Asus Zenfone 12 Ultra review
Clean Android 15 with a big Asus AI infusion
The Zenfone 12 Ultra runs a relatively clean version of Android 15. You can expect to receive at least two major software updates and at least five years of security patches, according to Asus.
Asus has a very light software layer that runs on top of what is basically AOSP. Asus has its preferred way of handling certain things, like system volume controls and the quick settings UI, but there is always the option to revert to the AOSP way of handling things available. That goes for most custom bits scattered all over the place. As we said, though, for the most part, you are getting a very clean and AOSP-like experience.
Without going into too much detail, we will point out some of the custom software work that Asus has put into its ROM. A Mobile Manager app acts as a central hub for managing the phones' performance and things like RAM and storage.
Screen light feature - notification LED alternative
Twin Apps is a very nifty addition. Its name is quite self-explanatory. You do get a finite list of apps that support the feature, most of which seem to be games, but most major messengers are also on the support list. The edge tool is also self-explanatory. The interface is highly customizable. It spawns apps in floating windows when available and can adapt to whatever is going on with the phone with specific options like Video Genie, which supports background playback for videos, among other things.
OptiFlex has been a mainstay for Asus devices for a while now. It is a system-level app accelerator that reduces launch times, and UI reloads when recalling apps. It can also save on standby power. The idea is to enable it for your most used apps.
Finally, even though the Zenfone doesn't have the full set of gaming features and goodies of the ROG Phone line like the Armory Crate, the in-game Game Genie overlay is present. It includes all sorts of nifty quick toggles, shortcuts to various features, readouts for temperature, CPU and GPU load, and in-game FPS.
Probably best of all, though, you get to enjoy the incredibly powerful and in-depth Asus systems for capturing and executing macros and doing control mapping. That includes on-screen controls, joysticks, and even a mouse and keyboard connected to the phone.
In case you were wondering, yes, you can gain an unfair advantage over your opponents quite easily and use a keyboard and mouse for things like most shooter games.
We should mention that Asus doesn't solely rely on AOSP apps for its core functionality. On the contrary, Asus has its own in-house apps like Gallery, Clock and File Manager. Even so, there is absolutely no bloat to speak of. No ads either, in case you were wondering.
AI is at the core of the Zenfone software experience now more than ever. Some of the AI features in the Zenfone 12 Ultra aren't new and have been introduced with the Zenfone 11 Ultra. Others are brand new. You can get a brief overview in the following table, and it should be noted that Asus made sure that most of the AI features can run on-device. You can choose whether to use cloud computing or not. As far as Asus has shared, it doesn't plan on charging for the cloud services, at least for now.
AI Call Translator does what you would imagine, works both ways and currently supports live translation for Chinese, Cantonese, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Indonesian, Swedish, Polish, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian. The list has been expanded in this generation. Translation works on device. It also supports third-party IM apps.
AI Transcribe works in the sound recorder app and automatically transcribes audio, which you can then summarize automatically as well. Once again, you can have the feature work on-device or via the cloud. It supports Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Indonesian, Swedish, Polish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian and Cantonese. It can also differentiate between different speakers and mark the transcription accordingly.
AI Article Summary and AI Document Summary work pretty identically. You can get a quick summary of a given text, whether it is an article in the browser or a local document.
Circle to Search is a Google feature and not an Asus one. Unlike the rest of the features on the list, it requires cloud services, but that's understandable, given that you are essentially doing a web search based on an image.
Semantic Search works entirely on device, which is good since it digs through your personal data and apps. It can find things like system settings and apps. It also works inside the gallery app, where you can simply describe the contents of a phone to find it.
There are some AI camera features worth mentioning as well.
AI Tracking is quite self-explanatory. During video capture, it can detect a subject in real-time and keep the subject in frame, including auto zooming.
AI Portrait Video 2.0 takes portrait videos to a new level with more precise subject tracking. It works in 4K resolution.
AI Voice Clarity can isolate and remove noise in real-time while recording. It can effectively eliminate things like traffic, crowd noise or barking dogs.
AI Unblur is also self-explanatory. It works to fix and restore blurry areas in photos.
