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Asus Zenfone 9 5G 128GB $854.05 + Delivery ($0 C&C/In-Store) @ JB Hi-Fi

240
92WICKEDWED5

Further 5% off price from the previous deal: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/738992

Shipping was $6 to metro Melbourne, YMMV. 256GB available in black only for $920.55

Pros and Cons as per gsmarena review:

Pros

Standout styling, IP68 rating.
Class-leading battery life, wide battery care feature set.
Headphone jack, properly great speakers.
Fastest Android chipset on the market, solid sustained performance as these go.
Autofocus on all cameras, ultrawide and selfie included.
Wonderful video stabilization.

Cons

No wireless charging.
No telephoto camera.
Night camera mode is a little sluggish.

Original Coupon Deal

Related Stores

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closed Comments

  • +11

    This seems like the type of device the commenters are always after

    Compact Size, Flagship features, Headphone Jack

    • +2

      yep, and I bought it too. So far really enjoying it.

    • +5

      no cheaper smaller phones. I want something like this but with a Snapdragon 778G+ for $400-500.

      You simply can't satisfy everyone.

      Add to your list of Ozb demands, long battery life with mid-range Soc but flagship camera & 6/8GB ram, all that for $400 from mainstream brands (no china-droid).

    • wireless charging, but that can be solved with a $5 adapter.

      • You say that, but the other next closest phone, Galaxy A72, doesn't work with the Qi pads I tried. Worked on every device except those

  • +4

    It's a shame there's no cheaper smaller phones. I want something like this but with a Snapdragon 778G+ for $400-500.

    The closest thing I can find is the Moto Edge 30 Neo but even that's a bit big.

  • +4

    I've got the 8 for $600 from JB last year, its a great phone, no complaints except it pocket dials. The size is great, fits in quicksilver board-shorts pocket with the velcro closed.

      • Turn off tap to wake? Not the solution you were looking for I'm sure but if it bothers you enough you might have to

    • +1

      Pocket dial is horrendous coming from a pixel 3

  • I got my wife this phone, and it's great.
    We were struggling to decide between this and a Pixel 5 (which I still use).

    The only negative I've found from this phone, is that the camera's picture quality is on par (or very slightly worse) than my Pixel 5.

    Other than that, it's perfect if you want a phone of this size.
    8.5/10.

    • +6

      I thought pixel is the gold standard of camera photo quality

      why would it be a negative for being on par with pixel

  • +1

    Price for 256GB is actually $920.55 with the code (wish it was that price during black friday when I bought the 128GB due to the then-higher price gap lol).

    • +1

      Thanks I've updated the post. I did not look closely enough, probably would have bought the 256 instead if I had realised! I'm only using 80gb of storage on my current phone though so doubt I'll regret it.

  • -1

    As much as I like small phones like this, for this amount of money I'd stretch it a tidy bit further and get a Galaxy S22. It's too much money for a phone without wireless charging IMO.
    https://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Asus-Zenfone-9-vs-Samsung…

    • +3

      Battery life on the s22 is not great. I may even go as far as to say "not good". Maybe even "bad". Many people will confirm.

      I really liked the look of the zenfone 9 but it was not on special at the time so I pulled the trigger on the Nothing Phone 1 instead - pretty happy with it, especially for the price.

      • +1

        S22 ultra, battery life is horrible.
        Confirm to the death…..

    • You're stuck with Samsungs "Experience" UI, which is enough to count me out.

      It's not that it doesn't work, It's that the amount of prompts and shortcuts that pretend to make your experience 'smoother' constantly shift menu items up or down, so muscle memory becomes frustrating.

      • how to turn off samsung ads ?

        i get samsung ads on notification drop-down menu

      • I like that people dislike me having a personal software opinion so much they need to neg it, lol.

  • -3

    128GB.. welcome to 2017.

    • I used to really care about space but now that I stream music and have photos in a cloud service there's no much I need locally. It's good to have offline cache of my favourite playlists but it won't add up anywhere near that.

      • +2

        paying monthly for those things will end up costing you more than just upgrading the storage. Also chews up data.

      • Thats a common comment to hear; but in my personal scenario, I own (and consume) more multimedia than I do monthly data allowance.
        I know a lot of people have multiple hundred gigabyte plans, but for $17 I get 28GB, which is enough, so long as I'm not sending, recieving and streaming every bit of data use.

    • +1

      256GB is available too for not much more.

  • +4

    Damn I got it during Black Friday because I thought it wouldn't get lower than that for at least a year.

    It's a great phone though. There are only two BIG downsides for me. One is that ASUS are only committing to 2 years of software support. Most other makers are providing 3-4 years especially at this price point.

    The other thing is it's hard to get screen protectors and covers for it as it isn't a very popular phone. I've ordered some from ebay and aliexpress but they're taking forever to arrive. I've read that if your screen breaks it's an absolute nightmare to get it replaced by ASUS.

    Other issues are minor to me. Camera is average but not terrible. In-built stabilisation is pretty nice. Overall it could get a lot better with software updates. And no wireless charging and no expandable storage, which I don't use but others have noted.

    edit to add the things I'm loving about the phone. Basically stock android so no bloatware. Smaller size. Headphone jack. Excellent battery life. And most important to me was the smart key power button. Never had a phone detect my fingerprint better than this. I also customise the heck out of my phone so being able to remap the smart key was huge. I like being able to switch to silent without taking my phone out of my pocket like with an iPhone and I can do that with this.

    • Can you remap the smart key to mark notifications as read and clear them?

      For context, I have a S9 and I've remapped the Bixby button to mark notifications as read and clear them simultaneously. I should probably wait for the S23 series and see how they perform, but I'm getting a bit bored of Samsung, and from what I've read, their battery life is quite average.

  • Great small(ish) formfactor phone with solid specs but…. No wireless charging :((((

  • +1

    only 2 years worth of software updates it seems

    • +4

      A concern for a few, but speaking as someone who works in the IT security industry; there's not a lot of REAL threat to an out of date mobile OS, so long as the software (browser, messenger, etc) is still up to date.

      It's a broad statement, there are exceptions, and I'd be giving very different advice if you were a person of interest, or had a target painted on you.\
      But to the Average Joe? If the PlayStore still updates the apps, and the apps you use are 'big name' ones, the odds of being a victim are miniscule.

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