Better value for money than the OnePlus 6, but it all depends on whether you prefer ZenUI or OxygenOS. Gets you a great display, expandable storage, wide-angle camera, dual speakers and some AI-smarts over the OnePlus 6... at a much lower price tag. OnePlus has been pulling off premium devices at a low cost for about five years now. And in that, it has almost mastered the art. Its formula? Feed the spec-hungry Android audience (yes, you are) with the best SoC in the market, coupled with bucket loads of RAM and a decent camera with the price tag of a mid-range smartphone. And this formula has worked for it. So it’s kind of obvious that someone would have a look and pull off something similar in due time. Huawei’s Honor sub-brand took a shot at it with its Honor 8 Pro and it lost out due to reasons like the average camera and its Kirin SoC (well, it was not a Qualcomm SoC so why buy it right?). And then it recently tried again with the Honor 10, which was a much better implementation, but for that EMUI skin. Tough luck Honor! In the meantime, Asus did its homework after a not so successful ZenFone Deluxe, which was the brand’s first attempt at a premium flagship and now it’s back with what appears to be a winner. With the just-launched Asus ZenFone 5Z, Asus managed to deliver a smartphone with the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC, 6 GB (or 8 GB) of RAM and a base price tag that could make OnePlus jitter, at Rs 29,999. That’s a whole Rs 5,000 cheaper than the base model of the OnePlus 6. Indeed, this should give enough reason for customers to consider the ZenFone over the OnePlus 6 and I haven’t even mentioned its AI smarts yet. It’s time to wake up OnePlus. The ZenFone has finally arrived! Build and Design: 8.5/10 The Asus ZenFone 5Z may not look as curvy as the OnePlus 6, but it sure is practical. The device feels premium thanks to the metal and glass finish and also feels sturdy and well built. It’s also lighter than the OnePlus 6 by about 25 grams. Asus designers managed to shave off this weight by going in for a flat sheet of glass on the back as opposed to the thicker glass on the back of the OnePlus 6 that needed for its curved design. The weight savings are a blessing and give the smartphone a better in-hand feel, with a better overall grip than the OnePlus. The lipping around the glass panels are well-finished and feel seamless when you slide your fingers towards the edges of the display. While the OnePlus 6 still looks better with a smaller chin and more rounded design, Asus sticks to its roots and somehow manages to impress with better quality. I like how Asus has managed to keep the camera protrusion to a minimal. It’s a lot flatter than the one on the OnePlus 6 and a lot smaller as well. Moreover, the camera ring is well-finished and not as sharp as the one on the OnePlus 6. The design on the back of the device with shiny light patterns emanating from the circular fingerprint reader looks far better than tacky stuff we have seen on previous ZenFones. All-in-all there’s little to complain here, save for the absence of an IP rating. Features: 9/10 In short, the Asus ZenFone gets you all the major features that you would also get on a OnePlus 6 and some more. There’s a 6.2-inch IPS LCD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC, 6 GB RAM for the base model (8 GB as well) paired with 64 GB of internal storage (there’s also a 128 and 256 GB configurations). We received the 6 GB RAM and 64 GB configuration for review. There’s a dual camera setup with 12 MP (f/1.8) + 8 MP (f/2.0) sensors at the back and an 8 MP sensor on the front. And finally, there is 3,300 mAh battery which is same as what we get on the OnePlus 6. But there are a few additions on the Asus ZenFone 5Z. That 64 GB of internal storage on the base model can be expanded up to 256 GB using the second SIM card slot. Asus also offers a dual speaker setup as opposed to OnePlus’ single speaker. The dual camera setup is also different because the 8 MP camera features a wide-angle lens, unlike the one on the OnePlus 6 that is solely used to produce the bokeh effect. Asus is indeed doing more justice to its already low price tag going just by the specifications on paper. Display: 8/10 Let’s get one thing clear. AMOLED displays are great when done right. This was the case with the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus and the Apple iPhone X, but was not the case with the OnePlus 6 as Nimish rightly pointed out in his review. Asus despite having an LCD display has done a mighty good job save for a few minor issues. The display sports an FHD+ resolution and is really sharp. When I say sharp, I mean those ultra- thin fonts that Asus uses on its homescreen are rendered without any jagged edges even at the smallest display size. The 19:9 ratio Super IPS+ panel, does a far better job with colours than OnePlus does. This is partially down to the fact that this is a well-calibrated LCD. They are quite close to accurate and can be set to display more natural colours (without getting too dull like it is on the OnePlus 6) using the Screen Mode settings under Display Settings. In here, you can adjust the colour temperature, set it to auto (which basically