Asus' new phone won't be sold in the US but last year's model is heavily discounted
Asus has announced two new smartphones this week. The first is the ROG Phone 9 FE which is a cheaper version of the ROG Phone 9 Pro. It also unveiled the Zenfone 12 Ultra which is a sort of non-gamer version of the ROG Phone 9.
While the former is only available in Thailand for now with no report of its availability in other markets yet, the Zenfone 12 Ultra has been announced in multiple regions save for one key one. As a matter of fact, it won't be launching in that region.
According to The Verge, the Zenfone 12 Ultra will not be sold in the US and North America as a whole. Asus didn't provide a reason for this decision, but if we could wager a guess, we'd say the Zenfone line probably doesn't sell as much as the ROG Phone series in the region. Although an Asus spokesperson reportedly says that the Zenfone 12 Ultra not getting a North American release does not rule out the possibility of future Zenfone models being made available in the US.
The Zenfone 12 Ultra is available in Europe for €1,099 which converts to about $1,142. That's a little less than Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra which is available to pre-order on Amazon for $1299.99 (512GB version). Samsung's phone packs more features and will get significantly better software support but has less RAM, a smaller battery, and charges slower.
On the other hand, you can save yourself a lot of money by purchasing last year's Zenfone 11 Ultra which is available to buy from Asus's online store for just $629.99, a significant discount off its $899 launch price. It shares a lot of its features with the newer model such as the display size, camera configuration, battery capacity, and charging speed. However, it has just 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, whereas the Zenfone 12 Ultra has 16GB RAM and 512GB storage.
Disclaimer: Notebookcheck is not responsible for price changes carried out by retailers. The discounted price or deal mentioned in this item was available at the time of writing and may be subject to time restrictions and/or limited unit availability.
