The ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra is a lesson in AI overkill and short-term thinking

When I finally started to jot down my thoughts on the new ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra, I couldn’t help but feel a creeping sense of déjà vu. Then I checked last year’s Zenfone 11 Ultra review and sighed in relief that I haven’t yet gone completely bananas from reviewing phones for a living. I thought I’d reviewed this phone before because I basically have. Between the increasingly obvious similarities between ASUS’ ROG and Zenfone series, perhaps I’d even written about it two or even three times by now.

Cutting right to the point, not much has changed since 2024’s Zenfone, at least in terms of the hardware. Yes, there’s a faster Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, eSIM support, and some nice color options (I’m a big fan of the Sage Green), but the battery, charging, camera (save an improved gimbal), display, and all the rest are unchanged from last year.

That’s not strictly a negative; ASUS already offers brilliant battery life, arguably the best universal fast charging capabilities, a great LTPO AMOLED display (albeit only an FHD+ one), and even a 3.5mm audio jack — all still present from its predecessor. In fact, battery life is 15-20% better than the Zenfone 11 Ultra for video calls and web browsing in my testing, a significant boon from its newer and more efficient processor. Plus, the phone has virtually the same outstanding performance as ASUS’ gaming-focused ROG Phone 9 Pro. The essentials are well catered for.

ASUS is also doing a better job on the aesthetics front, especially in light of the copy-paste design and boring colorways you’ll find at Samsung. The phone is made from a 100% recycled aluminum frame, and the screen is 22% recycled glass (Gorilla Glass Victus 2) — we’re still confirming with ASUS what the rear glass is. ASUS continues to take the Zenfone in a mainstream direction with a smaller camera housing and more minimalist accents this year. It’s an appealing look, even though the Ultra remains an undeniably huge phone built for enthusiasts. However, if you’re searching for new ASUS hardware, save yourself the trouble. Despite the 8 Elite’s extra performance, it’s not worth upgrading to a whole new phone. For that, ASUS wants to sell you on its software.

Yet another phone with an AI overload

This isn’t to say that the ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra doesn’t have new tricks. Like the rest of the industry, ASUS is banking on AI to sell you on its brand-new model. For a quick rundown of what’s new, there’s AI Portrait Video 2.0, AI Tracking, AI Voice Clarity for video, AI Magic Fill and AI Unblur for photos, AI Call Translator 2.0, AI Transcript 2.0, AI Article Summary, AI Document Summary, and Google’s Circle to Search, in addition to last year’s Document Scanner, Panning Shot, and Semantic Search capabilities. Those new features will all be exclusive to the Zenfone 12 Ultra at launch, but it’s possible they’ll come to last year’s model at some point (ASUS updates are historically very slow, and can in some cases fail to materialize at all). That’s a pretty comprehensive suite of tools that rivals what you’ll see from Galaxy AI and Apple Intelligence, but as we’ve seen on so many recent flagshio

Let’s start with the positives; ASUS does some cool things that you won’t find elsewhere. AI Call Translator, for example, works with pretty much every third-party messaging app as it tunes into the audio played on your device. Document scanning and transcriptions work as well as any other app I’ve used, while AI Article Summary is particularly well implemented. Unlike Galaxy AI, which requires the use of Samsung’s browser to summarize pages, ASUS’ method works with everything. Hit the usual share app from your browser (or other app) of choice and send the article to the AI Article Summary app, which will also store all your summaries so you can return to them at a later date.

It’s well executed, although it struggled on some pages, claiming they were too short. Still, you’ll be presented with the option to use online or offline processing and can set your preference or pick each time, which is a nice touch. If I have one complaint, it’s that you have to stomach a colossal, one-time 4.6GB download to use the offline version. That might be fine on my home Wi-Fi, but it’s not something you’ll want to spend your data allowance on for a summary on the go. It would be better to ask to download this during setup.

Speaking of which, most of the Zenfone 12 Ultra’s “AI Daily Tool” suite can run offline on the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s Hexagon NPU, with Google’s Circle to Search being the only feature that requires an internet connection. See the table above for the rundown. This is seemingly essential, given that ASUS has a “cloud service quota” hidden away in the settings menu. I couldn’t figure out exactly how generous it is, but it resets daily, so it is probably aimed at stopping abuse rather than limiting most users. Unless ASUS tweaks the quota at some point, which is always possible.

The drawback is that accuracy is reduced and load times are lengthened when running some of these tools offline, and you’ll have to have the foresight to download each tool you want to use. Still, at least it’s up to the user to decide if they prioritize performance or privacy. That’s a tick in ASUS’ favor when considering that some rival features require you to be online, often even for basic AI tools like summaries.

But while ASUS might have the quantity, it doesn’t always have the quality. AI Magic Fill, which requires another 1.39GB download, leaves plenty of visible artifacts behind when removing objects. Thankfully, there’s a regenerate button. Yes, it’s running offline and has a big red “beta” logo slapped on it (as do most of ASUS’ tools), but this is a commercial product, and the results here are certainly not on par with alternatives from Apple, Google, or Samsung. Honestly, I’m a bit fed up with phone brands (Apple especially) expecting us to see a beta tag and just forgive the dubious results, especially when they’re charging a grand or more for the privilege.

