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DisplayWe put the Asus Zenfone 10 through our rigorous DXOMARK Audio test suite to measure its performance both at recording sound using its built-in microphones, and at playing audio back through its speakers.
In this review, we will break down how it fared in a variety of tests and several common use cases.
Overview
Key audio specifications include:
- Two speakers (Top center, bottom right)
- 3.5mm audio output
- Dirac HD Sound technology
Scoring
Sub-scores and attributes included in the calculations of the global score.
Asus Zenfone 10
66th
17th
Playback
Pros
- Warm tonal balance with nice bass presence
- Very good punch, nice depth rendition
- Relatively free of artifacts
Recording
Pros
- Good timbre performance
- Good dynamics performance
- Relatively free of artifacts
The Asus Zenfone 10 delivered a balanced performance in the DXOMARK Audio tests, doing quite well in both playback and recording. The device’s main drawbacks in terms of audio quality were a lack of treble in playback, which resulted in a slightly muffled and dark sound, as well as a high sensitivity to wind noise in recording, despite a dedicated wind-noise reduction function.
Playback performance through the built-in speakers was consistent across use cases, whether listening to music, watching movies or playing games. As a recording device, the Zenfone 10 delivered the best results with vocal memos, but performance was also great with the main camera app.
Test summary
About DXOMARK Audio tests: For scoring and analysis in our smartphone audio reviews, DXOMARK engineers perform a variety of objective tests and undertake more than 20 hours of perceptual evaluation under controlled lab conditions.
(For more details about our Playback protocol, click here; for more details about our Recording protocol, click here.)
The following section gathers key elements of our exhaustive tests and analyses performed in DXOMARK laboratories. Detailed performance evaluations under the form of reports are available upon request. Do not hesitate to contact us.
Playback
Asus Zenfone 10
163
DXOMARK engineers test playback through the smartphone speakers, whose performance is evaluated in our labs and in real-life conditions, using default apps and settings.
In our tests, the Asus Zenfone 10 delivered a decent performance in the timbre category. The tonal balance was overall good but left some room for improvement, most notably the insufficient treble. Treble was more present at maximum volume but also introduced some unwanted harshness. Dynamics performance was slightly inconsistent, with good punch across all use cases, but attack lacked detail and wasn’t as impactful as our testers would have liked. Envelope was spotless on some tracks but could be inconsistent on others, with shorter-than-expected sustain of some bass notes.
In terms of spatial attributes, the Asus offered quite good depth rendition. Distance rendition was decent, too, but voices could sound a little distant at times. Both wideness of the sound scene and localizability of individual sound sources were fairly average. While the distribution of volume steps was very consistent, loudness at the maximum setting was only average. Minimum volume was tuned properly but slightly too quiet for listening to low volume passages in highly dynamic content, such as classical music. The Zenfone 10 did well in terms of unwanted audio artifacts, with only some slight distortion at maximum volume. Our testers also noted that the right speaker could be occluded when holding the device in portrait orientation. The effects on sound quality were fairly minor, however.
Listen to the tested smartphone’s playback performance in this comparison with some of its competitors:
Timbre
Asus Zenfone 10
158
The Timbre score represents how well a phone reproduces sound across the audible tonal range and takes into account bass, midrange, treble, tonal balance, and volume dependency. It is the most important attribute for playback.
Dynamics
Asus Zenfone 10
149
The Dynamics score measures the accuracy of changes in the energy level of sound sources, for example how precisely a bass note is reproduced or the impact sound from drums.
Spatial
Asus Zenfone 10
162
The sub-attributes for spatial tests include pinpointing a specific sound's location, its positional balance, distance, and wideness.