adapts it to the surrounding light) and adjust the colour mode, which lets you choose between Wide colour gamut, Standard and customisable one. I preferred to keep it to Wide colour gamut for slightly saturated colours. Those who prefer more natural tones will appreciate the Standard mode. The display does not showcase any particular colour tinge and is bright enough indoors. Simply put, OnePlus’s display is a tad bit brighter than the LCD unit on the ZenFone. Being an IPS unit the colours remained intact at all viewing angles, but I did notice that brightness levels dropping when viewed at an angle. The display notch is present here as well, but the software brings some positives and negatives, details I will discuss in the software section. OS and Software: 8/10 I was not a fan of Asus’s ZenUI from the very beginning of Asus’s entry into the smartphone market. It was clunky and loaded with bloat, slowing down the UI and basically had no sense of design. All of that changed with the Asus ZenFone Selfie Pro, which felt the complete opposite. It’s a lot faster and a lot more responsive. And with flagship hardware available on the ZenFone 5Z, it works a lot better than any Asus smartphone I have used in the past. I did notice a bit of stuttering at times, but these occasions were rare. At a briefing held before the launch, Asus emphasised on how it worked closely with Qualcomm for the ZenFone 5Z. That partnership led to the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in various apps, making them smarter and easier to use for a hassle-free experience. AI Engine The camera, for example, uses AI for scene detection and will switch to one of the many scene modes by recognising what’s in the viewfinder. Here I feel the AI can be a misnomer as scene detection, object detection is more a computer vision and machine learning functionality. Unless Asus, learns newer objects on the fly and applies relevant settings, AI can be a misleading term. The display makes use of AI by smartly adjusting the colour temperature of the display when set to auto mode. The display will also remain on as long as you are staring at it. Another app that makes use of Asus’s AI smarts is the Gallery app. The Gallery app will sort photos by the person, similar to what happens on an iPhone or with Google Photos. You can even set a group so all the photos of individuals in that group will be together in one album. And then there’s the battery which is my favourite AI-driven feature. Once plugged in, the AI bits will determine when to charge the battery depending on my daily usage so that it completes charging the battery to 100 percent just before the time I am used to unplugging it. The feature according to Asus is in place to prevent the battery from continuously getting charged overnight which in theory is said to damage the battery. You can even set the timings for the charge manually. Yes. These are handy features, but as you will notice in the camera section, it does lead to a few issues. Still then, I like how most of them work without getting in your way. One glaring detail that I noticed about the software was Asus’s handling of software bezel to hide the display notch. It’s not symmetrical to the bottom hardware bezel that is rounded. So when switched on, it really looks like an afterthought. Thankfully, Asus is working on it and it should be solved in future software updates. Asus has also worked on one of the limitations of the notch. A single tap on either side of the display notch will show a small extended notifications area that reveals all the hidden notifications that would normally be represented with the three dots. As for the rest, software is pretty-much updated (by Android standards) with Android 8.0 as the base. Performance: 8/10 Despite being announced with a Snapdragon 845 inside, I had my doubts about the ZenFone 5Z thanks to its software which was known for being bloated and heavy. To my surprise, things have changed drastically with the software, which means that the user experience is also pretty much on par with the OnePlus 6, if not better. What I liked is that Asus, similar to Samsung and Huawei, gives you the choice to decide which battery mode you want to use. While the Performance mode was the best, I preferred using the Normal mode for a balanced battery life. You can even turn on AI Boost if you really want to make the best use of the device resources at hand. Once switched on from the notifications tray toggle, the device will then allocate the right amount of available resources to optimise system performance whether you are running an app or a game. I had this on for most of the time, except during benchmarks, despite the smartphone prompting me to use the boost feature. Gaming was stutter and lag free. In fact, most of the games remained in memory so I could resume gameplay even after several hours. The smartphone did not heat up either when playing graphics-intensive titles. I had no problems with the device’s voice quality and network reception and I can say the same about its audio chops. The dual-speaker setup is definitely better than what the OnePlus 6 has and offers richer stereo sound making it convenient for watching movies without