Is The Zenfone 2 The Phone That Will Get Consumers To Take ASUS Seriously?
Asus Zenfone 2 Review
Asus has been making phones for quite a while now. From the generic, mid to low end phones to the wonky FonePad and PadFone line-up that dock into tablets and laptops. However, ask most people around the world about Asus, and they’re primarily thought of as a PC manufacturer. Their past attempts at phones have been decent but lacklustre, with the only phone to gain some recognition being last year’s Zenfone 5, a low end competitor to Xiaomi’s Redmi Note / Redmi 1s.
At CES in January 2015 however, that changed when Asus announced the Zenfone 2, a supposed “flagship-killer” with specs to blow current and future flagships out of the water, while still offering the device at a budget price. Asus wasn’t the first company to think of this, OnePlus had done something similar earlier in the year with the launch of the OnePlus One, which seemed to meet and exceed expectations, so when the Zenfone 2 finally came out, it’s safe to say I was excited to play around with it.
On paper, the Zenfone 2 is the dream phone for power users. It comes in a variety of models, starting with one that comes equipped with a 1.8GHz Quad Core Intel Atom processor on the variant with 2GB of RAM and a 2.3GHz Quad Core Intel Atom on the variant with 4GB of RAM. It also comes with either 16, 32 or 64GB of storage, expandable up to 128GB via MicroSD, 2 sim card slots, a 13mp shooter, a 5.5 inch 1080p display and a massive 3000 MaH battery.
HARDWARE
When you first pick up the device, you sort of understand how they managed such a low price point. I’m not saying the device feels that cheap, but it certainly does not feel premium either. It’s slippery and plasticky, the bezels around the display are large and obtrusive. The phone has a curve to it that supposedly makes it easier to fit in the palm, but all it does is make it a bit weirder to hold and makes it way heavier down the middle. Yes, this phone heavy, and not in the good way. However, my biggest gripe with the hardware of the Zenfone 2 is the placement of the power/lock button, as Asus have opted to place it on the top of the device, a part of the phone where the majority of people wouldn’t be able to reach 6/10 times.
There are some phones that are so pretty you could stare at them all day, the Asus Zenfone 2 is not one of these phones. In fact, the device is more utilitarian and corporate in nature, even though Asus tried giving it some flair with the patterned back and the various colour options.
Speaking of staring, the display on the Asus Zenfone 2 is not gonna blow you out of the water. The panel feels a little dull and muted compared to other devices, although I could see it clearly in bright daylight at max brightness and it didn’t have any visibility issues, it was just not as good looking as the display on the Xiaomi Mi4i or the OnePlus One. Colours were muted and it felt like there was a gap between the display and the screen, but once you look passed that (no pun intended), the device is good enough for most of the things you’d want to use the device for.
SOFTWARE, PERFORMANCE AND DAILY USE
For all the flaws in the device’s hardware, it pretty much makes up for it in performance. It’s definitely one of the fastest devices I’ve ever used. It’s running Android Lollipop, with Asus’ heavily skinned ZenUI running atop of it. If I could use one word to describe ZenUI, ugly would be an understatement. The colours clash, icons are outdated and naming conventions bring pain to my brain. However, once you learn to live with the clutter, its actually quite useful. Take the quick settings drawer for one, it looks like an app store all on it’s own, but you never know how nice it is to have access to your calculator from your notification shade until that one moment where you really need it.
There are other somewhat useful additions that Asus have included, namely Splendid, the app that Asus uses to control the display allows you to switch between regular, vivid and reading mode, which is actually quite nice to use when reading in bed at night. Asus also includes an app called What’s Next, that’s sort of like the Pebble Time’s new Agenda-like interface but for your phone, and it gives you a nice outline of your upcoming day and what you may have missed, but if you’re already using google now, it’s basically pointless.
Once you throw a custom launcher on the phone and hide the 50+ apps that Asus included with the phone, the majority of ZenUI’s annoyances are out view. One thing to keep in mind however, is that double tap to sleep (the feature that allows you to tap twice on the screen to lock the device) only works with Asus’ launcher, so if you’re using a custom launcher you have to double tap the status bar instead, which may be annoying to people with smaller hands.
Other than that the software experience of the Zenfone 2 is up to par with any other phone in that price range, and in fact even excels in certain categories such as speed and fluidity. Not once did I have problems with lag and never did I ever fill up the 4GB of RAM.
Performance wise, the device does have it’s hiccups. Mainly, it gets really warm under moderate use. This is normal for certain devices under heavy use, but it doesn’t really take much to heat up the Zenfone 2. In fact, there were moments where the device got so hot that I couldn’t even touch it, and had to set it down for a while. Even just using apps like WhatsApp and Twitter for more than 10 minutes at a time caused the device to get warm to the touch. Another thing I noticed was that when watching YouTube videos, occasionally the video would play out of sync to the audio, a strange problem that I had never faced with any other device I’ve tested.
The Snapchat Benchmark
Snapchat performance on the Zenfone 2 is solid. Almost one of the best phones I’ve ever used for snapchat. Videos play smoothly, pictures are of a high quality and filters work great. The only problem I seemed to have is when using Snapchat Text and the person I’m texting comes online, the entire screen would go blank, causing me to have to exit the message and therefore leave the message. Other than that, performance is solid and this device scores a healthy 7/10.
The speaker on the back of the Zenfone 2 is pretty average, for a phone in this price range. It gets pretty loud, but is backward facing so it tends to get covered up a lot. If you have it on the highest volume, you’re likely not going to want to hold the phone while you play music as the entire bottom of the device vibrates uncontrollably while playing audio.
Battery life on the Zenfone 2 was the worst of any device I had ever tested. I would usually get up to lunch time before I had to charge this phone up again, essentially giving me less than 2 hours of screen-on time. Utterly disappointing from a phone with that large a battery. It could be a software issue, or even a problem with that once device that I had, but it really was disappointing how bad the battery was making it a definite deal breaker to most people.
The camera on the Zenfone 2 is pretty good, especially for a budget phone. Low light performance is on the weaker side, and often the camera missed focus on the first try, but a majority of the time I ended up pretty happy with the shots I got from the device. As always, here’s a gallery of images taken with the device.
In conclusion, the Asus Zenfone 2 is an extremely capable phone. It performs like a chained beast, with the power to roar but the constraints that just slightly hold it back. There are definitely better phones out there, but in this price range, you’d be hard pressed to find something better.
