Asus, the company which started back in the year 1989 as the motherboard manufacturer, has turned out to be one of the most popular smartphone manufacturers in India and abroad. The wide range of features, dependable performance and a lot more available at a cutting edge price, is what has made this company extremely admired. The phone has partnered along with Intel Company and has incorporated their processors in their device. This is what brings out a performance driven phone in the market.
Continuing its trend of producing quality smartphones, Asus has again come with a new variant in its Zenfone series, Asus Zenfone 2. The company since its launch has been emphasizing that this phone comes with a 4GB RAM. This smartphone is available in 4 variants which is a confusing range to choose from. There is a 64 GB version with 4 GB RAM, 32GB version with 4GB RAM. Then there are two versions of 16GB capacity with 2GB RAM.
So to clear out the confusion and to decide upon the performance of the phone, let’s take a look at each aspect one by one.
Asus Zenfone 2 Features Review
Design and Look Asus Zenfone 2 has been released with a bit of a radical look, but the design is almost similar to the Zenfone 5 released previous year. The phone sports the same plastic body with metallic chin, but there have been few modifications. Firstly the back has been modified with a metallic finish, and there has been an increase in the size. Due to this increase in size, the weight of the phone has also been increased to 170g.
Also, similar to the LG G series, this phone has also come up with a volume button on the back, while the power button is on the top of the phone. This placement of power button has made it a bit difficult to be used with a single hand; however this problem can be resolved by activating the option of double tap to wake. As the placement of the buttons has been changed, therefore, the right and the left side of the phone are empty. The audio jack is above while the USB jack is at the bottom of the phone.
Software Asus has released its new smartphone with Android 6.0 along with the ZENUI on the top. This UI of the company is different with the stack Android UI in many aspects and has many features that most of the smartphone manufacturers are boycotting. For example, this phone comes with an app drawer which is not a common trend nowadays. The user interface of Asus Zenfone 2 allows you to customize the appearance of your home screen, menu, etc. It also comes with a user gesture application which allows you to open applications by drawing gestures on the home screen. There are some pre-installed local applications also such as ZenCircle, Webstorage, etc.
Display The phone flaunts a 5.5-inch full HD screen, which is better than the previous Zenfone 5 variant. It is pixel-rich if compared to its predecessors, and comes with Gorilla Glass 3 which is smudge and fingerprint proof. Asus Zenfone 2 comes with an IPS LCD offers excellent viewing angles to its users and the black levels provided are also decent. Text appears to be crisp, and the visibility under direct sunlight is also good.
Camera The primary camera which was offered in Asus Zenfone 2 was something that we liked a lot. However, the company has failed to inculcate the same camera in this device. The primary camera is of 13MP, and the rear camera is of 5MP. The images that are clicked in the bright light are average and poorer than what we saw in Zenfone 5. In the low light mode, images can be clicked, but there is a lot of noise in the same. The sharpness levels of the images are also not up to the mark.
The camera interface looks like that of a digital camera, with a lot of options such as HDR mode, panorama, etc. What we liked the best about the camera interface is its ability to switch automatically to low light version in the case when the light isn’t sufficient. All in all the camera quality offered could have been better.
Battery Life The device proudly flaunts its 3000mAh battery capacity, which we didn’t think was sufficient for a full HD device. In case, you are just a regular phone user and require a phone for messaging, browsing, etc. then the battery will last for around 10 hours. However, in case you use your smartphone for gaming, etc. then your battery will die in around 4 to max 5 hours. There are power saving options available with the device, which promise to increase the battery life by 15 percent.
Phone Accessories Upon unboxing the device, you will find a screen guard, a wall charger, and a USB cable. Apart from the documentations present what you will love is the in-ear headphones provided.
Variants This phone is available in five colors namely white, gold, black, gray, and red and is priced in the Indian market at 19,999 INR. The gold and red variant look appealing as they add an extra glow to the metallic finish.
Verdict The phone is packed with performance, however; there are numerous bloatware applications present which can degrade down the speed in the long run. At present, the 4GB RAM tends to make this device faster, but with more applications coming in, it might start lagging in the long run. The people, who are trying to get this phone for regular use, with not much interest in gaming and social networking, can go for it.
But the ones who are avid gamers or social geeks would be disappointed as battery tends to drain out very fast. Also, picture takers or selfie lovers would not be happy with the quality of images clicked by this phone. At this price, Asus should have focused more on quality rather than quantity. Trying to inculcate numerous things in a single device, this phone has failed to deliver quality.
Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Silver, 16GB)
Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML(Red, With 4 GB RAM, With 2.3 GHz Processor, With 32 GB)
Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (32GB)