the earphones plugged in. As for those “Hi-Res” earphones, they honestly felt a bit cheap (the volume controller rattles) and did not do justice to the hardware inside. The device is for audiophiles and movie lovers as it comes with DTS Headphone: X and Hi-Res audio certifications. It also supports AptX HD (like the OnePlus 6 does) which works well for wireless Bluetooth headsets, offering the ability to stream better quality audio (although not as good as LDAC). The fingerprint reader and face unlock were quick and showcased almost no lag. I did have to register my fingerprint twice though as it initially refused to authenticate. From then onwards I faced no issues. Most of the time the face unlock had already done its job before I even reached out to the fingerprint reader on the back. Camera: 8.5/10 The camera on the Asus ZenFone 5Z is kind of a mixed bag.<doc-sep>ASUS has been making phones for many a year now, but in the case of the British market, after the first generation, things just, well, stopped. It restarted in 2017, but as we hit summertime in 2018, finally, ASUS has a phone that hits the right spot at the right price. The ZenFone 5 is on sale in the UK from July 9 for £350, so it's very much a mid-range device with a mid-range price. It's a continuously crowded space, but the ZenFone has come swaggering in with its good looks and its AI camera. But is it any good? ASUS ZenFone 5 Price: £350 Bottom line: The ZenFone 5 is an attractive package at an attractive price. It's far enough away from the likes of the OnePlus 6 to be a contender in a true mid-range price bracket, and while questions linger over future software support, the ZenFone 5 is mostly a winner. Pros: Gorgeous design Good looking display Decent camera Well priced Cons: Zenimoji is a bad idea badly executed If you don't like notches, I have bad news for you See at ASUS UK ASUS ZenFone 5 Gorgeous and capable mid-range hardware We've been over this before, but I'll lay it on the table right at the start. Yes, this looks quite a bit like an iPhone X running Android. ASUS' somewhat cringeworthy launch event back at MWC 2018 made no apologies over the similarities, nor the constant comparisons. VPN Deals: Lifetime license for $16, monthly plans at $1 & more But this isn't an iPhone X running Android. For starters, this UK variant costs just £350, a whopping £650 less than the cheapest iPhone X. What this is, is a mid-range Android smartphone that looks like it costs twice as much. Specs ASUS ZenFone 5 Screen 6.2-inch FHD+ (2246 x 1080) Super IPS+ Chipset Snapdragon 636 RAM 4GB Storage 64GB Rear Camera 1 12MP, ƒ/1.7 Rear Camera 2 12MP, 120-degree wide-angle Front Camera 8MP, ƒ/2.0 Battery 3300mAh w/ fast charge Connectivity Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, BT 5.0 Security Fingerprint sensor, Face Unlock Colors Meteor Silver, Midnight Blue Dimensions 153 x 75.6 x 7.7mm Weight 165g Price £350 And that's not really a bad thing, is it? iPhone resemblance out of the way, here's what actually makes up the ZenFone 5. Obviously, there's a notched display, but with this, a 6.2-inch 2246 x 1080 resolution and a 90% screen-to-body ratio, what you get out front is a whole lot of display and not a lot else. There's a super skinny bezel running across the top and down the sides, with a slim, hardly noticeable chin at the bottom. If you're going to do a notch at all (that's a whole different discussion for another day), at least do it right, like ASUS. It's not all display, but it's pretty damn close, and in a mid-range phone that's more than good enough. Ignoring the display completely though, take a step back and appreciate the design for what it is. It's gorgeous. In particular, the Midnight Blue one I have here. The front is black, the metal frame is dark, but not quite black, and the glass panel on the rear is a seductive mirrored blue finish. The display edges have the slightest of curves so they roll seamlessly into the frame. Don't leave it naked on a table, though —unless you enjoy picking it up off the floor. This phone's predecessor, the ZenFone 4, was something of a looker, but in aping the iPhone X feel, the ZenFone 5 is in a different league. The front being consumed by display has pushed the fingerprint sensor around the back, complementing ASUS' Face Unlock in a one-two security punch. The hardware screams premium without running away with your wallet. ASUS tosses a simple TPU case in the box to keep that glass back safe and your metal chamfers from getting chipped, which is a nice touch. But the exterior of the ZenFone 5 is as good as my vastly more expensive iPhone 8 Plus. High praise indeed. Inside, ASUS is using the new Snapdragon 636 CPU from Qualcomm, an improvement on its predecessor in the UK which ran the Snapdragon 630. It's paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage which is expandable. And it's a great performer. ASUS doesn't use stock Android, it does its own thing, and in the past, an Achilles heel has been day-to-day performance. But the ZenFone 5 feels no different in most use cases to my Pixel 2. You perhaps see an odd stutter from time to time, but nothing particularly detrimental to the overall experience. Demanding games can