Asus Zenfone 10

4 minutes read ā€¢

Status: Daily Driver

One of the last small smartphones, the Asus Zenfone 10 is a 5.9 inch Android phone featuring two SIM slot, an headphone jack and a finger print sensor. A really surprising mix in a small package!

Acquiring such a phone in Canada

That was way easier said than done. The Zenfone 10 was never sold in Canada. I had to create a PO box in the US and wait for the sale to come on the Asus website. When the time came, I placed an order. After a couple of hours, I received a mail saying my transaction was cancelled. Humm.. I might have done a mistake somewhere. So I tried again.. just for it to be declined again. I even contacted support for this issue, to no avail. It was not possible for Asus to sell me one, even if I was willing to give them my money! I had to wait for the phone to come up on shady websites and, of course, paying a premium. That is what I did.

Shady or not, I eventually got the phone!

How was it?

Coming from a Google Pixel 6 to a Zenfone 10 feels like using a toy at the beginning. It is so smaller in the hand! It certainly took some time to get used to it, but it feels just right. I have small paws and using the Pixel was difficult to do one-handed. I also enjoy having an headphone jack. Yep thatā€™s right, you can pry my wired headphones from my COLD DEAD HANDS! Ahah! Jokes aside, I love the simplicity of plugging a cable and enjoy music. No charging, no pairing, no codec confusion. Simple, universal and reliable. And cheaper too!

Band compatibility is not really an issue, I have been sporting my Zenfone on Rogers/Fido network and move more recently on Bell/Telus (with Public Mobile). No issues on that front, I have been able to enjoy 4G/5G where ever I go. The phone also support Wifi 6E, and I can vouch that it works too. One thing that does not work with the Zenfone, is the lack of support for visual voice mail. I canā€™t understand why voice mail is still stuck in a past where phones didnā€™t had any screens. We are past that already, can we stop having to call a number to get a message barely audible, where you have to really pay attention to every bits if you want to know who called you and when. Anyway, phone carriers in Canada does not provide support, so the Zenfone does not have it.

The Camera

This one might be surprising (or not), but I feel like the camera on the Zenfone has a lot of noise. It takes fine pictures, with usually pleasant color tone, but the noise is distracting. I would not put it over my older Pixel 6, that phone took great pictures.

How is it now?

Honestly, I donā€™t feel like the phone is getting old. The blue back is still decent, with a slight darkening on the edge. The texture hold still, and is still pleasant in the hand. The phone still receive updates, and runs Android 15 now. It might not see another version of Android, since Asus refused to unlock the bootloader and announced that they only planned 2 major Android versions (15 being the last one). When the Zenfone 10 was announced, Asus did said they were planning to publish a tool to unlock the bootloader, but they changed their mind after a year of ā€œsilenceā€. I must say that I am disappointed and for that reason, I wonā€™t return to Asus for my next phone.

Now with that being said, the phone still performs very very well. The CPU was powerful then, and still is today. Paired this with 8gb of RAM, and Iā€™m confident the phone will last for a long time. The only thing on which Iā€™m unsure, is the battery. Sometimes I go over a battery in the middle of the afternoon, which rarely (if ever) happened in the past. I have the feeling that the battery degradation is going to get worst.

Spec