The Asus Zenfone 2. "The Budget King"

[Thebman712]

Asus Zenfone 2 Review

 

The Asus Zenfone 2 is a great value for its money. I personally opted for the "lower model," however it does not feel it is cut back at all. Sure it has less storage, 2gb of ram, and a slower processor, however this saves you $100 usd putting the device in a different market. Starting at $200 with a 1080p screen, 16gb of expandable storage, 2gb of ram and a strong cpu it gives other devices in the same market a run for their money. The Alcatel idol 3 for example has a comparable cpu, the same storage, screen resolution and size, same amount of ram and a comparable battery life at a $50 price premium (granted with some nice features such as JBL audio with front speakers and comes with a pair of headphones included), the newly released baseline moto g comes in $20 less with a front speaker and waterproofing but lower specs in everything but battery life. The more premium moto g does have the same amount of ram and storage but still lacks in cpu power and screen resolution. and the much loves one plus one comes in at $250

 

The more premium Asus Zenfone 2 competes with new devices such as the OnePlus Two (a device that blows the Zenfone and many flagships away with its features and impossible specs for the money), the OnePlus One 64gb and other Chinese manufactures it is a much harder sell. However if you move out of the us market these can all change. With Oneplus selling out of the states exclusively you are hit with import fee's and conversion prices the make it cost far more, and the same can be said about most of the other phones the Zenfone competes with. Since ASUS is a primarily pc company they sold it like a pc part, converting the currency and selling it through retailers such as  ncix, newegg and amazon giving it a much better out-of-USA availability and pricing. Because of this the base Zenfone is the best option under $300 in Canada (in my opinion).

 

Enough about the market and pricing, lets get onto the device.

The design and style of the device is great. The gentle curve with sides to grip made the large device easier to hold. The fo-metal back feels good in the hand and looks good, while not being a finger print magnet but is a bit slippery. The plastic ring around the side is a bit disappointing. For the next generation of this device i would love to see a metal ring arround the edge, it would still allow for the same design and could keep the removable back, while giving it a far more premium feeling in the hand and adding durability.  The front chin and capacitive buttons are nice and allows for grip in landscape viewing. The rear volume buttons ae great for a large device and have a good and tactile feel on them. The same cannot be said for the power button. The button feels mushy and is impossible to use when the back is off. If ASUS can find the ability to get a metal ring and put the power button on the back of the device, it would be one of the best phones design wise.

 

 

Durability wise, this phone is not the best. After only 2 weeks of use i had many dents on the plastic ring and some scratches on the back and the camera glass and a small crack/chip in the bottom corner of the screen from a small drop. I highly suggest a case for this phone as a skin alone would not protect it from the physical damage.

 

Coming from a Itouch 5 the screen was large and sharp. The whole 2.5k(1440p) and 4k hype is completely over rated. We use monitors that are 22-27" in size that have a 100-200ppi and no one complains about them, and sure we are slightly loser to our phone screens, but not to the point where we need a 2x improvement in ppi. I bought a laptop with a 15.6" screen at a resolution of 1366x768 and that is standard. That rant being said the Zenfone does have a 1080p screen that sizes in at 5.5" and is very nice to use. Using auto brightness with it was plenty bright. The colors were accurate enough for the average user, no one is really going to be doing advance color correction on a phone and scrolling through Instagram photos looked good. There is a included app called splendid that allows the user to change the color balance, but i did not mess with it as i found the stock profile to be good.

 

The sound on the Zenfone is functional at best. The speaker is on the left rear of the device and sounds fairly average. The headphone jack is on the top, a place that i personally do not like because when you put your phone in your pocket it is more natural to put it in top down, and with the headphone jack on the top it results in some cable curffles in the pocket. Most users will not have problem with the speaker quality, however they will have a issue with its placement.Tthe earpiece works, you are more limited by the microphone and compression of the person whom you are talking to. The amp and dac were able to drive my HyperX Clouds and senheiser cx 685 without a issue. There is a built in eq app that has different pre-sets, but i left it on music for the most part.

