Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra review

14 March 2024


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Darth Caesium, 17 Mar 2024Performance is still a joke compared to Pixel UI; the sound... moreI wouldn't say it's a joke compared to Pixel UI, I tried a Pixel 7 and both seem similar to me. I don't have any issues with smoothness on either phone.

I think your main issue is with the aesthetics and I get it, it's completely subjective. And yeah bloat is annoying for some people but I just put them in a folder and forget. I literally get reminded about them once every like year or something when I mistakenly tap on one of the bloatwares instead of the Samsung Notes app, which as you say is indeed banger I got like 700 random ahh notes.

I get what you're saying sort of but I have to say man, if you use a phone for a month, everything becomes normal. Honestly I preferred OneUI 5/5.1's control center but this isn't bad. It's just less one hand friendly and apart from that I ain't got no complains. After trying out Apple, Xiaomi and Google phones of my relatives I just feel like everything is the same just with a different theme honestly. Nothing annoys me too much apart from the lack of control and customization in some phones.

    jiyen235, 17 Mar 2024That's strange, OneUI and Samsung's software in g... morePerformance is still a joke compared to Pixel UI; the sound tray looks awful visually and feels hard to use due to the excessive amount of white being used; the icons on the notification centre being circles makes them hard to consistently press what you're looking for; Samsung's first-party app icons have an aesthetic that I just dislike, and there's lots of Samsung bloat pre-installed that cannot be uninstalled (I want none of what they shove down my throat, in fact, except for Samsung Notes); and the AOD looks downright tiny. Also, there's something about the aesthetic that I just dislike, it's like they took the worst parts of flat design and mixed it with the worst parts of skeumorphic design. Pixel UI is almost entirely (99%) flat, which annoys me, but at least it doesn't feel like it's trying to be a mishmash of things, has good performance and doesn't have major glaring UI/UX issues.

    I will admit though that Samsung's camera app is great in just how much control you can have with it, and the S24 series takes very nice and very colour-accurate photos. Samsung's oversaturated photos were the bane of my existence, and I'm glad to see that they're no longer doing that.

      Darth Caesium, 17 Mar 2024I have used OneUI a lot, and I hate it. I used to use a £35... moreThat's strange, OneUI and Samsung's software in general is what kept me since the S8 days. The only other true competitor was the Oneplus for me and I tried a family member's OP 8 and it was awesome yeah but Samsung was just far cooler to own and stuff yk if that makes sense. I just liked how Samsung's UI has looked and felt for the most part.

      When I started using my S22 U I loved and absolutely despised it. I loved everything about it nearly but despised the horrible lag. It became ok after OneUI 5.1 and good after OneUI 6 so I can't complain too much about the software side of things here tbh.

      Samsung's good lock is pretty banger for me for example I got a cool ahh keyboard animation with Keys Cafe, can change indicator icons on the top panel/quick panel with navstar, Sound assistant allowed me to change the "steps in volume" with each press, I really loved that and I can change the color and look of the volume slider, Camera Assistant allows me to reduce sharpening, turn off Auto Lens Switching and Distortion Correction which I have yet to see other phones add, got a Delete button on screenshots with Nice Shot. Also, increased the home screen and app screen grid and can increase favorites count but they do look a bit buggy at higher numbers, changed the background look when in the app drawer thing, changed folder size, and crucially changed the apps which come up first when sharing something and final changed the way the app switcher looks by using a grid stack, having app labels, recommended apps and a search bar, all this was done with Home Up. Made my own AOD with Clockface, love it tho it's super cringey and basic lol. Used Thermal Guardian to increase max temps so I can push the phone a tad harder before throttling. And finally Battery Tracker is an awesome app that's a good bonus to the good battery tracker Samsung has in their Device Care.

      Like, all these add up and make the phone feel, mine, yk? That's why I find it hard to go out of Samsung. Others have very cool customization like fingerprint animation and stuff and so far I've only seen Vivo allow you to change the way the task/app switcher looks and their method is damn near flawless, having a little button below is fantastic.

      What issues have you noticed? I'll see if I can replicate those.

        Mystique, 15 Mar 2024I absolutely agree with the comments regarding this phone b... moreThe flip camera was so good. They should've stuck with that design, and if they'd given both the ultrawide and the telephoto an IMX 858 sensor and the telephoto a periscope lens, they would've had a great and unique product for the price. Remove the Gimbal IS on the main sensor in exchange for OIS + IBIS like the Oppo Find X5 series, give telephoto the OIS + IBIS combo as well, and give both the ultrawide and telephoto macro capabilities. Also, bring back the microSD card reader, with support for Dual SIM + Dual eSIM + single microSD card; give it an ultrasonic under-display fingerprint sensor instead of this optical nonsense that most flagships still seem to have; and keep that back material that the Asus Zenfone 10 had. Finally, keep the 9.5mm thickness of the Asus Zenfone 10 and give this phone a 6000mAh battery.

