The Asus Zenfone 9 is the company's most small premium flagship device for 2022. If we simply take Android handsets with flagship-class hardware into account, there is no more small phone than this. Even though they have larger proportions, there are a few additional compact flagships available. If we remove the new Asus product, one of these is the Xiaomi 12S, which is the most recent model to be introduced. The Samsung Galaxy S22, the current tiny flagship from the market leader in smartphones, and the Zenfone have already been compared. It's time to compare the key technical details of the Xiaomi 12S and the Asus Zenfone 9. Which provides the most value for the money? We hope to answer this question through this comparison.
Design
As already mentioned in the intro, the Asus Zenfone 9 is a more compact phone than the Xiaomi 12S. However, the Xiaomi is built with more premium materials, including glass for the rear side and aluminum for the frame. The Zenfone has an aluminum frame too, but its rear side is made of plastic. Further, the 12S is thinner and lighter than its rival, even though it sports a bigger battery. On the other hand, it is the only device in this duo to feature the IP68 certification making it dustproof and waterproof. Personally, I prefer the Xiaomi due to its premium materials and because it has a higher screen to body ratio with narrower bezels around the display, but it is essentially a matter of tastes.
Display
If you are looking for the easiest display to use with one hand or to keep in a pocket, then you should choose the Asus Zenfone 9 because of its 5.9-inch diagonal and its compact dimensions. But if you are looking for better image quality, then the Xiaomi 12S is a better phone. Its AMOLED display is able to show up to 68 billion colors with a diagonal of 6.28 inches, a Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels, a 120 Hz refresh rate, the HDR10+ certification, and Dolby Vision support. The Asus Zenfone has an inferior display but it is still a great AMOLED panel with a Full HD+ resolution, a 120 Hz refresh rate, and the HDR10+ certification. Note that the Xiaomi has an in-display fingerprint reader, while the fingerprint scanner of the Zenfone is side-mounted, on the power key, despite the phone having an AMOLED display. Both the handsets feature good stereo speakers.
Specs & Software
There are no big differences between the hardware departments, but the Asus Zenfone 9 is more convincing because it sports up to 16 GB of RAM, while the Xiaomi 12S features just 12 GB of RAM. On the other hand, Xiaomi is able to provide a higher amount of internal storage, with up to 512 GB. Both the phones are powered by the best Qualcomm chipset to date. We are talking about the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 built with a 4 nm production process and with an octa-core architecture. It is composed of a Cortex X2 CPU running at a max frequency of 3.19 GHz, three Cortex A710 CPUs running at 2.75 GHz, and four Cortex A510 CPUs running at 1.8 GHz, as well as an Adreno 730 GPU. These devices run Android 12 out of the box customized by Zen UI and MIUI, respectively.
Camera
Even in terms of camera performance, these two phones are fairly comparable. You get a dual camera configuration with the Asus Zenfone 9 that includes a 50 MP main camera with gimbal OIS and a 12 MP ultrawide lens, as well as a 10 MP front camera that can record 4K videos at 30 frames per second. The Xiaomi 12S features a 32 MP front camera that can shoot 1080p movies at 60 frames per second, a 50 MP main camera with OIS, a 13 MP ultrawide lens, and a 5 MP macro sensor co-engineered with Leica. The Xiaomi appears to be significantly superior on paper, but we must still wait to see how the algorithm will operate.
