ASUS is known for the successful line of android tablets rather than the manufacturer of smartphones mainly in the western market. ASUS owns its success and recognition mainly to laptops, desktops and various other electronic devices rather than the mobile market. They might be known for its crazy Padfones and fonepads. At the beginning of 2014, ASUS launched many new smartphones under the affordable price range. They were launched under the Zenfone tag. ASUS is known for making affordable mobile phones with cool and attractive features.
Here’s our review on ASUS Zenfone 2 which we have used for 15 days and now going forward with its specifications first.
Hardware
The first impression about a phone before anything else is how does the phone look. A classy look of the phone which is light weight is the most desirable ones. With low budget phones, one thing or the other usually takes a back seat. The ASUS Zenfone 2 has done a commendable job if the design and look are taken into consideration. In terms of feel and functionality, ASUS Zenfone 2 does not do a great job. It is an all plastic phone, with edges that are a bit glossy which also surrounds the screen. The back panel is removable which is made of thin but stiff plastic. It has two sim card slots and a SD card slot as well. One can also see the battery placed there but it isn’t removable. The capacitive screens are made of plastic as well and the ASUS logo gives a designer flair to the device. As a new phone it looks good, but when one continuously uses it they can easily conclude that the Smartphone is basic in design. The volume rocker is placed at the rear side of the device. It is a metallic button and is one of the most unique features of the phone. The speaker is placed like a strip at the bottom of the rear of the device.
For a 5.5 inch display screen, Zenfone 2 is comparatively large to handle. The capacitive keys take up the room under the display screen. These keys do not bright up like in usual smartphones. It is a smaller version of Galaxy Note 4 in terms of hardware. The power button is on the top. Users can switch on and off the phone by double tapping on the screen as well.
Performance and software
It runs on the Android 5.0 Lollipop with ZenUI which is pretty familiar and easy to use as well as cool. It has the high powered Intel quad core processor which is backed by 4 GB of RAM. For a Smartphone that amount of RAM is considered too much. It is even more than a few computers as well. The internal storage ranges between 16 GB and 64 GB depending on the variant the user chooses.
In addition to that there is 5 GB of ASUS web storage as well. One can also use an external memory card up to 64 GB. That’s quite a storage capacity isn’t it?
As far as connectivity is concerned it has Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11ac, NFC. It supports two Sims where-in one supports only 2G and the other can support 2G or 3G or even LTE. There are a large number of pre-installed applications in the phone which can be a bit messy for the users. Some of them can be uninstalled as well. It works quite exceptionally. Given the amount of RAM it functions quite well.
Camera
It is said to have 13 megapixel camera but it works only in the 4:3 ratio. If the user changes the ratio then the resolution automatically falls down. In addition to the usual camera features, this phone also has various preset modes like the high resolution, field mode, HDR and much more. The best feature is the lowlight shooting mode. The main issue with this camera is the speed. After you click a picture it takes a considerable amount of seconds to reload the camera to take another picture which can be quite annoying.
Battery Life
Even the phones in high price range do not guarantee a good battery life always. It has a 3000 mAh battery. Even after using the phone for straight 17 hours which also included almost three hours of screen use, almost thirty percent of the battery is present in the phone which is quite commendable. It has the inbuilt function named as the builtmaster, which helps to charge the battery at a very fast pace.
For a phone in the given budget line, ASUS Zenfone 2 offers a lot to the users. It is a direct competitor for various brands like the Xiaomi, OnePlus and Huwaei. In this budget range the user is getting a very good performance, excellent software and a camera that can take awesome pictures as well. Looking at the price and the value of the device the ASUS Zenfone 2 is considered a recommended choice and is called the best smartphone of the year 2015.
Buy ASUS Zenfone 2 from Flipkart
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