This week seems to be a busy one for Asus. Just two days ago, it launched its “budget” gaming smartphone, the ROG Phone 9 FE. Today, it released its latest non-gaming flagship smartphone, the Asus Zenfone 12 Ultra.
No, there isn’t a “regular” Zenfone 12
Just in case you’re wondering, the Zenfone 12 Ultra is, at least for now, the only phone in its lineup. So, there’s no “regular” Zenfone 12, nor there is a “Pro” variant. This was the same case with last year’s Zenfone 11 Ultra.
And like its predecessor, the Zenfone 12 Ultra is a plus-sized phone, sporting a 6.78-inch display, unlike the Zenfone 8, 9, and 10, which were compact flagships with displays no larger than 6 inches.
Asus Zenfone 12 Ultra specs and features
The Asus Zenfone 12 Ultra is offered globally with three colour options, namely Ebony Black, Sakura White, and Sage Green. Its back design sort of resembles the ROG 9 gaming phone series, albeit looking much more minimalistic and also lacking the mini-LED matrix display.
Materials-wise, the Zenfone 12 Ultra sports a matte glass at the back, a 22% recycled glass screen up front, and is wrapped by a 100% recycled aluminium frame. It’s also rated at IP68 for dust and water resistance.
At the front, you get a 6.78-inch LTPO Full HD+ AMOLED display supplied by Samsung, pushing out 2400 x 1080 pixels. This panel has an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz, and can even push all the way to 144Hz for selected game titles.
Under the “hood” of the Asus Zenfone 12 Ultra is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC, which can be paired with up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage.
In the imaging department, you get a tri-camera setup at the back, consisting of a 50MP main camera that comes with a Sony Lytia 700 sensor and the brand’s 6-Axis Hybrid Gimbal Stabilizer. There is also a 32MP telephoto camera with built-in OIS and 3x optical zoom capabilities and a 13MP ultrawide angle camera. Handling selfies is a 32MP front camera.
These cameras come with some AI functionalities to help you capture better footage, including AI Tracking which helps keep the subject, whether human or pet, perfectly centred in videos. AI Portrait Video 2.0 on the other hand helps create cinematic-quality videos with customizable bokeh effects.
Meanwhile, AI Voice Clarity reduces environmental noise in real time, enhancing voice clarity during video recording. Additionally, you also get AI magic Fill, a feature that removes unwanted elements from photos, AI Unblur which sharpens images affected by vibration, and AI Panning Shot, which generates dynamic motion-blur effects without the need for professional equipment.
Aside from camera-related functions, Asus has also sprinkled its AI magic onto the productivity side of things. Most of these features are pretty self-explanatory, including AI Transcript 2.0, AI Article Summary, AI Document Summary, and AI Call Translator 2.0. Google’s Circle to Search has also been thrown in as well.
The Zenfone 12 Ultra is also said to incorporate both cloud-based AI and on-device AI. This allows users to still be able to utilise the AI features when going off the grid, thanks to Qualcomm’s on-device NPU. Asus also mentioned that its latest non-gaming flagship smartphone is the world’s first to integrate the Metta Llma 3 8B language model for on-device summarisation.
Keeping lights on for the Zenfone 12 Ultra is a 5,500mAh battery which Asus claims can provide up to 26 hours of use. When you run out of juice, you can charge the device at 65W via USB-C, juicing the battery from flat to full in about 39 minutes. Wireless charging is also supported at 15W.
The Asus Zenfone 12 Ultra runs on Google’s latest Android 15 but is disappointingly promised with only up to 2 years of software upgrades.
Asus Zenfone 12 Ultra global price and availability
Asus has launched the Zenfone 12 Ultra in markets such as Europe, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. In mainland Europe, excluding the UK, the device can be had from EUR1,100 (~ RM5,060) onwards. Asus is also set to launch its latest non-gaming flagship smartphone in Japan soon.
