ASUS Zenfone 5 Review
I've bought this phone from ASUS online store on Thursday, received it on Friday (within 24 hours as promised by ASUS). Delivery man called before delivering to my doorstep. (Pardon some of the shots below with poor lighting - taken with my iphone 5S.)
Unboxing
Basic items are included in the box: warranty card, quick guide, earphones (and varying sizes of earbuds), 3-pin plug, micro-USB cable, phone.
After peeling off the plastic wrapping from the phone, my first impression of it is that the phone is surprisingly light for its size. The matt back cover is also nice to feel and touch, and would not attract fingerprints as much as phones with glossy back covers.
Physical Handling
One-handed operation is not quite possible despite having large hands (I'm 183 cm tall) because of the relatively large bezels at the top and bottom.
The 3 capacitive buttons are not backlighted and somehow, I can't get used to the position of the buttons when feeling for it in the dark. (Like someone mentioned earlier, it may be nice to paste luminous stickers to help identify the buttons in the dark.)
Screen
The screen, which has a 720p resolution stretched out on a 5-inch display (294 ppi), is quite clear with great viewing angles. I would have preferred a more saturated screen actually, with higher contrast ratios.
Daily Usage
Powered by an Intel dual-core processor (with hyperthreading no less) and 2gb of RAM, the interface was snappy and responsive to touch. However, when doing more intensive tasks (like watching Youtube videos), the top left hand corner at the back felt uncomfortably warm. There were also some crashes with built-in camera and camera zoom fx premium.
The ZenUI reminds me of HTC Sense 6, with the folders and font. It is actually pleasant to use as compared to heavier skins (ahem TouchWiz). The icons of stock apps are colourful rounded squares, with similar design language.
If you pull down on the notification shade at the left side of the screen, your notifications would appear. If you do the same at the right side of the screen, your quick settings would appear. I think that a black background (for the notifications and quick settings) would have been more sophisticated than the white chosen.
In the app drawer, the grid size was 4 X 4. I would have preferred a more dense layout so as to see more apps in one screen. Hopefully, they can add that in a future update (or you can install a third party launcher like NOVA launcher, as I have).
The speaker on the back is quite tiny and quiet. However, because it is located on the curved surface at the back, it is not completely blocked out when the phone is lying flat.
For its price, 8gb of ROM seems acceptable, especially since there is a microSD card slot for memory expansion.
The 8 megapixels camera was highly touted by reviewers, but I felt it has left much to be desired. Under auto settings, the camera takes decent shots in outdoor lighting, but in indoor conditions, I found the white balance to be off (often churning out photos that are yellowish in colour). Shutter speed was too slow for me. The other scene modes such as depth of field and low light work moderately well, but it took to long to process the images. 1080p full HD video recording was available but focusing was slow and there was lots of noise in slightly darker areas.
Battery Life
Battery life so far has not been great, so I would monitor longer. But so far, there was probably 3~3.5 hours maximum screen on time with light usage (mixed data and wifi connections).
Conclusion
This is not a bad phone for its price ($219 online). I would love to have a larger battery and maybe a better camera sensor (but 5 megapixels to keep the cost down).
Rating: 3.5/5