chug a little in the most intense moments, with Final Fantasy 15 Pocket Edition, for example, giving the phone a workout. But it's still very playable if you're OK ignoring the odd frame skip. To enhance gaming performance, ASUS' Game Genie makes a reappearance, and while the "optimizations" may be dubious, it's a useful ally to ensure that you don't get any undue distractions while gaming or accidentally back out of the game at the crucial moment. Game Genie is also a simple way to record your mobile escapades or stream them to YouTube or Twitch. The speakers are even pretty solid, whether gaming or listening to your favorite tunes. The quality isn't anything to sing about, it's what you'd expect to find from a mid-range phone, but the volume is loud, made even more so by the "outdoor mode," designed to give you some additional decibels so you never miss a phone call on the busy streets of the capital. ASUS ZenFone 5 Software finally (mostly) nailed The days of heavily bloated, over-the0top ASUS mobile software is at an end. In all honesty, the ZenFone 4 was a decent attempt, but with ZenUI 5 ASUS has given everything another spruce up, trimmed off the last of the fat and left something that's probably as close as the company will give you to what Google offers on its own phones. Mostly bloat free with some stock apps remaining Google's. The new launcher mimics the upward swiping of the Pixel launcher to open the app drawer, though the default way of organizing apps is infuriating if you just want to see everything alphabetically. Fortunately, it's an easy fix in the settings. You have a smattering of ASUS' own apps, some such as contacts replacing default Google options, but it's far from overpowering and some have useful features built in. Mobile Manager, for example, gives you additional battery saving controls including a time to schedule the phone to be its most frugal. Battery life isn't a worry on this phone, though, the 3300mAh power pack is ample to crunch through a day. But it's a little bit of a mix of ASUS and Google, and I think it works. The stock SMS app is Google's, Google Calendar is the default calendar application, and these complement ASUS's own creations like the dialer, calculator and weather apps. What Zen UI remains, is colorful. The stock theme is a mix of white backgrounds and colorful icons, while the launcher has some bright as all hell stock wallpapers. This being an ASUS phone, there's also a packed theme store with some less vivid designs and those that will blow your eyeballs to pieces. The software also has a couple of notch-specific features built in. If you really don't like it, you can simply toggle to hide it, and the top corner portions will be all black, all the time, so as to mimic a standard status bar. I don't particularly like notches, but 'hiding' it just makes the whole interface look odd, so it's best to embrace it. Don't hide the notch, embrace it for better or worse. Equally down the bottom, you can hide the software buttons while in apps to maximize your screen, and for those apps that don't fully support notched displays, you can just tap a button and the phone will artificially enlarge everything and push it right out into the corners if you wish. When you're viewing video content, you just won't notice it's there, since the video will cut off inside it and display a regular aspect ratio. There are some little details that feel like ASUS didn't properly optimize for the type of display on this phone, though. If you have battery percentage on, for example, the far right item in the status bar is right up against the rounded corner. There are two clouds that hang over the ZenFone 5 software experience. The first is Zenimoji. It's like Apple's Animoji, equally annoying and less well executed. I tried to send one to an iPhone over MMS and the iPhone couldn't even open it. Which phone's fault that is doesn't really matter, the ultimate result is a bad experience all around. The saved Zenimoji on the ZenFone 5 are also pretty low quality, too, so honestly, just avoid it. It's just bad. The other more serious cloud is over ASUS' commitment to updates. During my time with the ZenFone 5, I've received four pre-release updates, one of which added Zenimoji. The last added the May security update but the phone remains on Android 8.0. Oreo is good, and lord knows expected, but it's not even the latest version and the security patch is still behind. Perhaps its past experiences but we're still going to need to see how ASUS actually handles this stuff when the phone is in peoples hands. ASUS ZenFone 5 An AI camera AI is one of the hot new buzzwords in the smartphone space and anyone who's anyone is throwing some kind of AI into their phones. In ASUS' case, like Huawei, you have an AI camera, that is, one that's smart and learns things. There are a number of benefits to this, or in theory at least. I'd probably need much longer with the phone for it to truly show whether it's a useful feature or bogus marketing. On a basic level, the AI camera is smart enough to recognize the scene you're shooting and adjust its settings automatically to produce the best looking photos. It's also part of what powers the phone's portrait