Volume
Asus Zenfone 10
162
The Volume score represents the overall loudness of a smartphone and how smoothly volume increases and decreases based on user input.
| Hip-Hop | Classical | |
| Asus Zenfone 10 | 71.6 dBA | 69.5 dBA |
| Samsung Galaxy S23 (Snapdragon) | 73.9 dBA | 69.1 dBA |
| Google Pixel 7 | 71.8 dBA | 72.9 dBA |
Artifacts
Asus Zenfone 10
157
The Artifacts score measures the extent to which the sound is affected by various types of distortion. The higher the score, the less the disturbances in the sound are noticeable. Distortion can occur because of sound processing in the device and because of the quality of the speakers.
It represents the distortion and noise of the device playing our test signal (0 dB Fs, Sweep Sine in an anechoic box at 40 cm) at the device's maximum volume.
Recording
Asus Zenfone 10
160
DXOMARK engineers test recording by evaluating the recorded files on reference audio equipment. Those recordings are done in our labs and in real-life conditions, using default apps and settings.
When recording, the Asus offered on overall good tonal balance. Treble was satisfactory with the main and selfie cameras. Midrange was good with the main camera, with natural sounding voices, but sounded slightly hollow when recording with the selfie cam. Timbre remained good when recording at high sound pressure levels, for example at concerts. Our testers also noted that both bass and treble were boosted with the Audio HDR feature activated. The tonal balance sounded slightly richer and background rendition in urban environments was noticeably improved. Dynamics performance in recording was good, with an accurate and precise envelope across all use cases and a very good signal-to-noise ratio.
The sound scene was wide when recording with the main camera but noticeably limited with the selfie camera in portrait orientation. Localizability of sound sources was also better with the main camera. In addition, voices could be perceived to be at a distance when recording with the selfie camera. The Audio HDR feature improved both localizability and distance rendition with the main camera, while distance only was improved when capturing selfie video. Recordings were very loud and free of unwanted artifacts. Apart from some slight clipping on loud voices, recorded sound was overall very clean. At high sound pressure levels our experts noticed multi-band compression which became more intrusive with Audio HDR active. Background rendition was very good, thanks to a pleasant tonal balance and hardly any artifacts.
Here is how the Asus Zenfone 10 performs in recording use cases compared to its competitors:
Timbre
Asus Zenfone 10
147
The Timbre score represents how well a phone captures sounds across the audible tonal range and takes into account bass, midrange, treble, and tonal balance. It is the most important attribute for recording.
Dynamics
Asus Zenfone 10
146
The Dynamics score measures the accuracy of changes in the energy level of sound sources, for example how precisely a voice's plosives (the p's, t's and k's, for example) are reproduced. The score also considers the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), for example how loud the main voice is compared to the background noise.
Spatial
Asus Zenfone 10
159
The sub-attributes for spatial tests include pinpointing a specific sound's location, its positional balance, distance, and wideness on the recorded audio files.
Volume
Asus Zenfone 10
170
The Volume score represents how loud audio is normalized on the recorded files and the how the device handles loud environments, such as electronic concerts, when recording.
| Meeting | Life Video | Selfie Video | Memo | |
| Asus Zenfone 10 | -29.1 LUFS | -19.8 LUFS | -18.5 LUFS | -20.9 LUFS |
| Samsung Galaxy S23 (Snapdragon) | -26.5 LUFS | -21.8 LUFS | -22.4 LUFS | -21.6 LUFS |
| Google Pixel 7 | -29.4 LUFS | -19.4 LUFS | -17 LUFS | -23 LUFS |
Artifacts
Asus Zenfone 10
145
The Artifacts score measures the extent to which the recorded sounds are affected by various types of distortions. The higher the score, the less the disturbances in the sound are noticeable. Distortions can occur because of sound processing in the device and the quality of the microphones, as well as user handling, such as how the phone is held.
In this audio comparison, you can listen to the way this smartphone handles wind noise relative to its competitors:
Background
Asus Zenfone 10
166
Background evaluates how natural the various sounds around a voice blend into the video recording file. For example, when recording a speech at an event, the background should not interfere with the main voice, yet it should provide some context of the surroundings.
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