Zenfone 3 – Tech Raman

Asus Zenfone 3 Max long term review- Why I been carrying it along for the last 2 Months?

Lakshmi Rajan — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 12:07:15 +0000

I keep changing phones and it is more like a professional routine rather than choice, I rarely stick to one device as my primary phone and invariably the phone I review at any point of time becomes my primary phone. But I stuck to one phone as a secondary phone the last few months and that is the Asus Zenfone 3 Max. Why was it my accompaniment? Why I chose it ? Let me unravel it in this post. Few months back, I had unboxed the phone and in case you have not seen it take a look at it first. https://youtu.be/1U-Xme9fTeE [table id=2 /] In the Zenfone 3 range of Smartphones, Asus had gone for an image makeover so we have the new Smartphones some clad in glass and some featuring metal unibody. The Zenfone 3 Max is a compact mobile with a metal unibody and 5.2-inch display making it a good secondary Smartphone for me when I travel and there are more than two reasons for it, which I would explain here. Am not getting into the specifications again, I have an comprehensive table above for any nitpicks you want to check. Smartphones have these days evolved into mighty machines these days, competition is cutthroat and everyone are stuffing a beast into the hardware. Zenfone 3 Max plays it differently. It still has only a 720p resolution on its display, which is decent but not overwhelming. It only has a MediaTek 6750 chipset which might not have all the fire power at its disposal. The camera is pretty much average. But where the Zenfone 3 Max scores over the rivals is in the battery. It has a mammoth 4100mAh battery under its hood and that would matter the most for many. I been using the phone as a secondary phone with a Jio SIM on it. All my active multiple social accounts are running on it. I use it to for reading on the go, hey it also has the bluefilter for my midnight binge reading. In case my primary smartphone runs out of battery juice which it does often, the Zenfone 3 Max could double up as a powerbank saving me from carrying another one on a short trip. Yes, the Max has reverse charging and can charge up your other devices. It also doubles up as my juke box. There is segment of practical consumers especially who are always on move like marketing folks, businessmen who would prefer a phone with a larger battery for a longer run. The Zenfone 3 Max works like a charm for them. Also, in case you are on a road trip, the Zenfone 3 Max could be your GPS phone and cover your distance.

Verdict:

Personally for me, the Zenfone 3 Max has been a perfect secondary smartphone that handles my battery draining works and also doubles up as a powerbank on short trips. The phone might not sizzle on hardware spec sheet but it is a practical device for someone who values the ‘battery life’. It is a product aimed at a selective audience and would satisfy them at what it does the best – Max battery endurance. If you want to ace it up further, Asus has got it covered with Asus Zenfone 3s Max with 5000mAh battery, just in case you want it more! ]]>

Asus Zenfone 3 Laser Review

Lakshmi Rajan — Wed, 11 Jan 2017 10:32:06 +0000

Design – Display Measuring 149x76x7.9mm and weighing 150 grams, the Zenfone 3 Laser inspite of the 5.5-inch body feels quiet comfortable at hand (let me confess, I personally love all big screen phones to the extend that even the Mi Max with 6.44 inch display was fine for me!) . I have both the Zenfone 3 and the Laser with me but the Laser looks more compact in hands while sharing the similar display size due to its 73.6% screen-to-body ratio compared to the 70.6% of the Zenfone 3. Unlike the Zenfone 3 but similar to the Zenfone 3 Max, the Laser too is dressed in metal barring the plastic caps on top and bottom of the rear which gives a better antenna reception. Asus says that this phone has a fingerprint- and smudge-resistant oleophobic coating. On the lines of the other Zenfone 3 devices, there is a slight camera bump at the rear. Next to it, you find the dual-LED flash and Laser autofocus sensor. The fingerprint scanner is placed right below the camera, and Asus branding can be seen at the bottom. The power and volume button are placed at the left and the concentric circles, a now trademark of Asus design language can be seen on the metal buttons. The left side houses the hybrid-SIM tray. The top features the 3.5mm audio jack while the bottom has a standard Micro-USB port and speaker grille. The fullHD display on an IPS panel reproduces natural color with good color reproduction but if you seek for that extra bit of saturation level like in AMOLED displays, it doesn’t. The brightness level is quiet good and even the blacks are better at. There is no concern over sunlight legibility and viewing angles. The display setting offers adjustment to the color temperature using the Asus ‘Splendid App’. Overall, the display is neat with no room for any complaints in this segment.

