As phone sizes have increased, one small device has held its own year after year: the Asus Zenfone. That seems to be changing soon, and if you're a card-carrying member of the small club of phone fanatics like me, then it's appropriate to take a moment to observe its passing.
It must be recognized that Asus does not make us wait in suspense. The company published a preview of the Zenfone 11 Ultra that leaves little to the imagination: an animated graphic showing your screen growing in size with text that says, “Expand your vision.”
A formal announcement is scheduled for March 14, while a handful of other teaser clips tout its “ultra size” and long-lasting battery. It doesn't exactly leave you wondering.
The latest generations of Zenfone, including the most recent Zenfone 9 and Zenfone 10, kept a 5.9-inch display, downright small next to the 6.6- and 6.7-inch displays on many flagship Android phones. Those latest Zenfones also turned out to be lovely little devices, with top-notch processors and thoughtful touches like an honest-to-goodness headphone jack. In this economy!
But there's one more reality that the Zenfone has never quite dealt with: it's actually not that small. Sure, it's small by modern Android phone standards. But pound for pound, the Zenfone 10 actually measures just a little smaller than the Samsung Galaxy S24. The Zenfone is a couple of millimeters narrower and just half a millimeter shorter than the S24; Meanwhile, the Galaxy S24's 6.2-inch screen is considerably larger.
a couple of millimeters does makes a little difference when you hold your phone with one hand and you just need to touch that icon completely in the corner of the screen. But is it worth settling for a smaller screen? Maybe for a small phone die-hard like me: Apple will have to pry my iPhone 13 Mini out of my cold, dead hands. But for the rest of the population? Probably not. And it looks like Asus is ready to give up the fight and join the ranks of big phones after all.
