Asus launched its range of smartphones running Intel’s Atom dual-core SoC and they sent us the Zenfone 5 for review at Review Central Labs. The Zenfone 5 comes with a 5.0-inch 720p display, an 8-megapixel camera, customized software called ZenUI, and runs on Intel’s Atom dual-core SoC. When the the smartphone was launched, Asus annoucned that they will be creating a revolution by offering a product with polished hardware and a form factor more closely in line with high-end devices, at affordable prices.
And looks like they have indeed delivered with the Zenfone 5 – this one features an excellent design and build quality, something you have come to associate with high-end devices. The smartphone screams that it is a fantastic choice for those looking for smartphones at a small price. The Zenfone 5 features a slightly curvy plastic back that comes in a few different colours – the one we received was white in colour. The phone also features a little metal area below the screen that has a slightly shiny finish textured with concentric circles.
Turn the phone around and you will come face-to-face with the 8-megapixel camera and an LED flash just below it. As mentioned earlier, the Zenfone 5 comes with a 5-inch IPS display that supports 720p of resolution. In this day and age, we would have liked 1080p resolution. But never mind. However, we did find the colours and contrasts on the display to be quite good.
For those, who would like to control how the display looks like, Asus bundles a small little utility called Splendid. This little app lets you tweak the colour temperature and saturation, giving you very easy and effective tweaking over the character of the display. The Zenfone 5 also comes with an auto brightness setting – so when you step outdoors, you don’t really need to change the screen brightness. Visibility in sunlight is pretty good, too.
The dispaly of the Zenfone 5 is protected by Gorilla Glass 3 – it’s hard and scratch-resistant. Under the hood, the Zenfone 5 runs an Intel Atom Z2560 SoC, which is a 32nm part with a 1.6 GHz dual-core Saltwell CPU, 1MB of L2 cache, a PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU clocked at 400 MHz, and a 32-bit dual-channel LPDDR2 memory controller providing 8.5 GB/s of bandwidth.
Internally, the Zenfone 5 comes with 8GB of internal storage, with around 5 GB usable out of the box. If you need more storage, you can always insert a microSD card into the microSD card slot. ZenFone 5 is available in Charcoal Black, Pearl White, Cherry Red, Champagne Gold and Twilight Purple colours.
When it comes to the camera functionality, the Zenfone 5 comes with Asus’ very own PixelMaster technology. This technology offers features such as Selfie Mode and Depth of Field Mode that improve camera performance and make it easier for you to capture great looking photos and videos. Other PixelMaster features include Low-light Mode and Time Rewind, which is only available on the ZenFone 5 and ZenFone 6.
We were impressed with the way the Asus Zenfone 5 can click images – it generally produces quite nice and bright photos, without having a particular habit of heading into serious overexposure. The inbuilt HDR mode is effective, too. Battery life of the Asus Zenfone 5 is good too. On one single charge we were able to use the phone the entire day with 3G on. At the end of the day, we still had around 30% of the battery life left.
Sound and call reception quality provided by the Asus Zenfone 5 was also quite good. We were quite impressed by how the ZenUI looks – the user interface is quite good. If you are on the lookout for a smartphone that packs in big screen, good feature-sets, and is available at a small price, the Asus Zenfone 5 should definitely be on your shortlist. The Asus Zenfone 5 is highly recommended by Review Central.
Price: AED 899
Specifications:
Screen Size (inches): 5
Operating System: Android OS
Touchscreen: Yes
Available Colours: Red, purple, white, black
SIM: Dual SIM (Micro-SIM, dual stand-by)
Weight: 145-gms
Memory: Internal 8GB or 16GB, card slot microSD (up to 64GB)
Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA, 42.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps; Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot; Bluetooth (v4.0, A2DP, EDR)
Camera: Primary – 8 megapixels, Secondary – 2 megapixels