Software

Bloatware aside, the Zen UI in my opinion is a consumer friendly user interface offering ease of operation. It offers a good package of features some fancy, some very practical to use. There are nifty customization controls over the fonts and icon colors and labels , touch and motion gestures, one hand mode and a simplified home screen mode and kids mode. I have done a video listing 25 features of the ZF3 Laser, take a look at it for a complete spin on the UI. https://youtu.be/UcZdJhRNSvg Asus has bundled a bouquet of it’s own apps like Themes, Photo Collage, Mini Movie, ZenCircle, ZenSync, Weather, Do It Later, Game Genie, ZenFone Care, and Cover. There are also some third-party apps including Amazon Shopping, Saavn, TripAdvisor, Instagram, Amazon Kindle, and Facebook. While the puritans might fret over the extensive pre-installed apps , my interaction with the regular users gave a different picture. Many of them appreciated these apps that made their easier and not search or look for similar apps. For example, a carpenter who owned a Samsung device was totally in love with the calendar app of my Laser which showed the local festivals. For a regular consumer, these things matters.

Performance

The phone is smooth on a normal use and even handles multi tasking well. Things might slow down, if too many apps gets piled up in the background. It also handles the gaming fairly well, with a bit of heating while playing graphic intensive games. While the call quality and other tasks are at usual good, what was disappointing was the poor speaker. I am not sure if it was only the unit which I received but the speaker quality was poor. The fingerprint scanner on the back works accurately most of time, and it can be used to pick up incoming calls as well. Another bummer is the lack of option to secure the apps with finger print sensor and it can be done only via a PIN or pattern. As stated at the beginning, the ZF3 LAser uses a hybird-SIM tray as is norm with most phones these days, so you can opt for two SIMs or sacrifice one SIM and replace it with a memory card. When using the dual-SIM, any one of the SIM and not necessarily the SIM 1 can be used for 4G, though only one works on the LTE at a time. The 3000mAh battery is enough to sail through the day but it lacks fast charging capabilities.

Camera

When Asus stresses the model on the Laser autofocus, there is an expectation for the camera to deliver a little bit more than the rest of the phones in the market in the segment. Does it deliver? Honestly, the Laser does not have anything spectacular to talk about its camera. The best we can say is it takes decent pictures, so does most phones in this range too. So it doesn’t stand out in the camera front. The camera app is user friendly again offering various modes for easy shooting for amateurs. There are range of options like low-light, beautification, HDR Pro, Super resolution, Depth of field, GIF animation, Panorama, Slo-Mo, Time lapse etc. There is a manual mode too where you can tweak the image if you know how the manual operations work. Selfies also come good and by default beautification mode is turned on. It also has Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) that offers stability to the video recording and it can shoot in 1080p.

Verdict

Its a big leap of faith Asus has taken this year with the pricing of their devices. With a Snapdragon 430 SoC , it has priced the ZF3 Laser at Rs 17,000 while similar devices like Redmi 3S Prime are below Rs 10,000 level. What might work for Asus though is it is bringing the devices to offline channels where it is a different set of scenario and with a push in aggressive marketing, Asus could be in a vantage point. Then there is the likes of Le Max 2, Lenovo Z2 Plus and offline hot selling models like Oppo F1 series, Vivo V5 and Samsung J7 Prime, amidst all this it makes the case tough for Zenfone 3 Laser. Pricing apart, the Zenfone 3 Laser is not a bad phone, if you buy you won’t be disappointed. It has a decent mix of everything and a good phone for every day use. ]]>

Asus announces the Zenfone 3 Family : Zenfone 3, Deluxe and Ultra , Price starts at $249

Lakshmi Rajan — Mon, 30 May 2016 07:52:29 +0000

At Computex, Asus took the wraps off their next generation Zenfone 3 family and it features three hot models , the Zenfone 3, Deluxe and the Ultra, all running on Android Marshmallow and the latest Zen 3.0 UI. Asus has made refreshing change to the design, materials and build quality of the new Zenfone family and read further for the specs and features of the whole new family. The new phones also feature finger print sensor and USB Type C ports.

