 | 42.96 | 41.91 |
| Geekbench AI (Quantized Rating) | 5478 | 2115 | 2436 |
It should not be astonishing that the Zenfone 12 Extremely posted the best scores within the likes of Geekbench 6. A better thermal restrict than most different units on this class — it went as much as 46 levels in 3DMark’s Metal Nomad stress take a look at — mixed with nice optimization provides the telephone a definite benefit, and despite the fact that it is not branded as such, that is mainly top-of-the-line Android gaming telephones you will get at this time.
There are many cool additions as nicely; ASUS has a again faucet gesture that is inherently customizable, and curiously, the gesture works even with a cumbersome case. ASUS additionally leverages the complete Qualcomm suite of choices, so that you get the AptX HD and AptX Lossless codecs as normal.
I did not run into any points with connectivity — both in the home or exterior — and aside from the vibration motor missing granularity, there aren’t any issues by any means with the {hardware}. ASUS continues to excel on this space, and if you would like a robust telephone designed for gaming, you may love what the Zenfone 12 Extremely has to supply.
Coming to the battery facet of issues, the telephone will get the identical 5500mAh battery as final 12 months. It is cut up into twin 2750mAh items, and makes use of the usual USB PD 65W protocol to cost, so you should utilize any PD charger with ease. That is related, as a result of ASUS now not bundles a charger within the field. I am irritated that different Android manufacturers are beginning to observe Samsung and Google, and I do not see why ASUS could not simply bundle the charger with the package deal.
Anyway, the telephone lasts a day with none issues, and there isn’t any anxiousness by any means on the subject of the battery operating out earlier than the tip of the day — even with heavy use. It takes 44 minutes to cost the battery utilizing a 65W PD charger, and whereas it is not the longest-lasting machine I examined in 2025 — that is the Vivo X200 Professional — it simply lasts a day, and that is adequate.
ASUS Zenfone 12 Extremely: Cameras
ASUS went with a 50MP major digital camera that options Sony’s Lytia-700 imaging module, and also you get a 32MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom, and a 13MP wide-angle lens. Alongside the brand new major digital camera, ASUS tweaked the gimbal stabilization system to permit the machine to take even higher movies. Exterior of that, there aren’t any variations to the Zenfone 11 Extremely — ASUS is utilizing the identical lenses on the auxiliary cameras as final 12 months.
The digital camera interface hasn’t modified from final 12 months, however there is a doc scanning possibility now, and a better solution to set off a timer. You get the same old AI-assisted capturing modes, they usually do an honest sufficient job making certain the topic is at all times in focus. The brand new gimbal stabilization tech is healthier than final 12 months, and also you see a noticeable distinction if you transfer round while taking movies.
Nonetheless, video high quality itself is not the most effective, and the Zenfone 12 Extremely does not come anyplace near its rivals on this space. Annoyingly, 4K60 video is restricted to the primary digital camera, so you possibly can’t use the mode with the auxiliary sensors. This severely inhibits the flexibility of the cameras, and actually, in the event you plan on taking loads of movies, I might recommend getting the Vivo X200 Professional as a substitute.
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Coming to pictures, the Zenfone 12 Extremely has good dynamic vary and colour accuracy in daylight pictures, and foliage is rendered precisely with none aggressive artifacting. It has points focusing at occasions, and it does not do anyplace in addition to the Pixel 9 Professional XL or Honor Magic 7 Professional at taking pictures of fast-moving topics.
The auxiliary lenses are first rate sufficient, however but once more, they do not have the identical stage of element or colour constancy as different high-end telephones, and that is noticeable in low-light imagery. The primary digital camera, nevertheless, does a significantly better job in difficult conditions than earlier years, and I’ve no qualms about that sensor.
I appear to say this yearly, however the Zenfone 12 Extremely has the most effective digital camera package deal ASUS delivered thus far. Nonetheless, it is not anyplace nearly as good as what different Chinese language manufacturers are providing in the intervening time. When you do not intend to make use of the cameras an excessive amount of and as a substitute desire a highly effective telephone that additionally takes satisfactory pictures, the Zenfone 12 Extremely remains to be a good selection. However if you would like best-in-class imaging modules and digital camera tuning, you may must get the X200 Professional or the Discover X8 Professional.
ASUS Zenfone 12 Extremely: Software program
ASUS has top-of-the-line software program interfaces of any Android telephone at this time. There is not a vanilla UI as such with Android as of late, however the Taiwanese model did a fantastic job balancing minimal styling with in depth customizability, and utilizing the interface evokes fond recollections of OxygenOS 9.5.
