We got opportunity to review one of the most successful smartphone from the Asus Zenfone Series. Well we have reviewed other smartphones from the series and this phone is popular among the buyers. People do have a lot of expectations from this handset. We used this phone for a long time and here are some of our observations on various attributes of this phone.
Asus Zenfone 5
Design
The phone is having a nice design altogether. I actually liked the Gold back panel version of this smartphone. This phone is a good treat for a user. The phone does look attractive. The weight of the phone is 145g. The phone has dimensions 148.2 x 72.8 x 10.34 mm. The phone is available in Black, Red, White, Purple and Gold color variants.
The phone has a lock/power key at the right side and has volume rocker buttons just below it. The phone has three touch buttons just below the screen. They are Back, Home and Recently viewed apps button. The phone is having a microUSB slot which is at the bottom of the phone. The phone has a 3.5 mm jack for headphones at the top of the handset. At the back you can see a Camera with flash. The phone`s back panel when removed can see two SIM slots and a microSD slot for expanding the memory. The overall grip of the phone is good. The mobile needs to be handle with care.
Display
The phone has a 5 inch IPS display. The phone has a resolution of 720×1280 pixels. Display looks nice. It is having a good sharpness. The display is visible in the sunlight also without any problems. The phone`s display is having Gorilla Glass 3 protection.
But we suggest our audience to use a screen protector. The screen is fragile and if the phone falls down then there is a chance that the display may get shattered. Overall display looks fantastic.
Software – OS
The phone runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. But there is a good news for the buyers. Kitkat update is available for this smartphone. So you can upgrade it to Android Kitkat with ease.
The phone is equipped with the Zen UI. This is a unique User Interface made by the Asus company. It is a fresh look but is completely based on the android layout similar to that of the other phones. The main task is the simplicity for the user. We can say that it has a hatke look which does look cool.
Unique feature which we observed is that the phone has not one but two drop down menus. These drop down menus show different options for the user. There is a bit problem for the user just by using one hand and using the phone. So reaching the corners by one hand a bit difficult due to the screen size.
Keyboard
The phone has a custom Asus keyboard. You can type with ease in the landscape mode. There is no problem at all. Though for using some symbols you have to use the symbol icon twice to access other buttons. The main feature is that the keyboard works very well even in the portrait mode. So you can easily type in portrait mode in whatsapp with ease. The phone responds well to even fast key strokes. So splendid fast typing is also possible with this keyboard.
Performance
The phone is having 2GB RAM. So is it sufficient for superior multi tasking? Well we have done a lot of tests for checking the performance for the smartphone. The phone is having a Dual core CPU which is clocked at 2GHz. It is equipped with an Intel Atom Z2580 processor. The phone at this price does provides a good premium processor for sure. We used the smartphone for a long time and we did not found any lags. So we tried using light features and apps. Slowly we started using heavy apps on this smartphone. The result is that it did responded well. Multi-tasking can be done flawlessly with this smartphone.
We even did a benchmark test for this smartphone and the results are as displayed. We played games on this smartphone. Not small games but very heavy games. We started from small games like the most used is Temple Run and then later on Subway surfer and then Racing games having more than 1GB space. We actually used a 32GB microSD card on this smartphone so it did responded well. The phone is having two variants one with an internal memory of 8GB and one with an internal memory of 16GB. Both the variants are having 2GB RAM. Though after prolong usage the phone does gets heated up. The phone`s performance was good at the price which we are getting.
Multimedia
You can play HD videos with ease on this smartphone. The video player is good. You can easily seek to any position of the video. You can also tweak a lot of settings while playing the video. I liked the default media player. Though using some other video apps can surely enhance the video watching experience.
Talking about the Music, the phone is having a decent sound. Not too loud but the clarity of the sound is nice. Even at higher volumes the sound is good. The headphones provided with the smartphone will give you a superior sound experience. But prolong use of those headphones will make you feel uncomfortable for sure.
The default Music player is awesome, it has a lot of features and you can tweak a lot of stings in it. There is also an equalizer in the player to enhance the sound. Though you will get to listen to the difference in the headphones than on the loudspeaker.
Camera
The phone has a 8MP rear camera with LED flash. So it is possible for the user to click pictures in the low light conditions. The camera has a lot of features. With these features you can enhance your picture. The photos are clicked with precision. Though you have to tap to focus on a particular object to get a good clarity. The phone also has a turbo mode where in you can click a lot of photos in very small amount of time. The mobile is also having a front camera, decent for video calls, not perfect though.
In the rear camera there is an HDR mode. It is nice and effective. Though it takes a bit time to calibrate for the camera after taking a picture. So the phone has a good camera overall.
Battery
This phone has a battery capacity of 2110mAh. With normal use you can use the phone for a single day when it is fully charged. But if you are a power user then you might need to carry power charger or power bank with you.
Final Verdict
So if you want an android phone with good performance at this price then this phone can be one of your choices. You can perform multi-tasking without any hassles. A premium device at low cost. Tweet using #MyAsusZenfone and share your thoughts about this smartphone in the comments below.
Saurbah Mukhekar
Latest posts by Saurbah Mukhekar (see all)
- Asus Zenfone 5 Review - April 10, 2015