ASUS has done a good job in last two years in Asia and also within India. Somehow the earlier versions were good in price and has an ordinary build quality. The bad part was the Zen UI (It has ton of bloatwares). This time company has decided to take a step forward with smartphone at higher cost, better design and build quality.
Build and Design
The build and design quality of the ASUS ZenFone 3 is more premium and brilliant than earlier models. It has Gorilla Glass protection on both the sides with metallic rim. Coming to the part of buttons and ports – the volume keys and power key has tactile finish on metal surface. It comes with the USB Type-C port for charging, the speaker grills are at the bottom and 3.5mm audio jack at the top. The fingerprint magnet is at the rear panel beneath the camera.
Hardware and Software
It comes with 5.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD Super IPS+ display which gives amazing brightness, with 2.5D Gorilla Glass 3 adds a premium touch. The ZenFone 3 is powered by octa-core Snapdragon 625 SoC which is clocked at 2GHz and has additional GPU of Adreno 506. It comes in two variant- 3GB RAM with 32GB storage and 4GB RAM with 64GB storage. We got the 4GB variant. It comes with the Hybrid Dual SIM card slot also packs with 3000mAh battery. It has 4G LTE with VoLTE support and USB Type-C provides fast charging.
The fingerprint magnet is something I really like as it recognizes 360 degree with quick unlock. It also features some added things like- answering incoming calls, launch the camera and capture the photo.
As far as the software is concerned it runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Zen UI 3.0 on the top of it. This time Zen UI comes with less bloatware, more speed and performance. But after use of certain heavy apps you might find a little lag on the smartphone. After some tits and bits the UI is clean.
Camera
We’ve already discussed the camera quality of the smartphone. You can check the samples via this link. As the number figure concerned it has 16-megapixel rear shooter with Dual Tone LED flash, PDAF, Laser AutoFocus, f/2.0 aperture, 6P largan lens and 4 Stop OIS. ASUS didn’t forgot the selfie lovers and brings 8-megapixel front shooter with f/2.0 aperture, 88-degree wide-angle lens.
The camera modes are easy and makes photography fun. The camera quality can’t be compared with Samsung Galaxy S7, catch is the price point. The best part is, it can shoot 4K.
Battery Life and Performance
The display is very bright, clearly visible in broad day light unless it is pointed directly at the sun. The 4G connectivity of the smartphone works like butter and we never faced any call drop using the device. As far as the sound is concerned, it comes with the audio wizard which has inbuilt modes like Movie, gaming, Music, outdoor, smart and vocal. It has a mono speaker grill but still the audio quality is loud enough for listening. The battery life of the smartphone is great and it takes average 90 minutes to fully charge from 0 to 100 percent. For a normal users it can last for a whole day whereas the heavy users can run it for 6 hours (the battery usage is completely dependent on the user’s usability).
Gizmo Verdict
ASUS ZenFone 3 might be looking costly for the pocket but the features and design is premium. The best part what we like is the camera, battery life and design. The things which can be improved in future is the Zen UI. Those who prefer style as their statement ASUS Zenfone 3 is the perfect match.
