ASUS has launched very good smartphones in the past. E.g. Zenfone Zoom was my favorite smartphone that I have been using since last few months. But ASUS is working hard to continuously improve their UI and smartphones. Zenfone 3 has attracted me by its premium golden look and affordable price with a fingerprint sensor.
Look & Feel of ZenFone 3
ASUS has recently launched zenfone 3 smartphones that are having a rugged looking plastic body for a premium glass body. It’s packed with 2.5D corning Gorilla glass on both front and back side. The feels of holding device are so smooth that we were afraid of getting it dropped from hands.
Unfortunately, it was also dropped one time too from my hands but luckily device is still working without any issue. The device is so sturdy and Gorilla glass protection helps it to get scratch free.
Its weight was only 155 Grams with 6.16 mm metal frame around the phone. It comes with 5.5-inch display with 1920 x 1080 resolution.On the front end side, there is speaker, proximity sensor and 8-megapixel front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture.
On the back side, it spot ASUS logo at the bottom. On the top, there is 16 MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture, 6P Largan lens, and dual-LED real tone flash. In camera sensor, AUS has used Sony’s IMX298 camera sensor to make it perfect. This camera has used TriTech auto-focus technology to capture photos. Tritech auto-focus make use of laser, phase detection and continuous auto-focus modes in it.
Just below camera buttons, there is a fingerprint sensor in this device which helps you to unlock your device at any time with your finger tips. We have tried it with wet fingers and dry fingers to check its fingerprint sensor. During testing, it worked very accurately as expected without any issues.
Also, there is USB Type-C port for charging and microphone at the bottom. While 3.5mm audio jack is located at the top of this device.Zenfone 3 sports a 5-magnet speaker top right bottom, which is able to deliver 40% better performance than other zenfone models said by ASUS.
Zenfone 3 sports a 5-magnet speaker top right bottom, which is able to deliver 40% better performance than other zenfone models said by ASUS.
Volume buttons and the power button is on the right-hand side. Zenfone 3 comes with preinstalled apps like PhotoCollage, Share Link, Do It Later(Task organiser) , ZenFone Care, ZenTalk, Laser Ruler, Quick Memo, Splendid, Puffin, ZenCircle, ZenFlash camera, and MyAsus Service Centre.
Specification
The Asus ZenFone 3 comes with 64-bit octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor clocked at 2GHz with integrated Adreno 506 graphics. For high performance, it comes with 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM. Also, you will get 32GB of internal storage along with microSD card support up to 2TB.Also, you will get 100GB cloud storage space for 2 years with your Google drive account.
There is hybrid SIM slot that you can insert one Nano-SIM and one micro SIM/microSD card in it. You don’t need to remove back cover to insert SIM card. As you can insert SIM cards and micrSD cards from a side. ASUS notes that both SIM card supports 3G/4G networks but only one SIM card will be able to connect to one network at a time.
Camera
ASUS has used camera sensor of sony IMX298 with Zenfone 3 device. There is an 8 MP selfie camera on the front end side and on the back, it’s packed with 12 MP primary camera with Tritech autofocus tech. You can explore full detailed specification of zenfone 3 cameras from here.
There are few other very good features of ASUS zenfone 3 cameras are Optical image stabilization(OIS), electronic image stabilization for better shots. You can even change default camera megapixel from camera setting. We have also tried to disable camera shutter sound of zenfone 3. As they have built in option in their default camera. Even after disabling this feature from camera setting, a camera was still making click sound on capturing image. We think this might be a bug maybe it will get resolved in OTA update.
There is dual-LED real tone flash is on the back side to capture good clear photos in a dark situation. One of the biggest features that we liked is zenfone 3 supports recording 4K videos in it. You can also record full-HD and HD resolution videos by using ASUS zenfone 3 devices.
Performance
This zenfone 3 is packed with octa-core Snapdragon 625 processor that is able to handle multi-tasking.Apps launched very smoothly and also we were able to play need for speed game smoothly without any legs.
Also, a fingerprint sensor is responding to finger touch very quickly. We have tried both wet and dry finger to test its sensor but it worked as expected and it can identify finger very quickly.
Battery
The battery of this phone is non-removable and 3000mAh capacity and supports fast charging.We have tested using this device and battery is lasting for 2 days with normal usage. With heavy and moderate usage, still, we got one-day battery backup with this device.
Verdict
This zenfone 3 cost under 30,000 that we think directly compete with Oneplus 3 smartphone.There is lot more competition to go for this device but this phone scored a lot in terms of design and display quality.
