The Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra is a feature-rich flagship phone.

The Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra is already available, and it differs significantly from the small Asus Zenfone 10. Given that the previous generations of Zenfone 11 have concentrated on being as compact and pocketable as possible, you may expect the Zenfone 11 Ultra to be an ultra-powerful compact smartphone with improved performance and more cameras, but you’d be mistaken. For Asus, the Ultra branding means ‘large’.

It’s also an unusual launch because, despite the launching of the Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra, there is no ordinary Zenfone 11 to accompany it. Will a tiny version be released in a few months? There’s no confirmation yet, but it appears plausible. For now, we can only see a large-screen glimpse of the Zenfone 11, which seems extremely familiar. From the design to basic components like the camera setup and battery, this is virtually a reskinned ROG Phone 8, albeit lacking the gaming capabilities that distinguish the alternative.

With a large screen similar to the rest of the premium competition, can the £869 Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra stand out? I’m not sure, especially given my overheating concerns during the review period.

ASUS ZENFONE 11 ULTRA KEY FEATURES

The Zenfone 11 Ultra has arrived, and it’s much more than we expected. Quite literally, its large size surprised us. It’s not particularly huge, but we’ve come to regard Zenfones as the tiny flagships. Taking it out of the cardboard box, the 11 Ultra surprised us. The Zenfone 11 Ultra features a 6.78-inch display, up from 5.92 inches on the Zenfone 10. That’s a significant and rather unexpected growth spike, given the Zenfone line’s prior track record of producing tiny flagship phones. Rumors circulated that the Zenfone line was “going away”. Asus swiftly refuted this claim, stating that they “will continue [the] two main phone business product lines, the ROG Phone, and the Zenfone”. There is no mention of size or the unexpected addition of “Ultra” to the name.

Aside from a few design differences, the Zenfone 11 Ultra is nearly identical to the ROG Phone 8. As previously said, this has a bigger display and a 5,500 mAh battery. There was also enough room within the body for an amazing camera arrangement, as well as enough to cool the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 CPU. Much more than within a compact body as the preceding Zenfone 10 generation.

ASUS ZENFONE 11 ULTRA UNBOXING

The Zenfone 11 Ultra comes in sleek beige retail packaging. It is a basic two-piece design constructed of extremely durable cardboard. There is no plastic in sight, but there is a phone cradle on the inside to keep everything cozy and secure. According to Asus, the packaging is more environmentally friendly than ever, using 36% less paper and increasing overall packing efficiency by 31%.

Unfortunately, the Zenfone 11 Ultra does not have a charger. Interestingly, the provided Type-C to Type-C connection appears to missing an e-marker chip. This means that the standard limits it to 3A of power transfer, or a total of 60W at 20V. The Zenfone 11 Ultra can charge at speeds of up to 65W. This could be an issue, but we’ll be sure to test how the Zenfone 11 Ultra charges with both the provided cable and a proper 5A charger. Speaking from experience, it should not be a major issue, but we will look into it. Proceed to the charging section for fines.

Inside the box, you’ll find a lovely plastic bumper case constructed from 50% post-consumer recycled materials.

CAMERA

The Zenfone 11 Ultra’s camera arrangement is all about stabilisation. It comes in the shape of Asus’ proprietary 6-axis hybrid gimbal stabilizer 3.0 technology, which does an excellent job of stabilizing a shaking hand when taking images and movies. It’s undoubtedly one of the phone’s most intriguing features overall.

Essentially, as long as you keep the little circle inside the larger circle in the Camera app UI, the gimbal should be able to stabilize the camera system without any jitter or blur. It makes capturing images one-handed a breeze, with typically sharp results, however, the effect is most visible when the Super HyperSteady video stabilization is activated. This effectively transforms any handheld video into an extremely smooth masterpiece.

Take the video below, for example; even though I was holding the phone with only two fingers while strolling and throwing a ball for my dog Luna, there was only a minor jitter. This makes it a particularly useful camera for makers, especially when combined with the maximum video resolution of 8K@24fps. Aside from that, the Zenfone 11 Ultra’s triple camera configuration does not exactly make me excited. The ZenFone 11 Ultra matches the camera arrangement of the ROG Phone 8 Pro, which is a bit of a red sign given that gaming phones aren’t generally camera-focused. It has a 50MP main, 32MP 3x telephoto, and 13MP ultrawide lens.

These lenses are perhaps best described as “fine.” The primary camera is the most capable of the three, capturing reasonably detailed shots in both well-lit and low-light situations, albeit the latter loses the sharpness of similarly priced rivals such as the Pixel 8 Pro, and the colors are rich without being excessively vivid. The accompanying 3x telephoto is useful for getting closer to the action, and the narrower framing works well for portrait photography, but the use of a fixed telephoto rather than a periscope lens with variable zoom means that quality degrades quickly once you go beyond the fixed 3x zoom.

