ASUS Zenfone 2 Review: It Has A Lot Going For It
ASUS India launched the ASUS Zenfone 2 smartphone in the last week of April in India. I got my hands on the Zenfone 2 ZE551ML model featuring 4 GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage. Even though it is pretty evident from the specs that the phone packs a punch for the attractive price it is offered at, after using it for while I have to admit that it has a lot going 'right' for it. The phone has a lot of potential to make its mark and while I write this review do note that the phone is already up for sale in India. Following the trend from the first-gen Zenfone series, the company has again chosen Flipkart in an exclusive tie-up for selling the ZenFone 2 series.
The smartphone comes in these variants:
Zenfone 2 (ZE550ML) - 2GB RAM and 16GB variant priced at Rs. 14,999.
Zenfone 2 (ZE551ML) - 4GB RAM and 32/64 GB variants priced at Rs. 22,999 & Rs. 19,999.
What's Hot?
1. A really affordable price for these specs is the biggest strong point for Zenfone 2.
2. A fast-charging 3000 mAh battery that will go from 0 to 60% is little more than half an hour.
3. One of the few Android smartphones having 4 GB RAM.
4. The bright FHD screen which shows great picture quality.
5. Great performance (64 bit CPU) while running intensive apps.
What's Not?
1. Poor camera quality in low-light conditions.
2. Weak speaker volume. Does not turn loud enough to be audible to a group of people.
3. Battery drains too fast.
4. The display even in bright mode is not visible outdoors.
Without further adieu, let's dive straight into the various aspects of the phone to see what's hot and what's not.
Asus Zenfone 2 Box
The Zenfone 2 comes in a compact white-grey coloured packaging and packs the device alongside an USB Charger, a User Guide and a Warranty Card. The first impression on opening the box was that the phone looks pretty big for a 5.5 inch display and definitely does not look cheap. On the top of the screen, there are 3 capacitive button that aren't illuminated. The phone is pretty sleek to hold and light on the pocket.
The Design, Look And Feel -
The build quality of the smartphone is super fine. When you hold the phone you can sense that it is designed to appear bold and sleek. It's the back panel of the phone that people may have issues with (in that though it's preference-based, some may say that the panel looks non-rich.) What Asus calls the concentric circle design is what we see in the textured format upon the plastic plate brushed with aluminium. If looks don't bother you, do note that the texture gives the phone a comfortable, firm grip.
On the rear panel, the most interesting thing are the volume rocker buttons located at the center just above the ASUS logo. They come with a slightly ridged texture and you will find yourself using it quite often. I found them easy to find by feel while listening to my playlist. Located at the usual place is the 13 megapixel camera and a Dual LED flash sensor right above it.
At the bottom of the rear panel is a quite large speaker grill and though it may give you the impression that this phone has quite a large sound, we found the reality to be otherwise. More on that later.
Coming to the buttons - the only button to be weirdly placed on the phone is the power ON/OFF one. It sits on the top of the phone and doesn't work with a soft press. It is a relief that certain tap commands on the display bring the Zenfone 2 to life or let it go to sleep. So, you may end up not using the power button that much anyway. Besides the power button is the 3.5 mm audio jack for plugging in your headphones. On the opposite end of the phone, there's the micro USB port for either transferring files back to your machine or charging the device.
There are no ports on either of the sides of the phone and from this angle with 10.9 mm height, the phone looks quite slim. In fact, ASUS boasts of its ultra thin 3.9 mm edges. Full marks to that. The ergonomic arc of the phone designed for better grip is quite comfortable too. The phone is slightly curved on the sides and it doesn't do much than enhancing the looks. The good part is that the back panel or the sides do not get any fingerprints.
Talking of the back panel, the phone which comes in these options - Black, Red, Gold and Silver. I received a grey (silver) model, but I am guessing that the interesting pattern on the rear end must be looking cooler in the red or white options. The panel is removable and so I took it apart. You might think that since the panel is removable, the battery would be too. However, the Zenfone 2's battery is sealed and non removable. Inside there are two SIM card slots (Micro-SIM, Dual stand-by) and a microSD card slot (64GB).
Zenfone 2 Display
ZenFone 2 is a 5.5-inch smartphone. It has a very small bezel width and when you use it for an extended period of time, you start sensing that it actually feels like a 5 inch smartphone. The reason behind this is the 72% screen-to-body ratio. The IPS capacitive touch screen well protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 3, has a FHD resolution (1920 x 1080 pixel) display with a gigantic 403 ppi pixel density. The glass comes with anti-fingerprint coating which is great and keeps your Zenfone smudge free and removes friction by upto 30%.
In the age and time where Quad HD is fast becoming popular, FHD might not seem like a lot, but with the right mix of brightness and saturation, this display is really vivid. Interestingly, there are 3 different modes in which you can operate the Zenfone 2 - The Balance Mode, The Vivid Mode and The Reading Mode. In vivid mode, the colors turn out to be really bright, whereas the reading mode is very easy on the eyes and perfect for reading an ebook on the go.
The not-so-good part is that the display is hardly visible in direct sunlight even in the bright vivid mode. To be honest, this is a big turn off considering that a lot of customers will be looking forward to use the Zenfone outdoors.
Zenfone 2 Processor And Memory -
Running on a Intel Atom Quad Core Z3580 (2.3GHz) 64-Bit processor coupled with PowerVR G6430 with OpenGL 3.0 support, the ASUS Zenfone 2 specs may not look worthy of competition with other Octa Core Android phones that fall in the same or lesser price range, but rest assured that performance wise the Zenfone 2 does not disappoint at all. In fact, its overall responsiveness and fluid experience while running high-demanding apps was something that left me impressed. I ran a couple of a high-graphic games and played them for two minutes before switching to the other and found that there were no jerks and the games ran really smoothly. Multitasking has been taken care of very well with the Intel Atom processor.
On the memory front, I think it isn't too much to say that anyone will be excited to use the world’s first smartphone to ship with a 64-bit processor and 4 GB of RAM. On the internal storage front too, depending on the model you are using, you get 16GB/32GB/64GB eMMC Flash memory. On any of these models, you also have 5GB free lifetime subscription of ASUS WebStorage, which is quite something. Any average user will find this smartphone's storage to be sufficient even to run memory-intensive applications.
A thing to notice when you first boot-up the Zenfone 2 smartphone is that it comes with a ton of built-in apps. There's an app for almost every basic need already sitting on your phone, be it taking notes, checking weather or storing on the web. App called file manager, downloads, data transfer, remote link, splendid etc are super useful and will come in handy. Special mention goes to the Kids Mode app to turn the phone into kid-friendly mode with features such as password protected internet access and the AudioWizard app that lets you switch between audio modes: speech, game, movie etc.