The interface is optimized extremely nicely, and it has higher fluidity than simply about another telephone at this time — together with the OnePlus 13, Vivo X200 Professional, Honor Magic 7 Professional, and the Pixel 9 Professional XL. It is only a delight to make use of the UI, and I am a fan of the customizability on provide; you possibly can endlessly tweak gestures, styling of the amount slider and notification pane, energy menu, name display screen, and a lot extra.
Principally, ASUS put within the work in rolling out utilities you may really find yourself utilizing, and that alone makes ZenUI stand out. The telephone runs Android 15 out of the field, and like each different producer, ASUS is doubling down on AI. Fortunately, ASUS clearly delineates between cloud and on-device AI, so if you do not need your information going to a server, you possibly can simply select to make use of the built-in language fashions.
There’s excellent news on that entrance, with ASUS noting that the Zenfone 12 Extremely makes use of Meta’s Llama 3 8B language mannequin to energy on-device AI summarization. You additionally get real-time translation and semantic search — the place it searches metadata to tug up helpful information — and each of those are run completely on-device. AI-assisted transcribing, doc summaries, and article summaries use a mix of cloud and on-device AI, and all of those options do a adequate job in common use.
Look, I am not the most important fan of AI options, and my utilization of most of those utilities extends to testing them out for the assessment. However I achieve this with all telephones that cross my desk, and I will admit that ASUS does a greater job on this regard than most producers. I nonetheless assume Google has the particular edge in the case of phone-based AI utilities, however ASUS is doing all the suitable issues.
Speaking about doing the suitable factor, the one space the place ASUS must be higher is software program updates. The Zenfone 12 Extremely will get simply two Android platform updates and 5 years of safety updates, and that simply is not sufficient. Even price range telephones now routinely provide three updates — like Nothing’s Cellphone 2a — so there isn’t any excuse for a tool that prices over $1,000 to get two platform updates in 2025.
This has at all times been a sore level with ASUS’s units up to now, and I assumed the model would change its stance in 2025 — that simply is not the case.
ASUS Zenfone 12 Extremely: The alternate options
When you want a high-end telephone in 2025, you need to take into account getting the OnePlus 13. OnePlus nailed the fundamentals this time, with the machine that includes a design that is higher to carry and use. The blue leather-based mannequin specifically seems to be placing, and after practically a month of use, I did not see any points with sturdiness or construct high quality.
The cameras are excellent, and the {hardware} is among the many greatest you will get at this time. Whereas it does not match the Zenfone 12 Extremely at gaming, that is about the one detrimental I can consider. The battery lasts a day and a half, it does not take as lengthy to cost, and the software program is optimized extremely nicely. Briefly, the OnePlus 13 is the brand new yardstick, and coming in at $899, it does not value as a lot as ASUS’s providing.
When you do not want the most effective cameras, Nubia’s Z70 Extremely is an honest different. It additionally has terrific {hardware}, and whereas the software program is not anyplace nearly as good because the Zenfone 12 Extremely, it has a comparatively clear UI and is optimized very nicely. And at $729, it’s a significantly better worth.
ASUS Zenfone 12 Extremely: Must you purchase it?
You should purchase this if:
- You need the most effective {hardware} package deal
- You want clear software program with none bloat
- You need terrific battery life
You should not purchase this if:
- You want long-term Android updates
- You need the most effective cameras
- You want a telephone with a trendy design
I have a tendency to love ASUS’s telephones for one easy purpose: the software program is tuned to my tastes. The clear interface together with in depth customizability and nice optimization results in an expertise that is gratifying, and it’s a real differentiator. In fact, the {hardware} performs an enormous half on this as nicely, and ASUS has as soon as once more delivered one of many strongest {hardware} packages round.
However that is the factor — whereas I like utilizing the telephone fairly a bit, I would not advocate it. Provided that the Zenfone 12 Extremely is a high-end machine, I will have to evaluate it towards different flagships, and it simply does not measure up in loads of areas; the cameras do not come near the X200 Professional, Honor Magic 7 Professional, or the Pixel 9 Professional XL, the design is not distinctive sufficient, and ASUS’s middling software program replace coverage is infuriating.
It is not that the Zenfone 12 Extremely is a foul telephone — removed from it — however it’s going up towards robust rivals, and I am unable to assist however really feel that it simply is not adequate for what it prices. These shortcomings would have been excusable on a $500 telephone, however the Zenfone 12 Extremely prices greater than double that, and on this class, even minor flaws grow to be deal-breakers — which is strictly the case right here.