Zenfone 3 specifications and features

Price: US$ 249 The base model of the family is backed by the 2.5D Gorilla Glass on both sides and a sandblast metallic frame around the sides. It is available in four colors – “Shimmer Gold,” “Aqua Blue,” “Sapphire Black” and “Moonlight White.” The Zenfone 3 device features a 5.5-inch IPS display with a 1080p resolution. Powering the Zenfone 3 is Snapdragon 625 , a mid-ranger which is based on 14nm process and has eight Cortex A53 cores peaking at 2GHz, Adreno 506GPU and 3GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage with an option to expand it further. It uses hybrid dual-SIM which means one SIM can be replaced by micoSD card. The Zenfone 3 has a 3000mAh battery. The speaker is placed at the bottom and the speaker internals now houses a 5-magnet driver powered by an NXP smart amp, and has a Hi-Res audio certification for headphone output. Asus has included the USB Type-C port for the first time in their phone range with USB 2.0 connectivity. The fingerprint sensor is positioned on the back. The camera features a Sony’s 16-megapixel IMX298 sensor, with f/2.0 aperture, second-gen laser autofocus, phase detection autofocus, color-correction RGB sensor, dual-tone LED flash, 4-axis optical stabilization for stills and 3-axis electronic stabilization for video. A 8MP front shooter with 85-degree viewing angles should satisfy the selfies. Beneath the glass back, it has a spun-metal finish adding to a unique design characteristics. Other connectivity options include Cat 6 LTE (300 Mbps downlink, 50 Mbps uplink), dual-SIM support (one Micro SIM and one Nano SIM), 802.11ac MU-MIMO WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2

Zenfone 3 Deluxe Specifications and Features

Price: starts at US$ 499 The Deluxe chucks the glass body and is encased in an all-metal unibody with invisible antenna lines. It has a 79 percent screen to body ratio and 1.3mm ultra slim bezels. The back is subtly curved. A 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display has a 1080p resolution and Asus claims a 100 percent NTSC color output. Powering the Deluxe is the Qualcomm’s powerful chipset on the block now, Snapdragon 820 , Adreno 530GPU, 6GB of RAM. With a whooping 64GB / 128GB UFS onboard storage, there is nothing to worry about space. Asus also said an 256GB variant will be introduced later. The Deluxe also excels on the camera side spec list with a 23-megpaixel Sony IMX 318 Sensor at the back covered with Sapphire crystal glass. It also includes PDAF with a speed of 0.3 seconds, laser auto-focus, continuous auto-focus. The camera also supports 4K video recording. There is a 4-axis OIS with six-axis sensing and EIS (electronic image stabilization) A super resolution mode can capture 92-megapixel photos. Other features include Cat 13 LTE with tri-band carrier aggregation (150 Mbps uplink), USB 3.0 connectivity and Quick Charge 3.0. Deluxe also comes in sapphire black, blue, white, lux gold color variants.

Zenfone 3 Ultra Specifications and Features

Price: Starts at US$ 479 The Ultra is a bid daddy with a 6.8-inch LCD display offering a 1080p resolution and 95-percent NTSC gamut. Under the hood it’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 652 octa-core processor paired with 4GB of RAM. The phablet also features 64GB of onboard storage. It has a PixelWorks iris2+ TV grade processor (for optimized 4K playback), two speakers at the bottom and a world’s first DTS Headphone:X 7.1 surround sound making it a multimedia device. The camera specs is identical to the Deluxe with a 23-megpaixel rear camera as on the Zenfone 3 Deluxe with PDAF and 4K video recording capabilities and a 8MP front shooter. It has a massive 4,600mAh battery with reverse charging capabilities which means it can act as a powerbank in emergency to charge other devices. Other features include Cat 6 LTE, 802.11ac WiFi and Quick Charge 3.0. There is also the fingerprint sensor but unlike the other two models, it is positioned below the screen with home button coupling as the sensor. The Ultra is available in gray, silver and pink color options. ]]>