Zenfone 12 Ultra: Asus focuses on new AI functions
6/2/2025
Translation: machine translated
The Zenfone 12 Ultra features new AI functions in particular. The smartphone is visually appealing with new colours, but Asus has made few changes to the features.
On the spec sheet, the Snapdragon 8 Elite and a different image sensor in the main camera - with the same resolution - are the biggest changes.innovations of the Zenfone 12 Ultra compared to its predecessor. Asus is enticing users with new AI functions, some of which are reserved for the new smartphone for the time being. In doing so, the manufacturer is following the same path as Samsung with the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which has not met with universal approval.
AI for the camera
There are three cameras in the Zenfone 12 Ultra's protruding camera hump. The 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera and the 32-megapixel telephoto camera with triple optical zoom are carried over from its predecessor. The 50-megapixel main camera uses a new image sensor, the Sony Lytia 700. The 6-axis gimbal should also stabilise videos even better. The manufacturer speaks of five degrees that are corrected.
New AI tools are used for post-processing the photos. With "AI Magic Fill", Asus has its own eraser for objects and "AI Unblur" is designed to help make unwanted blurring disappear.
Source: Asus
Asus is introducing three AI functions for videos, some of which are already active during recording. These include "AI Tracking". It recognises people, focuses on them in the centre of the image and zooms in on them. "Portrait Videos" create an artificial background blur and "AI Voice Clarity" is designed to remove distracting noises such as dogs barking, traffic noise or a babble of voices.
AI tools for everyday life
According to Asus, the Zenfone 12 Ultra is the first smartphone to run the Llama 3 8B voice model from Meta. It is primarily intended to be used for summaries. The Zenfone offers this for documents (Word, PDF, TXT and other unnamed formats) and articles on websites. The smartphone creates transcriptions of audio recordings and summaries from these, in which different voices are also recognised.
The "AI Call Translator" translates calls and conversations - even in third-party messenger apps. The AI function will not only translate between two people and languages, but even between several languages. The function supports the following languages at launch: Chinese, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Indonesian, Swedish, Polish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian and Cantonese.
In addition, the Zenfone 12 Ultra gets access to the Circle-to-Search search function from Google and a semantic search in the image gallery and for the settings. This is designed to use conventional language to find photos by time, location and objects as well as suitable menus for various purposes.
The most important key data
Also new in the Zenfone 12 Ultra is the Snapdragon 8 Elite including the Hexagon NPU for AI calculations. Unlike its predecessor, the smartphone now also supports eSIM. Asus works with several accessory manufacturers who offer magnetic cases for the smartphone. These allow the Zenfone to stick to wireless charging stations.
The Zenfone 12 Ultra charges its 5500 mAh battery wirelessly with up to 15 watts using the Qi 1.3 standard. Up to 65 watts are possible via cable and HyperCharge fast charging technology.
Source: Asus
The 6.78-inch AMOLED display has a dynamic refresh rate of 1 to 120 hertz and even manages 144 hertz in gaming mode. The resolution is 2400 × 1080 pixels and the brightness is 1600 nits (2500 nits at peak). Gorilla Glass Victus 2 is designed to protect the display and the entire housing is IP68 waterproof for 30 minutes at a depth of 1.5 metres.
It is also one of the few top smartphones that still has a 3.5 mm connection for headphones.
Asus delivers the Zenfone 12 Ultra with Android 15 and promises two major operating system updates. The smartphone will receive security updates for five years.
Header image: Asus
As a primary school pupil, I used to sit in a friend's living room with many of my classmates to play the Super NES. Now I get my hands on the latest technology and test it for you. In recent years at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, now at Digitec and Galaxus.