AI Panning Shot is very aptly named as well. You can pan your phone on a moving object, and if you keep it in frame well enough, the phone can optimize the sharpness and create a natural and convincing motion blur effect in the background that can even be adjusted.
Finally, there is AI Magic Fill, which is not technically a camera feature but a post-capture editing one inside the gallery. It can do smart object detection and selection and content aware, AI-powered fill to effectively remove unwanted things from the frame. It works decently well but is far from perfect.
In fact, we should note that many of the listed AI features are still technically in beta, so they will presumably only get better in the future. Still, even in its current state, the AI suit on offer here rivals that of major industry players like Samsung.
Benchmarks and performance
The Zenfone 12 Ultra runs the latest and greatest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. It is a modern 3nm part with all of the bells and whistles in terms of features and connectivity. In the CPU department, the Snapdragon 8 Elite has a pair of 4.32 GHz Oryon V2 Phoenix L cores and six 3.53 GHz Oryon V2 Phoenix M ones. It is worth noting that this is technically not the most powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset out there. For one, the Samsung Galaxy S25 line has a Snapdragon 8 Elite with its "big" cores clocked at up to 4.47 GHz.
The onboard GPU is the incredibly powerful Adreno 830. You can get the phone with up to 16GB of fast LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. Our review unit is a top 16GB, 512GB model.
Asus claims that the Snapdragon 8 Elite delivers a 45% increase in CPU performance, 40% in GPU performance and 40% in NPU performance over the Zenfone 11 Ultra. That's quite impressive. Let's see some of the numbers we managed on our review unit. For the sake of thoroughness, we ran our tests in both the regular Dynamic and Performance mode.
GeekBench 6
- Multi-core
- Single-core
ROG Phone 9/9 Pro
Zenfone 12 Ultra
Realme GT 7 Pro
Honor Magic7 Pro
OnePlus 13
Oppo Find X8 Pro
iPhone 16 Pro Max
AnTuTu 10
ROG Phone 9/9 Pro
Honor Magic7 Pro
Realme GT 7 Pro
Zenfone 12 Ultra
Oppo Find X8 Pro
OnePlus 13
vivo X200 Pro
3DMark
- Wild Life Extreme (2160p)
- Solar Bay (1440p)
Honor Magic7 Pro
OnePlus 13
Oppo Find X8 Pro
Realme GT 7 Pro
vivo X200 Pro
Zenfone 12 Ultra
Zenfone 11 Ultra
Going by the benchmark numbers, it is clear that the Zenfone 12 Ultra makes good use of the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. Still, the ROG Phone 9 manages to squeeze a bit more performance from the chip, but not by a lot. You are basically getting the pinnacle of current mobile performance with the Zenfone 12 Ultra.
Thermal-throttling
The Zenfone 12 has pretty solid thermal management. It is still a passively cooled device, and the Snapdragon 8 Elite puts out quite a bit of heat. You can quite clearly feel the heat on the surface of the phone, which can get very toasty, especially in performance mode. The phone tends to push itself pretty hard in performance mode and sustain higher performance for longer, which naturally results in more heat, which is being drawn away from the internals and towards the surface of the device. As a result, you get pretty stable thermal-throttling behavior.
Thermal-throttling in Performance mode
In its default Dynamic mode, the Zenfone 12 Ultra behaves less aggressively towards performance and prioritizes temperature and in-hand comfort a bit more. The phone's surface doesn't get nearly as hot but also throttles down its performance more aggressively. Even so, the throttling behavior remains quite stable without jarring drops and dips that could lead to stutters.
Thermal-throttling in Dynamic mode
Reader comments
- Anonymous
- 20 Feb 2025
- Sr6
What Doo you mean even xiaomi? Xiaomi is the best. You can't go wrong with xiaomi unless there's a Samsung screen inside 🤣 Yeah Asus sucks real bad ever since they had those motherboard problems for decades. Never buy Asus!
- JellyBean
- 19 Feb 2025
- X@c
They are on the right track to shut down their mobile division ever since they release A14 update that "kill" most of their phone back then and they denied it was caused by their A14 update,
- Anonymous
- 19 Feb 2025
- spX
every asus phone i have drains battery like crazy in idle. with screen, bluetooth, nfc, data and wireless OFF but you do you, keep buying this expensive 💩