When the ASUS ROG Phone 8 was first announced, the first thing most would notice was the missing aggressive aesthetic common with gaming phones. The company did say, albeit very indirectly, that it wanted the phone to cater to a more regular premium device catering to more than just gamers. This means that it will eventually be competing with the ASUS Zenfone 11 when it eventually releases. And now, we have evidence of that, courtesy of the former’s firmware update, of all places.
Reddit user u/Td3v1l shared the discovery of what was specifically called the ASUS Zenfone 11 Ultra. This includes not only the way it looks but also its spec sheet, looking awfully familiar overall. In fact, besides the refresh rate being capped at 144Hz rather than 165Hz, it is effectively the same spec sheet.
In other worlds, the ASUS Zenfone 11 Ultra will have a 6.78-inch Full HD+ AMOLED screen, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, a 5,500mAh battery that supports 65W charging, up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage space. Cameras are still the 50MP main + 13MP wide-angle + 32MP 3x optical zoom combo at the back, and a 32MP secondary shooter in front.
Even the way it looks, down to the camera island, is near completely identical. The only thing differentiating the ASUS Zenfone 11 Ultra and the ROG Phone 8 is the lack of fancy lighting at the back. For what it’s worth, it does come with five colour options.
On one hand, as much as we saw it coming, it’s still unfortunate that the both the Zenfone and ROG Phone lines have been homogenised. But on the flip side, it also means that we won’t be missing much when the company eventually announces that the ASUS Zenfone 11 Ultra is skipping the local market as it did a few times before. Of course, this is still only the Ultra model, and it remains to be seen if the presumably smaller base model would be a major departure in terms of design.
(Source: Reddit)
