Yeah its ridiculously fast. My main problem is the bootloader and that it only has usb 2.1 If it had an unlocked bootloader and usb 3 and display outup its fast enough i could use it as a laptop. I tried linux in chroot and it runs smooth. It only has 2 years of updates but that wouldnt be a problem if the bootloader would be unlocked… The speakers and battery are good especially for the size. Talking about the size its perfect for my hands, a lot smaller would be too little for me. The headphone jack is nice but no sd card slot(idk why anyone needs that the base model has 256gb of storage and i use about 100gigs). The camera is good. Youre stuck with the stock software but its not half bad. The display is bright enough but it doesnt go dim enough for my night use so i had to use the display dim mode thing but that makes the colours worse(my eyes are extemely sensitive, i can see well in only moonlight i think for most people the brightness goes low enough). The 144hz actually works but it makes the colours strange. If you turn on the display dimmer and 144hz at the same time the colours become comically bad. Also if you need more brightness the 144hz mode is brighter. I dont really play a lot of games but in geometry dash it works really well, the touch is responsive. The boot time is horrible but idk why. Thats it basically, other than the bootloader and usb im happy with it.
It’s on my radar for a while and it annoys me so much that Asus betrayed the community and lied about opening bootloader unlocking again. Xiaomi 13 seems like an alternative if you remove their spuware and can cope with flashing AOSP.
I like mine, mainly small gripes for me like I wish the shielding was a bit better on the headphone jack, Meta apps weren’t bundled though ofc you can disable/remove them and the screen could be both brighter and get dimmer (to agree with the other review). I’m also a bit disappointed it doesn’t support e-sims, though does support dual physical SIMs.
Performance is great as expected, battery is solid and the camera is good whilst not matching Pixels imo. Asus’ skin is pretty light with some nice customisation options (like being able to switch between stock android and their version for certain parts of the OS). I also love the fingerprint sensor on the power button, just makes sense for me and reminds me of my old Xperia Compact phones. Whilst retaining the SD card slot would be handy, I went for 512GB so it’s not an issue for me
Wait, you get dual physical sims but they don’t repurpose one of the slots for an SD card if you don’t use it? Why? At that point it’s removing a feature just for the sake of it. Well, for the sake of making you overpay for more storage, but still.
It has a locked bootloader, i know because i have one…
I’m curious now that we’ve talked so much about it. Is it any good, locked bootloader aside?
Yeah its ridiculously fast. My main problem is the bootloader and that it only has usb 2.1 If it had an unlocked bootloader and usb 3 and display outup its fast enough i could use it as a laptop. I tried linux in chroot and it runs smooth. It only has 2 years of updates but that wouldnt be a problem if the bootloader would be unlocked… The speakers and battery are good especially for the size. Talking about the size its perfect for my hands, a lot smaller would be too little for me. The headphone jack is nice but no sd card slot(idk why anyone needs that the base model has 256gb of storage and i use about 100gigs). The camera is good. Youre stuck with the stock software but its not half bad. The display is bright enough but it doesnt go dim enough for my night use so i had to use the display dim mode thing but that makes the colours worse(my eyes are extemely sensitive, i can see well in only moonlight i think for most people the brightness goes low enough). The 144hz actually works but it makes the colours strange. If you turn on the display dimmer and 144hz at the same time the colours become comically bad. Also if you need more brightness the 144hz mode is brighter. I dont really play a lot of games but in geometry dash it works really well, the touch is responsive. The boot time is horrible but idk why. Thats it basically, other than the bootloader and usb im happy with it.
It’s on my radar for a while and it annoys me so much that Asus betrayed the community and lied about opening bootloader unlocking again. Xiaomi 13 seems like an alternative if you remove their spuware and can cope with flashing AOSP.
I like mine, mainly small gripes for me like I wish the shielding was a bit better on the headphone jack, Meta apps weren’t bundled though ofc you can disable/remove them and the screen could be both brighter and get dimmer (to agree with the other review). I’m also a bit disappointed it doesn’t support e-sims, though does support dual physical SIMs.
Performance is great as expected, battery is solid and the camera is good whilst not matching Pixels imo. Asus’ skin is pretty light with some nice customisation options (like being able to switch between stock android and their version for certain parts of the OS). I also love the fingerprint sensor on the power button, just makes sense for me and reminds me of my old Xperia Compact phones. Whilst retaining the SD card slot would be handy, I went for 512GB so it’s not an issue for me
Wait, you get dual physical sims but they don’t repurpose one of the slots for an SD card if you don’t use it? Why? At that point it’s removing a feature just for the sake of it. Well, for the sake of making you overpay for more storage, but still.