DESIGN AND SCREEN

The Zenfone 11 Ultra’s design is nearly identical to the ROG Phone 8 Pro from earlier this year, except for the dot matrix rear display panel. Reader, I am not a big fan at all. While I admired the look of the ROG Phone 8 series when it first debuted in January, it was because it was a gaming phone masquerading as a flagship phone with a much more toned-down aesthetic. It was still 8.9mm thick and 225g heavy, but with enhanced cooling, AirTriggers, and other game-focused features, it was a fair compromise.

The problem is that the Zenfone 11 Ultra is just as thick and hefty as the ROG Phone 8 Pro, but lacks the latter’s advanced gaming capabilities. This allows it to be slightly less expensive, but it is still relatively big and blocky when compared to sleek, curved options like the OnePlus 12, Honor Magic 6 Pro, and Pixel 8 Pro.

It’s also a little odd-looking, with an equally blocky all-black camera block projecting from the top-left corner of the already-thick phone, giving it the appearance of a 2020 phone rather than a 2024 flagship. That being said, I do like the frosted glass rear, which provides a great satin-like feel in the hand and helps cover those pesky fingerprint smudges and the collection of lines at the bottom helps break up the blocky design a little. If the skyline blue finish isn’t your thing, it also comes in misty grey, desert sand, and endless black. Of course, design is completely subjective, and you may love the look of the Zenfone 11 Ultra, but it is not one of my favorites for 2024.

Of course, there are redeeming features: the phone is composed of a high-quality glass and aluminum frame that feels excellent in the hand, and Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protects the screen. It also has IP68 dust and water resistance and, most importantly, a 3.5mm headphone socket – though its presence does result in an unusual configuration on the phone’s bottom, with the USB-C and headphone jack on the left and right sides, respectively.

The Zenfone 11 Ultra’s 6.78-inch AMOLED panel is bright and colorful, with an FHD+ resolution that remains detailed despite the screen’s relatively big dimensions. It also includes high-end screen technology staples such as a maximum brightness of 2500nits for HDR content and 1600nits in HBM (high brightness mode), as well as a super-fast 144Hz refresh rate. There is one catch, though: the 144Hz refresh rate will only be used when playing games. Thanks to LTPO support, the phone will operate between 1 and 120Hz the remainder of the time, providing significantly better battery efficiency than running at a fixed 144Hz.

It’s not a dealbreaker because the visual differences between 120Hz and 144Hz are insignificant in all situations except gaming. It’s also why I’m not too disappointed that it doesn’t equal the almost similar ROG Phone 8 Pro’s 165Hz refresh rate. At that time, everything is quite similar.

Elsewhere, the big-screen experience is a welcome difference from the pocketable Zenfone 10. With twin stereo speakers 25% larger than those on the Zenfone 10, it’s ideal for gaming, watching Netflix shows, and even scrolling through TikTok, and a 3.5mm headphone port lets you add a pair of wired headphones for private viewing. The latter is a pleasant surprise at the upper end of the market, where, except for the Xperia 1 V, the 3.5mm headphone port has vanished.

HOW’S THE PERFORMANCE?

The Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra is a flagship smartphone with a top chipset to match. That comes in the form of the popular Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, paired with 12GB of RAM and a generous 256GB of storage as standard, though a 16GB/512GB model is available if more is required.

Given that the 8 Gen 3 is present in many of the high-end competitors in 2024, you’re undoubtedly already aware that the chipset is a processing beast. Compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in last year’s Zenfone 10, there are 20% advances in the CPU, 25% in the GPU, and a staggering 98% performance increase in the NPU, which enables some especially fascinating capabilities – more on that later.

With that in mind, the Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra breezed through our battery of benchmark tests, scoring high in CPU benchmarks like Geekbench 6 and maintaining high frame rates in GPU-focused GFXBench tests, allowing it to compete with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus and Honor Magic 6 Pro. That all translates to a smooth everyday experience, with the Zenfone 11 Ultra comfortably handling anything I could throw at it, from navigating through media-heavy apps like Facebook to surfing ad-laden websites on Google Chrome.

However, I would not recommend using the ‘Ultra performance’ setting while playing intensive games. That may seem counterintuitive, but in my experience, the phone becomes extremely hot in this mode, to the point that I was unable to pick it up after only 20 minutes of conducting our 3D gaming stress test. Even when compared to other flagship phones I’ve tested recently, which get slightly warm after the stress test, the Zenfone 11 Ultra gets uncomfortably hot to the touch, increasing battery drain to around 1% per minute.

Interestingly, even when the phone is significantly hot to the touch, it still performs well, with good benchmark scores and minimal lag while navigating across the OS. It may be simply doing an excellent job of channeling heat away from the chipset, but it’s certainly not pleasant for the end user. If you’re a gamer, you’ll probably choose the ROG Phone 8 Pro.

Buy it if...

• IP68-rated body with a straightforward design.
• Bright OLED display with low bezels and 144Hz refresh rate.
• Great battery life.
• Very nice stereo speaker setup.
• The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset delivers outstanding burst performance.
• Great overall camera performance.

Don't buy it if…

• There was no charger in the box.
• Chipset throttles fairly aggressively.
• Night mode might be slow and without many benefits.

FULL SPECIFICATION