Asus Zenfone 12 Ultra review: still bigger, now cleaner

Design and Display

Just as big, now cleaner

The box contains a fittng case and a USB C cable, but not the 65 W charger, which is now sold separately.

The Zenfones rock Samsung-made AMOLED panels. They are LTPO, meaning they can go from 1 Hz to 120 Hz depending on what’s on screen. If nothing’s happening (AOD is on), it’s dialed down to 1 Hz to preserve battery, but as soon as you need fluid animations, it instantly goes up to 120 Hz. When in-game, you can open up the Asus Game Genie overlay to activate 144 Hz.

But peak brightness is not exactly telling us much, which is why we now measure 20% APL — a test more representative of “real life” use. And the Zenfone 12 Ultra scored 2,200 nits there, which is excellent. You can definitely use this phone no problem on a sunny day. Minimum brightness, however, is pretty bad at 5.9 nits — not the best for bedside use.

Screen colors are pretty good, they do display the blue-green tint that’s typical for current OLED panels. But you do have a few color calibration options in settings, so you can make it more saturated, more realistic, and less cold if you wish.

Under the screen, we have an optical fingerprint scanner which is pretty good at its job.

Camera

Same specs, a bit more stable

Asus has been implementing a gimbal stabilizer in its smartphones for a couple of generations now. The ROG Phone 8 had one, then the ROG Phone 9 received an upgrade — the 6-axis Hybrid Gimbal Stabilizer 4.0. Well, the Zenfones follow the same upgrade structure, and the new Zenfone 12 Ultra got that very same stabilizer.

Stabilization is not only important for video capture, it also plays a huge role for situations when the shutter is open for a long time, be it taking a night time photo or an HDR snap (and most auto photos nowadays are HDR by default).

Other than that upgrade, the Zenfone 12 Ultra has the same camera specs as last year — 50 MP main, 13 MP ultrawide, 32 MP 3x telephoto lens, and a 32 MP selfie camera. And here’s how they perform:

Our Camera Benchmark puts the phone through a series of consistent tests to give us an idea of how it does with fine details, exposure, stabilization, as well as the entire camera experience, from viewfinder to snap. That’s what forms the final score, but here’s how the Zenfone 12 Ultra actually does with photos:

Unfortunately, the Zenfone 12 Ultra’s camera left us wanting. It exposes quite a bit and lacks the dynamic range to make the bright photos appear textured or lifelike. Colors are overally washed out and cold. Switching to Portrait mode does ensure that the phone at least captures lively skintones, somewhat. Depending on which zoom level you choose, and what the phone “sees” in the background, the skintone can go from realistic to a weird pink.

The HDR leaves a lot of “ghosts” in photos, which is honestly shocking for a 2025 top-tier phone (check out any photo with birds in it). And there are a lot of auras around treebranches, either due to oversharpening or not-so-great HDR.

Video quality

In video, the Zenfone 12 Ultra camera is quite contrast-y, with a very warm hue to it. The 6-axis stabilizer also ensures pretty smooth movement. The exposure does dance around a little, and oversharpening can be seen around vegetation. The contrast is high, but the dynamic range is not as good, so shadows can get crushed.

Performance

Flagship chip in the house

Unsurprisingly, the Zenfone 12 Ultra isn’t as potent as the super-charged ROG Phone 9 Pro. Maybe it’s to keep heat at bay, maybe it’s to preserve battery. Hopefully, it’s not a bar put there simply to make the ROG Phone appear bigger, better, and faster.

Software

In comes AI. Asus already had some AI features in there before the others — namely Semantic Search. You don’t need to know the exact name of a toggle in settings, just “tell” the search bar what you want to do. Samsung added this just now, while Asus has had it since last year.

As mentioned, the Zenfone 12 Ultra comes with Android 15 out of the box. Asus is still lagging behind on the software updates promise — we will get “at least” two major Android builds and 4 years of security patches post release, which is behind industry leaders like Google and Samsung who now offer 7 years of Android updates.

Battery Life and Charging

That is yuge!

The Zenfone 12 Ultra pushes above the 5,000 mAh comfort zone with a 10% add-on. It comes with a 5,500 mAh cell, same as on the Zenfone 11 Ultra. We are used to Asus phones having great battery life optimizations, so let’s take it to the benchmarks first:

Audio Quality and Haptics

To top it off, you do have a software EQ that’s quite elaborate and will let you fine-tune the sound somewhat. Also, again, there’s a headphone jack for purists that hate what Bluetooth does to music (and who can hear it).

The haptics are excellent, and Asus knows it. There are feedback clicks hidden all across the interface and the phone will constantly respond to your taps with precise and quick vibrations.

Summary

Sadly, the Zenfone 12 Ultra is “more of the same”. It really does feel like a Zenfone 11 Ultra with a new chip inside, and a slightly different paintjob. We were hoping for a more meaningful camera upgrade, or a redesign to make it more fun or appealing. The ROG Phones, for example, have a distinct personality and a clear(ish) target audience. The Zenfone seems to be meandering about since last year — it grew up in size but didn’t add anything specific to the mix besides “it’s bigger now”. It’s sort of like “a ROG Phone that’s not a ROG Phone”. Sure, it’s slightly cheaper, but as a flagship, it feels bland and stale and there’s not one thing about it that we can point to and say “Buy it because of THAT!”.