Asus Zenfone 3 Review (ZE552KL) – The Best Sucessor of the Zenfone Line-up

I had been lucky that I had been to almost all the iteration of the Asus Zenfone lineup. Right From the first generation Asus Zenfone 5, Asus Zenfone 4 Then the Second generation like Asus Zenfone 2 and Some specials like Asus Zenfone Zoom and Asus Zenfone Max. Each year I have seen substantial growth in the performance and their line-up. Their Last year first 4GB ram phone was the first phone with such massive ram, and Asus achieved it to be iconic. Also, similar is my personal favourite was the Asus Zenfone Zoom because it surprised me in all the possible aspects.

Then This year they launched Asus Zenfone 3 line-up. With much better in design, performance and pricing as well.

InBox Content of the Asus Zenfone 3

• The Device
• 2A 5V Charger
• In-Ear Headphones
• USB cable
• Paperwork and Sim Ejector

Build of the Zenfone 3

The Asus Zenfone 3 is a successor to its Zenfone lineup with a complete overhaul of the design. Earlier they opted for the brushed metal design, later this year; It is a Glass front and back with metal at sides. We saw many companies this year going to glass front and back. The Zenfone 3 is the device which stands out in all other phones with its look. The one which I had is the gold variant. The back had a glass with a camera bump. It is a concentric shining gold design like the CD had at the back.  The Look makes it much premium design, you can flaunt the phone in the crowd, and people will look back at it.

The down point comes when it’s glass back it attracts fingerprints and lot of it. Almost everytime you might end up cleaning it up. You can come over it by using either case or skin, and you might not have a need to worry about it. You will use a case or skin as its slips as well, but somehow after using it for few days, the metal edges gave a grip. Below to the camera hump was the Fingerprint sensor. The Front panel was submerged well. Overall The design has a complete overhaul, and that’s a good part. The only point depends on your choices. If you are the person who drops a phone lot and thinking to buy this one, then get a good rugged case. It has a protruding lens which bubbles on when it lies on the back.

Software

The iterative generation of the Zenfone lineup the complaint which I had was about the software. To be the exact reason it had a lot of bloatware and it isn’t stable and never felt a real flagship experience. This statement I somehow changed with the Zenfone Zoom. With Zenfone 3 that experience is now better refined and much polished Than those earlier once. It runs still its custom ZenUI 3 over Android. It always pushes updates for stability and much more. The game performance and an overall multitasking part I had no complaints to show. They made a great sync with the hardware and software which made it a flagship worth experience.

Display of Asus Zenfone 3

I hardly talk of the screen, if I would love any. This phone has one of the Best 1080p AMOLED display. It has the 5.5-inch screen in the front that thing pop-ups out. The colour correction was exactly perfect you will always enjoying watching some great HD content on this display. Over gaming also I noticed the screen was up to the mark. In the almost overall condition, I found it right whether it be in direct sunlight or at night dim. Asus chose an excellent display which helps in all possible conditions.

Battery Life of the phone

The phone comes with Snapdragon 625 chipset inside. It doesn’t have a flagship level chip, but this chip of Snapdragon is power efficient of all the chip. I seriously thought what makes it different? When it becomes my daily driver, I loved the screen which always use to be a good brightness, Watching videos over youtube or amazon prime. Checking and viewing social media and it gave me almost 5 hours 30 mins of ONScreen on time. Sometimes even 6 hours of SOT which is entirely ideal for such device.

 

Camera

Every time a new device comes and yeah indeed an improvement behind lens and sensor is mandatory. Gone those days of just Mega Pixel count here the race is the best low light shots. Asus has a protruding lens out of the body. I got some time to get used to it. Once you get sync, you will love it. It has a Camera app which is perfect for both a beginner as well as the professional. Lots of scenario modes for the beginner so he/she need not be worried about the settings, and for Professional there are lots of settings in manual mode. Right from the shutter speed to white balance, ISO these are things which makes it much needed the daily driver. I didn’t have a shutter lags issues which are completely high, and photos were right. Those were lower a bit on contrast when you look them up on PC. HDR Auto is the feature every time made pictures better.

Coming to the point of front camera. I noticed it has a wide lens compare to other cameras. The advantage of it is perfect for Vlogging and groupies have many people to fit in without fewer adjustments. There is beauty mode which is controllable from 1 to 10 which is default at 5. The beauty mode does soften and lightens up the skin tones same as others.

 

The images above are not even retouched all of them are directly from the camera.

 

Verdict

Asus Zenfone 3 is the amazing device which has kept things to my expectations.  Also, I would have this year Asus tried to be from much at Elite budget to the Flagship last budget. I would like one who buys he/she is not going to regret. Things have pretty much changed for every company out theirs. They can implement the better strategy with keeping checks to the high building device. This time Asus did well with software and hardware combination, and I definitely wish us to keep doing these great things. Do let me know in the comment section what’s your view and Follow me on the facebook page of Absolute gizmos to find out more. Asus Zenfone 3 is unique in its way.