 

This device performs very well running android. Running the Intel z3560 chipset with a quad core cpu running at 1.8ghz and powervr g6430 gpu optimization was thought to be an issue, however almost half a year later it is not. Performance in games was certifiably #teamcrispy running without a hitch constantly at a smooth frame rate. Within android I rarely was able to use up the full 2gb of ram even after a few days without clearing recent apps.  Multitasking was a breeze and animations were smooth. The only app that ever crashed on me was Spotify and that was after 3 days of not clearing recent apps.  Overall this device performs sold on it should not be a concern for anyone looking to use this device.

 

The software on the Asus Zenfone 2 is a hot and cold mix. The launcher is one of the best i have used. While it lacks some of the hardcode tinkerer things like custom home screen/desktop grid sizes, it has features that the average user can appreciate. Custom fonts, icon packs by default, call recording, the ability to change screenshots from a jpeg to a png, custom scroll animations, a app drawer that includes a widget tab and some nice sort and size settings and themes are all very welcomed additions to stock android. With every positive there is a negative and the Zenfone is no exception to that when i comes to its software. A flashlight that opens an app instead of just turning on the torch, an aggressive use of stock apps, and a more preinstalled and un-removable apps than there are Linus memes there are some trade offs. Seriously though, why does every manufacture want to use their own apps for texting, contacts, mail and calendar to name a few when the google ones are already installed and the best ones in the app store. With all this being said the software most people have are with the pre-installed apps and not the usability of the device, which in my experience is solid.

 

Battery life on the Zenfone 2 was fairly standard of a 2015 device with a average of 4 hours of screen on time with a fair amount of games and video being consumed. For a 3000 mAh battery 4 hours is a bit disappointing which can in part be contributed to android os using an average of 30-40%of the battery and resulting in crummy stand by times. Most days I am able to last all day, and with the ability to use a QUALCOMM quick charger is suggest throwing it on the charge when you are at your desk or on the couch.

 

I did not have much use personally with the camera. When I did use it photos were average and relatively sharp with some decent colors. It is possibly one of the best in its price range however the moto g and alcatel idol 3 give it a run for its money.

Overall I would suggest this phone to anyone with a budget of $200 as it competes with flagship phones for only a fraction of the price. I suggest it over the moto g 2015 but I do think that the Alcatel idol 3 does beat it if you have the extra $50 to spend. In Canada it easily takes the win and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a high end experience at a low end cost.

 

 

 

If anyone would like me to add more photos or add parts i may have missed just let me know and i will tag you when updated

[Nineshadow]

Alcatel Onetouch Idol is better .

[salecar3]

Ui imo sux and battery life compared to anything but s6 or g4 or apple iPhone stuff

[Tech_Dreamer]

Pretty Honest review, i like it.. *top kek*

[deVIZtation]

Good review. I just bought this phone yesterday. Was wondering if you have tried using the front camera. When I use the front camera, the option to do video is gone. I'm just wondering if you are experiencing the same thing.

[Thebman712]

Good review. I just bought this phone yesterday. Was wondering if you have tried using the front camera. When I use the front camera, the option to do video is gone. I'm just wondering if you are experiencing the same thing.

take it out of beautification mode 

[deVIZtation]

take it out of beautification mode 

You sir, saved me hours and hours of frustration. Good to know about the durability of the casing. I guess I will purchase some type of case for it.

[Thebman712]

You sir, saved me hours and hours of frustration. Good to know about the durability of the casing. I guess I will purchase some type of case for it.

dont get somthing that covers the volume buttons and make sure the cut outs are large

[tech118]

I love this phone! Daily driver right now. (not spamming) my channel has lots of content around it tech118

[PillowSmoke]

opo is better.

[Thebman712]

opo is better.

diffrent price bracket. $200 vs $300