A new challenger to the list of best small smartphones may be on the horizon, as Asus has released the invitations for its Zenfone 8 launch event. Compact Size."

The company also created a page on its site with a countdown clock and repeating mantra leading up to the event, which will begin on May 12 at 10 am PT or 1 pm ET. With the highly acclaimed iPhone 13 mini having been poorly received, it will be interesting to see if Asus can showcase its small smartphone in front of larger devices such as Samsung's Galaxy S21.

How compact is "compact"; Asus includes a 148mm x 69mm (5.8 x 2.71") screen protector. This is quite small by current cell phone trends, but still a bit larger than the iPhone 12 mini, which has screen dimensions of 131.5 mm x 64.2 mm (5.18 x 2.53 inches).

Still, fans of small phones can be quite excited about this development. Compact Android devices have been out of fashion for some time. In fact, it is fascinating that the original Samsung Galaxy Note phablet had a 5.3-inch screen.

Where compact Android devices exist, they tend to be low-spec, so it is encouraging that Asus does not seem to be skimping on components here. In fact, Geekbench listings of Asus phones with Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 888 chip and 16GB of RAM came out earlier this month, and the Zenfone 8 should match the lightning performance of Samsung's Galaxy S21 Ultra and OnePlus 9 Pro It should.

Of course, quality and sales are two very different things. And while Asus is a huge name in computing, its entry into the smartphone world has not exactly set the world alight in terms of market share.

In that regard, it makes sense for the company to target a neglected part of the market: compact devices with top-class internals. However, this strategy is not without risk, as the well-known problem of Apple's shifting iPhone 12 mini is well known. In fact, sales of this compact device have been so low that Apple was rumored to be discontinuing production.

However, this may simply reflect the split between iPhone and Android buyers' demands; Asus' gamble was that a small Android flagship could secure a significant niche in the market, and on May 12, when the company announced the device's full We will see how likely that plan is to pay off when the company announces full specs.