        TL;DR:
        •Have flip mechanism for rear cameras like on Asus Zenfone 8 Flip
        •Give IMX 858 sensor for the ultrawide and telephoto
        •Telephoto gains periscope lens
        •OIS + IBIS on main camera and telephoto
        •Macro on ultrawide and telephoto
        •Dual SIM + Dual eSIM + single microSD card support
        •Give ultrasonic fingerprint sensor
        •Keep back material of Asus Zenfone 10
        •Keep 9.5mm thickness that Asus Zenfone 10 had
        •Give it a 6000mAh battery

          Anonymous, 16 Mar 20244 people stuck in Google Nexus days who never used One UI o... moreI have used OneUI a lot, and I hate it. I used to use a £350 Samsung phone. I also have used an old TouchWiz Samsung tablet, and I didn't like that either (to be fair, no one did). I won't claim to completely love Google's Pixel UI either, or the stock UI that is almost the same as that, since Material Design is way too flat as a design philosophy, but it's at least so much snappier and easier on the eyes than OneUI. Also, OneUI makes plenty of terrible UI and UX decisions, and so as much as I value its extensive customisability (at least when not compared to KDE Plasma on Linux) that Google lacks, there's no way to solve most of those issues. Google has its own issues, but they are mostly minor compared to Samsung's ones.

          Also, I know plenty of people who own more expensive Samsung phones with OneUI, and having handled their phones as well, I can safely say that I dislike OneUI a lot.

            • ?
            • Anonymous
            • q}N
            • 17 Mar 2024

            i would have easily bought this over the galaxy S24 as it's one of the only flagships with a headphone jack.

            it was so easy for ASUS. all they had to do was allow us to unlock the bootloader and i could look past the lack of software updates. i would have had faith in the lineageOS community that they would support this device for many years to come. but instead, they want to drop support after 2 years and not allow us to install a custom ROM?

            i am personally ok with a bigger phone, but they pissed off most of their customers by ditching compact phones. A$U$ screwed up. do they want to go the way of LG??

              • b
              • big display fan
              • Bn5
              • 17 Mar 2024

              Make Ultra really Ultra large with 7.2 inch display I like large displays on phone make it 21:9 7.2 or even 7.3 inch

                • ?
                • Anonymous
                • 383
                • 17 Mar 2024

                Front camera: 32 MP OmniVision ov8856 - please, correct. ov8856 - 8mp sensor.

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • spX
                  • 16 Mar 2024

                  ding dong move to remove the charger.
                  i have 2 rogs, none of them enables hyper-charge with any other charger but asus's charger.
                  and i tried many, 65w baseus with all protocols, 120w another charger, like 5 chargers.
                  none did ther hyper-charge but only asus charger. they charge normally but whats the point if u have fast charging and you can't use it?

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • 0p}
                    • 16 Mar 2024

                    Cant stop laughing. Ppl here need to exit bubble and go to reality.

                    Samsung mobile business alone makes at least 5x more revenue than entire Asus. Now imagine Asus phone business, small part of that.

                    Still they somehow think Asus can afford giving 4 androids to the phones.

                    🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

                      • ?
                      • Anonymous
                      • mt4
                      • 16 Mar 2024

                      Anonymous, 15 Mar 2024I got to "Stock Android" and stopped reading. On... more4 people stuck in Google Nexus days who never used One UI or if they did, they used it on Samsung 100$ phones didn't agree with you LOL

                        • Y
                        • Y
                        • LaC
                        • 16 Mar 2024

                        This phone has the potential to be a legend, I just wish it had more software support. It combines hardware prowess and battery life with nostalgic design language, and it even keeps the headphone jack!

                          • ?
                          • Anonymous
                          • 0U7
                          • 16 Mar 2024

                          Just another generic Android "flagship" phone.

                            • ?
                            • Anonymous
                            • mt4
                            • 16 Mar 2024

                            Anonymous, 15 Mar 2024Ok Samsung employeeThe truth hurts you doesn't it ? LMAO

                              • S
                              • Saddddd
                              • MuU
                              • 16 Mar 2024

                              Pathetic! One more brand went full China OS mode! There are no decent OS phones to buy any more!

                                • S
                                • Shame
                                • MuU
                                • 16 Mar 2024

                                Pathetic! Not buying any phone ever without included charger!

                                  • l
                                  • loko
                                  • ehw
                                  • 16 Mar 2024

                                  2 years of of major and 4 years of security updates.

                                  This is very poor update policy guys, behind of oneplus and others

                                    Nowadays you can get pretty fluid everyday perfomance from mid-range phones, the thing that separates those from flagships is the camera performance. So if this one's camera is average , and it throttles because it doesn't have the cooling to match the performance, who is it for? If i wanted an average camera but fast everyday perfomance and some solid gaming I'd take something like the Poco F5, this one is too close to some seriously impressive phones

                                      • 404
                                      • txE
                                      • 16 Mar 2024

                                      Anonymous, 15 Mar 2024Very impressive battery life, but will it have unlockable b... moreNope

                                        • 404
                                        • txE
                                        • 16 Mar 2024

                                        Anonymous, 15 Mar 2024it's a shame they left the interface close to stock androidNow replace "it's a shame" with "thankfully"

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