mode and it will detect your dog. Canine photography has never had it this good. Over time, the ZenFone 5 should learn how you like your photos to look and make the necessary adjustments without you touching anything. The end result: Great photos, all the time. On a hardware level, the rear camera array is made up of a pair of 12MP sensors, with the main shooter utilizing Sony's IMX363 and an aperture of ƒ/1.7. The secondary camera offers a 120-degree wide-angle shot, with a simple tap in the camera app to switch between the two. The front shooter is 8MP, and if you're really into your selfie game, the ASUS SelfieMaster application will help you add all the lovely beautification you want. Didn't help me, but there's only so much software can do. The main app is pretty simple to get your head around. There's a one-touch option to use Google Lens, which is nice, and a heap of creative filters, different shooting modes including super-resolution and panorama, and a pretty robust pro mode with all the manual settings you could want.<doc-sep>
After a strong initial showing with the ZenFone series, ASUS faded from relevance in the last few years owing to a combination of uninspiring designs and inability to match up to the likes of Xiaomi, OnePlus, and Honor. OnePlus, in particular, has come to dominate the affordable flagship space, with the OnePlus 6 now the benchmark that other $500 phones have to measure up to. That's particularly true in markets like India, where OnePlus is virtually unchallenged in this space. ASUS is now looking to challenge OnePlus' dominance in this segment. The Taiwanese manufacturer has been dormant in India for a few years, but that has changed in recent months. ASUS unveiled the ZenFone Max Pro M1 in the budget segment a few months ago, taking the fight to Xiaomi's Redmi Note 5 Pro and coming out on top. It isn't every day that you see a brand undercut Xiaomi, but ASUS managed to do just that with the M1. VPN Deals: Lifetime license for $16, monthly plans at $1 & more Now, the manufacturer is looking to do the same in the premium segment with the ZenFone 5Z. From the onset, it's clear that ASUS is going after OnePlus, with its marketing materials making endless references to the OnePlus 6. That's because the ZenFone 5Z shares a lot of the same hardware as the OnePlus 6 — it is powered by a Snapdragon 845, and comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. More importantly, however, ASUS has once again managed to undercut the incumbent, with the ZenFone 5Z retailing for ₹5,000 ($75) less than the OnePlus 6. So does it manage to dethrone the OnePlus 6 as the best $500 phone? Let's find out. ASUS ZenFone 5Z Price: ₹29,999 ($435) Bottom line: If you're looking from a value standpoint, the ZenFone 5Z is an easy sell. You're getting the same hardware as the OnePlus 6 at a lower price, and ZenUI is no longer infuriating to use. Leave it to ASUS to come up with one of the best phones of 2018. Pros: Gorgeous design Incredible performance Well-executed AI features Great value for money Decent camera Cons: Sizeable notch No water resistance No wireless charging Limited global availability See at Flipkart About this review I (Harish Jonnalagadda) am writing this review after using the ZenFone 5Z for over two weeks in Hyderabad, India. The phone was connected to Jio's 4G network, and received numerous stability fixes over the course of the review. ASUS India provided the device to Android Central for review. ASUS ZenFone 5Z Hardware ASUS was one of the first Android manufacturers to adopt the notch, and the company made no attempt to hide the fact that the design was inspired by the iPhone X. If anything, ASUS invited those comparisons, stating that the ZenFone series offers a similar design aesthetic as Apple's flagship at less than half the cost. With a majority of Android phones in this segment now offering a notch, the ZenFone 5Z's design isn't an outlier, but the norm. The front of the phone is dominated by a 6.2-inch IPS LCD display with a sizeable notch at the top and a chin at the bottom. The notch is wider than the one you'd find on the OnePlus 6, and the chin at the bottom is also slightly thicker. The phone has a glass back as well, and both the front and back offer subtle curves thanks to 2.5D glass and are protected by a layer of Gorilla Glass 3. The ZenFone 5Z is available in Midnight Blue and Meteor Silver, and if you ignore the obvious iPhone comparison, the design is stunning. The rounded corners, chamfered edges, and the dark blue coating underneath the glass back make for a gorgeous device. The power and volume buttons are located on the right, and they offer excellent tactile feedback. The phone retains a 3.5mm jack, and you get dual speakers that sound great. The fingerprint sensor is positioned right where you rest your index finger at the back, making it highly convenient to unlock the phone. There's also a face unlock feature that works reliably well most of the time, but it ran into issues in low-light scenarios. The 6.2-inch Super IPS+ display gets sufficiently bright for outdoor use, and colors are punchy. The FHD+ resolution is more than adequate, and the screen sports a 19:9 ratio due to the notch.