The ASUS Zenfone 8 Hands-On Review: A New Compact Direction
by Andrei Frumusanu on May 12, 2021 1:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Asus
- Mobile
- Zenfone 8
GPU Performance
GPU performance of the Zenfone 8 is interesting given that’s it’s currently the smallest Snapdragon 888 device we have at hand. We’ve had determined that the Snapdragon 888 is a quite power hungry SoC, so combining this with a smaller phone which has a lesser thermal envelope isn’t quite the recipe for success.
Throughout the benchmark scores, we can indeed see that while the Zenfone 8 outperforms the Zenfone 7 Pro quite easily when it comes to the peak performance, the new smaller phone actually regresses its sustained performance to below the levels of its predecessor once the device heats up and becomes thermally saturated. ASUS has quite reasonable thermals here and the phone doesn’t exceed 42-43°C peak skin temperatures which is a reasonable and good behaviour, it’s just that the resulting power levels here mean that the SoC and GPU have to throttle quite a bit.
The end results aren’t bad, and the phone is still plenty competitive, it’s just that it doesn’t really showcase any performance advantage over the last generation of devices.
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Tams80 - Tuesday, May 18, 2021 - link
The XZ2 isn't really compact.Tams80 - Tuesday, May 18, 2021 - link
And?You do realise there are people happy to make that trade-off, even if they are only a small group? And the XZ1 has pretty decent battery life.
The market is absolutely saturated with large phones, which are popular. That doesn't mean only large phones should exist.
People like you really grate my gears.
Findecanor - Thursday, May 13, 2021 - link
Agreed. Smartphones do keep getting bigger, but people's hands do not.It is also not "the smallest flagship by far". It is about the same size as the iPhone 12/Pro, and weight-wise in-between. And if we compare to flagships from last spring, we got the Samsung Galaxy S20.
haukionkannel - Thursday, May 13, 2021 - link
True… only iPhone 12 mini seems to be allmost compact and no Android versions have been around for years…Linustechtips12#6900xt - Thursday, May 13, 2021 - link
12 mini or se 2020Linustechtips12#6900xt - Thursday, May 13, 2021 - link
as an s10e user, the s10e without a case does very well fit in a single hand thank you very much especially when used with the one-handed feature or just on one ui, in general, that's what one UI was made for to be better on bigger phone and make them easier to use even though s10e is compact it is a very decent phone.inperfectdarkness - Sunday, May 16, 2021 - link
XZ2 Compact > XZ1 Compact, imho. Damn shame Sony doesn't care diddly squat to make another 5" phone. Everything is 6" now.prophet001 - Thursday, May 13, 2021 - link
Anybody know a good 4g phone that's like the size of a Blackberry Bold. I like having it in my pocket and can't find anything that is that size and still has email, web etc.Thanks!
hemedans - Thursday, May 13, 2021 - link
sony xperia xz1 compact-height
bold 115cm
xz1c 128cm
-width
bold 66cm
xz1c 65cm
-depth
bold 10.5cm
xz1c 9.3 cm
xz1c will be narrow and compact but a little bit taller.
inperfectdarkness - Sunday, May 16, 2021 - link
Bold: 115 x 66 x 10.5 mm (4.53 x 2.60 x 0.41 in)XZ1 Compact: 129 x 65 x 9.3 mm (5.08 x 2.56 x 0.37 in)
XZ2 Compact: 135 x 65 x 12.1 mm (5.31 x 2.56 x 0.48 in)
Those are the closest you'll find outside of something pitifully small and unusable--which is pretty much every phone in the < 4" size.
The XZ2 Compact - international version - can handle dual SIM cards or SIM + SD.