Just as Apple is preparing to kill off the smallest (and least successful) member of its iPhone family, the closest thing to a “perfect” compact Android handset in quite some time is finally going up for pre-order.
Formally unveiled back in July as a successor to the May 2021-released Asus Zenfone 8, the 5.9-inch Zenfone 9 squeezes a lot of goodies into a diminutive (by 2022 standards, at least) body at a fairly reasonable price of $699 and up.
Even better, the pint-sized phone’s manufacturer promises to hook up all early US-based buyers with a complimentary pair of Asus ROG Cetra True Wireless earbuds, which are normally available for $99 by themselves. Those bad boys come with state-of-the-art active noise cancellation technology, IPX4 water resistance, wireless charging support, and up to a combined 27-hour battery life (taking into consideration said wireless charging case), mind you, making them a pretty sweet launch gift (only valid until September 30).
The Asus Zenfone 9 itself will be delivered by Mobile Advance (via Amazon) no earlier than October 20 if you order it today, which is definitely a little inconvenient. But the aforementioned 5.9-inch Super AMOLED 120Hz screen may well be worth the wait, especially when you also consider the state-of-the-art Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor and reasonably hefty 4,300mAh battery under the hood of this compact beast.
Your seven Benjamins will buy you a relatively modest (by today’s ultra-high-end standards) combination of 8 gigs of RAM and 128GB internal storage space, but for just 50 extra bucks, you can double the latter number. Finally, a top-of-the-line 256GB storage configuration with a whopping 16GB RAM count also on deck can be yours at $799, which doesn’t look like a bad quality/price ratio either.
Unfortunately, the Zenfone 9 takes its cues from many of today’s jumbo-sized Android powerhouses in the expandable memory department, lacking a microSD card slot, although on the decidedly bright side of things, the handset does include a good old fashioned 3.5mm headphone jack… in addition to a surprisingly fast 30W charger in the box.
Bottom line, you’re looking at an absolute and undeniable value champion here that happens to be a lot easier to maneuver with one hand than most other premium smartphones on the market right now.