Looking at the whole package, ASUS does AI better than some, and it’s doing well in keeping pace as a smaller brand. While there’s an Apple Intelligence-like roughness to some edges, there’s more thought paid to ensure that features are universally useful rather than baked into just a handful of apps. So, points there. That said, I can probably count the times I used any of these AI features in a week on one hand. I’d rather summarize a bunch of documents than just a webpage, and regrettably, I haven’t been traveling enough to need a translator. With no significant hardware changes in tow, Zenfone has fallen victim to the AI trap — it needs AI to appear current, but the features aren’t the most important thing ASUS could change to make its phone more appealing. As such, I’m not sure banking hard into AI is going to make all that many consumers stand up and notice. But perhaps you’re one of the few?

And even if you are, the real kicker here is the update policy: two years of software support is abysmal for a phone released in 2025. There are phones that cost less than half the asking price with double the support, and while it’s mitigated somewhat by five years of security patches, the idea that an AI-centric phone will stop seeing new features and Android versions after only two years is antithetical to the entire premise of a phone built with visions of the future in mind. The same support level just about passes on the ROG series, as it’s a niche product with specific, unique features catering to gamers, but ASUS needs to do better if it genuinely wants to compete in the premium flagship space.

Of course, there’s AI in the camera too

As the camera package is otherwise unchanged from last year, familiar caveats apply. The primary lens remains the strongest part of the setup; the ultrawide struggles with HDR, and the 3x zoom is pretty low on detail but is passable, at least until the lights go down. Contrast and saturation are a bit more muted than last year; a sensible move as you can always jazz up the look with one of ASUS’ five new Photo Vibe filters. However, over-sharpness and noise remain the package’s biggest issues, and you’ll see contrast and colors shift as you move between lenses.

I don’t rate the phone’s long-range capabilities, but you might achieve passable results up to about 5-6x in ideal lighting. There’s far too much noise for any upscaler to extract meaningful detail much beyond the phone’s optical zoom. Combined with the lack of close-range focus, the 3x lens has limited utility. I can’t say the ultrawide is all that brilliant either, given it’s only a small step back from the main lens and inferior to it in every way. If you want to flex your creative muscles, ASUS includes an AI panning mode that’ll add extra blur to moving subjects, a bit like Pixel’s Action Pan. Edge detection can be a bit hit-and-miss, but it works.

Overall, the camera is functional, but it’s not without flaws, and it is hardly all that exciting compared to other elite camera phones at this price point. It’s probably the one area ASUS needs to invest more in if it really wants to elevate the latest Zenfone.

Video is the phone’s stronger suit, thanks to a continually impressive showing from the gimbal stabilizer. The Zenfone includes 4K portrait video from the main lens, which looks good unless you peep too closely at subject edges (but it’s no worse than everyone else’s software bokeh), and has an adjustable Aperture shape. There’s also an AI Tracking option to keep moving subjects in focus by cropping in on your video, which works well with the further improved gimbal stabilizer. However, you’re still stuck with the phone’s pretty dubious noise performance, and just like last year, 4K video capabilities are restricted to the main lens. Maybe next year we’ll have a camera package that is more competitive with the best in the business.

You can find full-res image samples in this Google Drive folder. Check out our video at the top of this review for video samples and even more camera shots.

ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra verdict: Easy to like, hard to recommend

Despite doing a lot competently, it’s hard to recommend the ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra to many people. It’s not that the Zenfone 12 Ultra is a bad hardware package; far from it in many respects. Battery life, charging, and performance are top of the class. If you’re coming from an older model, say something from the 2021 era, the other unchanged bits of hardware will certainly feel new enough to be worthwhile. Likewise, the stock-like UI is super for those looking to avoid the typical clutter, while the AI extras keep the software feeling current and competitive. Even so, you can try and grab last year’s model at a discount and won’t miss out on all that much.

ASUS is also moving in the right direction with cool colors, but it needs to do more than reskin the same hardware package to stand out from the crowd. Stale camera hardware is a particular disappointment for something boasting “ultra” capabilities. After two weeks with the phone, I guess Zenfone’s hook has switched from just being a mainstream ROG to dining at the AI top table. It’s executed that idea well for the most part, but without the aggressive launch hype of Apple or Google, the industry weight of Samsung, I’m not sure the Zenfone will have quite the same cut-through. Plus, AI still isn’t a top priority when walking into a phone store compared to price, cameras, and battery life (the Zenfone only nails one out of three).

But the big problem is we have to ask if ASUS’ flagship strikes the right balance for value for money, and it’s hard to argue that it does. Yes, it’s not charging the absolute maximum, but it’s more expensive, starting at €1,099 (~$1,143) this year, although you can grab it for a more reasonable €999 during the early bird launch window. Official US and UK availability is reportedly undecided at this point, but in Europe, that puts it right up against the excellent OnePlus 13 ($899.99 at OnePlus) that’ll see five years of OS upgrades compared to ASUS’ two.

Alternatively, there’s the similarly priced Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus ($999.99 at Amazon), which might not have a lot of new hardware either, but is also overflowing with AI features and will receive software support for a whopping seven years. The Google Pixel 9 Pro ($999 at Amazon) and Pixel 9 Pro XL ($1099 at Amazon) also linger at this price tier, and aside from being great phones all over (with seven years of support to boot), they both implement AI in a genuinely helpful and innovative way via Google’s Gemini and Pixel-exclusive features.

To give it its dues, if long battery life, speedy charging, and a big display for multitasking are your must-haves, the ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra does everything else OK enough to avoid disappointment. However, those who want the best camera money can buy or want their phone to stay fresh with new updates throughout its lifespan should give it a miss.