NEW
DELHI: Asus has entered the smartphone fray in India and launched five
smartphones in one go. The Asus ZenFone 5 is the best positioned of the
lot, offering a 5-inch HD screen, Android 4.3 and 2GB RAM and still
keeping the price under Rs 10,000 for the base variant. However, unlike
most Android phones today, the handset is powered by an Intel processor,
not Qualcomm or Mediatek.
Does it fare well against the Moto
G's base variant? Should you buy this smartphone or spend another Rs
4,000 and go for Xiaomi Mi 3? We answer these questions and more in our
Asus ZenFone 5 review...
Design and display
Asus ZenFone 5 has an understated look, with the company opting largely
for plastic construction with only a hint of metal. The plastic used
here is not cheap and has matte finish that feels good to the touch.
However, the look is rather plain and does not set the smartphone apart
from the competition either.
In the front, just below the screen you will see a metallic strip
featuring concentric semi-circles, taking up less than a centimeter of
space on the front panel. Though this strip is not too bold, it
certainly adds a little flair to the design character, which the device
doesn't seem to have otherwise. Asus uses the same metal trim in its
laptops.
ZenFone 5's removable back panel is curved, which make it easy to hold
with one as well as two hands. However, the smartphone itself is a
little big and, thus, a little difficult to operate with one hand. At
145gram, it is a little heavy, but feels solid.
One thing we
don't like about Asus ZenFone 5 is the wide bezels, which make ZenPhone 5
unnecessarily large. The smartphone could have been much more compact,
somewhere to the tune of Samsung Galaxy S4, but the wide bezels on all
sides make it too large for comfort. The Home, Back and Task Switcher
buttons have not been given on the screen as well, thus adding to its
size.
Asus ZenFone 5 sports a 5-inch display with 720p
resolution. The screen's colour reproduction is balanced, delivering
accurate and balanced colours in most cases. Being an IPS panel, it
offers good viewing angles, ensuring that colours do not wash out when
viewed from the sides. Pixilation is not noticeable either.
Xiaomi Mi 3 vs ZenFone 5, Moto G and others
1 of 9
The
Indian smartphone market has just got a new kid on the block: Xiaomi Mi
3. From the house of China's third-biggest smartphone maker, this new
model features top-end specifications at an attractive price of Rs
14,999.
Want to know how Xiaomi Mi 3 fares vis-Ã -vis other top
smartphones in its price range? Here's comparing Mi 3 against phones
from the likes of Motorola, Sony, BlackBerry, Gionee and Asus...
Hardware
Asus ZenFone 5 comes across pretty well-equipped when it comes to the
hardware. The smartphone has the Intel Atom Z2560 dual-core processor
running at 1.6GHz; it features Hyperthreading technology, meaning that
it can act as a quad-core CPU when too many processes are running.
The India variant of ZenPhone 5 comes with 2GB RAM, 8GB and 16GB
internal storage options and microSD card support up to 64GB.
Connectivity options are standard: 2G, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and
microUSB 2.0. The smartphone also sports an 8MP camera flanked by LED
flash on the back, and a 2MP camera in front. It has a non-removable
2,110mAh battery.
The 8GB variant has been priced at Rs 9,999, whereas the 16GB model can be purchased for Rs 12,999.
Software
Software is yet another highlight of Asus ZenFone 5. Android smartphone
makers try to set themselves apart via customized software, but most do
not turn out well and make the phone appear cluttered.
However, Asus, despite its rather limited experience with smartphones,
has done a very good job, giving us an Android launcher that improves
the basic functionality of Android, is pleasing to the eyes and does not
make you cringe when you look at the icons.
ZenFone 5 comes
preloaded with Android 4.3, but the Android 4.4 update is around the
corner. There is no word on Android L release for this smartphone.
Much like HTC's Sense UI, the Asus custom skin brings shortcuts to the
lock screen so that you can open the apps that you use the most without
unlocking the device. It also displays time, weather and upcoming events
on the lock screen.
While you swipe downwards to open the
Notifications Bar, a swipe from the left side of the screen opens your
notifications whereas the swipe from the right opens all the toggles,
just like it happens in Android tablets nowadays. Brightness,
Flashlight, Memory Booster, Calculator and Quick Memo are permanent in
the toggles menu, but you can choose the remaining toggles that show up
in Notifications from Settings.
Another feature worth mentioning here is Easy Mode, which lets you
choose and control those apps you may use most frequently. Much like the
similar feature by Samsung, Sony and HTC, Asus ZenPhone 5 shows common
apps like Dialler, Contacts, Camera etc by default, but also lets you
set which other apps can be opened in this mode.
Via Settings, you can enable ZenFone 5 to open the camera by clicking
the Volume Down key twice when the screen is turned off. You can also
take screenshots by just tapping the Task Switcher haptic key twice.
Also worth mentioning is the design of the icons you see in several
Asus apps. The icons are flat and minimalist, making the screen
uncluttered even if it has several apps and widgets.
Of course,
all this doesn't mean that Asus, like other manufacturers, hasn't
preloaded its own set of apps in ZenFone 5. Along with Google apps, the
Taiwanese manufacturer has put several apps on the device, and not all
are useful.
Those worth mentioning are AudioWizard and
Splendid. The former, as the name suggest, lets you control the phone's
audio profile depending upon the functions you are performing. There are
six modes in this app, namely Speech, Music, Recording, Movie, Gaming
and Power Saving.
Splendid enables you to control the colour reproduction on the display, allowing you to make it richer or colder.
Asus has said that it will update ZenFone 5 to Android 4.4 (KitKat) in
coming weeks, but there is no word on an upgrade to Android L release.
Performance
We have been fairly impressed by the software, hardware, design and
display quality of Asus ZenFone 5. But what about the performance in
everyday usage? ZenFone 5 did not fail us even once, delivering
consistent performance without a single glitch.
What's more
surprising is that the Intel-powered smartphone delivered a user
experience that was as good, if not better, than that of its
Qualcomm-powered counterparts. Apps opened quickly and switching between
them was smooth. With 2GB RAM at its disposal, the smartphone did not
give any 'out of memory' error as well.
The smartphone performs
well as a gaming machine too, but resource-hungry games feel a little
slow to start. The Power VR GX544MP2 GPU renders rich graphics without a
hitch. The games we tried, Real Racing 3 and Dead Trigger 2, played
smoothly and there were no frame drops.
In benchmark tests, Asus ZenFone 5 gave pretty good results. In fact,
its scores were right up there with those of Google Nexus 4 in most
tests we used, and decidedly better than that of Moto G.
Call
quality on both sim cards, in our experience, has been fine, but nothing
to write home about. Wi-Fi and 3G networks too worked smoothly in all
environments.
As a multimedia device, however, Asus ZenFone 5
is not good. Though the display is great and all video formats play
easily, the sound is just not enough. It is not loud enough, and thus
makes playing songs or videos a poor experience. Due to the low sound
output, using this smartphone in loudspeaker mode is also useless.
One problem we faced while handling the device is that the haptic keys
are not backlit. Therefore, using it in the dark is a little difficult.
Battery life is also a concern. During regular usage, where we keep the
brightness at 50% and always keep either 3G or Wi-Fi turned on, the
battery drained in approximately 6-7 hours. Turning off internet
connectivity helps the ZenFone 5 get through a day. The smartphone has
battery saver modes, but they don't do help much unless the internet is
turned off. It is, therefore, advisable to keep the charger with you for
emergency situations.
Camera The camera
of ZenFone 5 is decent for an 8MP camera, and especially good for the
sub-Rs 10,000 range. Asus has used also added several software feature
to give users an array of image capturing options, such as Depth of
Field, Miniature, Smart Remove.
In Auto mode, the lighter parts in photos are overexposed, while dark
areas are underexposed. Colours in daylight photos are accurate and the
white balance also okay. Lowlight photos come out pretty great and show a
little less noise compared to rival smartphones.
You can make
GIFs using the smartphone, much like Nokia Lumia phones' CinemaGraph.
The Miniature feature lets you bring a single object in focus, while
keeping the rest faded. The Depth of Field feature works well, but is a
little slow and it took us several tries before we got a satisfactory
photo.
Verdict
If you are looking for a smartphone under Rs 10,000, then Asus ZenFone 5
should easily be your first choice. Battery life is a concern, but a
wall charger or power bank in your bag is a simple fix. The screen,
software, camera and overall performance compensate more than enough for
the small battery.
However, if you can stretch your budget to
Rs 14,000, then you should go for Xiaomi Mi 3, which is a fantastic
smartphone that does much more than what ZenFone 5 can.
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